Works of Jules Verne/Round the World in Eighty Days/Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXXI
IN WHICH THE DETECTIVE FIX TAKES SERIOUSLY IN CHARGE PHILEAS FOGG'S INTERESTS
Phileas Fogg found himself twenty hours behind time. Passepartout, the involuntary cause of this delay, was desperate. He had certainly ruined his master!
At this moment the detective approached Mr. Fogg, and looking closely in his face, asked: "Very seriously, sir, you are in a hurry?
"Very seriously," replied Phileas Fogg.
"I insist," continued Fix. "It is very much to your interest to be in New York on the 11th, before nine o'clock in the evening, the time of departure of the Liverpool steamer."
"I have a very great interest."
"And if your journey had not been interrupted by this Indian attack, you would have arrived in New York on the morning of the 11th?"
"Yes, twelve hours before the departure of the steamer."
"Well, you are now twenty hours behind time. The difference between twenty and twelve is eight. Eight hours are to be made up. Do you wish to try to do it?"
"On foot?" asked Mr. Fogg.
"No, on a sledge," replied Fix, "on a sledge with sails. A man has proposed this means of conveyance to me." It was the man who had spoken to the detective during the night, and whose offer he had refused.
Phileas Fogg did not reply to Fix; but Fix having shown him the man in question, who was walking up and down before the station, the gentleman went up to him. An instant after, Phileas Fogg and this American, named Mudge, entered a hut built at the foot of Fort Kearney.
There Mr. Fogg examined a very singular vehicle, a sort of frame laid on two long beams, a little raised in front, like the runners of a sledge, and upon which five or six persons could be seated. On the front of the frame was fastened a very high mast, to which an immense brigantine sail was attached. The mast, firmly held by metallic fastenings, held an iron stay, which served to hoist a large jib-sail. At the rear a sort of rudder allowed the apparatus to be steered.
As could be seen, it was a sledge sloop-rigged. During the winter, on the icy plains, when the trains are blocked up by the snow, these vehicles make extremely rapid trips from one station to another. They carry a tremendous press of sail, far more than a cutter, and, with the wind behind, they glide over the surface of the prairie with a speed equal to, if not greater than, that of an express train.
In a few moments, the bargain was concluded between Mr. Fogg and the owner of this land craft. The wind was good. It blew with a strong breeze from the west. The snow had hardened, and Mudge was certain that he could take Mr. Fogg in a few hours to Omaha. There the trains are frequent, and the routes leading to Chicago and New York are numerous. It was not impossible to make up the time lost. There should be no hesitation in making the attempt.
Mr. Fogg, not wishing to expose Aouda to the discomforts of a trip in the open air, with the cold rendered more unbearable by the speed, proposed to her to remain under Passepartout's care at Kearney station. The honest fellow would undertake to bring her to Europe by a better route and under more acceptable conditions.
Aouda refused to be separated from Mr. Fogg, and Passepartout felt very happy at this determination. Indeed, nothing in the world would have induced him to leave his master, since Fix was to accompany him.
As to what the detective then thought, it would be difficult to say. Had his convictions been shaken by Phileas Fogg's return, or rather did he consider him a very shrewd rogue, who, having accomplished his tour of the world, believed that he would be entirely safe in England? Perhaps Fix's opinion concerning Phileas Fogg was really modified. But he was none the less decided to do his duty, and more impatient than all of them to hasten with all his might the return to England.
At eight o'clock the sledge was ready to start. The travelers—we were tempted to say the passengers—took their places, and wrapped themselves closely in their traveling cloaks. The two immense sails were hoisted, and, under the pressure of the wind, the vehicle slipped over the hardened snow with a speed of forty miles an hour.
The distance between Fort Kearney and Omaha is, in a straight line—in a bee-line, as the Americans say—two hundred miles at the most. If the wind continued, this distance could be accomplished in five hours. If no accident happened, the sledge ought to reach Omaha at one o'clock in the afternoon.
What a journey! The travelers, huddled up against each other, could not speak. The cold, increased by the speed, cut off their words. The sledge glided as lightly over the surface of the plain as a vessel over the surface of the water with the swell at least. When the breeze came, skimming the earth, it seemed as if the sledge was lifted from the ground by its sails, which were like huge wings. Mudge, at the rudder, kept the straight line, and with a turn of the tiller he corrected the lurches which the apparatus had a tendency to make. All sail was carried. The jib had been arranged so that it no longer was screened by the brigantine. A top-mast was hoisted, and another jib stretched to the wind added its force to that of the other sails. It could not be exactly estimated, but certainly the speed of the sledge could not be less than forty miles an hour.
"If nothing breaks," said Mudge, we shall arrive!"
It was Mudge's interest to arrive at the time agreed upon, for Mr. Fogg adhering to his plan, had stimulated him by the promise of a handsome reward.
The prairie, which the sledge was crossing in a straight line, was as flat as a sea. It might have been called a frozen pond. The railroad which ran through this section, ascended from southwest to northwest by Grand Island, Columbus, an important Nebraska town, Schuyler, Fremont, then Omaha. During its entire course, it followed the right bank of Platte river. The sledge, shortening this route, took the cord of the arc described by the railroad. Mudge did not fear being stopped by the Platte river, at the short bend in front of Fremont, as it was frozen over. The way was then entirely free of obstructions, and Phileas Fogg had only two things to fear: an accident to the apparatus, a change or a calm of the wind.
