Philip Jose Farmer

by The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

  Speedy gave Fogg an unalterable half hour to get all aboard. Fogg hurried in a cab to the hotel and returned with the others just in time. (New York was having traffic problems even in 1872, but the fact that Fogg was able to make such speed shows that the problem was not as bad as now. Or perhaps Fogg ignored all traffic laws.) An hour later, the Henrietta passed the lighthouse marking the entrance to the Hudson, turned past Sandy Hook, and was in the sea.

  Passepartout, it can be presumed, regretted not having been able to tour Manhattan. Due largely to immigration from Europe, New York City held a million people. It was, generally, a dirty, drab, drunken, corruptly governed city with many slums. Muggings, killings, brawls, and mob violence were common. The guidebooks warned newcomers not to walk out at night except in better areas well lit by gas. Despite this, the visitor with means might enjoy it. Passepartout would have liked to drive through the recently constructed Central Park, even if slums did ring it. Trinity Church was the tallest structure in town and, though it would be nothing unusual in London, it was notable in contrast with its surroundings. Passepartout might also have wanted to view the new residential areas with their brownstone fronts and the business sections with their cast-iron façades. He could have compared the mass-transportation problems vexing New York City with those vexing London. If he had talked to the Gothamites, he would have heard rumors of gunrunning to Cuban revolutionaries and the seriousness of the epizootic disease which was killing horses. He would have noted that it was only because of this “horse influenza” that Manhattan’s streets in summer were not as foul with manure and the air as thick with huge horseflies and a compound of dust, coal smoke, and manure particles as were London’s.

  All this was not to be. Passepartout also had more to think about than the rather sleazy exotica of Baghdad-on-the-Hudson. Mr. Fogg had locked Captain Speedy up in the master’s own quarters.

  Mr. Fogg, seeing that Speedy was adamant about not changing his course to Liverpool, had bribed the crew to cooperate with him. This was, as Speedy screamed behind his door, mutiny on the high seas and piracy, the penalty of which was hanging by the neck until dead. Fogg heard him with his customary serenity and continued to give orders from the bridge. It is here that Verne says (truly) that Fogg’s management of the craft showed that he had once been a sailor.

  As for Fix, he was fighting a tendency to admire Fogg more and more. He was also wondering why he had received no orders in New York concerning Fogg. Doubtless, Nemo had changed his plans, but it would be nice to know what was going on. Perhaps one of the crew was a fellow Capellean charged with killing the Eridaneans even if he had to blow up the vessel to do it. Fix did not like to contemplate this plan, since it would mean his own demise. And, to tell the truth, he admitted, he was getting more and more excited about the wager. Several times, he had to remind himself that he had no business rooting for the chap.

  On the sixteenth of December, half the trip across the Atlantic was behind the Henrietta. She had passed safely through the Newfoundland Fogs and a storm. But now the chief engineer informed Fogg that the fuel supply was running out. The ship did have enough coal to go on “short steam” at a reduced speed to Liverpool. The furnaces were still on “lull steam.”

  Fogg, after some deliberation, told the engineer to keep the fires at maximum until the coal was all gone. On the eighteenth, Fogg was told that the fuel would be exhausted sometime that day.

  Near noon, Fogg sent for the captain. His face purple, Speedy bounded onto the bridge. “Where are we?” he cried.

  “Seven hundred and seven miles from Liverpool,” Fogg said calmly.

  “Pirate!”

  “Sir, I have sent for you...”

  “Pickaroon!”

  “...to ask you to sell me the ship.”

  “By all the devils, no!”

  “Then I shall be forced to burn her.”

  “What, burn the Henrietta!”

  “The upper part at least. The coal has run out.”

  “Burn my ship? A ship worth fifty thousand dollars!”

  “Here are sixty thousand,” Fogg said. He handed him the money.

  Here Verne makes his classical remark: “An American can hardly remain unmoved at the sight of sixty thousand dollars.”

  True, but Verne’s ethnicism is evident in this statement. Few of any nationality, then or today, would not be emotionally affected on being presented with this sum.

  Speedy forgot his hate. Money, more than music, soothes the savage beast. He was getting by far the best of the bargain.

