Around the World in Eighty Days, Part 6: The Typhoon

3:40:10 Chapter XIX: In which Passepartout takes too keen an interest in his master, and what ensues

3:40:10 On leaving the office, Fix offered his companion some refreshment in a tavern. Passepartout had time. He accepted Fix's invitation.

3:40:20 There was a tavern opening on to the quay. It looked inviting. They both went in.

3:40:26 It was a large, well-decorated room, at the far end of which stretched a camp-bed furnished with cushions. On this bed a number of sleepers were laid out in a row.

3:40:38 Some thirty customers occupied small tables of plaited rush in the big room. Some were emptying pints of English beer, ale or porter; others, jugs of spirits, gin or brandy.

3:40:52 Most of them, besides, were smoking long pipes of red clay stuffed with little pellets of opium mixed with essence of rose.

3:41:01 Now and then some enervated smoker would slide under the table, and the waiters of the establishment, taking him by the feet and the head, would carry him to the camp-bed and lay him beside a fellow smoker. Some twenty of these sleepers lay thus side by side, in the last stage of stupefaction.

3:41:21 Fix and Passepartout understood that they had entered a smoking-den haunted by those wretched, dazed and wasted victims to whom mercantile England sells every year two hundred and sixty million francs' worth of the baneful drug called opium!

3:41:38 Sorry millions, those—levied on one of the most baneful vices of human nature.

3:41:45 The Chinese government has indeed tried to remedy such an abuse by severe laws, but in vain. From the wealthy class, to which the use of opium was at first strictly reserved, the habit spread down to the lower classes, and its ravages could no longer be halted.

3:42:04 Opium is smoked everywhere and at all times in the Middle Kingdom. Men and women give themselves up to this deplorable passion, and once they are accustomed to inhaling it they can no longer do without it, except at the cost of horrible cramps of the stomach.

3:42:21 A great smoker may smoke as many as eight pipes a day, but he dies within five years.

3:42:28 Now it was into one of the many dens of this kind, which swarm even at Hong Kong, that Fix and Passepartout had gone with the intention of refreshing themselves.

3:42:39 Passepartout had no money, but he willingly accepted his companion's 'treat,' meaning to return it at the proper time and place.

3:42:48 Two bottles of port were ordered, to which the Frenchman did ample justice, while Fix, more reserved, watched his companion with the closest attention. They talked of one thing and another, and above all of the excellent idea Fix had had of taking passage on the Carnatic.

3:43:07 And speaking of that steamer, whose departure had been brought forward by some hours, Passepartout, the bottles being empty, got up to go and let his master know.

3:43:18 Fix held him back.

3:43:20 Fix: One moment.

3:43:21 Jean Passepartout: What is it, Monsieur Fix?

3:43:23 Fix: I have something serious to talk to you about.

3:43:26 Jean Passepartout: Something serious!

3:43:27 cried Passepartout, draining the few drops of wine left at the bottom of his glass.

3:43:33 Jean Passepartout: Well, we'll talk about it tomorrow. I haven't the time today.

3:43:36 Fix: Stay. It concerns your master!

3:43:39 At these words Passepartout looked closely at the speaker.

3:43:43 The expression on Fix's face struck him as strange. He sat down again.

3:43:49 Jean Passepartout: What is it... you have to tell me, then?

3:43:52 Fix laid his hand on his companion's arm and, lowering his voice:

3:43:57 Fix: You have guessed who I am?

3:43:59 Jean Passepartout: Parbleu!

3:44:01 Fix: Then I am going to confess everything to you…

3:44:05 Jean Passepartout: Now that I know everything, old fellow! Ah, that's not very clever! Well, go on all the same. But first let me tell you that those gentlemen have gone to a great deal of expense for nothing!

3:44:17 Fix: For nothing! It's easy for you to talk! It's plain you don't know how large the sum is!

3:44:23 Jean Passepartout: But I do know it. Twenty thousand pounds!

3:44:27 Fix: Fifty-five thousand!

3:44:29 Fix returned, gripping the Frenchman's hand.

3:44:32 Jean Passepartout: What! Mr. Fogg actually dared…! Fifty-five thousand pounds!… Well, all the more reason not to lose a moment,

3:44:42 he added, getting up again.

3:44:45 Fix: Fifty-five thousand pounds!

3:44:47 Fix went on, making Passepartout sit down again, after he had sent for a flask of brandy.

3:44:54 Fix: And if I succeed, I win a reward of two thousand pounds. Will you take five hundred of it,

3:45:00 Twelve thousand five hundred francs.

3:45:03 Fix: on condition that you help me?

3:45:05 Jean Passepartout: Help you?

3:45:06 cried Passepartout, his eyes opened wide beyond measure.

3:45:11 Fix: Yes, help me to keep the man Fogg at Hong Kong for a few days!

