He had just made up his mind to throw himself to one side, since death was better than being captured alive in any event. A shadow fell on him. Something half-dark and half-glittering sped down the shaft. As if it had sprung out of some hidden magician’s compartment on his body, the handle of a knife was sticking out of the rajah’s throat. He had had to lean backwards to point the gun up and so had left his throat exposed.
Dakkar’s eyes glazed, and he crumpled. As his revolver hit the floor, it discharged. There was a shout, and a soldier fell into view face down. He must have been struck by the ricocheting bullet.
Fogg serenely pulled the magnet and device up, turned the magnet off by pressing the stem on the watch case which held it, pocketed the case, reset the magnet, and lowered it down the shaft again. He then proceeded to draw up the revolver.
“Where did you get that throwing knife?” he said.
“From a man whom I rescued from the crocodiles,” Passepartout said. “Alas, not reptiles but a pachyderm was what he should have feared.”
He pointed at a gruesome object, what was left after Kiouni had found him lying in his path. The beast had stopped running now, but it was still trumpeting, and its eyes looked dangerous. Its feet and trunk and tusks were splashed with blood.
“Splendid,” Fogg said, and Passepartout smiled with pleasure.
“I learned more in the circus than just to tumble and to walk a high wire, sir.”
“Obviously.”
“So what now, sir, if I may presume?”
“There is a very dangerous man in the palace,” Fogg said. “If he were in London, he would be the most dangerous man there. Or anywhere. He should be killed, but that is impossible now. Indeed, if we do not make an expeditious retreat, we shall be the ones to suffer death. Still...”
“Yes, sir?”
“Never mind. We must not test probabilities too far. Ah, I see the soldiers are coming through the archways. Get up on the elephant quickly.”
“Without a rope ladder, sir? Besides, he does not look as if he would give permission, ladder or not.”
“If he will not give permission, we leave without him.”
Fogg removed another watch from his pocket. He set it and placed the magnet between it and the distorter. The three were now bound together by the magnetic field. He lowered the trio into the shaft a few inches. He had nothing to put on the cord to keep the three objects from slipping further except the body of the trampled man. He did not have time to drag the corpse to the shaft and place it on the cord. The first fire from the guns of the soldiers was ringing in the dome. Fortunately, the Bundelcundians were excited and were, probably, poor marksmen to begin with, as were many of the ill-trained natives of that day. Moreover, only five had rifles; the rest were equipped with matchlock muzzle loaders, unrifled weapons with not much accuracy. But as soon as enough came in, the volume of fire would ensure their hitting their target. The elephant, big as he was, would be hit even if no one was firing at him. Wounded, he might turn on the two men, who would have no place to go except into the pool.
Fogg shot three bullets from the rajah’s revolver as cooly as if he were on the firing range. Three soldiers dropped. The others ran behind the scanty shelter of the archways. Fogg removed the last of his watches and hurled it. This struck just beyond the edge of the walk, skittered across it toward an archway, and stopped. It began whirling and emitting a thick smoke. This quickly spread over the walk on that side of the room and out across the lake. The winds were blowing it from the archways, helped by the draft created by the opened trapdoor in the top of the dome. Cries of fear and a number of loud coughs came through the smoke.
Still holding onto the end of the cord, Fogg approached the swaying beast. He started to speak softly the loving words he had learned from the mahout, then realized that the beast could not hear these. He spoke more loudly while he held one hand out to the beast. It watched him with rolling eyes, but Fogg’s composure and the lack of fear-scent steadied Kiouni. Fogg had thrust all disturbing emotions into another circuit of his mind—he would pay heavily for it later—and was as cool and unafraid as he looked. The elephant allowed him to get close and lowered his trunk to feel along his clothes. Passepartout got to the extreme other side of the islet, crouched, and then ran straight toward the animal’s tail and pulled himself on up and over onto the animal’s back. Fortunately, he managed to get hold of the howdah before the startled beast began running around again. Fogg had hurled himself to one side just in time and then he stood near the shaft and began trying to quiet Kiouni down again.
