Adventure stories; Voyages around the world -- Fiction
In a few moments, with cries and oaths, a bomb appeared on the
poop-deck. The bomb was Captain Speedy. It was clear that he was on the
point of bursting. “Where are we?” were the first words his anger
permitted him to utter. Had the poor man been an apoplectic, he could
never have recovered from his paroxysm of wrath.
“Where are we?” he repeated, with purple face.
“Seven hundred and seven miles from Liverpool,” replied Mr. Fogg, with
imperturbable calmness.
“Pirate!” cried Captain Speedy.
“I have sent for you, sir—”
“Pickaroon!”
“—sir,” continued Mr. Fogg, “to ask you to sell me your vessel.”
“No! By all the devils, no!”
“But I shall be obliged to burn her.”
“Burn the ‘Henrietta’!”
“Yes; at least the upper part of her. The coal has given out.”
“Burn my vessel!” cried Captain Speedy, who could scarcely pronounce
the words. “A vessel worth fifty thousand dollars!”
“Here are sixty thousand,” replied Phileas Fogg, handing the captain a
roll of bank-bills. This had a prodigious effect on Andrew Speedy. An
American can scarcely remain unmoved at the sight of sixty thousand
dollars. The captain forgot in an instant his anger, his imprisonment,
and all his grudges against his passenger. The “Henrietta” was twenty
years old; it was a great bargain. The bomb would not go off after all.
Mr. Fogg had taken away the match.
“And I shall still have the iron hull,” said the captain in a softer
tone.
“The iron hull and the engine. Is it agreed?”
“Agreed.”
And Andrew Speedy, seizing the banknotes, counted them and consigned
them to his pocket.
During this colloquy, Passepartout was as white as a sheet, and Fix
seemed on the point of having an apoplectic fit. Nearly twenty thousand
pounds had been expended, and Fogg left the hull and engine to the
captain, that is, near the whole value of the craft! It was true,
however, that fifty-five thousand pounds had been stolen from the Bank.
When Andrew Speedy had pocketed the money, Mr. Fogg said to him, “Don’t
let this astonish you, sir. You must know that I shall lose twenty
thousand pounds, unless I arrive in London by a quarter before nine on
the evening of the 21st of December. I missed the steamer at New York,
and as you refused to take me to Liverpool—”
“And I did well!” cried Andrew Speedy; “for I have gained at least
forty thousand dollars by it!” He added, more sedately, “Do you know
one thing, Captain—”
“Fogg.”
“Captain Fogg, you’ve got something of the Yankee about you.”
And, having paid his passenger what he considered a high compliment, he
was going away, when Mr. Fogg said, “The vessel now belongs to me?”
“Certainly, from the keel to the truck of the masts—all the wood, that
is.”
“Very well. Have the interior seats, bunks, and frames pulled down, and
burn them.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account