|
IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT FINDS OUT THAT, EVEN AT THE ANTIPODES,
IT IS CONVENIENT TO HAVE SOME MONEY IN ONE'S POCKET
The Carnatic, setting sail from Hong Kong at half-past six
on the 7th of November, directed her course at full steam towards
Japan. She carried a large cargo and a well-filled cabin of passengers.
Two state-rooms in the rear were, however, unoccupied--those which
had been engaged by Phileas Fogg.
The next day a passenger with a half-stupefied eye, staggering
gait, and disordered hair, was seen to emerge from the second
cabin, and to totter to a seat on deck.
It was Passepartout; and what had happened to him was as follows:
Shortly after Fix left the opium den, two waiters had lifted the
unconscious Passepartout, and had carried him to the bed reserved
for the smokers. Three hours later, pursued even in his dreams
by a fixed idea, the poor fellow awoke, and struggled against
the stupefying influence of the narcotic. The thought of a duty
unfulfilled shook off his torpor, and he hurried from the abode
of drunkenness. Staggering and holding himself up by keeping against
the walls, falling down and creeping up again, and irresistibly
impelled by a kind of instinct, he kept crying out, "The
Carnatic! the Carnatic!"
The steamer lay puffing alongside the quay, on the point of
starting. Passepartout had but few steps to go; and, rushing upon
the plank, he crossed it, and fell unconscious on the deck, just
as the Carnatic was moving off. Several sailors, who were evidently
accustomed to this sort of scene, carried the poor Frenchman down
into the second cabin, and Passepartout did not wake until they
were one hundred and fifty miles away from China. Thus he found
himself the next morning on the deck of the Carnatic, and eagerly
inhaling the exhilarating sea-breeze. The pure air sobered him.
He began to collect his sense, which he found a difficult task;
but at last he recalled the events of the evening before, Fix's
revelation, and the opium-house.
"It is evident," said he to himself, "that I
have been abominably drunk! What will Mr. Fogg say? At least I
have not missed the steamer, which is the most important thing."
Then, as Fix occurred to him: "As for that rascal, I hope
we are well rid of him, and that he has not dared, as he proposed,
to follow us on board the Carnatic. A detective on the track of
Mr. Fogg, accused of robbing the Bank of England! Pshaw! Mr. Fogg
is no more a robber than I am a murderer."
Should he divulge Fix's real errand to his master? Would it
do to tell the part the detective was playing. Would it not be
better to wait until Mr. Fogg reached London again, and then impart
to him that an agent of the metropolitan police had been following
him round the world, and have a good laugh over it? No doubt;
at least, it was worth considering. The first thing to do was
to find Mr. Fogg, and apologise for his singular behaviour.
Passepartout got up and proceeded, as well as he could with
the rolling of the steamer, to the after-deck. He saw no one who
resembled either his master or Aouda. "Good!" muttered
he; "Aouda has not got up yet, and Mr. Fogg has probably
found some partners at whist."
He descended to the saloon. Mr. Fogg was not there. Passepartout
had only, however, to ask the purser the number of his master's
state-room. The purser replied that he did not know any passenger
by the name of Fogg.
"I beg your pardon," said Passepartout persistently.
"He is a tall gentleman, quiet, and not very talkative, and
has with him a young lady--"
"There is no young lady on board," interrupted the
purser. "Here is a list of the passengers; you may see for
yourself."
Passepartout scanned the list, but his master's name was not
upon it. All at once an idea struck him.
"Ah! am I on the Carnatic?"
"Yes."
"On the way to Yokohama?"
"Certainly."
Passepartout had for an instant feared that he was on the wrong
boat; but, though he was really on the Carnatic, his master was
not there.
He fell thunderstruck on a seat. He saw it all now. He remembered
that the time of sailing had been changed, that he should have
informed his master of that fact, and that he had not done so.
It was his fault, then, that Mr. Fogg and Aouda had missed the
steamer. Yes, but it was still more the fault of the traitor who,
in order to separate him from his master, and detain the latter
at Hong Kong, had inveigled him into getting drunk! He now saw
the detective's trick; and at this moment Mr. Fogg was certainly
ruined, his bet was lost, and he himself perhaps arrested and
imprisoned! At this thought Passepartout tore his hair. Ah, if
Fix ever came within his reach, what a settling of accounts there
would be!
After his first depression, Passepartout became calmer, and
began to study his situation. It was certainly not an enviable
one. He found himself on the way to Japan, and what should he
do when he got there? His pocket was empty; he had not a solitary
shilling not so much as a penny. His passage had fortunately been
paid for in advance; and he had five or six days in which to decide
upon his future course. He fell to at meals with an appetite,
and ate for Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and himself. He helped himself as
generously as if Japan were a desert, where nothing to eat was
to be looked for.
At dawn on the 13th the Carnatic entered the port of Yokohama.
This is an important port of call in the Pacific, where all the
mail-steamers, and those carrying travellers between North America,
China, Japan, and the Oriental islands put in. It is situated
in the bay of Yeddo, and at but a short distance from that second
capital of the Japanese Empire, and the residence of the Tycoon,
the civil Emperor, before the Mikado, the spiritual Emperor, absorbed
his office in his own. The Carnatic anchored at the quay near
the custom-house, in the midst of a crowd of ships bearing the
flags of all nations.