The Frenchman threw out the rope ladder, which trailed along a few inches on the floor. He got onto the beast’s neck and did his best to imitate the Parsi. This, with Fogg’s renewed words, brought Kiouni to a standstill. By then, some of the soldiers had run out from the cloud to the far side of the pool and begun firing. Even so, the smoke hindered them.
Fogg climbed up the ladder quickly and drew the rope after him. Kiouni was urged toward the shaft, finally coming to another stop a few feet from it. This was as close as Fogg dared get him, since soldiers might now be in the chamber below. He was not certain that this was close enough, but he must take the chance.
“Transmit, for the love of God! And of Passepartout!” the Frenchman cried. “Transmit! Transmit!”
A shout came from above. Passepartout looked upward, and his eyes rolled.
“Mother of Mercy! They will shoot straight down! They cannot...”
His words were beaten into thin sheets by the terrible nine clangings. And they were deaf again, though happy. At least, Passepartout smiled. The expression of Fogg, holding to the cord minus its load, did not change. A second later, both were busy hanging onto Kiouni. It took half an hour to get the nerve-shattered animal back to the buried distorter.
Arriving at the desired spot, Passepartout descended from the elephant, dug up his watch, cleaned its surface, and reattached it to his old watch chain.
On the slow journey back up the slope, Passepartout said, “Sir, is it permitted to ask a question?”
“Certainly,” Fogg said, “though the answer may not be permitted.”
“One certainly carried an unusual number of unusual watches.”
“That is an observation, not a question.”
“But where are these deadly watches obtained? I have seen nothing to indicate their existence. No one could have slipped them to you en route, surely?”
“They were originally in my bureau in my house. A man who runs his life by the watch would not seem out of character if he had some spare chronometers.”
“But how did you, sir, get them past my eyes? I am not altogether dull-eyed.”
“They were in my vest from the beginning.”
“Ah! And if a prying Capellean had found them and opened them for examination?”
“The first one to be tampered with would have blown up in his face.”
“But, sir, I might have found one and, being curious...”
“Then you would have discovered that there are certain things into which you should not pry.”
Passepartout was silent for a while. He wiped the sweat off his face and said, “And the rajah’s distorter? Was that a bomb you attached to it?”
“Set to go off when we were transmitted.”
Passepartout exclaimed with delight.
“And now we will return to London? We have killed a major Capellean and destroyed their distorter.”
“That is the third question, and you stated that you had only one in mind.”
There was another silence. A leopard screamed in the distance. Mr. Fogg said, “We will not return. The bet has not been canceled.”
“And this dangerous man of whom you spoke?”
“He is the one I told you to watch for while we were on the Mongolia. And there are no more watches.”
Passepartout wished to ask more questions but was deterred by Fogg’s tone of finality.
11
&nb
sp; When they returned to the bungalow, they found the Parsi still snoring beneath the tree and Sir Francis in the same position in which they had left him. They restored Kiouni to his spot beneath the tree where the beast, half-asleep, began ripping off branches and stuffing them into his mouth. Fogg and Passepartout crept into the bungalow, lay down, and this time both slipped away.
Two hours later, they were awakened by the Parsi. Mr. Fogg asked him if he was tired because of standing watch all night. The Parsi replied that he did not feel in the least fatigued. He could go for several days without a wink of sleep. Mr. Fogg, of course, made no comment.
At six o’clock, two refreshed and two tired men crawled onto the elephant. Kiouni, despite lack of food and sleep, seemed to have vast reservoirs of strength. He went almost as speedily as the day before. Nevertheless, the guide remarked about the beast’s tendency to shy at any sudden movements of the brush or the animals in it. And they had to pause for half an hour to allow Kiouni to eat and so quell some of the rumblings in his stomach.
