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CHAPTER 13
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.
"Officers," 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 getting at
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 themselves; 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 espied 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 overhanging 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, apprised 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.
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