The steam
curled
in spirals
There
was the animal
in question |
he
train had started punctually. Among the passengers were a number of
officers, Government officials, and opium and indigo merchants, whose business
called them to the eastern coast. Passepartout rode in the same carriage
with his master, and a third passenger occupied a seat opposite to them.
This was Sir Francis Cromarty, one of Mr. Fogg's whist partners on the
Mongolia, now on his way to join his corps at Benares. Sir Francis was
a tall, fair man of fifty, who had greatly distinguished himself in the
last Sepoy revolt. He made India his home, only paying brief visits to
England at rare intervals; and was almost as familiar as a native with
the customs, history, and character of India and its people. But Phileas
Fogg, who was not travelling, but only describing a circumference, took
no pains to inquire into these subjects; he was a solid body, traversing
an orbit around the terrestrial globe, according to the laws of rational
mechanics. He was at this moment calculating in his mind the number of
hours spent since his departure from London, and, had it been in his nature
to make a useless demonstration, would have rubbed his hands for satisfaction.
Sir Francis Cromarty had observed the oddity of his travelling companion--although
the only opportunity he had for studying him had been while he was dealing
the cards, and between two rubbers--and questioned himself whether a human
heart really beat beneath this cold exterior, and whether Phileas Fogg
had any sense of the beauties of nature. The brigadier-general was free
to mentally confess that, of all the eccentric persons he had ever met,
none was comparable to this product of the exact sciences.
Phileas
Fogg had not concealed from Sir Francis his design of going round the world,
nor the circumstances under which he set out; and the general only saw
in the wager a useless eccentricity and a lack of sound common sense. In
the way this strange gentleman was going on, he would leave the world without
having done any good to himself or anybody else.
An hour
after leaving Bombay the train had passed the viaducts and the Island of
Salcette, and had got into the open country. At Callyan they reached the
junction of the branch line which descends towards south-eastern India
by Kandallah and Pounah; and, passing Pauwell, they entered the defiles
of the mountains, with their basalt bases, and their summits crowned with
thick and verdant forests. Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty exchanged
a few words from time to time, and now Sir Francis, reviving the conversation,
observed, "Some years ago, Mr. Fogg, you would have met with a delay at
this point which would probably have lost you your wager."
"How so,
Sir Francis?"
"Because
the railway stopped at the base of these mountains, which the passengers
were obliged to cross in palanquins or on ponies to Kandallah, on the other
side."
"Such
a delay would not have deranged my plans in the least," said Mr. Fogg.
"I have constantly foreseen the likelihood of certain obstacles."
"But,
Mr. Fogg," pursued Sir Francis, "you run the risk of having some difficulty
about this worthy fellow's adventure at the pagoda." Passepartout, his
feet comfortably wrapped in his travelling-blanket, was sound asleep and
did not dream that anybody was talking about him. "The Government is very
severe upon that kind of offence. It takes particular care that the religious
customs of the Indians should be respected, and if your servant were caught--"
"Very
well, Sir Francis," replied Mr. Fogg; "if he had been caught he would have
been condemned and punished, and then would have quietly returned to Europe.
I don't see how this affair could have delayed his master."
The conversation
fell again. During the night the train left the mountains behind, and passed
Nassik, and the next day proceeded over the flat, well-cultivated country
of the Khandeish, with its straggling villages, above which rose the minarets
of the pagodas. This fertile territory is watered by numerous small rivers
and limpid streams, mostly tributaries of the Godavery.
Passepartout,
on waking and looking out, could not realise that he was actually crossing
India in a railway train. The locomotive, guided by an English engineer
and fed with English coal, threw out its smoke upon cotton, coffee, nutmeg,
clove, and pepper plantations, while the steam curled in spirals around
groups of palm-trees, in the midst of which were seen picturesque bungalows,
viharis (sort of abandoned monasteries), and marvellous temples enriched
by the exhaustless ornamentation of Indian architecture. Then they came
upon vast tracts extending to the horizon, with jungles inhabited by snakes
and tigers, which fled at the noise of the train; succeeded by forests
penetrated by the railway, and still haunted by elephants which, with pensive
eyes, gazed at the train as it passed. The travellers crossed, beyond Milligaum,
the fatal country so often stained with blood by the sectaries of the goddess
Kali. Not far off rose Ellora, with its graceful pagodas, and the famous
Aurungabad, capital of the ferocious Aureng-Zeb, now the chief town of
one of the detached provinces of the kingdom of the Nizam. It was thereabouts
that Feringhea, the Thuggee chief, king of the stranglers, held his sway.
