“According to... to our man...”
“His name was Edward W. Head, and he was the cook and steward,” Fogg said. “He had his papers on him. That his name was Head is significant, I believe. He must be your chief.”
“Only a coincidence,” Nemo said. “We have abandoned that ancient, but useless, custom of using names which indicate a person’s function.”
“Perhaps,” Fogg said.
Nemo wondered what else he had found on Head.
“Is he dead?” Nemo said.
“Yes.”
“You may have noticed that the navigation book, sextant, and chronometer are missing,” Nemo said. “Evidently the captain—his name was Briggs, by the way—had time to grab these. Other articles, such as clothes, were left behind. Nor were provisions from the pantry stored on the yawl.”
“The yawl? What about the main lifeboat, the longboat?”
“That was left behind at New York. It was damaged during the loading of the barrels. Several fell out of the sling on it, and Captain Briggs did not want to delay the ship while it was being repaired. The yawl could hold ten people, but it was smaller and not as seaworthy as the longboat.”
“The last hour marked on the deck log was eight a.m., November twenty-fifth,” Fogg said. “And after that?”
“Between nine and ten o’clock, the Mary Celeste was within several miles of the Dollabarat shoals,” Nemo said. “Those are dangerous shoals about three and a quarter miles southeast of the Formigas rocks. The Formigas are, it is thought, the peaks of submerged mountains. The Mary Celeste was not close enough to be in any peril and would have passed on safely, but...”
Nemo wondered why Fogg was having him give this lengthy explanation. Was he hoping to drag out the time before their departure because he had planned some trick which required time to prepare?
Well, there was nothing he could do about it. But if things suddenly went wrong for him, he would kill Passepartout at once. And perhaps this prolonged talk might turn to his advantage, if he could think of something.
“One of those inexplicable but frequently occurring calms befell the ship. At any other place, the Mary Celeste could have ridden it out. But now, her sails sagging, the ship was borne by the currents toward the Dollabarat shoals. These have taken many a victim. And it looked as if they would soon fasten their teeth into the hull of another. Captain Briggs had the light sails furled and the mainsail lowered and the ship hove to on the starboard tack. This was to ensure that, if the wind should rise in time, it would blow against the sails and stop its headway. Then the yawl might catch up with the ship, and the crew could board it.
“After this, the captain ordered that the ship be abandoned.”
“The yawl lay across the main hatch. This was unsecured while a section of the port rail, which you no doubt saw is missing, was removed. There was no time for a leisurely departure; everything was done in a few minutes. The yawl was lowered without tackle, and the main peak-halyard was unroven. It was used as a towline for the yawl with an end still attached to the gaff.”
(The gaff was the spar upon which the head of a fore-and-aft sail was extended. The halyard was about four hundred feet long, and where it was fastened to the gaff it would be about eight feet above the deck.)
“The captain took the ship’s papers, chronometer, and sextant. A sailor tried to get a compass; that is why the binnacle is displaced and the compass was broken in the haste to extract it. There was no time to get the other compass. The ship had drifted too close to the rocks.
“At this point, Head refused to get into the yawl with the others. He believed that his only chance of survival lay in using the distorter. If he were in the yawl, he would have to leave behind both the distorter and witnesses. He could, of course, shoot the nine people in the boat, but his revolver held only six cartridges at a time, and he might be overpowered before he could reload or perhaps even before he had finished firing. He decided to take his chances on the ship itself. If he could get the attention of... of one of us who had a distorter, he could be transmitted. Still better, if he could get enough men transmitted to the Mary Celeste and the calm did not last, then he could sail it to Europe.”
Why, Fogg wondered, had Head taken passage on a brigantine as a cook and steward and not proceeded to Europe by a steam liner? Was it because he thought that the Eridaneans would be looking for him on the passenger ships? Had he hoped to slip across on this sailing ship, quit or desert at Gibraltar, and from thence go in disguise to England? What was he carrying that was so valuable? The distorter? That was certainly valuable enough, but why had he not waited in America until the Chinese agent got to England so he could transmit himself to there? Another Capellean could have brought the distorter at a later time. If it were the distorter itself that was responsible for all this secrecy and haste, he could understand Head’s actions. But he felt that there was some other reason.
Stuart, if he were aware of Head’s existence and his mission, would have set his people to look for Head. Because of the overstrict security system, he had not informed Fogg of this. Or, perhaps, all this had started after Fogg left England and Stuart had not been able to get news of this through to him.
Fogg determined to make another search of Head’s body before he left the cabin.
Nemo said, “Captain Briggs raved when Head refused to get into the yawl. He called him a coward and a mutineer and threatened him with all the consequences of mutiny. But there was little he could do and no time to do it in if he could do it. The yawl departed and presently was at the end of the towline. Briggs was waiting to see what would happen. If a breeze arose in time, the ship would sail away from the shoals. The yawl would be rowed up to it while the line was taken in, and the Mary Celeste could be boarded. He must also have thought that Head, to regain favor and get any charges dropped, would steer the ship and give any other assistance he could.