  “I will still have the iron hull?” he said.

  “The iron hull and the engine. I am only buying the wood and all other combustible substances. Is it agreed?”

  Fogg then gave the order to strip off all the interior seats, bunks, frames and other furniture and to put them into the furnaces.

  The next day, the nineteenth, the fires received the masts, spars, and rafts. On the twentieth, the railings, fittings, and most of the deck and upper sides followed. On this day, the hulk was within sight of the Irish coast and the Fastnet lighthouse. At ten that evening, Queenstown appeared. This was the Irish port where trans-Atlantic steamers put in to deliver the mail. From there express trains sped to Dublin, from which the mail was carried by fast boat to Liverpool. This route got the mail into London twelve hours ahead of the ships.

  The Henrietta waited three hours for high tide, after which it steamed into the harbor and discharged the Fogg party. A little after one o’clock, the travelers stepped onto dry land. Since this was British soil, Fix was in a position to arrest Fogg and clap him into jail. Verne says that Fix was much tempted to do so. But Verne could only speculate on why he refrained.

  “What struggle was going on inside him? Had he changed his mind about his man?”

  No, Fix had not changed his mind. He just could not make it up. The long intimacy with his three enemies had forced him to acknowledge that Eridaneans could be, and were in this case, as human as he. They were, even if the deadly antagonists of his own people, not evil incarnate. He admired Fogg for his undeviating courage, quick-wittedness, resourcefulness, loyalty, and generosity. He liked him. He liked the other two for similar reasons. He liked Fogg far more than he did Nemo, who, he admitted to himself, he hated, feared, and loathed. And he had not liked Stamp Proctor; he had been glad when the colonel’s plan to kill Fogg had been spoiled by the Sioux.

  Time and again, he told himself that he was thinking wrongly. No matter. He continued to think along the same lines. He could not sleep at night because of his conflicts, and his days were tearing-aparts. What was he to do?

  At twenty minutes to high noon, the Fogg party got off the boat at Liverpool. Fogg had only a six-hour train ride to Charing Cross Station, London, and a brief carriage ride to the Reform Club.

  Fix could no longer refuse to act. Both the English law and Capellean orders required him to proceed. He put his hand on Fogg’s shoulder, a familiarity he would not have dared except in an official capacity. Verne says that he showed the warrant in the other hand, but Verne forgot that Fix had had no opportunity to get a warrant.

  “You are really Phileas Fogg?” he said.

  No doubt, a variation of Pilate’s classical remark flashed through Fogg’s mind. What is truth? What is reality? What, or who is the real Fogg?

  But he replied, “I am.”

  “I arrest you in the Queen’s name!”

  Fogg went quietly into custody in the Custom House. He would, he was informed, be transferred the next day to London.

  Passepartout tried to attack Fix but was restrained by several policemen. Fix did not prefer charges against him, as he could have done for this attempted assault. One, he felt that the Frenchman was justified. Two, Passepartout was still carrying the distorter. If the Capellean chiefs still wished to get hold of it, which they surely must, they could do so much more easily if Passepartout were at large.

  Aouda was paralyzed with astonishment. Contrary to wha
t Verne said, Aouda understood what was happening. But, since Fix had not tried to arrest Fogg in Ireland, the three Eridaneans had assumed that he meant to wait until they reached London. Just as they had had plans to tie him up and leave him behind in Ireland, so they had intended to take care of him at London. They even thought that he might mean to wait until after Fogg had won the bet.

  Evidently, Fogg had overlooked this particular section of the foreseen.

  That gentleman, calm as ever, sat in a locked room in the Custom House and read the London Times. Among other items attracting his interest was a story about the Mary Celeste. This had first been noted by the Times of the sixteenth of December in its Latest Shipping Intelligence section. The derelict had been brought into Gibraltar by a prize crew of three from the British brigantine Dei Gratia. Not many details were as yet available, but the ship had a cargo of seventeen hundred barrels of alcohol and was seaworthy.

  Verne says that, while in this room, Mr. Fogg carefully put his watch on the table and looked at its advancing hands. Verne wonders what Fogg was thinking at this time.

