In Which Passepartout Receives a New Proof
That Fortune Favors the Brave
The project was a bold one, full of difficulty, perhaps
impracticable. Mr. Fogg was going to risk life, or at least
liberty, and therefore the success of his tour. But he did not
hesitate, and he found in Sir Francis Cromarty an enthusiastic
ally.
As for Passepartout, he was ready for anything that might be
proposed. His master's idea charmed him. He perceived a heart, a
soul, under that icy exterior. He began to love Phileas Fogg.
There remained the guide. What course would he adopt? Would he
not take part with the Indians? In default of his assistance, it
was necessary to be assured of his neutrality. Sir Francis
frankly put the question to him.
"Officer," replied the guide, "I am a Parsee, and this woman is a
Parsee. Command me as you will."
"Excellent!" said Mr. Fogg.
"However," resumed the guide, "it is certain, not only that we
shall risk our lives, but horrible tortures, if we are taken."
"That is foreseen," replied Mr. Fogg. "I think we must wait till
night before acting."
"I think so," said the guide. The worthy Indian then gave some
account of the victim, who, he said, was a celebrated beauty of
the Parsee race, and the daughter of a wealthy Bombay merchant.
She had received a thoroughly English education in that city,
and, from her manners and intelligence, would be thought an
European. Her name was Aouda. Left an orphan, she was married
against her will to the old rajah of Bundelcund; and, knowing the
fate that awaited her, she escaped, was retaken, and devoted by
the rajah's relatives, who had an interest in her death, to the
sacrifice from which it seemed she could not escape.
The Parsee's narrative only confirmed Mr. Fogg and his companions
in their generous design. It was decided that the guide should
direct the elephant towards the pagoda of Pillaji, which he
accordingly approached as quickly as possible. They halted, half
an hour afterwards, in a copse, some five hundred feet from the
pagoda, where they were well concealed. But they could hear the
groans and cries of the fakirs distinctly.
They then discussed the means of rescuing the victim. The guide
was familiar with the pagoda of Pillaji, in which, as he
declared, the young woman was imprisoned. Could they enter any of
its doors while the whole party of Indians was plunged in a
drunken sleep, or was it safer to attempt to make a hole in the
walls? This could only be determined at the moment and the place.
But it was certain that the abduction must be made that night,
and not when, at break of day, the victim was led to her funeral
pyre. Then no human intervention could save her.
As soon as night fell, about six o'clock, they decided to make a
reconnaissance around the pagoda. The cries of the fakirs were
just ceasing. The Indians were in the act of plunging themselves
into the drunkenness caused by liquid opium mingled with hemp, and
it might be possible to slip between them to the temple itself.
The Parsee, leading the others, noiselessly crept through the
wood, and in ten minutes they found themselves on the banks of a
small stream, whence, by the light of the rosin torches, they
perceived a pyre of wood, on the top of which lay the embalmed
body of the rajah, which was to be burned with his wife. The
pagoda, whose minarets loomed above the trees in the deepening
dusk, stood a hundred steps away.
"Come!" whispered the guide.
He slipped more cautiously than ever through the brush, followed
by his companions. The silence around was only broken by the low
murmuring of the wind among the branches.
Soon the Parsee stopped on the borders of the glade, which was
lit up by the torches. The ground was covered by groups of the
Indians, motionless in their drunken sleep. It seemed a
battlefield strewn with the dead. Men, women and children lay
together.
In the background, among the trees, the pagoda of Pillaji loomed
distinctly. Much to the guide's disappointment, the guards of the
rajah, lighted by torches, were watching at the doors and
marching to and fro with naked sabres. Probably the priests, too,
were watching within.
The Parsee, now convinced that it was impossible to force an
entrance to the temple, advanced no farther, but led his
companions back again. Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty also
saw that nothing could be attempted in that direction. They
stopped, and engaged in a whispered colloquy.
"It is only eight now," said the brigadier, "and these guards may
also go to sleep."
"It is not impossible," returned the Parsee.
They lay down at the foot of a tree, and waited.
The time seemed long. The guide ever and anon left them to take
an observation on the edge of the wood, but the guards watched
steadily by the glare of the torches, and a dim light crept
through the windows of the pagoda.
They waited till midnight; but no change took place among the
guards, and it became apparent that their yielding to sleep could
not be counted on. The other plan must be carried out. An opening
in the walls of the pagoda must be made. It remained to ascertain
whether the priests were watching by the side of their victim as
assiduously as were the soldiers at the door.
After a last consultation, the guide announced that he was ready
for the attempt, and advanced, followed by the others. They took
a roundabout way, so as to get at the pagoda on the rear. They
reached the walls about half-past twelve, without having met
anyone; here there was no guard, nor were there either windows or
doors.
The night was dark. The moon, on the wane, scarcely left the
horizon, and was covered with heavy clouds. The height of the
trees deepened the darkness.
It was not enough to reach the walls; an opening in them must be
accomplished, and to attain this purpose the party only had their
pocket-knives. Happily the temple walls were built of brick and
wood, which could be penetrated with little difficulty; after one
brick had been taken out, the rest would yield easily.
