Around the World in Eighty Days, Part 5: The Last English Ground

2:58:22 Chapter XVI: In which Fix does not seem to know anything at all about the things he is told

2:58:22 Chapter Sixteen. In which Fix does not seem to know anything at all about the things he is told.

2:58:30 The Rangoon, one of the steamers that the Peninsular and Oriental Company employs on the China and Japan seas, was an iron screw steamer of seventeen hundred and seventy tons gross, and of four hundred nominal horse-power. She equalled the Mongolia in speed, but not in comfort.

2:58:50 So Mrs. Aouda was not as well accommodated as Phileas Fogg would have wished. After all, it was only a matter of a voyage of three thousand five hundred miles, or eleven to twelve days, and the young woman did not prove a difficult passenger.

2:59:07 During the first days of the voyage Mrs. Aouda became better acquainted with Phileas Fogg. On every occasion she showed him the keenest gratitude.

2:59:17 The phlegmatic gentleman listened to her, outwardly at least, with the most extreme coldness, without a single intonation or gesture betraying the slightest emotion in him. He saw to it that the young woman lacked nothing.

2:59:33 At certain hours he came regularly, if not to talk, at least to listen to her. He performed towards her the duties of the strictest politeness, but with all the grace and spontaneity of an automaton whose movements had been contrived for the purpose.

2:59:51 Mrs. Aouda hardly knew what to think; but Passepartout had explained his master's eccentric personality to her a little. He had told her what wager was carrying this gentleman round the world.

3:00:04 Mrs. Aouda had smiled; but after all, she owed him her life, and her rescuer could only gain by being seen through her gratitude.

3:00:16 Mrs. Aouda confirmed the account the Indian guide had given of her touching story.

3:00:21 Aouda: I belong, in fact, to one of the most eminent communities of India. Several Parsee merchants have made great fortunes in India in the cotton trade.

3:00:32 Aouda: One of them, Sir James Jejeebhoy, was knighted by the English government, and I am related to this wealthy personage, who lives in Bombay. Indeed, it is a cousin of Sir James's, the Honourable Jejeeh, whom I am counting on joining at Hong Kong.

3:00:47 Aouda: Would I find refuge and help with him? I cannot be sure.

3:00:51 To which Mr. Fogg replied that she need not be anxious, and that everything would be arranged mathematically!

3:00:58 That was the very word he used.

3:01:01 Did the young woman understand that horrible adverb? No one knows.

3:01:07 At all events, her great eyes were fixed on Mr. Fogg's—her great eyes, 'clear as the sacred lakes of the Himalaya'!

3:01:17 But the intractable Fogg, as buttoned up as ever, did not seem the kind of man to throw himself into that lake.

3:01:27 This first part of the Rangoon's voyage was made in excellent conditions. The weather was moderate. All that part of the immense bay which sailors call the 'Bengal fathoms' proved favourable to the steamer's progress.

3:01:41 The Rangoon soon sighted Great Andaman, the principal island of the group, whose picturesque mountain, Saddle Peak, two thousand four hundred feet high, signals it to navigators from a great distance.

3:01:55 The coast was followed fairly closely. The islanders did not show themselves. They have been wrongly represented as cannibals.

3:02:04 The panorama these islands unfolded was superb. Immense forests of fan-palms, areca palms, bamboos, nutmeg trees, teak, gigantic mimosas and tree-ferns covered the country in the foreground, and behind them rose the elegant outline of the mountains.

3:02:24 Along the coast swarmed thousands upon thousands of those precious swiftlets whose edible nests are a sought-after delicacy in the Chinese Empire.

3:02:34 But all this varied spectacle offered by the Andaman group soon passed, and the Rangoon made her way swiftly towards the Strait of Malacca, which was to give her access to the China seas.

3:02:47 What was Inspector Fix doing during this voyage, dragged so unluckily into a journey of circumnavigation?

3:02:54 On leaving Calcutta, after giving instructions that the warrant, should it at last arrive, be sent on to him at Hong Kong,

3:03:02 he had managed to get aboard the Rangoon without being seen by Passepartout, and he fully hoped to keep his presence hidden until the steamer arrived.

3:03:12 Indeed, it would have been hard for him to explain why he was on board without arousing the suspicions of Passepartout, who must have thought him still at Bombay. But he was led to renew his acquaintance with the honest fellow by the very logic of circumstances.

3:03:28 How? We shall see.

