Chương Chương 31 · IN WHICH FIX, THE DETECTIVE, CONSIDERABLY FURTHERS THE INTERESTS OF

IN WHICH FIX, THE DETECTIVE, CONSIDERABLY FURTHERS THE INTERESTS OF

PHILEAS FOGG

Phileas Fogg found himself twenty hours behind time. Passepartout, the

involuntary cause of this delay, was desperate. He had ruined his

master!

At this moment the detective approached Mr. Fogg, and, looking him

intently in the face, said:

“Seriously, sir, are you in great haste?”

“Quite seriously.”

“I have a purpose in asking,” resumed Fix. “Is it absolutely necessary

that you should be in New York on the 11th, before nine o’clock in the

evening, the time that the steamer leaves for Liverpool?”

“It is absolutely necessary.”

“And, if your journey had not been interrupted by these Indians, you

would have reached New York on the morning of the 11th?”

“Yes; with eleven hours to spare before the steamer left.”

“Good! you are therefore twenty hours behind. Twelve from twenty leaves

eight. You must regain eight hours. Do you wish to try to do so?”

“On foot?” asked Mr. Fogg.

“No; on a sledge,” replied Fix. “On a sledge with sails. A man has

proposed such a method to me.”

It was the man who had spoken to Fix during the night, and whose offer

he had refused.

Phileas Fogg did not reply at once; but Fix, having pointed out the

man, who was walking up and down in front of the station, Mr. Fogg went

up to him. An instant after, Mr. Fogg and the American, whose name was

Mudge, entered a hut built just below the fort.

There Mr. Fogg examined a curious vehicle, a kind of frame on two long

beams, a little raised in front like the runners of a sledge, and upon

which there was room for five or six persons. A high mast was fixed on

the frame, held firmly by metallic lashings, to which was attached a

large brigantine sail. This mast held an iron stay upon which to hoist

a jib-sail. Behind, a sort of rudder served to guide the vehicle. It

was, in short, a sledge rigged like a sloop. During the winter, when

the trains are blocked up by the snow, these sledges make extremely

rapid journeys across the frozen plains from one station to another.

Provided with more sails than a cutter, and with the wind behind them,

they slip over the surface of the prairies with a speed equal if not

superior to that of the express trains.

Mr. Fogg readily made a bargain with the owner of this land-craft. The

wind was favourable, being fresh, and blowing from the west. The snow

had hardened, and Mudge was very confident of being able to transport

Mr. Fogg in a few hours to Omaha. Thence the trains eastward run

frequently to Chicago and New York. It was not impossible that the lost

time might yet be recovered; and such an opportunity was not to be

rejected.

Not wishing to expose Aouda to the discomforts of travelling in the

open air, Mr. Fogg proposed to leave her with Passepartout at Fort

Kearney, the servant taking upon himself to escort her to Europe by a

better route and under more favourable conditions. But Aouda refused to

separate from Mr. Fogg, and Passepartout was delighted with her

decision; for nothing could induce him to leave his master while Fix

was with him.

It would be difficult to guess the detective’s thoughts. Was this

conviction shaken by Phileas Fogg’s return, or did he still regard him

as an exceedingly shrewd rascal, who, his journey round the world

completed, would think himself absolutely safe in England? Perhaps

Fix’s opinion of Phileas Fogg was somewhat modified; but he was

nevertheless resolved to do his duty, and to hasten the return of the

whole party to England as much as possible.

At eight o’clock the sledge was ready to start. The passengers took

their places on it, and wrapped themselves up closely in their

travelling-cloaks. The two great sails were hoisted, and under the

pressure of the wind the sledge slid over the hardened snow with a

velocity of forty miles an hour.

The distance between Fort Kearney and Omaha, as the birds fly, is at

most two hundred miles. If the wind held good, the distance might be

traversed in five hours; if no accident happened the sledge might reach

Omaha by one o’clock.

What a journey! The travellers, huddled close together, could not speak

for the cold, intensified by the rapidity at which they were going. The

sledge sped on as lightly as a boat over the waves. When the breeze

came skimming the earth the sledge seemed to be lifted off the ground

by its sails. Mudge, who was at the rudder, kept in a straight line,

and by a turn of his hand checked the lurches which the vehicle had a

tendency to make. All the sails were up, and the jib was so arranged as

not to screen the brigantine. A top-mast was hoisted, and another jib,

held out to the wind, added its force to the other sails. Although the

speed could not be exactly estimated, the sledge could not be going at

less than forty miles an hour.

“If nothing breaks,” said Mudge, “we shall get there!”

Mr. Fogg had made it for Mudge’s interest to reach Omaha within the

time agreed on, by the offer of a handsome reward.