3:45:15 Jean Passepartout: Eh? What's that you say? What! Not content with having my master followed and suspecting his good faith, these gentlemen want to put obstacles in his way as well! I'm ashamed for them!

3:45:26 Fix: Look here! What do you mean?

3:45:29 Jean Passepartout: I mean it's downright sharp practice. They might as well rob Mr. Fogg and take the money out of his pocket!

3:45:35 Fix: Why, that's just what we mean to do!

3:45:38 Jean Passepartout: But it's an ambush!

3:45:40 cried Passepartout, who was growing heated under the influence of the brandy Fix kept pouring for him, and which he drank without noticing,

3:45:48 Jean Passepartout: a downright ambush! And from gentlemen! From colleagues!

3:45:53 Fix was beginning to lose the thread.

3:45:56 Jean Passepartout: Colleagues! Members of the Reform Club! Let me tell you, Monsieur Fix, that my master is an honest man, and that when he has made a wager, he means to win it fairly!

3:46:07 Fix: But who do you think I am, then?

3:46:09 asked Fix, fixing his eyes on Passepartout.

3:46:13 Jean Passepartout: Parbleu! An agent of the members of the Reform Club, whose job is to check my master's itinerary—which is uncommonly humiliating! And so, though I guessed what you were some time ago, I've taken good care not to reveal it to Mr. Fogg!

3:46:28 Fix: He knows nothing?…

3:46:30 Jean Passepartout: Nothing,

3:46:31 replied Passepartout, emptying his glass once more.

3:46:35 The police inspector passed his hand across his forehead. He hesitated before speaking again. What was he to do?

3:46:44 Passepartout's mistake seemed sincere, but it made his plan more difficult. It was evident that the fellow was speaking in absolute good faith, and that he was not his master's accomplice—which Fix might have feared.

3:46:58 Fix: Well, since he is not his accomplice, he will help me.

3:47:03 For the second time the detective had made up his mind. Besides, he had no more time to wait. At all costs Fogg must be stopped at Hong Kong.

3:47:13 Fix: Listen, listen to me carefully. I am not what you think—that is, an agent of the members of the Reform Club…

3:47:20 Jean Passepartout: Bah!

3:47:21 Fix: I am a police inspector, charged with a mission by the Metropolitan authorities…

3:47:26 Jean Passepartout: You… a police inspector!…

3:47:29 Fix: Yes, and I can prove it. Here is my commission.

3:47:33 And the detective, drawing a paper from his pocket-book, showed his companion a commission signed by the head of the central police. Passepartout, dumbfounded, stared at Fix without being able to utter a word.

3:47:47 Fix: The man Fogg's wager is only a pretext, and you are its dupes, you and his fellow members of the Reform Club; for it was in his interest to secure your unwitting complicity.

3:47:59 Jean Passepartout: But why?…

3:48:01 Fix: Listen. On the twenty-eighth of September last, a robbery of fifty-five thousand pounds was committed at the Bank of England by an individual whose description was taken down. Here is that description, and it is the man Fogg's, feature for feature.

3:48:17 Jean Passepartout: Nonsense!

3:48:19 cried Passepartout, striking the table with his sturdy fist.

3:48:23 Jean Passepartout: My master is the most honest man in the world!

3:48:27 Fix: What do you know about it? You don't even know him! You entered his service on the day he left, and he left in a hurry, on a senseless pretext, without trunks, carrying off a large sum in bank-notes! And you dare maintain that he is an honest man!

3:48:42 Jean Passepartout: Yes! Yes!

3:48:44 Fix: Do you want to be arrested as his accomplice, then?

3:48:47 Passepartout had taken his head in both hands. He was no longer recognisable. He did not dare look at the police inspector. Phileas Fogg a thief—he, the rescuer of Aouda, the generous, brave man!

3:49:03 And yet how many presumptions there were against him! Passepartout tried to drive back the suspicions that were creeping into his mind. He would not believe in his master's guilt.

3:49:16 Jean Passepartout: Well, what do you want of me?

3:49:18 he said to the detective, controlling himself by a supreme effort.

3:49:23 Fix: This. I have shadowed the man Fogg as far as this, but I have not yet received the warrant of arrest I asked London for. So you must help me to keep him at Hong Kong…

3:49:33 Jean Passepartout: I! That I should…

3:49:36 Fix: And I will share with you the reward of two thousand pounds promised by the Bank of England!

3:49:42 Jean Passepartout: Never!

3:49:43 replied Passepartout, who tried to get up and fell back, feeling his reason and his strength slipping away from him together.

3:49:52 Jean Passepartout: Monsieur Fix, even if everything you've told me were true… if my master were the thief you're looking for… which I deny… I have been… I am in his service… I've seen him kind and generous… betray him… never…

3:50:08 Jean Passepartout: no, not for all the gold in the world… I come from a village where they don't eat that kind of bread!…

3:50:14 Fix: You refuse?