3:03:31 All the police inspector's hopes, all his desires, were now concentrated on a single point of the globe—Hong Kong; for the steamer stopped too short a time at Singapore for him to act in that city.

3:03:45 It was at Hong Kong, then, that the thief must be arrested, or else the thief would escape him, so to speak, for good.

3:03:53 Hong Kong, in fact, was still English soil, but the last that would be met on the route. Beyond it, China, Japan and America offered the man Fogg an all but certain refuge.

3:04:07 At Hong Kong, if he at last found there the warrant of arrest that was evidently running after him, Fix would arrest Fogg and hand him over to the local police. No difficulty at all.

3:04:18 But after Hong Kong a simple warrant of arrest would no longer be enough. An extradition order would be needed. Hence delays, slowness, obstacles of every kind, which the rogue would take advantage of to escape for good.

3:04:35 If the operation failed at Hong Kong, it would be, if not impossible, at least very difficult, to take it up again with any chance of success.

3:04:47 Fix: So,

3:04:47 Fix kept repeating to himself during the long hours he spent in his cabin,

3:04:53 Fix: so either the warrant will be at Hong Kong, and I arrest my man, or it won't be there, and this time I must delay his departure at all costs!

3:05:02 Fix: I failed at Bombay, I failed at Calcutta! If I miss my stroke at Hong Kong, my reputation is lost! Cost what it may, I must succeed.

3:05:13 Fix: But what means can I use to delay, if need be, the departure of this cursed Fogg?

3:05:20 As a last resort, Fix was quite determined to confess everything to Passepartout, to let him know what kind of master he was serving—a master whose accomplice he certainly was not.

3:05:33 Passepartout, enlightened by this revelation, and fearing that he might be compromised, would no doubt come over to his side—Fix's. But it was, after all, a hazardous expedient, to be used only if every other failed.

3:05:49 A single word from Passepartout to his master would have been enough to compromise the whole business irrevocably.

3:05:57 The police inspector was therefore extremely perplexed, when the presence of Mrs. Aouda on board the Rangoon, in the company of Phileas Fogg, opened up new prospects for him.

3:06:09 Who was this woman? What combination of circumstances had made her Fogg's companion? The meeting had evidently taken place between Bombay and Calcutta. But at what point of the peninsula?

3:06:21 Was it chance that had brought Phileas Fogg and the young traveller together? Or had this journey across India, on the contrary, been undertaken by the gentleman for the very purpose of joining this charming person?

3:06:35 For she was charming! Fix had seen that well enough in the court-room at Calcutta.

3:06:41 One can understand how intrigued the detective must have been. He wondered whether there was not some criminal abduction in the affair. Yes! That must be it!

3:06:52 The idea lodged itself in Fix's brain, and he saw all the advantage he could draw from this circumstance. Whether the young woman was married or not, there had been an abduction, and it would be possible, at Hong Kong, to raise such difficulties for the abductor that he could not buy his way out of them.

3:07:13 But he must not wait for the Rangoon to arrive at Hong Kong. This Fogg had the detestable habit of jumping from one boat into another, and before the affair was set in motion he might already be far away.

3:07:26 The important thing, then, was to warn the English authorities and signal the Rangoon's coming before he could land. Now nothing was easier, since the steamer called at Singapore, and Singapore is linked to the Chinese coast by a telegraph wire.

3:07:42 However, before acting, and to make surer of his ground, Fix resolved to question Passepartout. He knew it was not very hard to make the fellow talk, and he decided to break the incognito he had kept until then.

3:07:58 Now there was no time to lose. It was the thirtieth of October, and the very next day the Rangoon was due to put in at Singapore.

3:08:08 So that day Fix left his cabin and went up on deck, intending to be the 'first' to accost Passepartout, with every sign of the most extreme surprise.

3:08:19 Passepartout was strolling in the bows when the inspector rushed up to him, exclaiming:

3:08:24 Fix: You, on the Rangoon!

3:08:26 Jean Passepartout: Monsieur Fix on board!

3:08:28 replied Passepartout, thoroughly surprised, as he recognised his fellow passenger of the Mongolia.

3:08:34 Jean Passepartout: What! I leave you at Bombay, and I find you again on the way to Hong Kong! Are you going round the world too, then?

3:08:42 Fix: No, no, and I mean to stop at Hong Kong—for a few days, at least.

3:08:47 Jean Passepartout: Ah!

3:08:47 said Passepartout, who seemed astonished for a moment.

