by Jules Verne
Chapter XIII
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 thesuccess of his tour. But he did not hesitate, and he found in SirFrancis 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 thaticy exterior. He began to love Phileas Fogg.
There remained the guide: what course would he adopt? Would he nottake part with the Indians? In default of his assistance, it wasnecessary 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 aParsee. Command me as you will."
"Excellent!" said Mr. Fogg.
"However," resumed the guide, "it is certain, not only that we shallrisk our lives, but horrible tortures, if we are taken."
"That is foreseen," replied Mr. Fogg. "I think we must wait till nightbefore 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 awealthy Bombay merchant. She had received a thoroughly Englisheducation in that city, and, from her manners and intelligence, wouldbe thought an European. Her name was Aouda. Left an orphan, she wasmarried against her will to the old rajah of Bundelcund; and, knowingthe fate that awaited her, she escaped, was retaken, and devoted by therajah's relatives, who had an interest in her death, to the sacrificefrom which it seemed she could not escape.
The Parsee's narrative only confirmed Mr. Fogg and his companions intheir generous design. It was decided that the guide should direct theelephant towards the pagoda of Pillaji, which he accordingly approachedas quickly as possible. They halted, half an hour afterwards, in acopse, some five hundred feet from the pagoda, where they were wellconcealed; but they could hear the groans and cries of the fakirsdistinctly.
They then discussed the means of getting at the victim. The guide wasfamiliar with the pagoda of Pillaji, in which, as he declared, theyoung woman was imprisoned. Could they enter any of its doors whilethe whole party of Indians was plunged in a drunken sleep, or was itsafer to attempt to make a hole in the walls? This could only bedetermined at the moment and the place themselves; but it was certainthat the abduction must be made that night, and not when, at break ofday, the victim was led to her funeral pyre. Then no humanintervention could save her.
As soon as night fell, about six o'clock, they decided to make areconnaissance around the pagoda. The cries of the fakirs were justceasing; the Indians were in the act of plunging themselves into thedrunkenness caused by liquid opium mingled with hemp, and it might bepossible to slip between them to the temple itself.
The Parsee, leading the others, noiselessly crept through the wood, andin ten minutes they found themselves on the banks of a small stream,whence, by the light of the rosin torches, they perceived a pyre ofwood, on the top of which lay the embalmed body of the rajah, which wasto be burned with his wife. The pagoda, whose minarets loomed abovethe 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 hiscompanions; the silence around was only broken by the low murmuring ofthe wind among the branches.
Soon the Parsee stopped on the borders of the glade, which was lit upby the torches. The ground was covered by groups of the Indians,motionless in their drunken sleep; it seemed a battlefield strewn withthe dead. Men, women, and children lay together.
In the background, among the trees, the pagoda of Pillaji loomeddistinctly. Much to the guide's disappointment, the guards of therajah, lighted by torches, were watching at the doors and marching toand fro with naked sabres; probably the priests, too, were watchingwithin.
The Parsee, now convinced that it was impossible to force an entranceto the temple, advanced no farther, but led his companions back again.Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty also saw that nothing could beattempted in that direction. They stopped, and engaged in a whisperedcolloquy.
"It is only eight now," said the brigadier, "and these guards may alsogo 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 anobservation on the edge of the wood, but the guards watched steadily bythe glare of the torches, and a dim light crept through the windows ofthe pagoda.
They waited till midnight; but no change took place among the guards,and it became apparent that their yielding to sleep could not becounted on. The other plan must be carried out; an opening in thewalls of the pagoda must be made. It remained to ascertain whether thepriests were watching by the side of their victim as assiduously aswere the soldiers at the door.
After a last consultation, the guide announced that he was ready forthe attempt, and advanced, followed by the others. They took aroundabout way, so as to get at the pagoda on the rear. They reachedthe walls about half-past twelve, without having met anyone; here therewas 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 thedarkness.
It was not enough to reach the walls; an opening in them must beaccomplished, and to attain this purpose the party only had theirpocket-knives. Happily the temple walls were built of brick and wood,which could be penetrated with little difficulty; after one brick hadbeen taken out, the rest would yield easily.
