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Around the World in Eighty Days
Chapter 15. IN WHICH THE BAG OF BANKNOTES DISGORGES SOME THOUSANDS OF POUNDS MORE
The train entered the station, and Passepartout jumping out first, was followed by Mr. Fogg, who assisted his fair companion to descend.
Phileas Fogg intended to proceed at once to the Hong Kong steamer, in order to get Aouda comfortably settled for the voyage.
He was unwilling to leave her while they were still on dangerous ground.
Just as he was leaving the station a policeman came up to him, and said, "Mr. Phileas Fogg?"
"I'm he."
"Is this man your servant?" added the policeman, pointing to Passepartout.
"Yes."
"Be so good, both of you, as to follow me."
Mr. Fogg betrayed no surprise whatever.
The policeman was a representative of the law, and law is sacred to an Englishman.
Passepartout tried to reason about the matter, but the policeman tapped him with his stick, and Mr.
Fogg made him a signal to obey.
Fogg made him a signal to obey.
"May this young lady go with us?" asked he.
"She may," replied the policeman.
Mr. Fogg, Aouda and Passepartout were led to a palkigahri, a four-wheeled carriage drawn by two horses, and driven away.
No one spoke during the twenty minutes which elapsed before they reached their destination.
They first passed through the "black town," with its narrow streets, miserable, dirty huts, and squalid population.
Then they passed through the "European town," a relief in bright brick mansions shaded by coconut-trees and bristling with masts.
Although it was early morning, elegantly dressed horsemen and handsome equipages were passing back and forth.
The carriage stopped before a modest-looking house, which, however, didn't have the appearance of a private mansion.
The policeman having requested his prisoners, for so, truly, they might be called, to descend, conducted them into a room with barred windows, and said,
"You'll appear before Judge Obadiah at half-past eight."
He then retired, and closed the door.
"Why, we're prisoners!" exclaimed Passepartout, falling into a chair.
Aouda, with an emotion she tried to conceal, said to Mr. Fogg, "Sir, you must leave me to my fate!"
"It's on my account that you receive this treatment, it's for having saved me!"
Phileas Fogg contented himself with saying that it was impossible.
It was quite unlikely that he should be arrested for preventing a suttee.
The complainants wouldn't dare present themselves with such a charge.
There was some mistake, Moreover, he wouldn't, in any event, abandon Aouda, but would escort her to Hong Kong.
"But the steamer leaves at noon!" observed Passepartout, nervously.
"We shall be on board by noon," replied his master, placidly.
It was said so positively that Passepartout couldn't help muttering to himself, "Parbleu that's certain!"
"Before noon we shall be on board." But he was by no means reassured.
At half-past eight the door opened, the policeman appeared, and, requesting them to follow him, led the way to an adjoining hall.
It was evidently a court-room, and a crowd of Europeans and natives already occupied the rear of the apartment.
Mr. Fogg and his two companions took their places on a bench opposite the desks of the magistrate and his clerk.
Immediately after, Judge Obadiah, a fat, round man, followed by the clerk, entered.
He proceeded to take down a wig which was hanging on a nail, and put it hurriedly on his head.
"The first case," said he.
Then, putting his hand to his head, he exclaimed, "Heh! This isn't my wig!"
"No, your worship," returned the clerk, "it's mine."
"My dear Mr. Oysterpuff, how can a judge give a wise sentence in a clerk's wig?"
The judge and the clerk swapped their wigs and laughed a little.
Passepartout was getting nervous, for the hands on the face of the big clock over the judge seemed to go around with terrible rapidity.
"The first case," repeated Judge Obadiah.
"Phileas Fogg?" demanded Oysterpuff.
"I'm here," replied Mr. Fogg.
"Passepartout?"
"Present," responded Passepartout.
"Good," said the judge.
"You have been looked for, prisoners, for two days on the trains from Bombay."
"But of what are we accused?" asked Passepartout, impatiently.
"You're about to be informed."
"I'm an English subject, sir," said Mr. Fogg, "and I have the right, "
"Have you been ill-treated?"
"Not at all."
"Very well, let the complainants come in."
A door was swung open by order of the judge, and three Indian priests entered.
"That's it," muttered Passepartout, "these are the rogues who were going to burn our young lady."
The priests took their places in front of the judge.
The clerk read a complaint that Phileas Fogg and his servant had entered a place held holy by the Brahmin religion.
"You hear the charge?" asked the judge.
"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Fogg, consulting his watch, "and I admit it."
"You admit it?"
"I admit it, and I wish to hear these priests admit, in their turn, what they were going to do at the pagoda of Pillaji."
The priests looked at each other, they didn't seem to understand what was said.
"Yes," cried Passepartout, warmly, "at the pagoda of Pillaji, where they were on the point of burning their victim."
The judge stared with astonishment, and the priests were stupefied.
"What victim?" said Judge Obadiah.
"Burn whom? In Bombay itself?"