3:08:51 Jean Passepartout: But how is it I haven't seen you on board since we left Calcutta?

3:08:55 Fix: Well, upon my word, a little indisposition… a touch of seasickness… I've kept to my berth… The Bay of Bengal doesn't agree with me as well as the Indian Ocean. And your master, Mr. Phileas Fogg?

3:09:08 Jean Passepartout: In perfect health, and as punctual as his itinerary! Not a day behind! Ah, Monsieur Fix, you don't know this, of course, but we have a young lady with us too.

3:09:19 Fix: A young lady?

3:09:20 replied the detective, who looked perfectly as though he did not understand what the other meant.

3:09:27 But Passepartout soon put him in possession of the whole story. He told of the incident at the pagoda in Bombay, the purchase of the elephant at the price of two thousand pounds, the affair of the suttee, the carrying-off of Aouda, the sentence of the Calcutta court, the release on bail.

3:09:46 Fix, who knew the last part of these incidents, appeared ignorant of them all, and Passepartout gave himself up to the pleasure of narrating his adventures to a listener who showed so much interest.

3:09:59 Fix: But in the end, does your master intend to take this young woman to Europe?

3:10:03 Jean Passepartout: Not at all, Monsieur Fix, not at all! We are simply going to hand her over to the care of one of her relations, a rich merchant at Hong Kong.

3:10:12 Fix: Nothing to be done there!

3:10:14 said the detective to himself, hiding his disappointment.

3:10:18 Fix: A glass of gin, Mr. Passepartout?

3:10:20 Jean Passepartout: With pleasure, Monsieur Fix. The least we can do is drink to our meeting on board the Rangoon!

3:10:27 Chapter XVII: In which there is talk of one thing and another during the voyage from Singapore to Hong Kong

3:10:32 Chapter Seventeen. In which there is talk of one thing and another during the voyage from Singapore to Hong Kong.

3:10:40 From that day on, Passepartout and the detective met frequently, but the detective kept extremely reserved towards his companion and made no attempt to draw him out.

3:10:52 Only once or twice did he catch a glimpse of Mr. Fogg, who liked to stay in the Rangoon's main saloon, either keeping Mrs. Aouda company or playing whist, as his invariable habit was.

3:11:04 As for Passepartout, he had begun to ponder very seriously on the strange chance which had once again put Fix on his master's road. And indeed, one would have been astonished at less.

3:11:18 This gentleman—very amiable, very obliging, to be sure—whom one first meets at Suez, who embarks on the Mongolia, who lands at Bombay, where he says he is to stay,

3:11:31 and whom one finds again on the Rangoon, bound for Hong Kong—in a word, following Mr. Fogg's itinerary step by step.

3:11:40 That was worth thinking about. There was a coincidence here that was odd, to say the least. What was this Fix after?

3:11:49 Passepartout was ready to bet his slippers—he had kept them carefully—that this Fix would leave Hong Kong at the same time as they did, and probably on the same steamer.

3:12:01 Had Passepartout pondered for a century, he would never have guessed what mission the detective had been given. Never would he have imagined that Phileas Fogg was being 'shadowed' round the terrestrial globe like a thief.

3:12:15 But as it is in human nature to find an explanation for everything, this is how Passepartout, suddenly enlightened, interpreted Fix's constant presence—and his interpretation was, in truth, very plausible.

3:12:30 According to him, Fix was, and could only be, an agent sent on Mr. Fogg's track by his fellow members of the Reform Club, to make sure that this journey round the world was being properly carried out according to the agreed itinerary.

3:12:46 Jean Passepartout: It's obvious! It's obvious!

3:12:49 the honest fellow kept repeating to himself, very proud of his perspicacity.

3:12:54 Jean Passepartout: He's a spy these gentlemen have set on our heels! That's not worthy of them! Mr. Fogg, so upright, so honourable! To have him watched by an agent! Ah, gentlemen of the Reform Club, this will cost you dear!

3:13:09 Passepartout, delighted with his discovery, resolved nevertheless to say nothing of it to his master, fearing that his master would be justly wounded by this mistrust on the part of his opponents.

3:13:22 But he promised himself to chaff Fix when the occasion offered, in veiled words and without committing himself.

3:13:31 On Wednesday the thirtieth of October, in the afternoon, the Rangoon entered the Strait of Malacca, which separates the peninsula of that name from the lands of Sumatra. Mountainous islets, very steep and very picturesque, hid the great island from the passengers' view.

