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Page 38
"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.
Chapter XVI
IN WHICH FIX DOES NOT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND
IN THE LEAST WHAT IS SAID TO HIM
The Rangoon--one of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's boats
plying in the Chinese and Japanese seas--was a screw steamer,
built of iron, weighing about seventeen hundred and seventy tons,
and with engines of four hundred horse-power. She was as fast,
but not as well fitted up, as the Mongolia, and Aouda was not as
comfortably provided for on board of her as Phileas Fogg could have wished.
However, the trip from Calcutta to Hong Kong only comprised some
three thousand five hundred miles, occupying from ten to twelve days,
and the young woman was not difficult to please.
During the first days of the journey Aouda became better acquainted
with her protector, and constantly gave evidence of her deep gratitude
for what he had done. The phlegmatic gentleman listened to her,
apparently at least, with coldness, neither his voice nor his manner
betraying the slightest emotion; but he seemed to be always on the watch
that nothing should be wanting to Aouda's comfort. He visited her
regularly each day at certain hours, not so much to talk himself,
as to sit and hear her talk. He treated her with the strictest politeness,
but with the precision of an automaton, the movements of which had been
arranged for this purpose. Aouda did not quite know what to make of him,
though Passepartout had given her some hints of his master's eccentricity,
and made her smile by telling her of the wager which was sending him
round the world. After all, she owed Phileas Fogg her life, and she
always regarded him through the exalting medium of her gratitude.
Aouda confirmed the Parsee guide's narrative of her touching history.
She did, indeed, belong to the highest of the native races of India.
Many of the Parsee merchants have made great fortunes there by dealing
in cotton; and one of them, Sir Jametsee Jeejeebhoy, was made a baronet
by the English government. Aouda was a relative of this great man,
and it was his cousin, Jeejeeh, whom she hoped to join at Hong Kong.
Whether she would find a protector in him she could not tell;
but Mr. Fogg essayed to calm her anxieties, and to assure her that
everything would be mathematically--he used the very word--arranged.
Aouda fastened her great eyes, "clear as the sacred lakes of the Himalaya,"
upon him; but the intractable Fogg, as reserved as ever, did not seem
at all inclined to throw himself into this lake.
The first few days of the voyage passed prosperously, amid favourable
weather and propitious winds, and they soon came in sight of
the great Andaman, the principal of the islands in the Bay of Bengal,
with its picturesque Saddle Peak, two thousand four hundred feet high,
looming above the waters. The steamer passed along near the shores,
but the savage Papuans, who are in the lowest scale of humanity,
but are not, as has been asserted, cannibals, did not make their appearance.
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