They set noiselessly to work, and the Parsee on one side and
Passepartout on the other began to loosen the bricks so as to
make an aperture two feet wide. They were getting on rapidly,
when suddenly a cry was heard in the interior of the temple,
followed almost instantly by other cries replying from the
outside. Passepartout and the guide stopped. Had they been
heard? Was the alarm being given? Common prudence urged them to
retire, and they did so, followed by Phileas Fogg and Sir
Francis. They again hid themselves in the wood, and waited till
the disturbance, whatever it might be, ceased, holding
themselves ready to resume their attempt without delay. But,
awkwardly enough, the guards now appeared at the rear of the
temple, and there installed themselves, in readiness to prevent a
surprise.
It would be difficult to describe the disappointment of the
party, thus interrupted in their work. They could not now reach
the victim; how, then, could they save her? Sir Francis shook his
fists, Passepartout was beside himself, and the guide gnashed his
teeth with rage. The tranquil Fogg waited, without betraying any
emotion.
"We have nothing to do but to go away," whispered Sir Francis.
"Nothing but to go away," echoed the guide.
"Stop," said Fogg. "I am only due at Allahabad tomorrow before
noon."
"But what can you hope to do?" asked Sir Francis. "In a few hours
it will be daylight, and--"
"The chance which now seems lost may present itself at the last
moment."
Sir Francis would have liked to read Phileas Fogg's eyes. What
was this cool Englishman thinking of? Was he planning to make a
rush for the young woman at the very moment of the sacrifice, and
boldly snatch her from her executioners? This would be utter
folly, and it was hard to admit that Fogg was such a fool. Sir
Francis consented, however, to remain to the end of this
terrible drama. The guide led them to the rear of the glade,
where they were able to observe the sleeping groups.
Meanwhile Passepartout, who had perched himself on the lower
branches of a tree, was resolving an idea which had at first
struck him like a flash, and which was now firmly lodged in his
brain.
He had commenced by saying to himself, "What folly!" and then he
repeated, "Why not, after all? It's a chance--perhaps the only
one; and with such sots!" Thinking thus, he slipped, with the
suppleness of a serpent, to the lowest branches, the ends of
which bent almost to the ground.
The hours passed, and the lighter shades now announced the
approach of day, though it was not yet light. This was the
moment. The slumbering multitude became animated, the tambourines
sounded, songs and cries arose; the hour of the sacrifice had
come. The doors of the pagoda swung open, and a bright light
escaped from its interior, in the midst of which Mr. Fogg and Sir
Francis saw the victim. She seemed, having shaken off the stupor
of intoxication, to be striving to escape from her executioner.
Sir Francis's heart throbbed; and, convulsively seizing Mr.
Fogg's hand, found in it an open knife. Just at this moment the
crowd began to move. The young woman had again fallen into a
stupor caused by the fumes of hemp, and passed among the fakirs,
who escorted her with their wild, religious cries.
Phileas Fogg and his companions, mingling in the rear ranks of
the crowd, followed; and in two minutes they reached the banks of
the stream, and stopped fifty paces from the pyre, upon which
still lay the rajah's corpse. In the semi-obscurity they saw the
victim, quite senseless, stretched out beside her husband's body.
Then a torch was brought, and the wood, heavily soaked with oil,
instantly took fire.
At this moment Sir Francis and the guide seized Phileas Fogg,
who, in an instant of mad generosity, was about to rush upon the
pyre. But he had quickly pushed them aside, when the whole scene
suddenly changed. A cry of terror arose. The whole multitude
prostrated themselves, terror-stricken, on the ground.
The old rajah was not dead, then, since he rose of a sudden, like
a spectre, took up his wife in his arms, and descended from the
pyre in the midst of the clouds of smoke, which only heightened
his ghostly appearance.
Fakirs and soldiers and priests, seized with instant terror, lay
there, with their faces on the ground, not daring to lift their
eyes and behold such a prodigy.
The inanimate victim was borne along by the vigorous arms which
supported her, and which she did not seem in the least to burden.
Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis stood erect, the Parsee bowed his head,
and Passepartout was, no doubt, scarcely less stupefied.
The resuscitated rajah approached Sir Francis and Mr. Fogg, and,
in an abrupt tone, said, "Let us be off!"
It was Passepartout himself, who had slipped upon the pyre in the
midst of the smoke and, profiting by the still over-hanging
darkness, had delivered the young woman from death! It was
Passepartout who, playing his part with a happy audacity, had
passed through the crowd amid the general terror.
A moment after all four of the party had disappeared in the
woods, and the elephant was bearing them away at a rapid pace.
But the cries and noise, and a ball which whizzed through
Phileas Fogg's hat, told them that the trick had been
discovered.
The old rajah's body, indeed, now appeared upon the burning pyre;
and the priests, recovered from their terror, perceived that an
abduction had taken place. They hastened into the forest,
followed by the soldiers, who fired a volley after the fugitives;
but the latter rapidly increased the distance between them, and
ere long found themselves beyond the reach of the bullets and
arrows.