In which Passepartout proves once again that fortune favours the bold

The plan was daring, fraught with difficulty and perhaps impossible. Mr Fogg was going to risk his life, or at least his freedom, and thereby the success of his project, but he had no hesitation. In any case he had in Sir Francis Cromarty a staunch ally.

Passepartout, for his part, was ready for action and he was at their command. His master’s idea filled him with enthusiasm. He realized there was a heart and a soul beneath this cold exterior. He was beginning to take to Phileas Fogg.

There remained the guide. Whose side would he take in this business? Wouldn’t he be for the Indians? Even if he wouldn’t help them, they needed to make sure he remained neutral.

Sir Francis Cromarty asked the question point blank.

‘Sir,’ replied the guide, ‘I’m a Parsee and this woman is a Parsee. I’m at your command.’

‘Good,’ replied Mr Fogg.

‘Nevertheless, you must realize,’ continued the Parsee, ‘that we’re in danger not only of losing our lives, but also of being horribly tortured if we’re captured. So think about it.’

‘We have,’ answered Mr Fogg. ‘I feel we must wait until nightfall before taking action.’

‘So do I,’ said the guide.

The worthy Indian then gave some details about the victim. She was an Indian lady famous for her beauty, a Parsee by race and the daughter of a wealthy family of Bombay merchants. She had received a thoroughly English upbringing in the city and from her manners and her schooling she could have been taken for a European. Her name was Aouda.

After being orphaned she had been married against her will to this elderly rajah from Bundelkhand. Three months later she was widowed. Knowing the fate that awaited her, she ran away but was immediately caught, and the relatives of the rajah, who would benefit from her death, condemned her to this punishment, from which she seemed to have no escape.

This story could only strengthen Mr Fogg and his companions in their generous resolve. It was decided that the guide would lead the elephant towards the temple of Pillagi, which he would get as near to as possible.

Half an hour later they came to a halt in a thicket, 500 yards from the temple, which they could not see, but the howling of the fanatics could be clearly heard.

They then discussed how to reach the victim. The guide knew this temple, in which he said the young woman was being held prisoner. Would it be possible to get in through one of the doors while the group were deep in a drugged stupor, or would they have to make a hole in the wall? It was not possible to come to a decision there and then. But what was beyond doubt was that the rescue would have to take place that night, and not the next day when the victim was being taken to her death. By that time no human intervention would be able to save her.

Mr Fogg and his companions waited for night to fall. As soon as the light began to fade, towards six in the evening, they decided to reconnoitre the area around the temple. The final shouts of the fakirs were dying away as they did so. As was their habit, the Indians must have been in a drug-induced stupor, the result of taking bhang, liquid opium mixed with an infusion of hashish. It would perhaps therefore be possible to slip past them to get to the temple.

Guiding Mr Fogg, Sir Francis Cromarty and Passepartout, the Parsee advanced through the forest without making a sound. After crawling for about ten minutes through the thick undergrowth, they reached the edge of a small river and there by the light of iron torches tipped with burning resin, they glimpsed a carefully constructed wood pile. It was the funeral pyre, made from precious sandalwood, and already soaked in sweet-smelling oils. On the upper part rested the embalmed body of the rajah, which was to be burnt at the same time as his widow. A hundred yards from the pyre stood the temple, whose towers reached up into the darkened treetops.

‘Come on,’ whispered the guide.

Then, taking even more care and with his companions following him, he crept silently through the tall grass.

The silence was now broken only by the soughing of the wind in the branches.

Soon the guide stopped at the edge of a clearing. A few torches lit up the area. The ground was strewn with groups of people asleep, sunk in a drug-induced stupor. It looked like a battlefield covered with corpses. Men, women and children were all lying together. Here and there a few drunken bodies let out groans.

In the background, between the mass of trees, the temple of Pillagi could be dimly seen. But to the great disappointment of the guide, the rajah’s guards, illuminated by the smoke-blackened torches, were keeping watch at the doors and were walking around with their sabres drawn. It could safely be assumed that inside the priests were also keeping watch.

The Parsee did not move any further forward. He had realized the impossibility of forcing their way into the temple, and he made his companions move back.

Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty had understood, like him, that they couldn’t attempt anything on that side.

They stopped and spoke to one another in a whisper.

‘Let’s wait,’ said the brigadier-general, ‘it’s still only eight o’clock and it’s possible that the guards will also fall asleep.’

‘Yes, that’s quite possible,’ replied the Parsee.

So Phileas Fogg and his companions lay down at the foot of a tree and waited.

To them time seemed to go by very slowly. The guide left them from time to time and went to look at the edge of the wood. The rajah’s guards were still keeping watch by the glare of the torches, and a faint trickle of light was coming through the windows of the temple.

They waited like this until midnight. There was no change in the situation and the guards remained outside. It was obvious that the guards couldn’t be relied on to succumb to drowsiness. They had probably been spared the effects of the bhang. So there would have to be another solution, getting in through an opening that would have to be made in the temple walls. There remained the problem of knowing whether the priests were keeping as careful a watch over their victim as were the soldiers at the gate of the temple.

After a final conversation, the guide said he was ready to move. Mr Fogg, Sir Francis and Passepartout followed him. They made quite a long detour in order to reach the temple by the back of the building.

At about half past midnight they arrived at the foot of the walls without encountering anyone. No attempt had been made to guard this side, but it must be said that there were absolutely no windows or doors.

The night was dark. The moon, then in its final quarter, was hardly above the horizon and was obscured by heavy clouds. The height of the trees further increased the darkness.