  This incident is a curious one. Except for one previous occasion in Verne’s book, Fogg had no watch to consult. He had relied on Passepartout’s watch. Furthermore, if he had had a watch, why would he have fallen into the same error that Passepartout made about the time zones? Fogg, according to Verne, thought that that day was the twenty-first of December. It was, in reality, the twentieth. Would Fogg, who was a veteran sailor by Verne’s own admission, one who had been everywhere and seen everything, who was highly educated, have not known what happened when the ship crossed the 180th meridian? By no means. Verne must have known this. But he was eager to provide drama and suspense. He cannot be blamed for using this little piece of trickery in his narrative. After all, he got it from the public report issued by Fogg himself. The Englishman had to create some excuse for the events that were to follow his incarceration in Liverpool. His fertile imagination supplied one which Verne was eager to accept.

  So, when Verne says that Fogg wrote in his journal that day, “21st December, Saturday, Liverpool, 80th day, 11:40 a.m.,” he is inserting his own fiction. Indeed, Verne adds more imaginative detail by writing that Fogg noticed that his watch was two hours fast. If he took the express train at that very moment, he would just make the quarter to nine deadline.

  It was at this time that Fix was told that the real thief, a James Strand, had been arrested three days ago. Fogg was in the clear. Stammering, Fix related the news to Fogg.

  Phileas Fogg walked up to Fix, gave him a steady and cold look, and knocked him down with one blow of his fist.

  Fix, lying on the floor, felt that he still had not been properly punished. But he at least could salvage something from the incident. Fogg evidently believed him to be nothing more than a meddling detective.

  This incident shows that Fix was as ignorant of the real date as Passepartout. Otherwise, he would not have believed that Fogg had lost his bet because he had arrested him.

  But if Fogg knew that he still had plenty of time, why did he hit Fix?

  The answer is obvious. As Phileas Fogg, English gentleman, he could be expected to resent being arrested by a man whom he had so generously treated. He had to play out his role.

  The party, minus Fix, took a cab and arrived at the station at twenty minutes before three. They were thirty-five minutes too late to catch the express.

  Fogg ordered a special train but could not get one until three o’clock. He wondered if Nemo’s hand was in this delay, if Nemo was planning to have unauthorized passengers on board. Before the train left at three, Fogg thoroughly searched the locomotive, tender, and his car. Satisfied that these hid no one, he signaled the train to depart. It soon roared along at a speed that should have brought them to London in five and a half hours. There were, however, unexpected delays.

  When Fogg stepped from the car at Charing Cross, he was five minutes late. (Or would have been if this had been the twenty-first.)

  All the clocks of London were striking ten minutes to nine.

  18

  As noted, this remarkable phenomenon has been commented on by various critics and translators. The original French version contains no footnotes about this, so it may be presumed that Verne thought this singularity was unique to the clocks of the English, an eccentric people all told.

  Fogg made no such mistake. He knew that, somewhere in London, a distorter was being used. As far as he knew, the Eridaneans had only one, so it must be a Capellean’s. Probably, the man from China was using his to transmit himself to London, which meant that they had at least two now. Had the box with the distorter taped on its underside failed to be washed off the Mary Celeste? Had it been stolen by a Capellean sent to Gibraltar for that very purpose? Surely, that must be the explanation.

  After leaving Charing Cross Station, Fogg ordered Passepartout to buy some food for their stay at No. 7, Savile Row, that night. Fogg and Aouda would proceed straight to his house for a night’s rest. There was plenty of time to win the bet. In fact, Fogg planned to make his entrance into the Reform Club only a few minutes before his time was up. Stuart might be angry at this delay because he had important information or orders for him. But Fogg desperately needed that night. The anxieties and terrors had been accumulating in him to the bursting point. He had to discharge at least some to keep his psychic boiler from exploding. About six hours of therapeutic emission of neural current would restore him.

  On the way, however, he changed his mind about Stuart. He would have to tell him that he was at No. 7. The Capelleans were up to something; the clangings showed that. By indulging himself, he might be ruining his own people, not to mention himself.

