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
In Which Phileas Fogg at Last Reaches London
Phileas Fogg was in prison. He had been shut up in the Custom
House, and he was to be transferred to London the next day.
Passepartout, when he saw his master arrested, would have fallen
upon Fix had he not been held back by some policemen. Aouda was
thunderstruck at the suddenness of an event which she could not
understand. Passepartout explained to her how it was that the
honest and courageous Fogg was arrested as a robber. The young
woman's heart revolted against so heinous a charge, and when she
saw that she could attempt to do nothing to save her protector,
she wept bitterly.
As for Fix, he had arrested Mr. Fogg because it was his duty,
whether Mr. Fogg was guilty or not.
The thought then struck Passepartout, that he was the cause of
this new misfortune! Had he not concealed Fix's errand from his
master? When Fix revealed his true character and purpose, why had
he not told Mr. Fogg? If the latter had been warned, he would no
doubt have given Fix proof of his innocence, and satisfied him of
his mistake. At least, Fix would not have continued his journey
at the expense and on the heels of his master, only to arrest him
the moment he set foot on English soil. Passepartout wept till he
was blind and felt like blowing his brains out.
Aouda and he had remained, despite the cold, under the portico of
the Custom House. Neither wished to leave the place. Both were
anxious to see Mr. Fogg again.
That gentleman was really ruined, and that at the moment when he
was about to attain his end. This arrest was fatal. Having
arrived at Liverpool at twenty minutes before twelve on the 21st
of December, he had till a quarter before nine that evening to
reach the Reform Club, that is, nine hours and a quarter. The
journey from Liverpool to London was six hours.
If anyone, at this moment, had entered the Custom House, he would
have found Mr. Fogg seated, motionless, calm and without apparent
anger, upon a wooden bench. He was not, it is true, resigned, but
this last blow failed to force him into an outward betrayal of
any emotion. Was he being devoured by one of those secret rages,
all the more terrible because contained, and which only burst
forth, with an irresistible force, at the last moment? No one
could tell. There he sat, calmly waiting--for what? Did he still
cherish hope? Did he still believe, now that the door of this
prison was closed upon him, that he would succeed?
However that may have been, Mr. Fogg carefully put his watch upon
the table, and observed its advancing hands. Not a word escaped
his lips, but his look was singularly set and stern. The
situation, in any event, was a terrible one, and might be thus
stated: if Phileas Fogg was honest he was ruined; if he was a
knave, he was caught.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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