3:13:49 The next day, at four in the morning, the Rangoon, having gained half a day on her scheduled passage, put in at Singapore to take on a fresh supply of coal.

3:14:00 Phileas Fogg entered this advance in the column of gains, and this time he went ashore, accompanying Mrs. Aouda, who had expressed a wish to walk about for a few hours.

3:14:11 Fix, to whom every action of Fogg's seemed suspicious, followed him without letting himself be seen. As for Passepartout, who was laughing up his sleeve at Fix's manoeuvres, he went off to do his usual shopping.

3:14:28 The island of Singapore is neither large nor imposing in appearance. It lacks mountains, that is to say, profiles. Yet it is charming in its slenderness. It is a park cut through by fine roads.

3:14:42 A smart carriage, drawn by those elegant horses which have been imported from New Holland, carried Mrs. Aouda and Phileas Fogg among clumps of palms with brilliant foliage, and clove trees whose cloves are formed from the very bud of the half-opened flower.

3:15:00 There, hedges of pepper bushes took the place of the thorn hedges of European fields; sago palms and great ferns with their superb fronds varied the look of this tropical region; nutmeg trees with glossy leaves filled the air with a penetrating perfume.

3:15:19 Monkeys, in lively, grimacing bands, were not lacking in the woods, nor perhaps tigers in the jungles. To anyone astonished to learn that on this island, so small by comparison, these terrible beasts of prey have not been destroyed to the last one, the answer is that they come over from Malacca, swimming across the strait.

3:15:41 After driving about the country for two hours, Mrs. Aouda and her companion—who looked a little without seeing—returned to the town, a vast cluster of heavy, squat houses surrounded by charming gardens where mangosteens, pineapples and all the best fruits in the world grow.

3:16:02 At ten o'clock they were back at the steamer, having been followed, without suspecting it, by the inspector, who had been obliged to go to the expense of a carriage as well.

3:16:12 Passepartout was waiting for them on the deck of the Rangoon. The good fellow had bought a few dozen mangosteens, as big as middling apples, dark brown outside and bright red within, whose white fruit, melting between the lips, gives true gourmets a pleasure without equal.

3:16:31 Passepartout was only too happy to offer them to Mrs. Aouda, who thanked him very graciously.

3:16:39 At eleven o'clock the Rangoon, with her full load of coal, cast off her moorings, and a few hours later the passengers lost sight of those high mountains of Malacca whose forests shelter the finest tigers on earth.

3:16:55 About thirteen hundred miles separate Singapore from the island of Hong Kong, a small English territory detached from the Chinese coast.

3:17:04 It was in Phileas Fogg's interest to cover them in six days at most, so as to catch at Hong Kong the boat that was to leave on the sixth of November for Yokohama, one of the principal ports of Japan.

3:17:17 The Rangoon was heavily laden. Many passengers had come aboard at Singapore—Indians, Ceylonese, Chinese, Malays, Portuguese—who for the most part travelled second class.

3:17:32 The weather, fairly fine until then, changed with the last quarter of the moon. There was a heavy sea. At times the wind blew a strong breeze, but very fortunately from the south-east, which helped the steamer along.

3:17:47 When it was moderate, the captain had sail set. The Rangoon, rigged as a brig, often sailed with her two topsails and her foresail, and her speed increased under the double action of steam and wind. In this way they coasted along Annam and Cochin China, over a short and sometimes very trying sea.

3:18:10 But the fault lay rather with the Rangoon than with the sea, and it was the steamer that the passengers, most of whom were sick, had to blame for their discomfort.

3:18:20 The ships of the Peninsular Company that serve the China seas have, in fact, a serious defect of construction. The ratio of their draught when loaded to their depth of hold has been badly calculated, and as a result they offer only feeble resistance to the sea. Their enclosed, watertight volume is insufficient.

3:18:42 They are 'drowned,' to use the nautical expression, and in consequence of this arrangement it takes only a few seas shipped on board to alter their speed. These ships are therefore very inferior—if not in engine and boilers, at least in construction—to the models of the French Messageries, such as the Impératrice and the Cambodge.

3:19:05 Whereas, according to the engineers' calculations, the latter can ship a weight of water equal to their own weight before foundering,

3:19:14 the boats of the Peninsular Company, the Golconda, the Corea, and lastly the Rangoon, could not ship a sixth of their weight without going to the bottom.

