Around the World in Eighty Days. Junior Deluxe EditionVerne, Jules
General
Around the World in Eighty Days. Junior Deluxe Edition
Verne, Jules
Adventure stories; Voyages around the world -- Fiction
Fix, it must be confessed, understood nothing of what was going
on. The conquest of the Henrietta, the bribery of the crew, Fogg
managing the boat like a skilled seaman, amazed and confused him.
He did not know what to think. For, after all, a man who began by
stealing fifty-five thousand pounds might end by stealing a
vessel; and Fix was not unnaturally inclined to conclude that the
Henrietta, under Fogg's command, was not going to Liverpool at
all, but to some part of the world where the robber, turned into
a pirate, would quietly put himself in safety. The conjecture was
at least a plausible one, and the detective began to seriously
regret that he had embarked on the affair.
As for Captain Speedy, he continued to howl and growl in his
cabin. Passepartout, whose duty it was to carry him his meals,
courageous as he was, took the greatest precautions. Mr. Fogg did
not seem even to know that there was a captain on board.
On the 13th they passed the edge of the banks of Newfoundland, a
dangerous locality. During the winter, especially, there are
frequent fogs and heavy gales of wind. Ever since the evening
before, the barometer, suddenly falling, had indicated an
approaching change in the atmosphere. During the night the
temperature varied, the cold became sharper, and the wind veered
to the southeast.
This was a misfortune. Mr. Fogg, in order not to deviate from his
course, furled his sails and increased the force of the steam;
but the vessel's speed slackened, owing to the state of the sea,
the long waves of which broke against the stern. She pitched
violently, and this retarded her progress. The breeze little by
little swelled into a tempest, and it was to be feared that the
Henrietta might not be able to maintain herself upright on the
waves.
Passepartout's visage darkened with the skies, and for two days
the poor fellow experienced constant fright. But Phileas Fogg was
a bold mariner, and knew how to maintain headway against the sea.
He kept on his course, without even decreasing his steam. The
Henrietta, when she could not rise upon the waves, crossed them,
swamping her deck, but passing safely. Sometimes the screw rose
out of the water, beating its protruding end, when a mountain of
water raised the stern above the waves, but the craft always kept
straight ahead.
The wind, however, did not grow as violent as might have been
feared. It was not one of those tempests which burst, and rush on
with a speed of ninety miles an hour. It continued fresh, but,
unhappily, it remained obstinately in the southeast, rendering
the sails useless.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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