3:50:16 Jean Passepartout: I refuse.

3:50:17 Fix: Let's say I've said nothing, and let us drink.

3:50:21 Jean Passepartout: Yes, let's drink!

3:50:23 Passepartout felt drunkenness overcoming him more and more. Fix, understanding that he must at all costs separate him from his master, decided to finish him off. On the table lay a few pipes filled with opium.

3:50:39 Fix slipped one into the hand of Passepartout, who took it, raised it to his lips, lit it, drew a few puffs, and fell back, his head heavy under the influence of the narcotic.

3:50:54 Fix: At last!

3:50:56 said Fix, seeing Passepartout dead to the world.

3:51:00 Fix: The man Fogg won't be told of the Carnatic's departure in time; and if he does go, at least he'll go without this cursed Frenchman!

3:51:09 Then he went out, after paying the bill.

3:51:14 Chapter XX: In which Fix comes into direct contact with Phileas Fogg

3:51:19 Chapter Twenty. In which Fix comes into direct contact with Phileas Fogg.

3:51:25 During this scene, which was perhaps going to compromise his future so gravely, Mr. Fogg, accompanying Mrs. Aouda, was walking through the streets of the English town.

3:51:37 Since Mrs. Aouda had accepted his offer to take her as far as Europe, he had had to think of all the details that so long a journey involves. That an Englishman like himself should go round the world with a bag in his hand might pass; but a woman could not undertake such a voyage on those terms.

3:51:57 Hence the need to buy the clothes and articles necessary for the journey. Mr. Fogg acquitted himself of the task with his characteristic calm, and to all the apologies or objections of the young widow, confused by so much kindness:

3:52:12 Phileas Fogg: It is in the interest of my journey; it is part of my programme,

3:52:16 he invariably replied.

3:52:19 The purchases made, Mr. Fogg and the young woman returned to the hotel and dined at the table d'hôte, which was sumptuously served. Then Mrs. Aouda, a little tired, went up to her rooms, after shaking her imperturbable rescuer's hand 'in the English fashion.'

3:52:38 The honourable gentleman, for his part, was absorbed the whole evening in reading the Times and the Illustrated London News.

3:52:46 Had he been a man to be astonished at anything, it would have been at his servant's failure to appear at bedtime. But, knowing that the Yokohama steamer was not to leave Hong Kong before the next morning, he gave it no further thought.

3:53:02 The next morning Passepartout did not answer Mr. Fogg's bell.

3:53:07 What the honourable gentleman thought on learning that his servant had not come back to the hotel, no one could have said. Mr. Fogg merely took up his bag, had Mrs. Aouda told, and sent for a palanquin.

3:53:21 It was then eight o'clock, and high tide, which the Carnatic was to take advantage of to get out through the channels, was set down for half-past nine.

3:53:31 When the palanquin had arrived at the door of the hotel, Mr. Fogg and Mrs. Aouda got into that comfortable vehicle, and the luggage followed behind on a wheelbarrow.

3:53:43 Half an hour later the travellers were stepping down on to the landing-quay, and there Mr. Fogg learned that the Carnatic had sailed the day before.

3:53:53 Mr. Fogg, who had counted on finding both the steamer and his servant, was reduced to doing without either. But no sign of disappointment appeared on his face, and as Mrs. Aouda looked at him anxiously, he merely replied:

3:54:08 Phileas Fogg: It is an incident, madam; nothing more.

3:54:12 At that moment a person who had been watching him closely came up to him. It was Inspector Fix, who bowed and said:

3:54:20 Fix: Were you not, like myself, sir, one of the passengers on the Rangoon, which arrived yesterday?

3:54:26 Phileas Fogg: Yes, sir, but I have not the honour…

3:54:28 Fix: Forgive me, but I thought I should find your servant here.

3:54:32 Aouda: Do you know where he is, sir?

3:54:34 Fix: What!

3:54:36 replied Fix, feigning surprise.

3:54:39 Fix: Is he... not with you?

3:54:41 Aouda: No. He has not been seen since yesterday. Can he have sailed without us on board the Carnatic?

3:54:47 Fix: Without you, madam?… But, excuse my asking, you meant to leave on that steamer, then?

3:54:53 Aouda: Yes, sir.

3:54:54 Fix: So did I, madam, and you see me very much disappointed. The Carnatic, having finished her repairs, left Hong Kong twelve hours early without warning anyone, and now we shall have to wait a week for the next sailing!

3:55:08 As he spoke the words 'a week,' Fix felt his heart leap with joy. A week! Fogg held for a week at Hong Kong! There would be time to receive the warrant of arrest. At last luck was declaring itself for the representative of the law.