  As they passed a telegraph office, he ordered the cab to stop. He took only a little time to write the telegram since it consisted of one codeword with his name in code. Directing the clerk to send a messenger at once if a reply came, he left the office. The cab soon drew up before his house. Fogg did not enter it for a few minutes. The front of the house looked as he had left it. The light from Passepartout’s gas jet was shining through a narrow opening between the blind and the windowsill. Fogg led Aouda quietly into the house. Both held revolvers. Fogg had smuggled these into England, adding this crime to piracy on the high seas. A thorough search of each room revealed nothing untoward.

  Presently Passepartout entered with the provisions. He deposited the bags in the pantry and hurried upstairs to his own room. The jet had not been turned off by Fogg, who thought, correctly, that this was his valet’s duty. Passepartout reached out to extinguish the flame, then held his hand. Why turn it off now when he would be needing it?

  He went downstairs and removed the mail from the letter box. On seeing the bill from the gas company, his eyes bugged. He would never be able to pay off his debt, not unless he worked for nothing for eighty days and then some. Fogg, being a stickler, even if a hero, would not bear the expense himself.

  The night lurched, bumped, and groaned by. Aouda reached vainly for sleep in her room. Fogg sat in his chair in his room and delved into his own mind. He had to be as careful in his probing as an electrician without a schematic trying to find the cause of a malfunction in a tangled mass of high-voltage equipment. One mistake, and he could be severely injured or even killed. From time to time, a shudder passed through him. His pupils dilated or contracted. His nostrils flared. His ears and scalp twitched. His fingers fastened upon the arms of his chair as if he would tear the leather off. Sweat poured out all over him.

  Now and then, he groaned. Pain, hate, loathing, contempt, and horror twisted his face in succession. He soundlessly mouthed words he should long ago have verbalized. Sometimes, his body became rigid and shook as if he were in a grand mal seizure. Sometimes, he was as limp as if he were newly dead.

  Dawn came while Passepartout watched outside Fogg’s door. If he heard sounds that seemed as if Fogg were hurting himself or even killing himself, he was to hasten in. But this had not occurred, th
ough there were moments when he was about to interfere.

  Shortly after dawn, Passepartout, looking through the keyhole, saw Fogg sleeping in bed. The crises were over, for that night at least. Fogg had told him that it would take at least three sessions to discharge most of the heavy stuff.

  The Frenchman went to his own room then to perform some therapy on himself. Since he was much less self-controlled than Fogg (as who wasn’t?), and had a temperament which naturally discharged anxieties more easily than Fogg’s, his therapy was shorter and less dangerous. After an hour, he went to sleep.

  Fogg, looking haggard and pale, rose late that morning. By noon he had regained his customary healthy appearance, though he acted as if he still had much energy bound up in him. Aouda came down for breakfast about twelve. She, too, was pale and had bags under her eves.

  At half-past seven that evening, the occupants of No. 7 heard the clanging of fire-wagon bells. Looking out the windows, past the curtains, they saw by the gaslights many people, including their neighbors, hurrying up Savile Row. The bells became louder, and two fire-wagons, each drawn by a team of horses, sped by. The bells had no sooner died out than the boom of an explosion rattled the windows. Passepartout, quivering with curiosity, asked if he could not leave the house to find out the source of all this excitement.

  “No,” Fogg said. “Someone might see you and thus know that I am back. I prefer to keep it secret until the last moment.”

  Passepartout thought that that was not likely, since everybody, servants and masters, seemed to have rushed off to the fire or whatever it was. They did not know what he looked like, and he would take care to be back before they returned to Savile Row. But he did not argue. He could not, however, refrain from looking between the curtains several times. Just as he was about to turn away from his latest peek, he saw a hansom cab stop two houses from No. 7. The horse drawing it stood for several seconds while the driver, perched high on a seat at the rear of the two-wheeled carriage, shouted at it. The passenger turned around and in turn shouted at the driver through the opening in the roof. The horse, quivering, took several more steps forward. The driver stood up to lash his whip at it. A moment later, the horse suddenly collapsed, causing the cab to tilt even more forward and precipitating the driver off to one side and onto the street.