Passepartout went timidly ashore on this so curious territory
of the Sons of the Sun. He had nothing better to do than, taking
chance for his guide, to wander aimlessly through the streets
of Yokohama. He found himself at first in a thoroughly European
quarter, the houses having low fronts, and being adorned with
verandas, beneath which he caught glimpses of neat peristyles.
This quarter occupied, with its streets, squares, docks, and warehouses,
all the space between the "promontory of the Treaty"
and the river. Here, as at Hong Kong and Calcutta, were mixed
crowds of all races Americans and English, Chinamen and Dutchmen,
mostly merchants ready to buy or sell anything. The Frenchman
felt himself as much alone among them as if he had dropped down
in the midst of Hottentots.
He had, at least, one resource to call on the French and English
consuls at Yokohama for assistance. But he shrank from telling
the story of his adventures, intimately connected as it was with
that of his master; and, before doing so, he determined to exhaust
all other means of aid. As chance did not favour him in the European
quarter, he penetrated that inhabited by the native Japanese,
determined, if necessary, to push on to Yeddo.
The Japanese quarter of Yokohama is called Benten, after the
goddess of the sea, who is worshipped on the islands round about.
There Passepartout beheld beautiful fir and cedar groves, sacred
gates of a singular architecture, bridges half hid in the midst
of bamboos and reeds, temples shaded by immense cedar-trees, holy
retreats where were sheltered Buddhist priests and sectaries of
Confucius, and interminable streets, where a perfect harvest of
rose-tinted and red-cheeked children, who looked as if they had
been cut out of Japanese screens, and who were playing in the
midst of short-legged poodles and yellowish cats, might have been
gathered.
The streets were crowded with people. Priests were passing
in processions, beating their dreary tambourines; police and custom-house
officers with pointed hats encrusted with lac and carrying two
sabres hung to their waists; soldiers, clad in blue cotton with
white stripes, and bearing guns; the Mikado's guards, enveloped
in silken doubles, hauberks and coats of mail; and numbers of
military folk of all ranks--for the military profession is as
much respected in Japan as it is despised in China--went hither
and thither in groups and pairs. Passepartout saw, too, begging
friars, long-robed pilgrims, and simple civilians, with their
warped and jet-black hair, big heads, long busts, slender legs,
short stature, and complexions varying from copper-colour to a
dead white, but never yellow, like the Chinese, from whom the
Japanese widely differ. He did not fail to observe the curious
equipages--carriages and palanquins, barrows supplied with sails,
and litters made of bamboo; nor the women-- whom he thought not
especially handsome--who took little steps with their little feet,
whereon they wore canvas shoes, straw sandals, and clogs of worked
wood, and who displayed tight-looking eyes, flat chests, teeth
fashionably blackened, and gowns crossed with silken scarfs, tied
in an enormous knot behind an ornament which the modern Parisian
ladies seem to have borrowed from the dames of Japan.
Passepartout wandered for several hours in the midst of this
motley crowd, looking in at the windows of the rich and curious
shops, the jewellery establishments glittering with quaint Japanese
ornaments, the restaurants decked with streamers and banners,
the tea-houses, where the odorous beverage was being drunk with
saki, a liquor concocted from the fermentation of rice, and the
comfortable smoking-houses, where they were puffing, not opium,
which is almost unknown in Japan, but a very fine, stringy tobacco.
He went on till he found himself in the fields, in the midst of
vast rice plantations. There he saw dazzling camellias expanding
themselves, with flowers which were giving forth their last colours
and perfumes, not on bushes, but on trees, and within bamboo enclosures,
cherry, plum, and apple trees, which the Japanese cultivate rather
for their blossoms than their fruit, and which queerly-fashioned,
grinning scarecrows protected from the sparrows, pigeons, ravens,
and other voracious birds. On the branches of the cedars were
perched large eagles; amid the foliage of the weeping willows
were herons, solemnly standing on one leg; and on every hand were
crows, ducks, hawks, wild birds, and a multitude of cranes, which
the Japanese consider sacred, and which to their minds symbolise
long life and prosperity.
As he was strolling along, Passepartout espied some violets
among the shrubs.
"Good!" said he; "I'll have some supper."
But, on smelling them, he found that they were odourless.
"No chance there," thought he.
The worthy fellow had certainly taken good care to eat as hearty
a breakfast as possible before leaving the Carnatic; but, as he
had been walking about all day, the demands of hunger were becoming
importunate. He observed that the butchers stalls contained neither
mutton, goat, nor pork; and, knowing also that it is a sacrilege
to kill cattle, which are preserved solely for farming, he made
up his mind that meat was far from plentiful in Yokohama-- nor
was he mistaken; and, in default of butcher's meat, he could have
wished for a quarter of wild boar or deer, a partridge, or some
quails, some game or fish, which, with rice, the Japanese eat
almost exclusively. But he found it necessary to keep up a stout
heart, and to postpone the meal he craved till the following morning.
Night came, and Passepartout re-entered the native quarter, where
he wandered through the streets, lit by vari-coloured lanterns,
looking on at the dancers, who were executing skilful steps and
boundings, and the astrologers who stood in the open air with
their telescopes. Then he came to the harbour, which was lit up
by the resin torches of the fishermen, who were fishing from their
boats.
The streets at last became quiet, and the patrol, the officers
of which, in their splendid costumes, and surrounded by their
suites, Passepartout thought seemed like ambassadors, succeeded
the bustling crowd. Each time a company passed, Passepartout chuckled,
and said to himself: "Good! another Japanese embassy departing
for Europe!"
|