3:19:24 In bad weather, therefore, great precautions had to be taken. Sometimes they had to lie to under low steam. This was a loss of time which did not seem to affect Phileas Fogg in any way, but which made Passepartout extremely irritated.

3:19:41 He would then blame the captain, the engineer, the Company, and send to the devil everyone who meddles with carrying travellers.

3:19:50 Perhaps, too, the thought of that gas-jet which was still burning at his expense in the house in Saville Row had a good deal to do with his impatience.

3:20:06 Fix: You are in a great hurry to reach Hong Kong, then?

3:20:08 the detective asked him one day.

3:20:11 Jean Passepartout: A very great hurry!

3:20:13 Fix: You think Mr. Fogg is anxious to catch the Yokohama steamer?

3:20:16 Jean Passepartout: Frightfully anxious.

3:20:19 Fix: So you believe in this strange journey round the world now?

3:20:23 Jean Passepartout: Absolutely. And you, Monsieur Fix?

3:20:26 Fix: I? I don't believe in it!

3:20:29 Jean Passepartout: You rogue!

3:20:31 replied Passepartout, with a wink.

3:20:34 The word left the detective thoughtful. The epithet disturbed him, without his quite knowing why. Had the Frenchman seen through him? He hardly knew what to think.

3:20:46 But his capacity as a detective, of which he alone held the secret—how could Passepartout have found it out? And yet, in speaking to him like that, Passepartout had certainly had something at the back of his mind.

3:21:01 It even happened that the good fellow went further on another day; but it was too much for him. He could not hold his tongue.

3:21:09 Jean Passepartout: Come now, Monsieur Fix, once we reach Hong Kong, shall we have the misfortune of leaving you there?

3:21:15 Fix: Why, I don't know!… Perhaps…

3:21:18 Jean Passepartout: Ah! If you came along with us, it would make me so happy! Come, come! An agent of the Peninsular Company can't stop on the way! You were only going as far as Bombay, and here you are, nearly in China! America isn't far, and from America to Europe is only a step!

3:21:37 Fix looked closely at the speaker, who showed him the most amiable face in the world, and he decided to laugh with him.

3:21:45 But Passepartout, who was in fine form, asked him whether 'that line of business paid him well?'

3:21:51 Fix: Yes and no,

3:21:53 replied Fix without turning a hair.

3:21:56 Fix: There are good jobs and bad ones. But you understand, of course, that I don't travel at my own expense!

3:22:02 Jean Passepartout: Oh, as for that, I'm quite sure you don't!

3:22:06 cried Passepartout, laughing harder than ever.

3:22:11 When the conversation was over, Fix went back to his cabin and began to think. He had evidently been found out. In one way or another, the Frenchman had discovered that he was a detective.

3:22:24 But had he warned his master? What part was he playing in all this? Was he an accomplice or not? Had the secret got out, and was the affair therefore lost?

3:22:34 The detective spent some difficult hours there, now believing all was lost, now hoping that Fogg knew nothing of the situation, and in the end not knowing what course to take.

3:22:47 Calm, however, returned to his brain, and he resolved to deal frankly with Passepartout. If he did not find himself in the necessary position to arrest Fogg at Hong Kong, and if Fogg were preparing to leave English territory, this time for good, he, Fix, would tell Passepartout everything.

3:23:07 Either the servant was his master's accomplice—in which case the master knew everything, and the affair was irretrievably compromised—or the servant had nothing to do with the robbery, and then it would be in his interest to abandon the thief.

3:23:24 Such, then, was the respective position of these two men, and above them Phileas Fogg hovered in his majestic indifference. He was rationally completing his orbit round the world, without troubling himself about the asteroids gravitating around him.

3:23:47 And yet there was in his vicinity—to use the astronomers' expression—a disturbing star, which ought to have produced certain perturbations in this gentleman's heart.

3:23:57 But no! Mrs. Aouda's charm had no effect, to Passepartout's great surprise; and the perturbations, if they existed, would have been harder to calculate than those of Uranus which led to the discovery of Neptune.

3:24:13 Yes! It was a daily astonishment to Passepartout, who read so much gratitude towards his master in the young woman's eyes! Decidedly Phileas Fogg had only as much heart as was needed to behave heroically—but lovingly, no!

3:24:29 As for any anxieties that the hazards of the journey might arouse in him, there was no trace of them. But Passepartout lived in continual agonies.