These ruffians, united by a secret bond, strangled victims of every age
in honour of the goddess Death, without ever shedding blood; there was
a period when this part of the country could scarcely be travelled over
without corpses being found in every direction. The English Government
has succeeded in greatly diminishing these murders, though the Thuggees
still exist, and pursue the exercise of their horrible rites.
At half-past
twelve the train stopped at Burhampoor where Passepartout was able to purchase
some Indian slippers, ornamented with false pearls, in which, with evident
vanity, he proceeded to encase his feet. The travellers made a hasty breakfast
and started off for Assurghur, after skirting for a little the banks of
the small river Tapty, which empties into the Gulf of Cambray, near Surat.
Passepartout
was now plunged into absorbing reverie. Up to his arrival at Bombay, he
had entertained hopes that their journey would end there; but, now that
they were plainly whirling across India at full speed, a sudden change
had come over the spirit of his dreams. His old vagabond nature returned
to him; the fantastic ideas of his youth once more took possession of him.
He came to regard his master's project as intended in good earnest, believed
in the reality of the bet, and therefore in the tour of the world and the
necessity of making it without fail within the designated period. Already
he began to worry about possible delays, and accidents which might happen
on the way. He recognised himself as being personally interested in the
wager, and trembled at the thought that he might have been the means of
losing it by his unpardonable folly of the night before. Being much less
cool-headed than Mr. Fogg, he was much more restless, counting and recounting
the days passed over, uttering maledictions when the train stopped, and
accusing it of sluggishness, and mentally blaming Mr. Fogg for not having
bribed the engineer. The worthy fellow was ignorant that, while it was
possible by such means to hasten the rate of a steamer, it could not be
done on the railway.
The train
entered the defiles of the Sutpour Mountains, which separate the Khandeish
from Bundelcund, towards evening. The next day Sir Francis Cromarty asked
Passepartout what time it was; to which, on consulting his watch, he replied
that it was three in the morning. This famous timepiece, always regulated
on the Greenwich meridian, which was now some seventy-seven degrees westward,
was at least four hours slow. Sir Francis corrected Passepartout's time,
whereupon the latter made the same remark that he had done to Fix; and
upon the general insisting that the watch should be regulated in each new
meridian, since he was constantly going eastward, that is in the face of
the sun, and therefore the days were shorter by four minutes for each degree
gone over, Passepartout obstinately refused to alter his watch, which he
kept at London time. It was an innocent delusion which could harm no one.
The train
stopped, at eight o'clock, in the midst of a glade some fifteen miles beyond
Rothal, where there were several bungalows, and workmen's cabins. The conductor,
passing along the carriages, shouted, "Passengers will get out here!"
Phileas
Fogg looked at Sir Francis Cromarty for an explanation; but the general
could not tell what meant a halt in the midst of this forest of dates and
acacias.
Passepartout,
not less surprised, rushed out and speedily returned, crying: "Monsieur,
no more railway!"
"What
do you mean?" asked Sir Francis.
"I mean
to say that the train isn't going on."
The general
at once stepped out, while Phileas Fogg calmly followed him, and they proceeded
together to the conductor.
"Where
are we?" asked Sir Francis.
"At the
hamlet of Kholby."
"Do we
stop here?"
"Certainly.
The railway isn't finished."
"What!
not finished?"
"No. There's
still a matter of fifty miles to be laid from here to Allahabad, where
the line begins again."
"But the
papers announced the opening of the railway throughout."
"What
would you have, officer? The papers were mistaken."
"Yet you
sell tickets from Bombay to Calcutta," retorted Sir Francis, who was growing
warm.
"No doubt,"
replied the conductor; "but the passengers know that they must provide
means of transportation for themselves from Kholby to Allahabad."
Sir Francis
was furious. Passepartout would willingly have knocked the conductor down,
and did not dare to look at his master.
"Sir Francis,"
said Mr. Fogg quietly, "we will, if you please, look about for some means
of conveyance to Allahabad."
"Mr. Fogg,
this is a delay greatly to your disadvantage."
"No, Sir
Francis; it was foreseen."
"What!
You knew that the way--"
"Not at
all; but I knew that some obstacle or other would sooner or later arise
on my route. Nothing, therefore, is lost. I have two days, which I have
already gained, to sacrifice. A steamer leaves Calcutta for Hong Kong at
noon, on the 25th. This is the 22nd, and we shall reach Calcutta in time."
