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IN WHICH FIX, THE DETECTIVE, CONSIDERABLY FURTHERS THE INTERESTS
OF PHILEAS FOGG
Phileas Fogg found himself twenty hours behind time. Passepartout,
the involuntary cause of this delay, was desperate. He had ruined
his master!
At this moment the detective approached Mr. Fogg, and, looking
him intently in the face, said:
"Seriously, sir, are you in great haste?"
"Quite seriously."
"I have a purpose in asking," resumed Fix. "Is
it absolutely necessary that you should be in New York on the
11th, before nine o'clock in the evening, the time that the steamer
leaves for Liverpool?"
"It is absolutely necessary."
"And, if your journey had not been interrupted by these
Indians, you would have reached New York on the morning of the
11th?"
"Yes; with eleven hours to spare before the steamer left."
"Good! you are therefore twenty hours behind. Twelve from
twenty leaves eight. You must regain eight hours. Do you wish
to try to do so?"
"On foot?" asked Mr. Fogg.
"No; on a sledge," replied Fix. "On a sledge
with sails. A man has proposed such a method to me."
It was the man who had spoken to Fix during the night, and
whose offer he had refused.
Phileas Fogg did not reply at once; but Fix, having pointed
out the man, who was walking up and down in front of the station,
Mr. Fogg went up to him. An instant after, Mr. Fogg and the American,
whose name was Mudge, entered a hut built just below the fort.
There Mr. Fogg examined a curious vehicle, a kind of frame
on two long beams, a little raised in front like the runners of
a sledge, and upon which there was room for five or six persons.
A high mast was fixed on the frame, held firmly by metallic lashings,
to which was attached a large brigantine sail. This mast held
an iron stay upon which to hoist a jib-sail. Behind, a sort of
rudder served to guide the vehicle. It was, in short, a sledge
rigged like a sloop. During the winter, when the trains are blocked
up by the snow, these sledges make extremely rapid journeys across
the frozen plains from one station to another. Provided with more
sails than a cutter, and with the wind behind them, they slip
over the surface of the prairies with a speed equal if not superior
to that of the express trains.
Mr. Fogg readily made a bargain with the owner of this land-craft.
The wind was favourable, being fresh, and blowing from the west.
The snow had hardened, and Mudge was very confident of being able
to transport Mr. Fogg in a few hours to Omaha. Thence the trains
eastward run frequently to Chicago and New York. It was not impossible
that the lost time might yet be recovered; and such an opportunity
was not to be rejected.
Not wishing to expose Aouda to the discomforts of travelling
in the open air, Mr. Fogg proposed to leave her with Passepartout
at Fort Kearney, the servant taking upon himself to escort her
to Europe by a better route and under more favourable conditions.
But Aouda refused to separate from Mr. Fogg, and Passepartout
was delighted with her decision; for nothing could induce him
to leave his master while Fix was with him.
It would be difficult to guess the detective's thoughts. Was
this conviction shaken by Phileas Fogg's return, or did he still
regard him as an exceedingly shrewd rascal, who, his journey round
the world completed, would think himself absolutely safe in England?
Perhaps Fix's opinion of Phileas Fogg was somewhat modified; but
he was nevertheless resolved to do his duty, and to hasten the
return of the whole party to England as much as possible.
At eight o'clock the sledge was ready to start. The passengers
took their places on it, and wrapped themselves up closely in
their travelling-cloaks. The two great sails were hoisted, and
under the pressure of the wind the sledge slid over the hardened
snow with a velocity of forty miles an hour.
The distance between Fort Kearney and Omaha, as the birds fly,
is at most two hundred miles. If the wind held good, the distance
might be traversed in five hours; if no accident happened the
sledge might reach Omaha by one o'clock.
What a journey! The travellers, huddled close together, could
not speak for the cold, intensified by the rapidity at which they
were going. The sledge sped on as lightly as a boat over the waves.
When the breeze came skimming the earth the sledge seemed to be
lifted off the ground by its sails. Mudge, who was at the rudder,
kept in a straight line, and by a turn of his hand checked the
lurches which the vehicle had a tendency to make. All the sails
were up, and the jib was so arranged as not to screen the brigantine.
A top-mast was hoisted, and another jib, held out to the wind,
added its force to the other sails. Although the speed could not
be exactly estimated, the sledge could not be going at less than
forty miles an hour.
"If nothing breaks," said Mudge, "we shall get
there!"
Mr. Fogg had made it for Mudge's interest to reach Omaha within
the time agreed on, by the offer of a handsome reward.
The prairie, across which the sledge was moving in a straight
line, was as flat as a sea. It seemed like a vast frozen lake.