But getting to the foot of the walls wasn’t the end of it. They still had to make an opening in them. For this operation Phileas Fogg and his companions had absolutely nothing except their pocket knives. Very fortunately the temple walls were made of a mixture of brick and wood that couldn’t be difficult to get through. As soon as one brick had been removed the others would come away easily.

They got down to work, making as little noise as possible. The Parsee on one side and Passepartout on the other set about dislodging the bricks, in order to make an opening two feet wide.

The work was progressing when suddenly a shout rang out inside the temple and almost immediately there was more shouting in reply from outside.

Passepartout and the guide broke off what they were doing. Had they been spotted? Had someone raised the alarm? The most basic common sense dictated that they should move away, which is what they did, at the same time as Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty. They crouched back down under the cover of the wood, waiting for the alarm, if that is what it was, to be over, and ready in that case to resume their work.

But by an unfortunate turn of events some guards showed up at the back of the temple and took up position there in order to prevent anyone getting near.

It would be hard to describe the disappointment of the four men, stopped before their task was complete. Now that they couldn’t reach the victim how could they rescue her? Sir Francis Cromarty was fuming. Passepartout was beside himself with anger, and the guide had difficulty restraining him. The impassive Fogg waited without showing his feelings.

‘All we can do is go away, isn’t it?’ whispered the brigadiergeneral.

‘All we can do is go away,’ replied the guide.

‘Wait,’ said Fogg. ‘All I need is to be in Allahabad by midday.’

‘But what are you hoping for?’ asked Sir Francis. ‘In a few hours it will be daylight, and–’

‘Our luck may change at the vital moment.’

The brigadier-general would have liked to have been able to read the expression on Phileas Fogg’s face.

So what was this cold Englishman counting on? Did he want, just as the young woman was to be sacrificed, to rush towards her and snatch her from the grasp of her executioners in full view of everyone?

It would have been an act of madness, and how could anyone think him as mad as that? Nevertheless, Sir Francis Cromarty agreed to wait until the final act of this horrible drama. However, the guide did not allow his companions to stay in the place where they had sought refuge and he led them back to another part of the clearing. From there, under the shelter of a clump of trees, they would be able to observe the groups of people asleep.

Meanwhile Passepartout, perched on the lowest branches of a tree, was turning over in his mind an idea that had first occurred to him in a flash and that had now taken a firm hold.

He had said to himself at first, ‘This is madness,’ and now he kept on repeating to himself, ‘Why not, after all? It’s a possibility, perhaps the only one, and with maniacs like these around …’

In any case, Passepartout spent no more time organizing his thoughts, but instead, with the agility of a snake, he slithered along the lower branches of the tree, which reached almost down to the ground.

Time was passing and soon a few hints of light suggested that dawn was on its way. However, it was still quite dark.

Now was the moment. The sleeping crowd showed signs of coming back to life. People were stirring. The striking of gongs could be heard. Chanting and shouting burst out again. The time had come for the unfortunate woman to die.

At that very moment the doors of the temple opened. The light coming from inside became brighter. Mr Fogg and Sir Francis were able to see the victim, now clearly illuminated, being dragged out by two priests. They even thought that by a supreme effort of self-preservation, the unfortunate woman was shaking off the effects of her drug-induced drowsiness and attempting to escape from her executioners. Sir Francis Cromarty’s heart leapt and, impulsively seizing Phileas Fogg’s hand, he realized that the latter was holding an open knife.

At that point the crowd began to move forward. The young woman had relapsed into the torpor induced by the hashish fumes. She went past the fakirs, who were accompanying her with their religious incantations.

Phileas Fogg and his companions, merging with those at the back of the crowd, followed her.

Two minutes later they reached the edge of the river and stopped less than fifty yards from the funeral pyre, where the rajah’s body was laid out. In the semi-darkness they could see the victim looking absolutely lifeless, lying next to her husband’s corpse.

Then a torch was brought forward and the wood, which had been soaked with oil, caught fire immediately.

At that moment, Sir Francis Cromarty and the guide attempted to restrain Phileas Fogg, who in a moment of generous insanity began to rush towards the pyre.

But Phileas Fogg had already pushed them back when the scene suddenly changed. A cry of terror rang out. The whole crowd flung themselves to the ground in fear.

So the old rajah was not dead after all? Suddenly he rose to his feet like a ghost, lifted the young woman up in his arms and stepped down from the pyre amid the swirling smoke, looking like a ghostly apparition.

The fakirs, guards and priests were overcome with a sudden terror and remained prostrate, not daring to raise their eyes to behold this supernatural event.

The unconscious victim was taken up and carried away by a pair of strong arms as if she were as light as a feather. Mr Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty had remained standing. The Parsee had bowed his head and no doubt Passepartout was equally amazed.

So it was that the ghostly apparition got near to where Mr Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty were standing and there it said curtly, ‘Let’s get out of here!’

It was Passepartout himself who had crept towards the pyre in the midst of the thick smoke! It was Passepartout who, taking advantage of the fact that it was still pitch dark, had snatched the young woman from her death. It was Passepartout who, playing his role with consummate daring, had walked through the terror-struck crowd!

A moment later the four disappeared into the wood and the elephant carried them swiftly away. But shouting and screaming and even a bullet, which went through Phileas Fogg’s hat, were proof that their ruse had been discovered.

The body of the old rajah could now be clearly seen on the burning pyre. The priests had recovered from their fright and now realized that a rescue had just taken place.

Immediately they rushed into the forest, followed by the guards. A volley of shots rang out, but the rescuers fled rapidly and within a few moments they were beyond the range of the bullets and arrows.