There
was nothing to say to so confident a response.
It was
but too true that the railway came to a termination at this point. The
papers were like some watches, which have a way of getting too fast, and
had been premature in their announcement of the completion of the line.
The greater part of the travellers were aware of this interruption, and,
leaving the train, they began to engage such vehicles as the village could
provide four-wheeled palkigharis, waggons drawn by zebus, carriages that
looked like perambulating pagodas, palanquins, ponies, and what not.
Mr. Fogg
and Sir Francis Cromarty, after searching the village from end to end,
came back without having found anything.
"I shall
go afoot," said Phileas Fogg.
Passepartout,
who had now rejoined his master, made a wry grimace, as he thought of his
magnificent, but too frail Indian shoes. Happily he too had been looking
about him, and, after a moment's hesitation, said, "Monsieur, I think I
have found a means of conveyance." "What?"
"An elephant!
An elephant that belongs to an Indian who lives but a hundred steps from
here."
"Let's
go and see the elephant," replied Mr. Fogg.
They soon
reached a small hut, near which, enclosed within some high palings, was
the animal in question. An Indian came out of the hut, and, at their request,
conducted them within the enclosure. The elephant, which its owner had
reared, not for a beast of burden, but for warlike purposes, was half domesticated.
The Indian had begun already, by often irritating him, and feeding him
every three months on sugar and butter, to impart to him a ferocity not
in his nature, this method being often employed by those who train the
Indian elephants for battle. Happily, however, for Mr. Fogg, the animal's
instruction in this direction had not gone far, and the elephant still
preserved his natural gentleness. Kiouni--this was the name of the beast--could
doubtless travel rapidly for a long time, and, in default of any other
means of conveyance, Mr. Fogg resolved to hire him. But elephants are far
from cheap in India, where they are becoming scarce, the males, which alone
are suitable for circus shows, are much sought, especially as but few of
them are domesticated. When therefore Mr. Fogg proposed to the Indian to
hire Kiouni, he refused point-blank. Mr. Fogg persisted, offering the excessive
sum of ten pounds an hour for the loan of the beast to Allahabad. Refused.
Twenty pounds? Refused also. Forty pounds? Still refused. Passepartout
jumped at each advance; but the Indian declined to be tempted. Yet the
offer was an alluring one, for, supposing it took the elephant fifteen
hours to reach Allahabad, his owner would receive no less than six hundred
pounds sterling.
Phileas
Fogg, without getting in the least flurried, then proposed to purchase
the animal outright, and at first offered a thousand pounds for him. The
Indian, perhaps thinking he was going to make a great bargain, still refused.
Sir Francis
Cromarty took Mr. Fogg aside, and begged him to reflect before he went
any further; to which that gentleman replied that he was not in the habit
of acting rashly, that a bet of twenty thousand pounds was at stake, that
the elephant was absolutely necessary to him, and that he would secure
him if he had to pay twenty times his value. Returning to the Indian, whose
small, sharp eyes, glistening with avarice, betrayed that with him it was
only a question of how great a price he could obtain. Mr. Fogg offered
first twelve hundred, then fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, two thousand
pounds. Passepartout, usually so rubicund, was fairly white with suspense.
At two
thousand pounds the Indian yielded.
"What
a price, good heavens!" cried Passepartout, "for an elephant.
It only
remained now to find a guide, which was comparatively easy. A young Parsee,
with an intelligent face, offered his services, which Mr. Fogg accepted,
promising so generous a reward as to materially stimulate his zeal. The
elephant was led out and equipped. The Parsee, who was an accomplished
elephant driver, covered his back with a sort of saddle-cloth, and attached
to each of his flanks some curiously uncomfortable howdahs. Phileas Fogg
paid the Indian with some banknotes which he extracted from the famous
carpet-bag, a proceeding that seemed to deprive poor Passepartout of his
vitals. Then he offered to carry Sir Francis to Allahabad, which the brigadier
gratefully accepted, as one traveller the more would not be likely to fatigue
the gigantic beast. Provisions were purchased at Kholby, and, while Sir
Francis and Mr. Fogg took the howdahs on either side, Passepartout got
astride the saddle-cloth between them. The Parsee perched himself on the
elephant's neck, and at nine o'clock they set out from the village, the
animal marching off through the dense forest of palms by the shortest cut. |