But the breeze did not abate. On the contrary, it blew so hard that it bent the mast, which the iron fastenings kept firm. These metal fastenings, like the chords of an instrument, resounded as if a violin bow had produced their vibrations. The sledge slid along in the midst of a plaintive harmony, of a very perculiar intensity.
"These cords give the fifth and the octave," said Mr. Fogg.
And these were the only words he uttered during this trip. Aouda, carefully wrapped in furs and cloaks, was preserved as much as possible from the attacks of the cold. Passepartout, his face red as the solar disk when it sets in the mist, drew in the biting air. With the depth of unshaken confidence that he possessed, he was ready to hope again. Instead of arriving in New York in the morning, they would arrive there in the evening, but there might be some chances that it would be before the departure of the Liverpool steamer.
Passepartout even experienced a strong desire to grasp the hand of his ally Fix. He did not forget that it was the detective himself who had procured the sledge with sails, and consequently the only means there was to reach Omaha in good time. But by some unknown presentiment, he kept himself in his accustomed reserve.
At all events, one thing which Passepartout would never forget was the sacrifice which Mr. Fogg had unhesitatingly made to rescue him from the hands of the Sioux. As for that, Mr. Fogg had risked his fortune and his life——— No! his servant would not forget him!
Whilst each one of the travelers allowed himself to wander off in such various reflections the sledge flew over the immense carpet of snow. If it passed over creeks, tributaries, or sub-tributaries of Little Blue river, they did not perceive it. The fields and the streams disappeared under a uniform whiteness.
The plain was absolutely deserted. Comprised between the Union Pacific Road and the branch uniting Kearney to St. Joseph, it formed as it were a large uninhabited island. Not a village, not a station, not even a fort. From time to time they saw passing like a flash some grimacing tree, whose white skeleton was twisted about by the wind. Sometimes flocks of wild birds rose: sometimes, also, prairie wolves in large bands, gaunt, famished, urged on by a ferocious demand of nature, vied with the sledge in swiftness. Then Passepartout, with revolver in hand, held himself ready to fire upon those that came nearest. If any accident had then stopped the sledge, the travelers, attacked by these ferocious carnivorous beasts, would have run the greatest risks. But the sledge kept on in its course, it was not long in getting ahead, and soon the whole howling band was left behind.
At noon, Mudge recognized by certain landmarks that he was crossing the frozen course of the Platte river. He said nothing, but he was sure that in twenty miles more he would reach Omaha.
And, indeed, one hour afterwards this skillful guide, abandoning the helm, hastened to the halyards of the sails and furled them, whilst the sledge, carried on by its irresistible force, accomplished another half mile under bare poles. Finally it stopped, and Mudge pointing out a mass of roofs white with snow, said: "We have arrived.'"
Arrived! Arrived indeed at the station which, by numerous trains is in daily communication with the eastern part of the United States! Passepartout and Fix jumped to the ground and shook their stiffened limbs. They helped Mr. Fogg and the young woman to descend from the sledge. Phileas Fogg settled generously with Mudge, whose hand Passepartout shook like a friend's, and all hurried towards the depot in Omaha.
The Pacific Railroad, properly so called, has its terminus at this important city in Nebraska, placing the Mississippi basin in connection with the great ocean. To go from Omaha to Chicago, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Road is taken, running directly to the east, and passing fifty stations.
A through train was ready to start. Phileas Fogg and his companions only had time to hurry into a car. They had seen nothing of Omaha; but Passepartout acknowledged to himself that it was not to be regretted, as they were not on a sight-seeing tour. The train passed with very great speed into the state of Iowa, through Council Bluffs, Des Moines, and Iowa City. During the night it crossed the Mississippi at Davenport, and entered Illinois at Rock Island. The next day, the 10th, at four o'clock in the afternoon, they arrived at Chicago, already risen from its ruins, and sitting more proudly than ever on the shores of the beautiful Lake Michigan.
Nine hundred miles separate Chicago from New York. Trains are not wanting at Chicago. Mr. Fogg passed immediately from one to the other. The nimble locomotive of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railway started at full speed, as if it understood that the honorable gentleman "had no time to lose." It traversed Indiana and Ohio, passing by populous cities and over wide expanses of agricultural land, with but few pauses; and, sixteen hours after leaving Chicago, the Ohio was reached.
At thirty-five minutes after nine, on the evening of the 11th, the train entered the great depot at Jersey City, the walls of which are washed by the Hudson river. From this station, the eastern terminus of a railroad system of great magnitude, fifty-one passenger and eighty-one freight trains depart every twenty-four hours, and an equal number arrive. Steamers and sailing vessels lined the miles of docks extending on both sides of the station, and the mighty river was filled with craft of all kinds engaged in the commerce of New York, which rose in front of the travelers as they emerged upon the broad, covered way running in front of the depot, where the gigantic ferryboats of the railroad company receive and land their myriads of travelers, pausing not in their work day or night.
At thirty-five minutes after nine at night, the train stopped in the depot, near the very pier of the Cunard line of steamers, otherwise called The British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.
The China, bound for Liverpool, had left thirty-five minutes before!