3:55:25 Judge, then, of the stunning blow he received when he heard Phileas Fogg say in his calm voice:

3:55:32 Phileas Fogg: But there are other ships besides the Carnatic, it seems to me, in the port of Hong Kong.

3:55:38 And Mr. Fogg, offering his arm to Mrs. Aouda, made for the docks in search of a vessel about to sail.

3:55:45 Fix, dumbfounded, followed. It was as if a thread tied him to this man.

3:55:53 Yet luck did seem truly to have deserted the man it had served so well until then.

3:55:59 For three hours Phileas Fogg went up and down the harbour in every direction, determined if need be to charter a vessel to carry him to Yokohama; but he saw only ships loading or unloading, which consequently could not get under way. Fix began to hope again.

3:56:18 Mr. Fogg, however, was not disconcerted, and he was about to continue his search, even if it meant going as far as Macao, when he was accosted by a sailor on the outer harbour.

3:56:29 John Bunsby: Is Your Honour looking for a boat?

3:56:31 said the sailor, taking off his hat.

3:56:33 Phileas Fogg: You have a boat ready to sail?

3:56:36 John Bunsby: Yes, Your Honour, a pilot-boat, number forty-three, the best in the flotilla.

3:56:41 Phileas Fogg: Is she fast?

3:56:42 John Bunsby: Between eight and nine miles, close-hauled. Would you like to see her?

3:56:47 Phileas Fogg: Yes.

3:56:48 John Bunsby: Your Honour will be satisfied. Is it for a trip out to sea?

3:56:52 Phileas Fogg: No. For a voyage.

3:56:54 John Bunsby: A voyage?

3:56:55 Phileas Fogg: Will you undertake to take me to Yokohama?

3:56:58 At these words the sailor stood with his arms dangling and his eyes wide open.

3:57:04 John Bunsby: Your Honour is joking?

3:57:07 Phileas Fogg: No! I have missed the Carnatic, and I must be at Yokohama by the fourteenth at the latest, to catch the San Francisco steamer.

3:57:16 John Bunsby: I'm sorry, but it's impossible.

3:57:19 Phileas Fogg: I offer you a hundred pounds a day,

3:57:21 Two thousand five hundred francs.

3:57:23 Phileas Fogg: and a bonus of two hundred pounds if I arrive in time.

3:57:27 John Bunsby: Are you serious?

3:57:29 Phileas Fogg: Very serious.

3:57:30 The pilot had stepped aside. He was looking at the sea, evidently torn between the desire to earn an enormous sum and the fear of venturing so far. Fix was in mortal agonies.

3:57:44 Meanwhile Mr. Fogg had turned to Mrs. Aouda.

3:57:48 Phileas Fogg: You will not be afraid, madam?

3:57:50 Aouda: With you, no, Mr. Fogg.

3:57:53 The pilot had come up to the gentleman again and was turning his hat round in his hands.

3:57:58 Phileas Fogg: Well, pilot?

3:58:00 John Bunsby: Well, Your Honour, I can't risk my men, or myself, or you, on so long a passage in a boat of barely twenty tons, and at this time of year. Besides, we shouldn't arrive in time, for it's sixteen hundred and fifty miles from Hong Kong to Yokohama.

3:58:19 Phileas Fogg: Only sixteen hundred.

3:58:22 John Bunsby: It comes to the same thing.

3:58:24 Fix drew a long breath.

3:58:27 John Bunsby: But there might perhaps be another way of managing it.

3:58:31 Fix stopped breathing.

3:58:33 Phileas Fogg: How?

3:58:34 John Bunsby: By going to Nagasaki, at the southern tip of Japan, eleven hundred miles, or only to Shanghai, eight hundred miles from Hong Kong. On that last passage we should never be far from the Chinese coast, which would be a great advantage, all the more because the currents there set to the north.

3:58:52 Phileas Fogg: Pilot, it is at Yokohama that I must take the American mail-boat, not at Shanghai or Nagasaki.

3:58:59 John Bunsby: Why not? The San Francisco steamer doesn't start from Yokohama. She calls at Yokohama and Nagasaki, but her port of departure is Shanghai.

3:59:09 Phileas Fogg: You are certain of what you say?

3:59:11 John Bunsby: Certain.

3:59:12 Phileas Fogg: And when does the steamer leave Shanghai?

3:59:15 John Bunsby: On the eleventh, at seven in the evening. So we have four days before us.

3:59:20 John Bunsby: Four days is ninety-six hours, and with an average of eight miles an hour, if we're well served, if the wind holds in the south-east, if the sea is calm, we can knock off the eight hundred miles between us and Shanghai.

3:59:33 Phileas Fogg: And you could leave…?

3:59:35 John Bunsby: In an hour. Just time to buy provisions and get under way.

3:59:39 Phileas Fogg: It's a bargain… You are the master of the boat?

3:59:42 John Bunsby: Yes—John Bunsby, master of the Tankadere.

