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
The priests looked at each other. They did not seem to understand
what was said.
"Yes," cried Passepartout, warmly; "at the pagoda of Pillaji,
where they were on the point of burning their victim."
The judge stared with astonishment, and the priests were
stupefied.
"What victim?" said Judge Obadiah. "Burn whom? In Bombay itself?"
"Bombay?" cried Passepartout.
"Certainly, we are not talking of the pagoda of Pillaji, but of
the pagoda of Malabar Hill, at Bombay."
"And as a proof," added the clerk, "here are the desecrator's
very shoes, which he left behind him."
Whereupon he placed a pair of shoes on his desk.
"My shoes!" cried Passepartout, in his surprise permitting this
imprudent exclamation to escape him.
The confusion of master and man, who had quite forgotten the
affair at Bombay, for which they were now detained at Calcutta,
may be imagined.
Fix, the detective, had foreseen the advantage which
Passepartout's escapade gave him, and, delaying his departure for
twelve hours, had consulted the priests of Malabar Hill. Knowing
that the English authorities dealt very severely with this kind
of misdemeanor, he promised them a goodly sum in damages, and
sent them forward to Calcutta by the next train. Owing to the
delay caused by the rescue of the young widow, Fix and the
priests reached the Indian capital before Mr. Fogg and his
servant. The magistrates had been already warned by a despatch to
arrest them should they arrive. Fix's disappointment when he
learned that Phileas Fogg had not made his appearance in Calcutta
may be imagined. He made up his mind that the robber had stopped
somewhere on the route and taken refuge in the southern
provinces. For twenty-four hours Fix watched the station with
feverish anxiety. At last he was rewarded by seeing Mr. Fogg and
Passepartout arrive, accompanied by a young woman, whose
presence he was wholly at a loss to explain. He hastened for a
policeman, and this was how the party came to be arrested and
brought before Judge Obadiah.
Had Passepartout been a little less preoccupied, he would have
seen the detective settled in a corner of the courtroom, watching
the proceedings with an interest easily understood; for the
warrant had failed to reach him at Calcutta, as it had done at
Bombay and Suez.
Judge Obadiah had unfortunately caught Passepartout's rash
exclamation, which the poor fellow would have given the world to
recall.
"The facts are admitted?" asked the judge.
"Admitted," replied Mr. Fogg, coldly.
"Inasmuch," resumed the judge, "as the English law protects
equally and sternly the religions of the Indian people, and as
the man Passepartout has admitted that he violated the sacred
pagoda of Malabar Hill, at Bombay, on the 20th of October, I
condemn the said Passepartout to imprisonment for fifteen days
and a fine of three hundred pounds."
"Three hundred pounds!" cried Passepartout, startled at the
largeness of the sum.
"Silence!" shouted the constable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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