3:24:40 One day, leaning on the rail of the engine-room, he was watching the powerful engine, which sometimes raced when, in a violent pitch, the screw spun wildly out of the water.

3:24:52 The steam would then shoot out through the valves, and this roused the worthy fellow's anger.

3:24:58 Jean Passepartout: Those valves aren't loaded enough! We're not moving! That's the English all over! Ah! If this were an American ship, we might blow up, perhaps, but at least we'd go faster!

3:25:10 Chapter XVIII: In which Phileas Fogg, Passepartout and Fix each go about his own business

3:25:15 Chapter Eighteen. In which Phileas Fogg, Passepartout and Fix each go about his own business.

3:25:23 During the last days of the voyage the weather was rather bad. The wind became very strong. Setting in from the north-west, it hindered the steamer's progress. The Rangoon, too unsteady, rolled heavily, and the passengers had every right to bear a grudge against the long, sickening swells that the wind raised from the open sea.

3:25:46 On the third and fourth of November there was something like a tempest. The squall lashed the sea with violence.

3:25:53 The Rangoon had to lie to for half a day, holding her own with only ten turns of the screw, so as to take the waves at a slant. All the sails had been furled, and even so there was too much rigging whistling in the gusts.

3:26:09 The steamer's speed, as may be imagined, was considerably reduced, and it could be estimated that she would reach Hong Kong twenty hours behind her scheduled time, and even more if the storm did not stop.

3:26:23 Phileas Fogg watched this spectacle of a raging sea, which seemed to be fighting directly against him, with his habitual impassiveness. His brow did not darken for an instant; and yet a delay of twenty hours could compromise his journey by making him miss the departure of the Yokohama steamer.

3:26:43 But this man without nerves felt neither impatience nor vexation.

3:26:48 It really seemed as though this storm were part of his programme, as though it had been foreseen.

3:26:55 Mrs. Aouda, who talked with her companion about this mishap, found him as calm as ever.

3:27:03 Fix did not see these things with the same eye. Quite the contrary. This storm pleased him. His satisfaction would even have been boundless if the Rangoon had been forced to run before the gale.

3:27:16 All these delays suited him, for they would oblige the man Fogg to stay a few days at Hong Kong. In short, heaven, with its squalls and gusts, was playing his game.

3:27:29 He was a little sick, to be sure, but what did that matter! He did not count his bouts of nausea, and while his body writhed with seasickness, his mind revelled in immense satisfaction.

3:27:43 As for Passepartout, one can guess in what ill-concealed anger he spent this time of trial. Until then everything had gone so well! Land and water had seemed to be at his master's command.

3:27:57 Steamers and railways obeyed him. Wind and steam joined forces to speed his journey. Had the hour of disappointments struck at last?

3:28:07 Passepartout, as though the twenty thousand pounds of the wager were to come out of his own purse, lived in torment. This storm exasperated him, this gale put him in a fury, and he would gladly have flogged that disobedient sea! Poor fellow!

3:28:25 Fix carefully hid his own satisfaction from him, and he did well, for if Passepartout had guessed Fix's secret contentment, Fix would have had a bad quarter of an hour.

3:28:37 Passepartout stayed on the Rangoon's deck the whole time the gale lasted. He could not have stayed below; he climbed up into the rigging; he astonished the crew and lent a hand with everything with the agility of a monkey.

3:28:51 A hundred times he questioned the captain, the officers, the sailors, who could not help laughing at the sight of a fellow so put out. Passepartout absolutely had to know how long the storm would last.

3:29:05 Then they would refer him to the barometer, which would not make up its mind to rise.

3:29:11 Passepartout shook the barometer, but nothing did any good, neither the shaking nor the abuse he heaped on the irresponsible instrument.

3:29:22 At last the gale abated. The state of the sea changed in the course of the fourth of November. The wind shifted two points to the south and became favourable again.

3:29:34 Passepartout cleared up with the weather. The topsails and lower sails could be set, and the Rangoon resumed her course with marvellous speed.

3:29:43 But all the lost time could not be made up. There was nothing for it but to accept the fact, and land was not sighted until the sixth, at five in the morning.

3:29:54 Phileas Fogg's itinerary gave the steamer's arrival as the fifth. Now she was not arriving until the sixth. That meant twenty-four hours' delay, and the departure for Yokohama would necessarily be missed.

3:30:09 At six o'clock the pilot came aboard the Rangoon and took his place on the bridge, to take the ship through the channels into the harbour of Hong Kong.