3:59:46 Phileas Fogg: Would you like something on account?

3:59:48 John Bunsby: If it's no inconvenience to Your Honour.

3:59:50 Phileas Fogg: Here are two hundred pounds on account… Sir,

3:59:54 added Phileas Fogg, turning to Fix,

3:59:57 Phileas Fogg: if you would care to take advantage…

3:59:59 Fix: Sir, I was about to ask you that favour.

4:00:02 Phileas Fogg: Good. In half an hour we shall be on board.

4:00:05 Aouda: But that poor fellow…

4:00:07 said Mrs. Aouda, who was extremely troubled by Passepartout's disappearance.

4:00:12 Phileas Fogg: I shall do for him everything I can.

4:00:16 And while Fix, nervous, feverish and fuming, went off to the pilot-boat, the two of them made their way to the offices of the Hong Kong police.

4:00:27 There Phileas Fogg gave a description of Passepartout and left a sum sufficient to send him home.

4:00:34 The same formality was gone through at the French consular agent's, and the palanquin, after calling at the hotel, where the luggage was picked up, brought the travellers back to the outer harbour.

4:00:48 Three o'clock was striking. Pilot-boat number forty-three, her crew on board and her provisions shipped, was ready to get under way.

4:00:57 The Tankadere was a charming little schooner of twenty tons, sharp in the bows, very clean in her run, very long in her water-lines. She looked like a racing yacht.

4:01:09 Her shining brass, her galvanised ironwork, her deck as white as ivory, showed that her master, John Bunsby, knew how to keep her in good trim. Her two masts raked a little aft.

4:01:24 She carried mainsail, foresail, fore-staysail, jibs and topsails, and could rig a square sail for running before the wind. She must have been a wonderful sailer, and in fact she had already won several prizes in pilot-boat 'matches.'

4:01:40 The Tankadere's crew consisted of her master, John Bunsby, and four men. They were of those bold seamen who venture out in all weathers in search of ships, and who know these seas admirably.

4:01:54 John Bunsby, a man of about forty-five, vigorous, tanned dark by the sun, with a keen eye and an energetic face, steady on his feet and a thorough master of his trade, would have inspired confidence in the most timid.

4:02:11 Phileas Fogg and Mrs. Aouda went on board. Fix was there already.

4:02:16 Through the schooner's after hatch one went down into a square cabin, whose walls were hollowed out into berths above a circular divan. In the middle stood a table lit by a swinging lamp. It was small, but clean.

4:02:32 Phileas Fogg: I am sorry I have nothing better to offer you,

4:02:34 said Mr. Fogg to Fix, who bowed without answering.

4:02:39 The police inspector felt something like humiliation at thus profiting by the kindnesses of the man Fogg.

4:02:46 Fix: He's a very polite rogue, to be sure, but he's a rogue!

4:02:52 At ten minutes past three the sails were hoisted. The English flag flew at the schooner's gaff. The passengers were seated on deck. Mr. Fogg and Mrs. Aouda cast a last look at the quay, to see whether Passepartout might not appear.

4:03:07 Fix was not without apprehension, for chance might have brought to this very spot the unfortunate fellow he had treated so shamefully, and then there would have been a stormy explanation, from which the detective would not have come off well.

4:03:23 But the Frenchman did not appear, and the stupefying narcotic no doubt still held him under its influence.

4:03:30 At last the master, John Bunsby, stood out to sea, and the Tankadere, taking the wind in her mainsail, foresail and jibs, leaped bounding over the waves.

4:03:42 Chapter XXI: In which the master of the Tankadere runs a great risk of losing a bonus of two hundred pounds

4:03:47 Chapter Twenty-one. In which the master of the Tankadere runs a great risk of losing a bonus of two hundred pounds.

4:03:56 It was an adventurous undertaking, this voyage of eight hundred miles in a craft of twenty tons, and above all at that season of the year. They are generally bad, these China seas, exposed to terrible gales, chiefly at the equinoxes; and it was still only the first days of November.

4:04:16 It would plainly have been to the pilot's advantage to carry his passengers all the way to Yokohama, since he was paid so much a day.

4:04:24 But it would have been great imprudence on his part to attempt such a crossing in such conditions; and it was already an act of daring, if not of rashness, to run up as far as Shanghai.

4:04:36 But John Bunsby had confidence in his Tankadere, which rose to the waves like a gull; and perhaps he was not wrong.

4:04:45 During the last hours of that day the Tankadere threaded the capricious channels of Hong Kong; and on every point of sailing, close-hauled or before the wind, she behaved admirably.

4:04:57 Phileas Fogg: I need not urge you, pilot,

4:04:59 said Phileas Fogg, as the schooner stood out into the open sea,

4:05:03 Phileas Fogg: to make all possible speed.

