Night
came, and
Passepartout
re-
entered
the native
quarter... |
he
Carnatic, setting sail from Hong Kong at half-past six on the 7th of
November, directed her course at full steam towards Japan. She carried
a large cargo and a well-filled cabin of passengers. Two state-rooms in
the rear were, however, unoccupied—those which had been engaged by Phileas
Fogg.
The next
day a passenger with a half-stupefied eye, staggering gait, and disordered
hair, was seen to emerge from the second cabin, and to totter to a seat
on deck.
It was
Passepartout; and what had happened to him was as follows: Shortly after
Fix left the opium den, two waiters had lifted the unconscious Passepartout,
and had carried him to the bed reserved for the smokers. Three hours later,
pursued even in his dreams by a fixed idea, the poor fellow awoke, and
struggled against the stupefying influence of the narcotic. The thought
of a duty unfulfilled shook off his torpor, and he hurried from the abode
of drunkenness. Staggering and holding himself up by keeping against the
walls, falling down and creeping up again, and irresistibly impelled by
a kind of instinct, he kept crying out, "The Carnatic! the Carnatic!"
The steamer
lay puffing alongside the quay, on the point of starting. Passepartout
had but few steps to go; and, rushing upon the plank, he crossed it, and
fell unconscious on the deck, just as the Carnatic was moving off. Several
sailors, who were evidently accustomed to this sort of scene, carried the
poor Frenchman down into the second cabin, and Passepartout did not wake
until they were one hundred and fifty miles away from China. Thus he found
himself the next morning on the deck of the Carnatic, and eagerly inhaling
the exhilarating sea-breeze. The pure air sobered him. He began to collect
his sense, which he found a difficult task; but at last he recalled the
events of the evening before, Fix's revelation, and the opium-house.
"It is
evident," said he to himself, "that I have been abominably drunk! What
will Mr. Fogg say? At least I have not missed the steamer, which is the
most important thing."
Then,
as Fix occurred to him: "As for that rascal, I hope we are well rid of
him, and that he has not dared, as he proposed, to follow us on board the
Carnatic. A detective on the track of Mr. Fogg, accused of robbing the
Bank of England! Pshaw! Mr. Fogg is no more a robber than I am a murderer."
Should
he divulge Fix's real errand to his master? Would it do to tell the part
the detective was playing. Would it not be better to wait until Mr. Fogg
reached London again, and then impart to him that an agent of the metropolitan
police had been following him round the world, and have a good laugh over
it? No doubt; at least, it was worth considering. The first thing to do
was to find Mr. Fogg, and apologise for his singular behaviour.
Passepartout
got up and proceeded, as well as he could with the rolling of the steamer,
to the after-deck. He saw no one who resembled either his master or Aouda.
"Good!" muttered he; "Aouda has not got up yet, and Mr. Fogg has probably
found some partners at whist."
He descended
to the saloon. Mr. Fogg was not there. Passepartout had only, however,
to ask the purser the number of his master's state-room. The purser replied
that he did not know any passenger by the name of Fogg.
"I beg
your pardon," said Passepartout persistently. "He is a tall gentleman,
quiet, and not very talkative, and has with him a young lady—"
"There
is no young lady on board," interrupted the purser. "Here is a list of
the passengers; you may see for yourself."
Passepartout
scanned the list, but his master's name was not upon it. All at once an
idea struck him.
"Ah! am
I on the Carnatic?"
"Yes."
"On the
way to Yokohama?"
"Certainly."
Passepartout
had for an instant feared that he was on the wrong boat; but, though he
was really on the Carnatic, his master was not there.
He fell
thunderstruck on a seat. He saw it all now. He remembered that the time
of sailing had been changed, that he should have informed his master of
that fact, and that he had not done so. It was his fault, then, that Mr.
Fogg and Aouda had missed the steamer. Yes, but it was still more the fault
of the traitor who, in order to separate him from his master, and detain
the latter at Hong Kong, had inveigled him into getting drunk! He now saw
the detective's trick; and at this moment Mr. Fogg was certainly ruined,
his bet was lost, and he himself perhaps arrested and imprisoned! At this
thought Passepartout tore his hair. Ah, if Fix ever came within his reach,
what a settling of accounts there would be!
After
his first depression, Passepartout became calmer, and began to study his
situation. It was certainly not an enviable one. He found himself on the
way to Japan, and what should he do when he got there? His pocket was empty;
he had not a solitary shilling, not so much as a penny. His passage had
fortunately been paid for in advance; and he had five or six days in which
to decide upon his future course. He fell to at meals with an appetite,
and ate for Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and himself. He helped himself as generously
as if Japan were a desert, where nothing to eat was to be looked for.
At dawn
on the 13th the Carnatic entered the port of Yokohama. This is an important
port of call in the Pacific, where all the mail-steamers, and those carrying
travellers between North America, China, Japan, and the Oriental islands
put in. It is situated in the bay of Yeddo, and at but a short distance
from that second capital of the Japanese Empire, and the residence of the
Tycoon, the civil Emperor, before the Mikado, the spiritual Emperor, absorbed
his office in his own. The Carnatic anchored at the quay near the custom-house,
in the midst of a crowd of ships bearing the flags of all nations.
Passepartout
went timidly ashore on this so curious territory of the Sons of the Sun.
