Around the World in Eighty Days Part 20

All sails were now hoisted, and at noon the Tankadere was within forty-five miles of Shanghai. There remained yet six hours in which to accomplish that distance. All on board feared that it could not be done, and every one--Phileas Fogg, no doubt, excepted--felt his heart beat with impatience. The boat must keep up an average of nine miles an hour, and the wind was becoming calmer every moment! It was a capricious breeze, coming from the coast, and after it pa.s.sed the sea became smooth. Still, the Tankadere was so light, and her fine sails caught the fickle zephyrs so well, that, with the aid of the current, John Bunsby found himself at six o'clock not more than ten miles from the mouth of Shanghai River. Shanghai itself is situated at least twelve miles up the stream. At seven they were still three miles from Shanghai. The pilot swore an angry oath; the reward of two hundred pounds was evidently on the point of escaping him. He looked at Mr. Fogg. Mr. Fogg was perfectly tranquil, yet his whole fortune was at this moment at stake.

At this moment, also, a long black funnel, crowned with wreaths of smoke, appeared on the edge of the waters. It was the American steamer, leaving for Yokohama at the appointed time.

"Confound her!" cried John Bunsby, pus.h.i.+ng back the rudder with a desperate jerk.

"Signal her!" said Phileas Fogg quietly.

A small bra.s.s cannon stood on the forward deck of the Tankadere for making signals in the fogs. It was loaded to the muzzle, but just as the pilot was about to apply a red-hot coal to the touchhole, Mr. Fogg said, "Hoist your flag!"

The flag was run up at half-mast, and, this being the signal of distress, it was hoped that the American steamer, perceiving it, would change her course a little, so as to help the pilot boat.

"Fire!" said Mr. Fogg. And the booming of the little cannon resounded in the air.

Chapter 22

In Which Pa.s.separtout Finds Out That, Even at the Antipodes, It Is Convenient to Have Some Money in One's Pocket

The Carnatic, setting sail from Hong Kong at half-past six on the 7th of November, directed her course at full steam towards j.a.pan.

She carried a large cargo and a well-filled cabin of pa.s.sengers.

Two state-rooms in the rear were, however, unoccupied--those which had been engaged by Phileas Fogg.

The next day a pa.s.senger 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 Pa.s.separtout. What had happened to him was as follows.

Shortly after Fix left the opium den, two waiters had lifted the unconscious Pa.s.separtout, 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. Pa.s.separtout had but few steps to go; and, rus.h.i.+ng 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 Pa.s.separtout 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," he said 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 apologize for his singular behavior.

Pa.s.separtout got up and proceeded, as well as he could with the rolling of the steamer, to the afterdeck. He saw no one who resembled either his master or Aouda. "Good!" muttered he; "Aouda has not gotten up yet, and Mr. Fogg has probably found some partners at whist."

He descended to the saloon. Mr. Fogg was not there. Pa.s.separtout had only, however, to ask the purser the number of his master's stateroom. The purser replied that he did not know any pa.s.senger by the name of Fogg.

"I beg your pardon," said Pa.s.separtout 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 pa.s.sengers. You may see for yourself."

Pa.s.separtout 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."

Pa.s.separtout 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 Pa.s.separtout tore his hair. Ah, if Fix ever came within his reach, what a settling of accounts there would be!

After his first depression, Pa.s.separtout became calmer, and began to study his situation. It was certainly not an enviable one. He found himself on the way to j.a.pan, and what should he do when he got there? His pocket was empty. He had not a solitary s.h.i.+lling--not so much as a penny. His pa.s.sage 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 appet.i.te, and ate for Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and himself. He helped himself as generously as if j.a.pan 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 travelers between North America, China, j.a.pan 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 j.a.panese Empire, and the residence of the Tyc.o.o.n, the civil Emperor, before the Mikado, the spiritual Emperor, absorbed his office in his own. The Carnatic anch.o.r.ed at the quay near the customhouse, in the midst of a crowd of s.h.i.+ps bearing the flags of all nations.

Pa.s.separtout went timidly ash.o.r.e 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sistance. 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 favor him in the European quarter, he penetrated that inhabited by the native j.a.panese, determined, if necessary, to push on to Yeddo.

The j.a.panese quarter of Yokohama is called Benten, after the G.o.ddess of the sea, who is wors.h.i.+pped on the islands round about.

There Pa.s.separtout 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. He saw holy retreats where there 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 j.a.panese screens, and who were playing in the midst of short-legged poodles and yellowish cats, had been gathered.

The streets were crowded with people. Priests were pa.s.sing in processions, beating their dreary tambourines; police and custom-house officers with pointed hats encrusted with lace, 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 j.a.pan as it is despised in China--went hither and thither in groups and pairs. Pa.s.separtout 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-color to a dead white, but never yellow, like the Chinese, from whom the j.a.panese 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, upon which they wore canvas shoes, straw sandals and clogs of worked wood, and who displayed tight-looking eyes, flat chests, teeth fas.h.i.+onably 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 j.a.pan.

Pa.s.separtout wandered for several hours in the midst of this motley crowd, looking in at the windows of the rich and curious shops, the jewelry establishments glittering with quaint j.a.panese ornaments, the restaurants decked with streamers and banners, the teahouses, 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 j.a.pan, 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 colors and perfumes, not on bushes, but on trees, and within bambooenclosures, cherry, plum and apple trees, which the j.a.panese cultivate rather for their blossoms than their fruit, and which queerly-fas.h.i.+oned, 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. On every hand were crows, ducks, hawks, wild birds and a mult.i.tude of cranes, which the j.a.panese consider sacred, and which to their minds symbolize long life and prosperity.

As he was strolling along, Pa.s.separtout saw some violets among the shrubs.

"Good!" said he. "I'll have some supper."

But, on smelling them, he found that they were odorless.

"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 growing. He observed that the butchers' stalls contained neither mutton, goat, nor pork. 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. 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 j.a.panese 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 Pa.s.separtout re-entered the native quarter, where he wandered through the streets, lit by vari-colored lanterns. He looked on at the dancers, who were executing skillful steps and boundings, and the astrologers who stood in the open air with their telescopes. Then he came to the harbor, which was lit up by the resin torches of the fishermen, who were fis.h.i.+ng from their boats.

The streets at last became quiet. The patrol, the officers, in splendid costumes, and surrounded by their suites, succeeded the bustling crowd. Pa.s.separtout thought they seemed like amba.s.sadors. Each time a company pa.s.sed, Pa.s.separtout chuckled, and said to himself: "Good! Another j.a.panese emba.s.sy departing for Europe!"

Chapter 23

In Which Pa.s.separtout's Nose Becomes Outrageously Long

The next morning poor, jaded, famished Pa.s.separtout said to himself that he must get something to eat at all hazards, and the sooner he did so the better. He might, indeed, sell his watch; but he would have starved first. Now or never he must use the strong, if not melodious voice which nature had bestowed upon him. He knew several French and English songs, and resolved to try them upon the j.a.panese, who must be lovers of music, since they were forever pounding on their cymbals, tam-tams and tambourines. They could not but appreciate European talent.