4:05:06 John Bunsby: Your Honour may leave that to me. In the way of sail, we are carrying all that the wind allows us to carry. Our topsails would add nothing; they would only weigh the boat down and spoil her speed.

4:05:18 Phileas Fogg: It is your trade, pilot, and not mine, and I rely on you.

4:05:22 Phileas Fogg, body erect, legs apart, steady as a sailor, watched the heaving sea without flinching.

4:05:31 The young woman, seated in the stern, was moved as she gazed at that ocean, already darkened by the dusk, which she was braving in so frail a craft. Above her head spread the white sails, bearing her away into space like great wings. The schooner, lifted by the wind, seemed to fly through the air.

4:05:54 Night came. The moon was entering her first quarter, and her feeble light would soon die out in the mists of the horizon. Clouds were driving up from the east and already covered part of the sky.

4:06:08 The pilot had hung out his lights—an indispensable precaution in these seas, which are so crowded near the landfalls. Collisions with other ships were not uncommon there; and at the speed she was going, the schooner would have been shattered by the slightest blow.

4:06:25 Fix sat musing in the bow of the boat. He kept apart, knowing Fogg to be by nature no talker. Besides, it went against the grain with him to speak to this man whose services he was accepting.

4:06:39 He was thinking, too, of what lay ahead. It seemed certain to him that the man Fogg would not stop at Yokohama; that he would at once take the San Francisco steamer to reach America, whose vast extent would assure him impunity together with safety.

4:06:57 Phileas Fogg's plan seemed to him as simple as could be.

4:07:01 Instead of sailing from England for the United States, like a common rogue, this Fogg had gone the long way round and crossed three-quarters of the globe, so as to reach the American continent the more surely; and there, having thrown the police off the scent, he would quietly eat up the Bank's million.

4:07:20 But once on the soil of the Union, what would Fix do? Would he abandon this man? No, a hundred times no! Until he had obtained an extradition order, he would not stir a step from his side. It was his duty, and he would carry it out to the end.

4:07:38 In any case, one fortunate thing had happened: Passepartout was no longer with his master; and above all, after Fix's confidences, it was important that master and servant should never meet again.

4:07:52 Phileas Fogg, for his part, was not without his own thoughts of the servant who had vanished so strangely. All things considered, it did not seem impossible to him that, through some misunderstanding, the poor fellow had gone aboard the Carnatic at the last moment.

4:08:09 This was also the opinion of Mrs. Aouda, who deeply missed the honest servant to whom she owed so much. It might be, then, that they would find him again at Yokohama; and if the Carnatic had carried him there, it would be easy to find out.

4:08:26 Towards ten o'clock the breeze began to freshen. It might perhaps have been prudent to take in a reef; but the pilot, after carefully studying the state of the sky, left the canvas as it stood.

4:08:39 Besides, the Tankadere carried sail admirably, having a deep draught, and everything was ready to be lowered quickly in case of a squall.

4:08:48 At midnight Phileas Fogg and Mrs. Aouda went down into the cabin. Fix had gone before them and was stretched out on one of the bunks. As for the pilot and his men, they stayed on deck all night.

4:09:03 The next day, the eighth of November, at sunrise, the schooner had made more than a hundred miles. The log, heaved again and again, showed that her average speed was between eight and nine miles.

4:09:17 The Tankadere had the wind free, with every sail drawing, and on that point of sailing she reached her greatest speed. If the wind held like this, the odds were in her favour.

4:09:29 Throughout that day the Tankadere did not stand off from the coast to any appreciable distance, for its currents were in her favour. She had it five miles off at most on her port quarter; and that coast, with its ragged outline, could now and then be glimpsed through breaks in the mist.

4:09:48 The wind being off the land, the sea was for that very reason less heavy. This was a fortunate circumstance for the schooner, for craft of small tonnage suffer above all from the swell, which breaks their speed, which 'kills' them, to use the sailors' expression.

4:10:05 Towards noon the breeze slackened a little and hauled round to the south-east. The pilot had the topsails set; but after two hours they had to be taken in again, for the wind was freshening once more.

4:10:19 Mr. Fogg and the young woman, very happily proof against seasickness, ate the ship's preserved meats and biscuit with a good appetite.

4:10:28 Fix was invited to share their meal and was obliged to accept, knowing well that it is as necessary to ballast stomachs as boats; but it galled him!

4:10:38 To travel at this man's expense, to be fed from his own stores—he found something not quite honourable in that.

4:10:47 He ate, however—a hasty bite, it is true—but eat he did.

4:10:53 Nevertheless, when the meal was over, he thought it his duty to take the man Fogg aside, and he said to him:

4:11:01 Fix: Sir…

4:11:02 That 'sir' burned his lips, and it was all he could do to keep his hand off the collar of this 'sir'!