"Bombay?" cried Passepartout.
"Certainly. We aren't talking of the pagoda of Pillaji, but of the pagoda of Malabar Hill, at Bombay."
"And as a proof," added the clerk, "here are the desecrator's very shoes, which he left behind him."
Whereupon he placed a pair of shoes on his desk.
"My shoes!" cried Passepartout, in his surprise permitting this imprudent exclamation to escape him.
The confusion of master and man, who had quite forgotten the affair at Bombay, for which they were now detained at Calcutta, may be imagined.
Fix had foreseen the advantage Passepartout's escapade gave him and, delaying his departure twelve hours, consulted the priests of Malabar Hill.
He knew the English would punish this kind of crime, so he promised them a large sum of money.
He sent them forward to Calcutta by the next train.
Because of the rescue of the young widow, Fix and priests reached the Indian capital before Mr. Fogg and his servant.
The magistrates had already been warned by a dispatch to arrest them should they arrive.
Fix's disappointment when he learned that Phileas Fogg hadn't made his appearance in Calcutta may be imagined.
He made up his mind that the robber had stopped somewhere on the route and taken refuge in the southern provinces.
For twenty-four hours Fix watched the station with feverish anxiety.
At last he was rewarded when he saw Mr. Fogg and Passepartout arrive.
They were accompanied by a young woman, whose presence he couldn't explain.
He hastened for a policeman, and this was how the party came to be arrested and brought before Judge Obadiah.
Had Passepartout been a little less preoccupied, he'd have espied the detective ensconced in a corner of the court-room.
The detective watched proceedings with interest, for the warrant had not reached him at Calcutta, as it had at Bombay and Suez.
Judge Obadiah had unfortunately caught Passepartout's rash exclamation, which the poor fellow would have given the world to recall.
"The facts are admitted?" asked the judge.
"Admitted," replied Mr. Fogg, coldly.
"Inasmuch," resumed the judge, "the English law protects equally and sternly the religions of the Indian people."
"The man Passepartout has admitted that he entered the sacred pagoda of Malabar Hill, at Bombay, on the 20th of October."
"I condemn the said Passepartout to jail for fifteen days and a fine of three hundred pounds".
"Three hundred pounds!" cried Passepartout, startled at the largeness of the sum.
"Silence!" shouted the constable.
"And inasmuch," continued the judge.
"It isn't proved that the act wasn't done by the connivance of the master with the servant."
"The master, in any case, must be held responsible for the acts of his paid servant."
"I condemn Phileas Fogg to a week's imprisonment and a fine of one hundred and fifty pounds."
Fix rubbed his hands, if Phileas Fogg were held in Calcutta a week, the arrest warrant would arrive.
Passepartout was stupefied, this sentence ruined his master.
A wager of twenty thousand pounds lost, because he, like a precious fool, had gone into that abominable pagoda!
Phileas Fogg, as self-composed as if the judgment didn't in the least concern him, didn't even lift his eyebrows while it was being pronounced.
Just as the clerk was calling the next case, he rose, and said, "I offer bail."
"You have that right," returned the judge.
Fix's blood ran cold, but he recovered when he heard the judge say bail for each prisoner was one thousand pounds.
"I'll pay it at once," said Mr.
Fogg, taking a roll of bank-bills from the carpet-bag, which Passepartout had by him, and placing them on the clerk's desk.
Fogg, taking a roll of bank-bills from the carpet-bag, which Passepartout had by him, and placing them on the clerk's desk.
"This sum will be restored to you upon your release from prison," said the judge.
"Meanwhile, you're liberated on bail."
"Come!" said Phileas Fogg to his servant.
"But let them at least give me back my shoes!" cried Passepartout angrily.
"Ah, these are pretty dear shoes!" he muttered, as they were handed to him.
"More than a thousand pounds apiece, besides, they pinch my feet."
Mr. Fogg, offering his arm to Aouda, then departed, followed by the crestfallen Passepartout.
Fix still hoped the robber would not leave the two thousand pounds behind him but would stay in jail.
He set off to follow Mr. Fogg.
That gentleman took a carriage, and the party were soon landed on one of the quays.
The "Rangoon" was moored half a mile off in the harbour, its signal of departure hoisted at the mast-head.
Eleven o'clock was striking, Mr. Fogg was an hour in advance of time.
Fix saw them leave the carriage and push off in a boat for the steamer, and stamped his feet with disappointment.
"The rascal is off, after all!" he exclaimed.
"Two thousand pounds sacrificed!"
"He's as prodigal as a thief!"
"I'll follow him to the end of the world if necessary, but, at the rate he's going on, the stolen money will soon be exhausted."
The detective wasn't far wrong in making this conjecture.
Since leaving London, Mr. Fogg had already spent over five thousand pounds on travel costs, bribes, the elephant, bail, and fines.
The percentage of the sum recovered from the bank robber that was promised to the detectives was rapidly diminishing.