“But a wind did arise, filling the square sails, and the ship moved away from the shoals. It was however, going westward in a direction opposite to its original course. The towline became taut and was pulled at an angle away from the ship. It broke. The yawl, though rowed desperately toward the ship, could not catch up.”
“And why didn’t Head bring the ship about?” Fogg said.
“Because he was afraid that he could not depend on Brigg’s gratitude. Briggs was a stern New England skipper who would probably arrest him and charge him with mutiny even if Head had saved the whole company.”
Was Nemo telling the whole truth? Had the sudden strain really snapped the towline? Or had Head severed it to make sure that Briggs would not get back aboard? By the time the yawl made land or its passengers were picked up by another ship—if they did not perish before this at sea—Head would be long gone.
As for the story of the panicky and premature abandonment; that could be true enough. About two hundred and thirty-two derelicts were found every year. Sometimes, the crews were picked up by other ships. Sometimes, they were never seen again. Sometimes, the reasons for the hasty desertions were unknown. A fire, an explosion, too much water in the hold. Sometimes, no reasons could be found by the investigators.
The case of the Mary Celeste was only one of many—if it were ever found. Many ships were just swallowed up by the ocean.
“The ship went through several squalls, hence the damage to the sails and the wetness of the floors and garments in some of the cabins,” Nemo said. “There was little that Head could do about them, and they were not serious. He was mainly concerned with making contact with our people who had distorters. He did not even bother shutting the doors or the fore and lazaret hatches though he did wash the dishes.
“He was beginning to despair, because if a violent storm did hit the ship, it would surely go down with him aboard.”
“He will despair no more,” Fogg said.
15
Fogg told Nemo to wait a few minutes before the truce arrangements were put into effect. This delay would upset Nemo, who
would wonder what Fogg was up to. Fogg did not worry about this. He only wanted time for another inspection of the corpse.
Being a very tidy man, he cleaned up the blood on the floor with a piece of canvas. Later, he would use sea water to remove all traces of blood from the floor and water and lemon juice to cleanse the sword. The latter he would put back in its scabbard under the captain’s bed. Fogg wished to leave the ship much as he had found it.
He stripped the body, felt the clothes, and then ripped them open with his jackknife. He found nothing in them. The boots were taken apart, but these revealed nothing. Head seemed to have all his original teeth; there were no caps concealing hollows in which objects could be kept. With some repugnance, he probed the anal cavity but found it to be only as nature intended it.
Possibly, the skin bore schematics or writing in some type of invisible ink. He had no means to bring these out. Should he drop the body into the sea or take it back to the General Grant for more tests? There was bound to be a hullabaloo because of the three series of clangings, and when these sounded for the fourth time, announcing his arrival, more uproar would ensue. Every cabin might be searched, and it would be more than embarrassing to try to explain Head’s corpse.
Before finishing his examination, he pulled on the corpse’s hair again to make sure that a shaved head with a code on it was not below a wig. Head’s hair seemed to be his own.
Fogg arose and went to the doorway. He declared that he was ready to start disarmament proceedings. Passepartout thoroughly frisked Nemo while Nemo held his revolver at Passepartout’s head. The Frenchman announced that Nemo seemed not to have concealed any weapons since the inspection on the General Grant.
Nemo frisked Passepartout with the same results.
Passepartout then moved away, stopping when he came to the railing.
Nemo grasped the barrel of his Colt in his right hand, which retained enough strength for this task. He prepared to eject the cartridges from the magazine. Fogg threw the sword and jackknife and Head’s knife outside. He stood in the doorway, holding his revolver by the barrel. Together, as Passepartout slowly counted, the two got rid of their cartridges.
Fogg stepped outside onto the deck, his cartridges in one hand. Nemo backed away until he was by the starboard railing. Fogg backed away to the port railing. At a signal from Passepartout, both men, one by one, in unison, tossed their cartridges into the sea. Fogg had removed his coat and shirt before coming out of the deckhouse to ensure that he would not be able to palm any cartridges. This was unnecessary, since the cartridges could be seen sailing away over and into the sea.
Passepartout threw the knives into the ocean. Nemo had permitted the Frenchman to do this because he did not think he was in a condition to hurt him even if Passepartout did come at him with a knife.
Nemo had wanted the sword to go overboard, too, but Fogg had insisted that all articles aboard were to be restored to their original positions, except for Head, of course.
This was a ticklish moment. Nemo could make a dash for the sword. If Passepartout picked it up first, Nemo thought he could dodge the first feeble slash and close in with Passepartout. Even if Passepartout threw it overboard, Nemo would have the others at a disadvantage. Wounded though he was, and still suffering a strong headache from the two blows on his head, he felt that he was physically superior to the combination of the others.
It was then that Fogg reminded him that Aouda was waiting at the other end with the cyanide expeller. She had orders to use it if Nemo appeared alone.
Despite all this, Nemo suddenly decided that he would attempt to overpower them. If he could get Fogg over the railing and into the sea, he could deal easily enough with the Frenchman. He would not kill him, because he might need him to transmit the proper code to Aouda. But there were many ways to make him yield that information. And if Passepartout should somehow refuse, or die, then he would send a message to the man from China. The fellow surely must be listening by now. Or, if that failed, he would turn the ship around toward the east again and hope that another ship would sight the Mary Celeste.