4:11:10 Fix: Sir, you have been most obliging in offering me a passage on your boat. But although my means do not allow me to act as handsomely as you do, I intend to pay my share…

4:11:21 Phileas Fogg: Let us not speak of that, sir.

4:11:23 Fix: But I must; I insist…

4:11:26 Phileas Fogg: No, sir,

4:11:27 repeated Fogg, in a tone that admitted no reply.

4:11:30 Phileas Fogg: It comes under general expenses!

4:11:34 Fix bowed. He was choking; and going to stretch himself out in the bow of the schooner, he did not say another word for the rest of the day.

4:11:44 Meanwhile they were making good speed. John Bunsby was full of hope. Several times he told Mr. Fogg that they would reach Shanghai in good time. Mr. Fogg simply replied that he counted on it.

4:11:58 Besides, the whole crew of the little schooner was putting its heart into the work. The bonus had made these good fellows' mouths water.

4:12:07 And so there was not a sheet that was not conscientiously hauled taut! Not a sail that was not vigorously stretched! Not a yaw for which the man at the helm could be blamed!

4:12:17 They could not have handled her more strictly in a regatta of the Royal Yacht Club.

4:12:23 By evening the pilot had logged a run of two hundred and twenty miles from Hong Kong, and Phileas Fogg could hope that, on reaching Yokohama, he would have no delay to enter in his programme. And so the first serious mishap he had met with since leaving London would probably do him no harm at all.

4:12:44 During the night, towards the early hours of the morning, the Tankadere fairly entered the Strait of Fo-Kien, which separates the great island of Formosa from the Chinese coast, and crossed the Tropic of Cancer.

4:12:57 The sea was very rough in this strait, which is full of eddies formed by the counter-currents. The schooner laboured heavily. The short, chopping waves broke her way. It became very difficult to stand upright on deck.

4:13:12 With daybreak the wind freshened still more. The sky had the look of a gale.

4:13:19 Moreover, the barometer foretold an early change in the weather; its daily movement was irregular, and the mercury rose and fell capriciously.

4:13:29 The sea, too, could be seen heaving up towards the south-east in long swells 'that smelt of the storm'. The evening before, the sun had set in a red haze, amid the phosphorescent sparkling of the ocean.

4:13:45 The pilot studied the ugly look of the sky for a long time, muttering between his teeth things that could hardly be made out. At one moment, finding himself close to his passenger:

4:13:58 John Bunsby: May one tell Your Honour everything?

4:14:00 Phileas Fogg: Everything.

4:14:01 John Bunsby: Well, then, we are going to have a gale.

4:14:05 Phileas Fogg: Will it come from the north or from the south?

4:14:08 John Bunsby: From the south. Look. There's a typhoon brewing!

4:14:11 Phileas Fogg: So be it: a typhoon from the south, since it will drive us the right way.

4:14:17 John Bunsby: If you take it like that, I have nothing more to say!

4:14:22 John Bunsby's forebodings did not deceive him. At a less advanced season of the year the typhoon, in the phrase of a celebrated meteorologist, would have passed off like a luminous cascade of electric flames; but at the winter equinox it was to be feared that it would break loose with violence.

4:14:42 The pilot took his precautions in advance. He had all the schooner's sails furled and the yards lowered on deck. The topmasts were sent down. The jib-boom was run in. The hatches were carefully battened down.

4:14:56 From then on not a drop of water could get into the hull. A single triangular sail, a storm jib of stout canvas, was hoisted as a forestaysail, so as to keep the schooner before the wind.

4:15:10 And they waited.

4:15:12 John Bunsby had urged his passengers to go below into the cabin; but in a narrow space, almost without air, and with the tossing of the swell, such imprisonment was anything but pleasant. Neither Mr. Fogg, nor Mrs. Aouda, nor even Fix himself would consent to leave the deck.

4:15:32 Towards eight o'clock the storm of rain and wind broke over them. With nothing but her little scrap of canvas, the Tankadere was lifted like a feather by that wind, of which no exact idea can be given when it blows a full tempest.

4:15:46 To compare its speed with four times the speed of a locomotive running at full steam would be to fall short of the truth.

4:15:55 All that day the boat ran on to the north in this way, carried along by the monstrous waves, and happily keeping up a speed equal to theirs. Twenty times she was all but overwhelmed by one of those mountains of water that reared up astern; but a deft turn of the helm by the pilot warded off disaster.

4:16:15 At times the passengers were drenched from head to foot by the spray, which they took philosophically. Fix grumbled, no doubt.

4:16:25 But the intrepid Aouda, her eyes fixed on her companion, whose coolness she could only admire, showed herself worthy of him and braved the storm at his side.

4:16:37 As for Phileas Fogg, it seemed as though the typhoon had been part of his programme.

4:16:44 Until then the Tankadere had kept on her course to the north; but towards evening, as might have been feared, the wind veered three points and hauled round to the north-west.

