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CHAPTER 15
In Which The Bag Of Banknotes Disgorges Some
Thousands Of Pounds More
The train entered the station, and
Passepartout jumping out first, was 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?" asked
he.
"She may," replied the policeman.
Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and Passepartout were
conducted to a palkigahri, a sort of
four-wheeled carriage, drawn by two horses, in
which 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 court-room, 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," said he. 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
misdemeanour, 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 having
been already warned by a dispatch 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 espied the detective
ensconced in a corner of the court-room,
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
carpet-bag, 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 harbour, its signal of departure hoisted at
the mast-head. 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 travelling
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.
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