It was at this moment that Nemo was stricken with a fit of shaking. Whether it was the first time or not, we do not know. Fogg was startled, because he had not observed anything like this while serving under Nemo. From later accounts by another Briton, the fits became more numerous and one phase of them became permanent. What the nature of the disease was, no one knows. Perhaps his neural charges, restrained too long, damped a part of his brain.
In any event, on this occasion Nemo began shaking violently all over. This lasted for about a minute, after which he seemed to regain a partial control. Now only his head, with the face thrust forward, oscillated in a curiously snake-like fashion. This, with his high domed forehead and the large widely spaced eyes, made him look like a king cobra.
After perhaps sixty seconds, the nervous motion ceased. He had become even paler, and he looked very weary. He passed his hands over his eyes and groaned loudly enough for Passepartout to hear him.
“Great God! Enough! Enough!”
Then he said, “I can’t do it!”
Neither of the Eridaneans knew what he meant by this, but we may deduce that he had planned a final attack on them but now realized that he could not carry it out.
Passepartout took the sword to the captain’s cabin, cleaned it as required by Fogg, and put it back in its scabbard under the bed. When he returned, he found that neither Fogg nor Nemo had moved.
The next step was to dispose of Head’s corpse and clothing. Nemo had recovered enough to assist with this. While Fogg held the feet of the body, Nemo supported the other end with one arm. He failed to let loose of the corpse at the same time as Fogg, and, for a second or so, his hand passed over Head’s face. Fogg thought nothing of this incident except that it indicated Nemo’s sickness and consequent lack of coordination.
The fo’c’sle was cleaned up so that no traces of blood remained. Fogg brought an open box from the lazaret. He placed it upside-down on the deck. This was near the opening in the port rail left by its removal for access of the yawl. Its underside held the distorter, set for transmit in three minutes.
The three crowded upon the box and linked arms. Fogg was counting on either the roll of the ship sending it into the water after the weight on it was relieved or heavy seas carrying it off. He hoped that the transmission would take place before the three men were precipitated off the box by the ship’s rolling. He had given Aouda more instructions, and she, using the watch which Fogg had purchased for her in Hong Kong, timed the action exactly right. She turned her distorter on about six seconds before Fogg’s began operation. The three, accompanied by the ear-paining clangings, appeared on top of the table in Aouda’s cabin.
Aouda had thrust the end of the expeller up toward Nemo’s face. He made no motion until told by Fogg that he could leave. He looked slightly surprised, as if he had expected that, now he was outnumbered, he would be taken prisoner again. Certainly, if the situation had been reversed, he would have taken advantage of it. He bowed and walked out of the cabin into a crowd of near-hysterical passengers.
Since they could not hear yet, Fogg and Aouda communicated with pencil and paper.
Yes, Aouda wrote, there had been much running about and screaming. After a while, most of the passengers, chattering loudly but over their panic, had returned to their cabins. Some had stayed on deck; some had repaired to the bar, which was opened at their insistence.
The two series of clangings which had followed Fogg’s activation of the distorter to fool the Capelleans had brought everybody boiling onto the decks again. Some passengers had insisted that the center of the noise was in the cabins near Aouda’s. Yes, a passenger check had been made, and an officer had talked with her through the door. Yes, she had overheard the discovery of the shattered lock on Fogg’s door, and crewmen had been searching for him. But in this turmoil, who could find whom? The broken lock could be attributed to the efforts of a thief to get int
o Fogg’s cabin while the panic was on.
Fogg thought that it was unfortunate that this could not be kept out of the newspapers. Both Capelleans and Eridaneans, reading of the mysterious bell-like noises on the General Grant would know that the distorters had been used. They would be watching the ship when it discharged its passengers.
The reader is doubtless wondering why Verne did not describe the mysterious noises. The answer is that he would have if Fogg had been in any way connected with them by the authorities. Or, if there had been a logical explanation for the noises, Verne might have included them. But since the bell-like sounds were only one more of the many mysteries of the sea, Verne, as a disciplined novelist, did not see why he should include the incident. If he had included every interesting, but irrelevant, event, Around The World in Eighty Days would have been twice as long.
It is also possible that Verne never even heard about the clangings.
Late the next day, Passepartout met Mr. Fix on the promenade of the forward deck. Though somewhat pale and shaky, Fix had regained most of his strength. Nemo had told him all that had happened. Fix, Nemo said, was to continue to play innocent. He must say nothing of his sickness to Passepartout, who would guess that was why Fix had not accompanied Nemo.
Fix told Passepartout that he had been sleeping peacefully until the first of those terrible belling noises awakened him. What did Mr. Passepartout know about these?
The Frenchman said he knew no more than anybody else. After some small talk and some large drinks, he returned to Fogg. Perhaps, he said, Fix was only a detective.
Fogg replied that could well be. And now, would he sit down with Miss Jejeebhoy and hear what Fogg knew about Nemo? There was no sense in keeping it secret any longer, if, indeed, there had ever been any sense in it. They should understand what sort of man they were up against.
Philip Jose Farmer Page 13