4:16:55 The schooner, now lying broadside to the waves, was frightfully tossed about. The sea struck her with a violence well calculated to terrify anyone who does not know how solidly all the parts of a vessel are bound together.

4:17:11 With nightfall the tempest grew fiercer still. Seeing the darkness come on, and the storm increase with the darkness, John Bunsby felt keen anxiety. He wondered whether it was not time to put into port, and he consulted his crew.

4:17:28 Having consulted his men, John Bunsby went up to Mr. Fogg and said to him:

4:17:33 John Bunsby: I think, Your Honour, that we should do well to make for one of the ports on the coast.

4:17:39 Phileas Fogg: I think so too.

4:17:41 John Bunsby: Ah! But which one?

4:17:43 Phileas Fogg: I know of only one.

4:17:45 John Bunsby: And that is…?

4:17:47 Phileas Fogg: Shanghai.

4:17:49 For a few moments the pilot did not understand this answer: what it meant, how much obstinacy and tenacity it contained. Then he cried:

4:17:59 John Bunsby: Well, yes! Your Honour is right. To Shanghai!

4:18:04 And the Tankadere was held unswervingly on her course to the north.

4:18:09 A truly terrible night! It was a miracle that the little schooner did not capsize. Twice she was thrown on her beam-ends, and everything on board would have been swept away had the lashings given way.

4:18:23 Mrs. Aouda was worn out, but she did not utter a single complaint. More than once Mr. Fogg had to rush to her side to shield her from the violence of the waves.

4:18:36 Day came again. The tempest was still raging with extreme fury. However, the wind fell back into the south-east.

4:18:45 It was a favourable change, and the Tankadere once more made her way over that wild sea, whose waves now clashed with those raised by the wind from its new quarter. Hence a shock of cross-seas that would have crushed a less solidly built craft.

4:19:02 From time to time the coast could be glimpsed through the torn mists, but not a ship was in sight. The Tankadere was alone in keeping the sea.

4:19:12 At noon there were some signs of a lull, and as the sun sank towards the horizon these grew more marked.

4:19:19 The shortness of the storm was due to its very violence. The passengers, utterly worn out, were able to eat a little and take some rest.

4:19:29 The night was comparatively peaceful. The pilot had his sails set again, close-reefed. The boat's speed was considerable. The next day, the eleventh, at daybreak, having made out the coast, John Bunsby could state that they were not a hundred miles from Shanghai.

4:19:49 A hundred miles, and only that one day left to cover them! Mr. Fogg had to reach Shanghai that very evening if he was not to miss the departure of the Yokohama steamer.

4:20:00 But for the storm, in which he had lost several hours, he would not at that moment have been thirty miles from port.

4:20:08 The breeze was falling off appreciably, but happily the sea was going down with it. The schooner crowded on all her canvas. Topsails, staysails, flying jib—everything was drawing, and the sea foamed under her stem.

4:20:23 At noon the Tankadere was no more than forty-five miles from Shanghai. She still had six hours to reach that port before the departure of the Yokohama steamer.

4:20:34 Fears ran high on board. They meant to arrive at any cost. Every one of them—Phileas Fogg excepted, no doubt—felt his heart beating with impatience.

4:20:45 The little schooner had to keep up an average of nine miles an hour, and the wind was still dropping! It was an irregular breeze, fitful puffs coming off the coast. They passed, and the sea smoothed its wrinkles the moment they were gone.

4:21:00 Yet the boat was so light, and her tall sails of fine cloth gathered in the wayward breezes so well, that, with the current helping, at six o'clock John Bunsby reckoned only ten miles more to the Shanghai river; for the city itself lies at least twelve miles above its mouth.

4:21:19 At seven o'clock they were still three miles from Shanghai. A tremendous oath escaped the pilot's lips…

4:21:27 The bonus of two hundred pounds was plainly about to escape him. He looked at Mr. Fogg. Mr. Fogg was impassive; and yet his whole fortune hung on that moment…

4:21:39 At that moment, too, a long black spindle, crowned with a plume of smoke, appeared low on the water. It was the American steamer, leaving at the regulation hour.

4:21:51 John Bunsby: Damnation!

4:21:52 cried John Bunsby, thrusting the tiller from him with a despairing arm.

4:21:57 Phileas Fogg: Signals!

4:21:58 A small bronze cannon lay along the bow of the Tankadere. It was used for making signals in foggy weather.

4:22:06 The cannon was loaded to the muzzle; but just as the pilot was about to put a live coal to the touch-hole:

4:22:13 Phileas Fogg: The flag at half-mast.

4:22:16 The flag was lowered to half-mast. It was a signal of distress, and it might be hoped that the American steamer, seeing it, would alter her course for a moment to come up with the boat.

4:22:28 Phileas Fogg: Fire!

4:22:30 And the report of the little bronze cannon burst upon the air.