Chapter 13
In Which Passepartout Receives a New ProofThat Fortune Favors the Brave
The project was a bold one, full of difficulty, perhapsimpracticable. Mr. Fogg was going to risk life, or at leastliberty, and therefore the success of his tour. But he did nothesitate, and he found in Sir Francis Cromarty an enthusiastically.
As for Passepartout, he was ready for anything that might beproposed. His master's idea charmed him. He perceived a heart, asoul, under that icy exterior. He began to love Phileas Fogg.
There remained the guide. What course would he adopt? Would henot take part with the Indians? In default of his assistance, itwas necessary to be assured of his neutrality. Sir Francisfrankly put the question to him.
"Officer," replied the guide, "I am a Parsee, and this woman is aParsee. Command me as you will."
"Excellent!" said Mr. Fogg.
"However," resumed the guide, "it is certain, not only that weshall risk our lives, but horrible tortures, if we are taken."
"That is foreseen," replied Mr. Fogg. "I think we must wait tillnight before acting."
"I think so," said the guide. The worthy Indian then gave someaccount of the victim, who, he said, was a celebrated beauty ofthe Parsee race, and the daughter of a wealthy Bombay merchant.She had received a thoroughly English education in that city,and, from her manners and intelligence, would be thought anEuropean. Her name was Aouda. Left an orphan, she was marriedagainst her will to the old rajah of Bundelcund; and, knowing thefate that awaited her, she escaped, was retaken, and devoted bythe rajah's relatives, who had an interest in her death, to thesacrifice from which it seemed she could not escape.
The Parsee's narrative only confirmed Mr. Fogg and his companionsin their generous design. It was decided that the guide shoulddirect the elephant towards the pagoda of Pillaji, which heaccordingly approached as quickly as possible. They halted, halfan hour afterwards, in a copse, some five hundred feet from thepagoda, where they were well concealed. But they could hear thegroans and cries of the fakirs distinctly.
They then discussed the means of rescuing the victim. The guidewas familiar with the pagoda of Pillaji, in which, as hedeclared, the young woman was imprisoned. Could they enter any ofits doors while the whole party of Indians was plunged in adrunken sleep, or was it safer to attempt to make a hole in thewalls? This could only be determined at the moment and the place.But it was certain that the abduction must be made that night,and not when, at break of day, the victim was led to her funeralpyre. Then no human intervention could save her.
As soon as night fell, about six o'clock, they decided to make areconnaissance around the pagoda. The cries of the fakirs werejust ceasing. The Indians were in the act of plunging themselvesinto the drunkenness caused by liquid opium mingled with hemp, andit might be possible to slip between them to the temple itself.
The Parsee, leading the others, noiselessly crept through thewood, and in ten minutes they found themselves on the banks of asmall stream, whence, by the light of the rosin torches, theyperceived a pyre of wood, on the top of which lay the embalmedbody of the rajah, which was to be burned with his wife. Thepagoda, whose minarets loomed above the trees in the deepeningdusk, stood a hundred steps away.
"Come!" whispered the guide.
He slipped more cautiously than ever through the brush, followedby his companions. The silence around was only broken by the lowmurmuring of the wind among the branches.
Soon the Parsee stopped on the borders of the glade, which waslit up by the torches. The ground was covered by groups of theIndians, motionless in their drunken sleep. It seemed abattlefield strewn with the dead. Men, women and children laytogether.
In the background, among the trees, the pagoda of Pillaji loomeddistinctly. Much to the guide's disappointment, the guards of therajah, lighted by torches, were watching at the doors andmarching to and fro with naked sabres. Probably the priests, too,were watching within.
The Parsee, now convinced that it was impossible to force anentrance to the temple, advanced no farther, but led hiscompanions back again. Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty alsosaw that nothing could be attempted in that direction. Theystopped, and engaged in a whispered colloquy.
"It is only eight now," said the brigadier, "and these guards mayalso go to sleep."
"It is not impossible," returned the Parsee.
They lay down at the foot of a tree, and waited.
The time seemed long. The guide ever and anon left them to takean observation on the edge of the wood, but the guards watchedsteadily by the glare of the torches, and a dim light creptthrough the windows of the pagoda.
They waited till midnight; but no change took place among theguards, and it became apparent that their yielding to sleep couldnot be counted on. The other plan must be carried out. An openingin the walls of the pagoda must be made. It remained to ascertainwhether the priests were watching by the side of their victim asassiduously as were the soldiers at the door.
After a last consultation, the guide announced that he was readyfor the attempt, and advanced, followed by the others. They tooka roundabout way, so as to get at the pagoda on the rear. Theyreached the walls about half-past twelve, without having metanyone; here there was no guard, nor were there either windows ordoors.
The night was dark. The moon, on the wane, scarcely left thehorizon, and was covered with heavy clouds. The height of thetrees deepened the darkness.
It was not enough to reach the walls; an opening in them must beaccomplished, and to attain this purpose the party only had theirpocket-knives. Happily the temple walls were built of brick andwood, which could be penetrated with little difficulty; after onebrick had been taken out, the rest would yield easily.