They passed down the lower branches of the Vindhya Mountains and near noon went by a village on the Kani River, a branch of the great Ganges. The mahout steered Kiouni away from habitations for safety’s sake. Mr. Fogg agreed privately with this decision. The dead rajah’s men would be out looking for them. There was no reason to trouble the Parsi and the general with the story of last night, which, in any event, they would not have believed.
When Allahabad was twelve miles away, they stopped by some banana trees to refresh themselves and Kiouni. Around two, they plunged into another dense jungle. Passepartout was happy that they were so hidden in this but was apprehensive about their nearness to the capital city of Bundelcund. Two hours later, they were still in the dense forest, though the Parsi said that they would soon be out. Passepartout was about to ask him how soon was soon when the beast suddenly stopped.
“What the devil now?” Sir Francis said, sticking his head out of the howdah.
“I do not know, sir,” the Parsi said.
They heard voices, as of many people, coming through the jungle. After a few minutes, they could distinguish both voices and musical instruments of brass and wood. The Parsi descended, tied Kiouni to a tree, and wriggled away through the bush. In a moment, he returned.
“A procession of Brahmins approaches. We must hide.”
He untied the rope from the tree and led the animal with its riders into the green thickness. From their vantage, the three on Kiouni could see the procession. First came priests, then many men, women, and children. The crowd was singing a sad chant intermingled with the beat of tambourines and the clash of cymbals and the wailing of pipes and the strumming of various stringed instruments. After the crowd came a large car with huge wheels drawn by four zebus.
Sir Francis, seeing the hideous statue in the car, whispered to the others, “It’s Kali, the goddess of love and death.”
“Perhaps she is of death,” Passepartout said. “But of love? That old hag? Never!”
The Parsi gestured for silence.
A mob of long-bearded and naked old fakirs were dancing wildly around the idol and cutting themselves with knives.
After them came more Brahmins. They led a young woman who did not seem to be a voluntary member of the parade. Despite her dull expression and dragging steps, she was beautiful. Her hair was black, and her eyes were brown, but her skin was as free of pigment as any Yorkshireman’s. She wore a gold-edged tunic and a light muslin robe which clung to a splendid figure. Bracelets, rings, and earrings set with jewels of many kinds loaded her down.
Accompanying her were men evidently charged with seeing that she did not run away. These carried sabers and long decorated pistols. Four of them also carried a palanquin on which lay a richly dressed corpse.
Fogg said nothing. Passepartout hissed with astonishment. The body was that of the rajah of Bundelcund.
Behind it were musicians and more dancing bloodied fakirs.
Sir Francis, looking sorrowful, said, “It’s a suttee.”
When the parade had passed, Fogg said, “What is a suttee?”
This seems a strange thing for the highly knowledgeable Fogg to ask. Perhaps Verne inserted this question to give Sir Francis a chance to enlighten the reader.
“A suttee is a voluntary human sacrifice. The woman you’ve just seen will be burned at dawn tomorrow.”
“Oh, the scoundrels!” Passepartout cried.
“And the corpse?” Mr. Fogg asked.
“It is that of her husband, an independent rajah of Bundelcund.”
Fogg said, emotionlessly, “Is it possible that these barbarous customs still exist in India? Why haven’t we put a stop to them?”
“They have been terminated in most of India. But we have no power in the savage areas and especially in Bundelcund. The whole district north of the Vindhyas is the theater of unceasing murders and pillage.”
“The miserable woman!” Passepartout said. “Burned alive!”
Sir Francis explained that if a widow somehow got out of the sacrifice, she would be treated with utmost contempt by her relatives, indeed, by all who knew of her refusal to become ashes with her husband. She would have to shave her head and exist on the scantiest of food. She would be less than a pariah, because even a pariah had his own kind to associate with. Eventually, she would die of shame and heartbreak.
Sir Francis did not know that this was not exactly the case with this poor woman. If she could have escaped from Bundelcund, she would have gone to live with her relatives in far-off Bombay. These were Parsis who did not hold with suttee. This sect, descended from Persian fire worshippers whose prophet was Zoroaster, had customs as different from the Hindus as those of the Orthodox Jews from their Gentile neighbors.