The prairie, across which the sledge was moving in a straight line, was

as flat as a sea. It seemed like a vast frozen lake. The railroad which

ran through this section ascended from the south-west to the north-west

by Great Island, Columbus, an important Nebraska town, Schuyler, and

Fremont, to Omaha. It followed throughout the right bank of the Platte

River. The sledge, shortening this route, took a chord of the arc

described by the railway. Mudge was not afraid of being stopped by the

Platte River, because it was frozen. The road, then, was quite clear of

obstacles, and Phileas Fogg had but two things to fear—an accident to

the sledge, and a change or calm in the wind.

But the breeze, far from lessening its force, blew as if to bend the

mast, which, however, the metallic lashings held firmly. These

lashings, like the chords of a stringed instrument, resounded as if

vibrated by a violin bow. The sledge slid along in the midst of a

plaintively intense melody.

“Those chords give the fifth and the octave,” said Mr. Fogg.

These were the only words he uttered during the journey. Aouda, cosily

packed in furs and cloaks, was sheltered as much as possible from the

attacks of the freezing wind. As for Passepartout, his face was as red

as the sun’s disc when it sets in the mist, and he laboriously inhaled

the biting air. With his natural buoyancy of spirits, he began to hope

again. They would reach New York on the evening, if not on the morning,

of the 11th, and there were still some chances that it would be before

the steamer sailed for Liverpool.

Passepartout even felt a strong desire to grasp his ally, Fix, by the

hand. He remembered that it was the detective who procured the sledge,

the only means of reaching Omaha in time; but, checked by some

presentiment, he kept his usual reserve. One thing, however,

Passepartout would never forget, and that was the sacrifice which Mr.

Fogg had made, without hesitation, to rescue him from the Sioux. Mr.

Fogg had risked his fortune and his life. No! His servant would never

forget that!

While each of the party was absorbed in reflections so different, the

sledge flew past over the vast carpet of snow. The creeks it passed

over were not perceived. Fields and streams disappeared under the

uniform whiteness. The plain was absolutely deserted. Between the Union

Pacific road and the branch which unites Kearney with Saint Joseph it

formed a great uninhabited island. Neither village, station, nor fort

appeared. From time to time they sped by some phantom-like tree, whose

white skeleton twisted and rattled in the wind. Sometimes flocks of

wild birds rose, or bands of gaunt, famished, ferocious prairie-wolves

ran howling after the sledge. Passepartout, revolver in hand, held

himself ready to fire on those which came too near. Had an accident

then happened to the sledge, the travellers, attacked by these beasts,

would have been in the most terrible danger; but it held on its even

course, soon gained on the wolves, and ere long left the howling band

at a safe distance behind.

About noon Mudge perceived by certain landmarks that he was crossing

the Platte River. He said nothing, but he felt certain that he was now

within twenty miles of Omaha. In less than an hour he left the rudder

and furled his sails, whilst the sledge, carried forward by the great

impetus the wind had given it, went on half a mile further with its

sails unspread.

It stopped at last, and Mudge, pointing to a mass of roofs white with

snow, said: “We have got there!”

Arrived! Arrived at the station which is in daily communication, by

numerous trains, with the Atlantic seaboard!

Passepartout and Fix jumped off, stretched their stiffened limbs, and

aided Mr. Fogg and the young woman to descend from the sledge. Phileas

Fogg generously rewarded Mudge, whose hand Passepartout warmly grasped,

and the party directed their steps to the Omaha railway station.

The Pacific Railroad proper finds its terminus at this important

Nebraska town. Omaha is connected with Chicago by the Chicago and Rock

Island Railroad, which runs directly east, and passes fifty stations.

A train was ready to start when Mr. Fogg and his party reached the

station, and they only had time to get into the cars. They had seen

nothing of Omaha; but Passepartout confessed to himself that this was

not to be regretted, as they were not travelling to see the sights.

The train passed rapidly across the State of Iowa, by Council Bluffs,

Des Moines, and Iowa City. During the night it crossed the Mississippi

at Davenport, and by Rock Island entered Illinois. The next day, which

was the 10th, at four o’clock in the evening, it reached Chicago,

already risen from its ruins, and more proudly seated than ever on the

borders of its beautiful Lake Michigan.

Nine hundred miles separated Chicago from New York; but trains are not

wanting at Chicago. Mr. Fogg passed at once from one to the other, and

the locomotive of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railway left

at full speed, as if it fully comprehended that that gentleman had no

time to lose. It traversed Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey

like a flash, rushing through towns with antique names, some of which

had streets and car-tracks, but as yet no houses. At last the Hudson

came into view; and, at a quarter-past eleven in the evening of the

11th, the train stopped in the station on the right bank of the river,

before the very pier of the Cunard line.

The “China,” for Liverpool, had started three-quarters of an hour

before!