3:30:19 Passepartout was dying to question this man, to ask him whether the Yokohama steamer had left Hong Kong. But he did not dare, preferring to keep a little hope until the last moment.

3:30:31 He had confided his anxieties to Fix, who—the sly fox—tried to console him by saying that Mr. Fogg would simply have to take the next steamer. Which put Passepartout in a towering rage.

3:30:46 But if Passepartout did not venture to question the pilot, Mr. Fogg, after consulting his Bradshaw, asked the said pilot in his calm way whether he knew when a boat would be leaving Hong Kong for Yokohama.

3:31:00 the Hong Kong pilot: Tomorrow, on the morning tide.

3:31:02 Phileas Fogg: Ah!

3:31:03 said Mr. Fogg, without showing any astonishment.

3:31:07 Passepartout, who was present, would gladly have hugged the pilot, whose neck Fix would have liked to wring.

3:31:15 Phileas Fogg: What is the name of this steamer?

3:31:17 the Hong Kong pilot: The Carnatic.

3:31:18 Phileas Fogg: Was she not due to leave yesterday?

3:31:21 the Hong Kong pilot: Yes, sir, but they had to repair one of her boilers, and her sailing has been put off until tomorrow.

3:31:27 Phileas Fogg: Thank you,

3:31:27 replied Mr. Fogg, and with his automatic step he went back down to the Rangoon's saloon.

3:31:34 As for Passepartout, he seized the pilot's hand and wrung it vigorously, saying:

3:31:40 Jean Passepartout: Pilot, you are a fine fellow!

3:31:44 The pilot no doubt never knew why his answers earned him this friendly outburst.

3:31:49 At a blast of the whistle he went back up on the bridge and steered the steamer through the flotilla of junks, tankas, fishing boats and vessels of every kind that crowded the narrows of Hong Kong.

3:32:02 At one o'clock the Rangoon was alongside the quay, and the passengers were landing.

3:32:08 On this occasion chance had served Phileas Fogg remarkably well, it must be admitted. But for the need to repair her boilers, the Carnatic would have left on the fifth of November, and travellers for Japan would have had to wait a week for the next steamer.

3:32:24 Mr. Fogg, it is true, was twenty-four hours behind; but this delay could have no unfortunate consequences for the rest of the journey.

3:32:34 The steamer that makes the Pacific crossing from Yokohama to San Francisco was, in fact, in direct connection with the Hong Kong steamer, and could not leave before the latter had arrived.

3:32:46 There would obviously be twenty-four hours' delay at Yokohama; but in the twenty-two days that the crossing of the Pacific takes, it would be easy to make them up.

3:32:55 So Phileas Fogg found himself, within twenty-four hours, keeping to the terms of his programme, thirty-five days after leaving London.

3:33:06 As the Carnatic was not to sail until five o'clock the next morning, Mr. Fogg had sixteen hours before him to attend to his business—that is to say, to the business concerning Mrs. Aouda.

3:33:19 On landing, he offered the young woman his arm and led her to a palanquin. He asked the bearers to direct him to a hotel, and they named the Club Hotel. The palanquin set off, followed by Passepartout, and twenty minutes later it reached its destination.

3:33:37 A suite of rooms was engaged for the young woman, and Phileas Fogg saw to it that she lacked nothing. Then he told Mrs. Aouda that he was going at once in search of the relation in whose care he was to leave her at Hong Kong.

3:33:52 At the same time he ordered Passepartout to stay at the hotel until his return, so that the young woman should not be left alone.

3:34:02 The gentleman had himself taken to the Exchange. There a personage such as the Honourable Jejeeh, who was counted among the richest merchants of the city, would infallibly be known.

3:34:13 The broker to whom Mr. Fogg applied did indeed know the Parsee merchant.

3:34:19 the Hong Kong broker: But for the past two years he no longer lives in China. Having made his fortune, he has settled in Europe—in Holland, it is thought—which is explained by the many connections he had with that country during his business life.

3:34:33 Phileas Fogg returned to the Club Hotel. He at once sent to ask Mrs. Aouda's permission to present himself, and, without further preamble, he informed her that the Honourable Jejeeh no longer lived at Hong Kong, and was in all likelihood living in Holland.

3:34:52 To this Mrs. Aouda at first made no reply. She passed her hand across her forehead and remained for a few moments in thought.

3:35:02 Then, in her gentle voice:

3:35:05 Aouda: What am I to do, Mr. Fogg?