They set noiselessly to work, and the Parsee on one side andPassepartout on the other began to loosen the bricks so as tomake an aperture two feet wide. They were getting on rapidly,when suddenly a cry was heard in the interior of the temple,followed almost instantly by other cries replying from theoutside. Passepartout and the guide stopped. Had they beenheard? Was the alarm being given? Common prudence urged them toretire, and they did so, followed by Phileas Fogg and SirFrancis. They again hid themselves in the wood, and waited tillthe disturbance, whatever it might be, ceased, holdingthemselves ready to resume their attempt without delay. But,awkwardly enough, the guards now appeared at the rear of thetemple, and there installed themselves, in readiness to prevent asurprise.
It would be difficult to describe the disappointment of theparty, thus interrupted in their work. They could not now reachthe victim; how, then, could they save her? Sir Francis shook hisfists, Passepartout was beside himself, and the guide gnashed histeeth with rage. The tranquil Fogg waited, without betraying anyemotion.
"We have nothing to do but to go away," whispered Sir Francis.
"Nothing but to go away," echoed the guide.
"Stop," said Fogg. "I am only due at Allahabad tomorrow beforenoon."
"But what can you hope to do?" asked Sir Francis. "In a few hoursit will be daylight, and--"
"The chance which now seems lost may present itself at the lastmoment."
Sir Francis would have liked to read Phileas Fogg's eyes. Whatwas this cool Englishman thinking of? Was he planning to make arush for the young woman at the very moment of the sacrifice, andboldly snatch her from her executioners? This would be utterfolly, and it was hard to admit that Fogg was such a fool. SirFrancis consented, however, to remain to the end of thisterrible drama. The guide led them to the rear of the glade,where they were able to observe the sleeping groups.
Meanwhile Passepartout, who had perched himself on the lowerbranches of a tree, was resolving an idea which had at firststruck him like a flash, and which was now firmly lodged in hisbrain.
He had commenced by saying to himself, "What folly!" and then herepeated, "Why not, after all? It's a chance--perhaps the onlyone; and with such sots!" Thinking thus, he slipped, with thesuppleness of a serpent, to the lowest branches, the ends
ofwhich bent almost to the ground.
The hours passed, and the lighter shades now announced theapproach of day, though it was not yet light. This was themoment. The slumbering multitude became animated, the tambourinessounded, songs and cries arose; the hour of the sacrifice hadcome. The doors of the pagoda swung open, and a bright lightescaped from its interior, in the midst of which Mr. Fogg and SirFrancis saw the victim. She seemed, having shaken off the stuporof intoxication, to be striving to escape from her executioner.Sir Francis's heart throbbed; and, convulsively seizing Mr.Fogg's hand, found in it an open knife. Just at this moment thecrowd began to move. The young woman had again fallen into astupor caused by the fumes of hemp, and passed among the fakirs,who escorted her with their wild, religious cries.
Phileas Fogg and his companions, mingling in the rear ranks ofthe crowd, followed; and in two minutes they reached the banks ofthe stream, and stopped fifty paces from the pyre, upon whichstill lay the rajah's corpse. In the semi-obscurity they saw thevictim, quite senseless, stretched out beside her husband's body.Then a torch was brought, and the wood, heavily soaked with oil,instantly took fire.
At this moment Sir Francis and the guide seized Phileas Fogg,who, in an instant of mad generosity, was about to rush upon thepyre. But he had quickly pushed them aside, when the whole scenesuddenly changed. A cry of terror arose. The whole multitudeprostrated themselves, terror-stricken, on the ground.
The old rajah was not dead, then, since he rose of a sudden, likea spectre, took up his wife in his arms, and descended from thepyre in the midst of the clouds of smoke, which only heightenedhis ghostly appearance.
Fakirs and soldiers and priests, seized with instant terror, laythere, with their faces on the ground, not daring to lift theireyes and behold such a prodigy.
The inanimate victim was borne along by the vigorous arms whichsupported her, and which she did not seem in the least to burden.Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis stood erect, the Parsee bowed his head,and Passepartout was, no doubt, scarcely less stupefied.
The resuscitated rajah approached Sir Francis and Mr. Fogg, and,in an abrupt tone, said, "Let us be off!"
It was Passepartout himself, who had slipped upon the pyre in themidst of the smoke and, profiting by the still over-hangingdarkness, had delivered the young woman from death! It wasPassepartout who, playing his part with a happy audacity, hadpassed through the crowd amid the general terror.
A moment after all four of the party had disappeared in thewoods, and the elephant was bearing them away at a rapid pace.But the cries and noise, and a ball which whizzed throughPhileas Fogg's hat, told them that the trick had beendiscovered.
The old rajah's body, indeed, now appeared upon the burning pyre;and the priests, recovered from their terror, perceived that anabduction had taken place. They hastened into the forest,followed by the soldiers, who fired a volley after the fugitives;but the latter rapidly increased the distance between them, andere long found themselves beyond the reach of the bullets andarrows.