He had nothing better to do than, taking chance for his guide, to wander
aimlessly through the streets of Yokohama. He found himself at first in
a thoroughly European quarter, the houses having low fronts, and being
adorned with verandas, beneath which he caught glimpses of neat peristyles.
This quarter occupied, with its streets, squares, docks, and warehouses,
all the space between the "promontory of the Treaty" and the river. Here,
as at Hong Kong and Calcutta, were mixed crowds of all races, Americans
and English, Chinamen and Dutchmen, mostly merchants ready to buy or sell
anything. The Frenchman felt himself as much alone among them as if he
had dropped down in the midst of Hottentots.
He had,
at least, one resource to call on the French and English consuls at Yokohama
for assistance. But he shrank from telling the story of his adventures,
intimately connected as it was with that of his master; and, before doing
so, he determined to exhaust all other means of aid. As chance did not
favour him in the European quarter, he penetrated that inhabited by the
native Japanese, determined, if necessary, to push on to Yeddo.
The Japanese
quarter of Yokohama is called Benten, after the goddess of the sea, who
is worshipped on the islands round about. There Passepartout beheld beautiful
fir and cedar groves, sacred gates of a singular architecture, bridges
half hid in the midst of bamboos and reeds, temples shaded by immense cedar-trees,
holy retreats where were sheltered Buddhist priests and sectaries of Confucius,
and interminable streets, where a perfect harvest of rose-tinted and red-cheeked
children, who looked as if they had been cut out of Japanese screens, and
who were playing in the midst of short-legged poodles and yellowish cats,
might have been gathered.
The streets
were crowded with people. Priests were passing in processions, beating
their dreary tambourines; police and custom-house officers with pointed
hats encrusted with lac and carrying two sabres hung to their waists; soldiers,
clad in blue cotton with white stripes, and bearing guns; the Mikado's
guards, enveloped in silken doubles, hauberks and coats of mail; and numbers
of military folk of all ranks—for the military profession is as much respected
in Japan as it is despised in China—went hither and thither in groups and
pairs. Passepartout saw, too, begging friars, long-robed pilgrims, and
simple civilians, with their warped and jet-black hair, big heads, long
busts, slender legs, short stature, and complexions varying from copper-colour
to a dead white, but never yellow, like the Chinese, from whom the Japanese
widely differ. He did not fail to observe the curious equipages—carriages
and palanquins, barrows supplied with sails, and litters made of bamboo;
nor the women— whom he thought not especially handsome—who took little
steps with their little feet, whereon they wore canvas shoes, straw sandals,
and clogs of worked wood, and who displayed tight-looking eyes, flat chests,
teeth fashionably blackened, and gowns crossed with silken scarfs, tied
in an enormous knot behind an ornament which the modern Parisian ladies
seem to have borrowed from the dames of Japan.
Passepartout
wandered for several hours in the midst of this motley crowd, looking in
at the windows of the rich and curious shops, the jewellery establishments
glittering with quaint Japanese ornaments, the restaurants decked with
streamers and banners, the tea-houses, where the odorous beverage was being
drunk with saki, a liquor concocted from the fermentation of rice, and
the comfortable smoking-houses, where they were puffing, not opium, which
is almost unknown in Japan, but a very fine, stringy tobacco. He went on
till he found himself in the fields, in the midst of vast rice plantations.
There he saw dazzling camellias expanding themselves, with flowers which
were giving forth their last colours and perfumes, not on bushes, but on
trees, and within bamboo enclosures, cherry, plum, and apple trees, which
the Japanese cultivate rather for their blossoms than their fruit, and
which queerly-fashioned, grinning scarecrows protected from the sparrows,
pigeons, ravens, and other voracious birds. On the branches of the cedars
were perched large eagles; amid the foliage of the weeping willows were
herons, solemnly standing on one leg; and on every hand were crows, ducks,
hawks, wild birds, and a multitude of cranes, which the Japanese consider
sacred, and which to their minds symbolise long life and prosperity.
As he
was strolling along, Passepartout espied some violets among the shrubs.
"Good!"
said he; "I'll have some supper."
But, on
smelling them, he found that they were odourless.
"No chance
there," thought he.
The worthy
fellow had certainly taken good care to eat as hearty a breakfast as possible
before leaving the Carnatic; but, as he had been walking about all day,
the demands of hunger were becoming importunate. He observed that the butchers
stalls contained neither mutton, goat, nor pork; and, knowing also that
it is a sacrilege to kill cattle, which are preserved solely for farming,
he made up his mind that meat was far from plentiful in Yokohama— nor was
he mistaken; and, in default of butcher's meat, he could have wished for
a quarter of wild boar or deer, a partridge, or some quails, some game
or fish, which, with rice, the Japanese eat almost exclusively. But he
found it necessary to keep up a stout heart, and to postpone the meal he
craved till the following morning. Night came, and Passepartout re-entered
the native quarter, where he wandered through the streets, lit by vari-coloured
lanterns, looking on at the dancers, who were executing skilful steps and
boundings, and the astrologers who stood in the open air with their telescopes.
Then he came to the harbour, which was lit up by the resin torches of the
fishermen, who were fishing from their boats.
The streets
at last became quiet, and the patrol, the officers of which, in their splendid
costumes, and surrounded by their suites, Passepartout thought seemed like
ambassadors, succeeded the bustling crowd. Each time a company passed,
Passepartout chuckled, and said to himself: "Good! another Japanese embassy
departing for Europe!" |