The Parsi did not agree with Sir Francis.
“The sacrifice is not willing,” he said.
“How do you know that?”
“Everybody knows about this affair in Bundelcund.”
This statement is another of the many puzzlers in Around The World in Eighty Days. The Parsi lived only thirty miles from the borders of Bundelcund. Yet, what with the mountains, the jungle, and the isolation of his small village, he might as well have lived three hundred miles away. The Bundelcundians were hostile to his people and were not likely to exchange news with him through the so-called grapevine, even if it existed. And how would he know that the rajah had died? He had spoken to no one except the three Europeans since the journey started, and the rajah had died only the night before. Yet Verne says he knew all about it.
The truth seems to be that none of the travelers could possibly have known about the situation if Verne’s story were as he reported it. Fogg and Passepartout knew, of course, that the rajah was dead. But they could not say so, and Verne was unaware of what had really happened that night.
However, the Parsi did say that the rajah’s widow was drugged with fumes of hemp and opium. This would have indicated to him that she had been put into a state wherein she would not disgrace herself or the community by resisting.
This is what happened. Verne, like every good novelist, had inserted some remarks of a purely fictional character to inform the reader swiftly about what was going on.
Still, would the impulse to save the woman from this horrible rite have been strong enough for Fogg to act on it? Why should he have endangered his all-important mission and the wager to attempt a seemingly hopeless rescue? Was it just humanity that caused him to interfere? Perhaps it was. Perhaps there was also the fact, unrecorded by anyone, that Fogg fell in love at first sight with the beautiful woman. But the log reveals that there was another, and no doubt stronger, motive. An Eridanean had been planted in the heart of the rajah’s palace. This was the one who had slipped out a description of the domed room in which the rajah kept his distorter. She, for this Eridanean was female, had gotten as close to the rajah as it was possible for anyone to get. Her beauty and charm enabled her to attract the rajah’s attention easily, and
from this to marriage was another easy step.
Fogg had been told all this a long time ago by Stuart via a whist game. This is why, just as the journey was about to be resumed, Fogg said, “Suppose we save this woman?”
Sir Francis exclaimed, “What, save this woman, Mr. Fogg?”
“I have twelve hours to spare. I can devote them to this.”
“Why,” Sir Francis said, “you are a man of heart!”
“Sometimes, when I have the time,” Fogg replied.
Sir Francis must have wondered about this man whose emotions could apparently be turned on or off as if they ran through a spigot. What he did not know, of course, was that Fogg could not decide whether or not he would have a certain emotion or not. The emotion came, willy-nilly, but he could shunt it aside, store it in neural circuit where the emotional charge ran around and around the track, like a current in today’s superconductive circuit. But he could not kill the emotion, because it would not die. Sooner or later, he had to pay for the storage, and he would pay double or treble the bill by the time he released it.
The two other Europeans were all for this idea. But what about the Parsi guide? He could not be expected to risk his life, but he might agree to stay behind and wait for them. Even this would be dangerous for him.
He answered that he was a Parsi and that the woman was a Parsi. He was in this with them all the way.
Verne says that the Parsi knew all about her. Probably, Verne got this from Fogg’s public log and inserted the informational conversation about her in the Parsi’s mouth for the benefit of the reader. In any event, we know that she was a famous beauty, the daughter of a wealthy merchant of Bombay. If she were that famous, then the Parsi may have heard about her after all. Travelers coming through his remote village may have gossiped about her.
The woman’s name was Aouda Jejeebhoy, and she had been educated in an English school in Bombay. This, plus her light skin, enabled her to pass as a European. She was related to the wealthy Parsi who had been created a baronet by the queen. He was Sir Jametsee Jejeebhoy, whom the curious reader may find listed, with some biographical details, in Burke’s Peerage.
Philip Jose Farmer Page 8
