“Sir Francis,” said Mr Fogg simply, “we will go, if you will be kind enough to see about some way of reaching Allahabad.”
“Mr Fogg, this is a delay absolutely prejudicial to your interests!”
“No, Sir Francis, it was provided for.”
“What, did you know that the railway—”
“By no means, but I knew that some obstacle or other would occur sooner or later upon my route. Now, nothing is interfered with. I have gained two days which I can afford to lose. A steamer leaves Calcutta for Hong-Kong at noon on the 25th. This is only the 23rd, and we shall arrive at Calcutta in time.”
Nothing could be said in reply to such complete certainty.
It was only too true that the finished portion of the railway stopped at this point. The newspapers are like certain watches which have a mania of getting ahead of time, and they had announced the finishing of the line prematurely. The most of the passengers knew of this break in the line, and descending from the train, they examined the vehicles of all sorts in the village, four-wheeled palkigharis, carts drawn by zebus, a sort of ox with humps, travelling cars resembling walking pagodas, palanquins, ponies, etc. Mr Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, after having hunted through the entire village, returned without having found anything.
“I shall go on foot,” said Mr Fogg.
Passepartout, who had then rejoined his master, made a significant grimace, looking down at his magnificent but delicate slippers. Very fortunate, he had also been hunting for something, and hesitating a little, he said:
“Monsieur, I believe I have found a means of conveyance.”
“What?”
“An elephant belonging to an Indian living a hundred steps from here.”
“Let us go to see the elephant,” replied Mr Fogg. Five minutes later, Phileas Fogg, Sir Francis Cromarty, and Passepartout arrived at a hut which was against an enclosure of high palisades. In the hut there was an Indian, and in the enclosure an elephant. Upon their demand, the Indian took Mr Fogg and his two companions into the enclosure.
They found there a half-tamed animal, which his owner was raising, not to hire out, but as a beast of combat. To this end he had commenced to modify the naturally mild character of the animal in a manner to lead him gradually to that paroxysm of rage called “mutsh” in the Hindu language, and that by feeding him for three months with sugar and butter. This treatment may not seem the proper one to obtain such a result, but it is none the less employed with success by their keepers.
Kiouni, the animal’s name, could, like all his fellows, go rapidly on a long march, and in default of other conveyance, Phileas Fogg determined to employ him. But elephants are very expensive in India, where they are beginning to get scarce. The males, which alone are fit for circus feats, are very much sought for. These animals are rarely reproduced when they are reduced to the tame state, so that they can be obtained only by hunting. So they are the object of extreme care, and when Mr Fogg asked the Indian if he would hire him his elephant he flatly refused.
Fogg persisted, and offered an excessive price for the animal, ten pounds per hour. Refused. Twenty pounds. Still refused. Forty pounds. Refused again. Passepartout jumped at every advance in price. But the Indian would not be tempted. The sum was a handsome one, however. Admitting the elephant to be employed fifteen hours to reach Allahabad, it was six hundred pounds earned for his owner.
Phileas Fogg, without being at all excited, proposed then to the Indian to buy his animal, and offered him at first one thousand pounds. The Indian would not sell! Perhaps the rogue scented a large transaction.
Sir Francis Cromarty took Mr Fogg aside and begged him to reflect before going further. Phileas Fogg replied to his companion that he was not in the habit of acting without reflection, that a bet of twenty thousand pounds was at stake, that this elephant was necessary to him, and that, should he pay twenty times his value, he would have this elephant.
Mr Fogg went again for the Indian, whose small eyes, lit up with greed, showed that with him it was only a question of price. Phileas Fogg offered successively twelve hundred, fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred, and finally two thousand pounds. Passepartout, so rosy ordinarily, was pale with emotion.
At two thousand pounds the Indian gave up.
“By my slippers,” cried Passepartout, “here is a magnificent price for elephant meat!”
The business concluded, all that was necessary was to find a guide. That was easier. A young Parsee, with an intelligent face, offered his services. Mr Fogg accepted him, and offered him a large reward to sharpen his wits. The elephant was brought out and equipped without delay. The Parsee understood perfectly the business of “mahout,” or elephant-driver. He covered with a sort of saddle cloth the back of the elephant, and put on each flank two kinds of rather uncomfortable howdahs.
Phileas Fogg paid the Indian in bank-notes taken from the famous carpet bag. It seemed as if they were taken from Passepartout’s very vitals. Then Mr Fogg offered to Sir Francis Cromarty to convey him to Allahabad. The general accepted; one passenger more was not enough to tire this enormous animal. Some provisions were bought at Kholby. Sir Francis Cromarty took a seat in one of the howdahs, Phileas Fogg in the other. Passepartout got astride the animal, between his master and the brigadier-general. The Parsee perched upon the elephant’s neck, and at nine o’clock the animal, leaving the village, penetrated the thick forest of palm trees.