They set noiselessly to work, and the Parsee on one side andPassepartout on the other began to loosen the bricks so as to make anaperture two feet wide. They were getting on rapidly, when suddenly acry was heard in the interior of the temple, followed almost instantlyby other cries replying from the outside. Passepartout and the guidestopped. Had they been heard? Was the alarm being given? Commonprudence urged them to retire, and they did so, followed by PhileasFogg and Sir Francis. They again hid themselves in the wood, andwaited till the disturbance, whatever it might be, ceased, holdingthemselves ready to resume their attempt without delay. But, awkwardlyenough, the guards now appeared at the rear of the temple, and thereinstalled themselves, in readiness to prevent a surprise.
It would be difficult to describe the disappointment of the party, thusinterrupted in their work. They could not now reach the victim; how,then, could they save her? Sir Francis shook his fists, Passepartoutwas beside himself, and the guide gnashed his teeth with rage. Thetranquil 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 itwill 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 wasthis cool Englishman thinking of? Was he planning to make a rush forthe young woman at the very moment of the sacrifice, and boldly snatchher from her executioners?
This would be utter folly, and it was hard to admit that Fogg was sucha fool. Sir Francis consented, however, to remain to the end of thisterrible drama. The guide led them to the rear of the glade, wherethey were able to observe the sleeping groups.
Meanwhile Passepartout, who had perched himself on the lower branchesof a tree, was resolving an idea which had at first struck him like aflash, and which was now firmly lodged in his brain.
He had commenced by saying to himself, "What folly!" and then herepeated, "Why not, after all? It's a chance,--pe
rhaps the only one; andwith such sots!" Thinking thus, he slipped, with the suppleness of aserpent, to the lowest branches, the ends of which bent almost to theground.
The hours passed, and the lighter shades now announced the approach ofday, though it was not yet light. This was the moment. The slumberingmultitude became animated, the tambourines sounded, songs and criesarose; the hour of the sacrifice had come. The doors of the pagodaswung open, and a bright light escaped from its interior, in the midstof which Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis espied the victim. She seemed,having shaken off the stupor of intoxication, to be striving to escapefrom her executioner. Sir Francis's heart throbbed; and, convulsivelyseizing Mr. Fogg's hand, found in it an open knife. Just at thismoment the crowd began to move. The young woman had again fallen intoa stupor caused by the fumes of hemp, and passed among the fakirs, whoescorted her with their wild, religious cries.
Phileas Fogg and his companions, mingling in the rear ranks of thecrowd, followed; and in two minutes they reached the banks of thestream, and stopped fifty paces from the pyre, upon which still lay therajah's corpse. In the semi-obscurity they saw the victim, quitesenseless, stretched out beside her husband's body. Then a torch wasbrought, and the wood, heavily soaked with oil, instantly took fire.
At this moment Sir Francis and the guide seized Phileas Fogg, who, inan instant of mad generosity, was about to rush upon the pyre. But hehad 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 aspectre, took up his wife in his arms, and descended from the pyre inthe midst of the clouds of smoke, which only heightened his ghostlyappearance.
Fakirs and soldiers and priests, seized with instant terror, lay there,with their faces on the ground, not daring to lift their eyes andbehold such a prodigy.
The inanimate victim was borne along by the vigorous arms whichsupported her, and which she did not seem in the least to burden. Mr.Fogg and Sir Francis stood erect, the Parsee bowed his head, andPassepartout was, no doubt, scarcely less stupefied.
The resuscitated rajah approached Sir Francis and Mr. Fogg, and, in anabrupt tone, said, "Let us be off!"
It was Passepartout himself, who had slipped upon the pyre in the midstof the smoke and, profiting by the still overhanging darkness, haddelivered the young woman from death! It was Passepartout who, playinghis part with a happy audacity, had passed through the crowd amid thegeneral terror.
A moment after all four of the party had disappeared in the woods, andthe elephant was bearing them away at a rapid pace. But the cries andnoise, and a ball which whizzed through Phileas Fogg's hat, apprisedthem that the trick had been discovered.
The old rajah's body, indeed, now appeared upon the burning pyre; andthe priests, recovered from their terror, perceived that an abductionhad taken place. They hastened into the forest, followed by thesoldiers, who fired a volley after the fugitives; but the latterrapidly increased the distance between them, and ere long foundthemselves beyond the reach of the bullets and arrows.
