In Which the Bag of Banknotes Disgorges
Some Thousands of Pounds More
The train entered the station. Passepartout jumped out first,
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 am 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.
"May this young lady go with us?" he asked. "She may," replied the
policeman.
Mr. Fogg, Aouda and Passepartout were conducted to a palkighari,
a sort of four-wheeled carriage, drawn by two horses. They took
their places and were 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, its miserable, dirty huts and squalid population; then
through the "European town," which presented a relief in its
bright brick mansions, shaded by coconut-trees and bristling with
masts, where, 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, did not 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 will appear before Judge Obadiah
at half-past eight."
He then retired, and closed the door.
"Why, we are 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 is on my account that you
receive this treatment. It is 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 would not dare present
themselves with such a charge. There was some mistake. Moreover,
he would not, 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 could not 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 courtroom, 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," he said. Then, putting his hand to his head, he
exclaimed, "Heh! This is not my wig!"
"No, your worship," returned the clerk, "it is mine."
"My dear Mr. Oysterpuff, how can a judge give a wise sentence in
a clerk's wig?"
The wigs were exchanged.
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 am 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 are about to be informed."
"I am 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, and the
clerk proceeded to read in a loud voice a complaint of sacrilege
against Phileas Fogg and his servant, who were accused of having
violated a place held consecrated 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 did not 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 are not 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, the detective, had foreseen the advantage which
Passepartout's escapade gave him, and, delaying his departure for
twelve hours, had consulted the priests of Malabar Hill. Knowing
that the English authorities dealt very severely with this kind
of misdemeanor, he promised them a goodly sum in damages, and
sent them forward to Calcutta by the next train. Owing to the
delay caused by the rescue of the young widow, Fix and the
priests reached the Indian capital before Mr. Fogg and his
servant. The magistrates had been already warned by a despatch to
arrest them should they arrive. Fix's disappointment when he
learned that Phileas Fogg had not 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 by seeing Mr. Fogg and
Passepartout arrive, accompanied by a young woman, whose
presence he was wholly at a loss to 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 would have
seen the detective settled in a corner of the courtroom, watching
the proceedings with an interest easily understood; for the
warrant had failed to reach him at Calcutta, as it had done 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, "as the English law protects
equally and sternly the religions of the Indian people, and as
the man Passepartout has admitted that he violated the sacred
pagoda of Malabar Hill, at Bombay, on the 20th of October, I
condemn the said Passepartout to imprisonment 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, "as it is not proved that
the act was not done by the connivance of the master with the
servant, and as 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 softly with satisfaction. If Phileas Fogg
could be detained in Calcutta a week, it would be more than time
for the warrant to 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 did not in the
least concern him, did not 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 resumed his composure when he heard the judge announce
that the bail required for each prisoner would be one thousand
pounds.
"I will pay it at once," said Mr. Fogg, taking a roll of bank
bills from the carpetbag, 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 are 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 nourished hopes that the
robber would not, after all, leave the two thousand pounds behind
him, but would decide to serve out his week in jail, and issued
forth on Mr. Fogg's traces. 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 harbor. Its signal
of departure was hoisted at the masthead. 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 is
going on, the stolen money will soon be exhausted."
The detective was not far wrong in making this conjecture. Since
leaving London, what with traveling expenses, bribes, the
purchase of the elephant, bails and fines, Mr. Fogg had already
spent more than five thousand pounds on the way, and the
percentage of the sum recovered from the bank robber, promised to
the detectives, was rapidly diminishing.