CHAPTER 12 (#ulink_056df61a-6bb8-59f1-8bf7-80ee48b41b30)
In which Phileas Fogg and his Companions venture through the Forests of India, and what follows
The guide, in order to shorten the distance to be gone over, left to his right the line of the road, the construction of which was still in process. This line, very crooked, owing to the capricious ramifications of the Vindhia mountains, did not follow the shortest route, which it was Phileas Fogg’s interest to take. The Parsee, very familiar with the roads and paths of the country, thought to gain twenty miles by cutting through the forest, and they submitted to him.
Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, plunged to their necks in their howdahs, were much shaken up by the rough trot of the elephant, whom his mahout urged into a rapid gait. But they bore it with the peculiar British apathy, talking very little, and scarcely seeing each other.
As for Passepartout, perched upon the animal’s back, and directly subjected to the swaying from side to side, he took care, upon his master’s recommendation, not to keep his tongue between his teeth, as it would have been cut short off. The good fellow, at one time thrown forward on the elephant’s neck, at another thrown back upon his rump, was making leaps like a clown on a springboard. But he joked and laughed in the midst of his somersaults, and from time to time he would take from his bag a lump of sugar, which the intelligent Kiouni took with the end of his trunk, without interrupting for an instant his regular trot.
After two hours’ march the guide stopped the elephant, and gave him an hour’s rest. The animal devoured branches of trees and shrubs, first having quenched his thirst at a neighbouring pond. Sir Francis Cromarty did not complain of this halt. He was worn out. Mr Fogg appeared as if he had just got out of bed.
“But he is made of iron!” said the brigadier-general, looking at him with admiration.
“Of wrought iron,” replied Passepartout, who was busy preparing a hasty breakfast.
At noon the guide gave the signal for starting. The country soon assumed a very wild aspect. To the large forests there succeeded copses of tamarinds and dwarf palms, then vast, arid plains, bristling with scanty shrubs, and strewn with large blocks of syenites. All this part of upper Bundelcund, very little visited by travellers, is inhabited by a fanatical population, hardened in the most terrible practices of the Hindu religion. The government of the British could not have been regularly established over a territory subject to the influence of the rajahs, whom it would have been difficult to reach in their inaccessible retreats in the Vindhias.
They were descending the last declivities of the Vindhias. Kiouni had resumed his rapid gait. Towards noon, the guide went round the village of Kallenger, situated on the Cani, one of the tributaries of the Ganges. He always avoided inhabited places, feeling himself safer, in those desert open stretches of country which mark the first depressions of the basin of the great river. Allahabad was not twelve miles to the north-east. Halt was made under a clump of banana trees, whose fruit, as healthy as bread, “as succulent as cream,” travellers say, was very much appreciated.
At two o’clock, the guide entered the shelter of a thick forest, which he had to traverse for a space of several miles. He preferred to travel thus under cover of the woods. At all events, up to this moment there had been no unpleasant meeting, and it seemed as if the journey would be accomplished without accident, when the elephant, showing some signs of uneasiness, suddenly stopped.
It was then four o’clock.
“What is the matter?” asked Sir Francis Cromarty, raising his head above his howdah.
“I do not know, officer,” replied the Parsee, listening to a confused murmur which came through the thick branches.
A few moments after, this murmur became more defined. It might have been called a concert, still very distant, of human voices and brass instruments.
Passepartout was all eyes, all ears. Mr Fogg waited patiently, without uttering a word.
The Parsee jumped down, fastened the elephant to a tree, and plunged into the thickest of the undergrowth. A few minutes later he returned, saying:
“A Brahmin procession coming this way. If it is possible, let us avoid being seen.”
The guide unfastened the elephant, and led him into a thicket, recommending the travellers not to descend. He held himself ready to mount the elephant quickly, should flight become necessary. But he thought that the troop of the faithful would pass without noticing him, for the thickness of the foliage entirely concealed him.
The discordant noise of voices and instruments approached. Monotonous chants were mingled with the sound of the drums and cymbals. Soon the head of the procession appeared from under the trees, at fifty paces from the spot occupied by Mr Fogg and his companions. Through the branches they readily distinguished the curious personnel of this religious ceremony.
In the first line were the priests, with mitres upon their heads and attired in long robes adorned with gold and silver lace. They were surrounded by men, women, and children, who were singing a sort of funeral psalmody, interrupted at regular intervals by the beating of tom-toms and cymbals. Behind them on a car with large wheels, whose spokes and felloes represented serpents intertwined, appeared a hideous statue, drawn by two pairs of richly caparisoned zebus. This statue had four arms, its body coloured with dark red, its eyes haggard, its hair tangled, its tongue hanging out, its lips coloured with henna and betel. Its neck was encircled by a collar of skulls, around its waist a girdle of human hands. It was erect upon a prostrate giant, whose head was missing.
Sir Francis Cromarty recognised this statue.
The goddess Kali,” he murmured; “the goddess of love.”
“Of death, I grant, but of love, never!” said Passepartout. “The ugly old woman!”
The Parsee made him a sign to keep quiet.
Around the statue there was a group of old fakirs, jumping and tossing themselves about convulsively. Smeared with bands of ochre, covered with cross-like cuts, whence their blood escaped drop by drop—stupid fanatics, who, in the great Hindu ceremonies, precipitated themselves under the wheels of the car of Juggernaut.
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