3:35:07 Phileas Fogg: It is very simple.

3:35:09 Phileas Fogg: Come back to Europe.

3:35:10 Aouda: But I cannot impose upon you…

3:35:13 Phileas Fogg: You are not imposing, and your presence does not interfere with my programme in the least…

3:35:18 Phileas Fogg: Passepartout?

3:35:20 Jean Passepartout: Monsieur?

3:35:21 Phileas Fogg: Go to the Carnatic and book three cabins.

3:35:23 Passepartout, delighted to continue his journey in the company of the young woman, who was very gracious to him, left the Club Hotel at once.

3:35:33 Chapter XIX: In which Passepartout takes too keen an interest in his master, and what ensues

3:35:38 Chapter Nineteen. In which Passepartout takes too keen an interest in his master, and what ensues.

3:35:46 Hong Kong is only an islet, which the treaty of Nanking, after the war of eighteen forty-two, secured to England. In a few years the colonising genius of Great Britain had founded an important town there and created a port, the port of Victoria.

3:36:04 The island lies at the mouth of the Canton River, and only sixty miles separate it from the Portuguese city of Macao, built on the opposite shore. Hong Kong was bound to defeat Macao in a commercial struggle, and now the greater part of the Chinese transit trade passes through the English town.

3:36:24 Docks, hospitals, wharves, warehouses, a Gothic cathedral, a Government House, macadamised streets—

3:36:32 everything would make one think that one of the trading towns of the counties of Kent or Surrey had passed right through the terrestrial spheroid and come out again at this point of China, almost at its antipodes.

3:36:46 So Passepartout, his hands in his pockets, made his way towards the port of Victoria, gazing at the palanquins, at the wheelbarrows with sails that are still in favour in the Chinese Empire, and at all the crowd of Chinese, Japanese and Europeans that thronged the streets.

3:37:05 Give or take a few details, it was Bombay, Calcutta or Singapore over again that the worthy fellow found along his way.

3:37:14 There is, as it were, a trail of English towns all round the world.

3:37:20 Passepartout reached the port of Victoria. There, at the mouth of the Canton River, swarmed ships of every nation—English, French, American, Dutch, men-of-war and merchantmen—Japanese and Chinese craft, junks, sampans, tankas, and even flower-boats, which made so many floating flower-beds on the water.

3:37:44 As he strolled along, Passepartout noticed a number of people dressed in yellow, all of them very old.

3:37:52 Having gone into a Chinese barber's to be shaved 'Chinese fashion,' he learned from the local Figaro, who spoke quite good English, that these old men were all at least eighty years of age, and that at that age they had the privilege of wearing yellow, which is the imperial colour.

3:38:09 Passepartout found this very funny, without quite knowing why.

3:38:15 Once shaved, he went to the Carnatic's landing-stage, and there he caught sight of Fix walking up and down, which did not surprise him in the least. But the police inspector's face showed every sign of keen disappointment.

3:38:30 Jean Passepartout: Good! Things are going badly for the gentlemen of the Reform Club!

3:38:35 And he accosted Fix with his merry smile, choosing not to notice his companion's vexed look.

3:38:41 Now the detective had good reason to curse the infernal luck that dogged him. No warrant! It was evident that the warrant was running after him and could only catch up with him if he stayed a few days in this town.

3:38:56 And since Hong Kong was the last English soil on the route, the man Fogg was going to escape him for good if he did not manage to hold him there.

3:39:05 Jean Passepartout: Well, Monsieur Fix, have you made up your mind to come with us as far as America?

3:39:11 Fix: Yes,

3:39:12 replied Fix through clenched teeth.

3:39:15 Jean Passepartout: Get along with you!

3:39:18 cried Passepartout with a resounding burst of laughter.

3:39:21 Jean Passepartout: I knew you couldn't bear to part from us. Come and book your berth, come along!

3:39:27 And the two of them went into the shipping office and engaged cabins for four persons.

3:39:32 But the clerk pointed out to them:

3:39:34 the steamer-office clerk: The Carnatic's repairs being finished, the steamer will leave this very evening at eight o'clock, and not tomorrow morning as was announced.

3:39:42 Jean Passepartout: Very good! That will suit my master. I'll go and let him know.

3:39:47 At that moment Fix took an extreme decision. He resolved to tell Passepartout everything.

3:39:55 It was perhaps the only means he had of keeping Phileas Fogg at Hong Kong for a few days.