The railroad which ran through this section ascended from the
south-west to the north-west by Great Island, Columbus, an important
Nebraska town, Schuyler, and Fremont, to Omaha. It followed throughout
the right bank of the Platte River. The sledge, shortening this
route, took a chord of the arc described by the railway. Mudge
was not afraid of being stopped by the Platte River, because it
was frozen. The road, then, was quite clear of obstacles, and
Phileas Fogg had but two things to fear-- an accident to the sledge,
and a change or calm in the wind.
But the breeze, far from lessening its force, blew as if to
bend the mast, which, however, the metallic lashings held firmly.
These lashings, like the chords of a stringed instrument, resounded
as if vibrated by a violin bow. The sledge slid along in the midst
of a plaintively intense melody.
"Those chords give the fifth and the octave," said
Mr. Fogg.
These were the only words he uttered during the journey. Aouda,
cosily packed in furs and cloaks, was sheltered as much as possible
from the attacks of the freezing wind. As for Passepartout, his
face was as red as the sun's disc when it sets in the mist, and
he laboriously inhaled the biting air. With his natural buoyancy
of spirits, he began to hope again. They would reach New York
on the evening, if not on the morning, of the 11th, and there
was still some chances that it would be before the steamer sailed
for Liverpool.
Passepartout even felt a strong desire to grasp his ally, Fix,
by the hand. He remembered that it was the detective who procured
the sledge, the only means of reaching Omaha in time; but, checked
by some presentiment, he kept his usual reserve. One thing, however,
Passepartout would never forget, and that was the sacrifice which
Mr. Fogg had made, without hesitation, to rescue him from the
Sioux. Mr. Fogg had risked his fortune and his life. No! His servant
would never forget that!
While each of the party was absorbed in reflections so different,
the sledge flew past over the vast carpet of snow. The creeks
it passed over were not perceived. Fields and streams disappeared
under the uniform whiteness. The plain was absolutely deserted.
Between the Union Pacific road and the branch which unites Kearney
with Saint Joseph it formed a great uninhabited island. Neither
village, station, nor fort appeared. From time to time they sped
by some phantom-like tree, whose white skeleton twisted and rattled
in the wind. Sometimes flocks of wild birds rose, or bands of
gaunt, famished, ferocious prairie-wolves ran howling after the
sledge. Passepartout, revolver in hand, held himself ready to
fire on those which came too near. Had an accident then happened
to the sledge, the travellers, attacked by these beasts, would
have been in the most terrible danger; but it held on its even
course, soon gained on the wolves, and ere long left the howling
band at a safe distance behind.
About noon Mudge perceived by certain landmarks that he was
crossing the Platte River. He said nothing, but he felt certain
that he was now within twenty miles of Omaha. In less than an
hour he left the rudder and furled his sails, whilst the sledge,
carried forward by the great impetus the wind had given it, went
on half a mile further with its sails unspread.
It stopped at last, and Mudge, pointing to a mass of roofs
white with snow, said: "We have got there!"
Arrived! Arrived at the station which is in daily communication,
by numerous trains, with the Atlantic seaboard!
Passepartout and Fix jumped off, stretched their stiffened
limbs, and aided Mr. Fogg and the young woman to descend from
the sledge. Phileas Fogg generously rewarded Mudge, whose hand
Passepartout warmly grasped, and the party directed their steps
to the Omaha railway station.
The Pacific Railroad proper finds its terminus at this important
Nebraska town. Omaha is connected with Chicago by the Chicago
and Rock Island Railroad, which runs directly east, and passes
fifty stations.
A train was ready to start when Mr. Fogg and his party reached
the station, and they only had time to get into the cars. They
had seen nothing of Omaha; but Passepartout confessed to himself
that this was not to be regretted, as they were not travelling
to see the sights.
The train passed rapidly across the State of Iowa, by Council
Bluffs, Des Moines, and Iowa City. During the night it crossed
the Mississippi at Davenport, and by Rock Island entered Illinois.
The next day, which was the 10th, at four o'clock in the evening,
it reached Chicago, already risen from its ruins, and more proudly
seated than ever on the borders of its beautiful Lake Michigan.
Nine hundred miles separated Chicago from New York; but trains
are not wanting at Chicago. Mr. Fogg passed at once from one to
the other, and the locomotive of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and
Chicago Railway left at full speed, as if it fully comprehended
that that gentleman had no time to lose. It traversed Indiana,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey like a flash, rushing through
towns with antique names, some of which had streets and car-tracks,
but as yet no houses. At last the Hudson came into view; and,
at a quarter-past eleven in the evening of the 11th, the train
stopped in the station on the right bank of the river, before
the very pier of the Cunard line.
The China, for Liverpool, had started three-quarters of an
hour before!
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