The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

Passepartout then moved away, stopping when he came to the railing.

Nemo grasped the barrel of his Colt in his right hand, which retained enough strength for this task. He prepared to eject the cartridges from the magazine. Fogg threw the sword and jackknife and Head’s knife outside. He stood in the doorway, holding his revolver by the barrel. Together, as Passepartout slowly counted, the two got rid of their cartridges.

Fogg stepped outside onto the deck, his cartridges in one hand. Nemo backed away until he was by the starboard railing. Fogg backed away to the port railing. At a signal from Passepartout, both men, one by one, in unison, tossed their cartridges into the sea. Fogg had removed his coat and shirt before coming out of the deckhouse to ensure that he would not be able to palm any cartridges. This was unnecessary, since the cartridges could be seen sailing away over and into the sea.

Passepartout threw the knives into the ocean. Nemo had permitted the Frenchman to do this because he did not think he was in a condition to hurt him even if Passepartout did come at him with a knife.

Nemo had wanted the sword to go overboard, too, but Fogg had insisted that all articles aboard were to be restored to their original positions, except for Head, of course.

This was a ticklish moment. Nemo could make a dash for the sword. If Passepartout picked it up first, Nemo thought he could dodge the first feeble slash and close in with Passepartout. Even if Passepartout threw it overboard, Nemo would have the others at a disadvantage. Wounded though he was, and still suffering a strong headache from the two blows on his head, he felt that he was physically superior to the combination of the others.

It was then that Fogg reminded him that Aouda was waiting at the other end with the cyanide expeller. She had orders to use it if Nemo appeared alone.

Despite all this, Nemo suddenly decided that he would attempt to overpower them. If he could get Fogg over the railing and into the sea, he could deal easily enough with the Frenchman. He would not kill him, because he might need him to transmit the proper code to Aouda. But there were many ways to make him yield that information. And if Passepartout should somehow refuse, or die, then he would send a message to the man from China. The fellow surely must be listening by now. Or, if that failed, he would turn the ship around toward the east again and hope that another ship would sight the Mary Celeste.

It was at this moment that Nemo was stricken with a fit of shaking. Whether it was the first time or not, we do not know. Fogg was startled, because he had not observed anything like this while serving under Nemo. From later accounts by another Briton, the fits became more numerous and one phase of them became permanent. What the nature of the disease was, no one knows. Perhaps his neural charges, restrained too long, damped a part of his brain.

In any event, on this occasion Nemo began shaking violently all over. This lasted for about a minute, after which he seemed to regain a partial control. Now only his head, with the face thrust forward, oscillated in a curiously snake-like fashion. This, with his high domed forehead and the large widely spaced eyes, made him look like a king cobra.

After perhaps sixty seconds, the nervous motion ceased. He had become even paler, and he looked very weary. He passed his hands over his eyes and groaned loudly enough for Passepartout to hear him.

“Great God! Enough! Enough!”

Then he said, “I can’t do it!”

Neither of the Eridaneans knew what he meant by this, but we may deduce that he had planned a final attack on them but now realized that he could not carry it out.

Passepartout took the sword to the captain’s cabin, cleaned it as required by Fogg, and put it back in its scabbard under the bed. When he returned, he found that neither Fogg nor Nemo had moved.

The next step was to dispose of Head’s corpse and clothing. Nemo had recovered enough to assist with this. While Fogg held the feet of the body, Nemo supported the other end with one arm. He failed to let loose of the corpse at the same time as Fogg, and, for a second or so, his hand passed over Head’s face. Fogg thought nothing of this incident except that it indicated Nemo’s sickness and consequent lack of coordination.

The fo’c’sle was cleaned up so that no traces of blood remained. Fogg brought an open box from the lazaret. He placed it upside-down on the deck. This was near the opening in the port rail left by its removal for access of the yawl. Its underside held the distorter, set for transmit in three minutes.

The three crowded upon the box and linked arms. Fogg was counting on either the roll of the ship sending it into the water after the weight on it was relieved or heavy seas carrying it off. He hoped that the transmission would take place before the three men were precipitated off the box by the ship’s rolling. He had given Aouda more instructions, and she, using the watch which Fogg had purchased for her in Hong Kong, timed the action exactly right. She turned her distorter on about six seconds before Fogg’s began operation. The three, accompanied by the ear-paining clangings, appeared on top of the table in Aouda’s cabin.

Aouda had thrust the end of the expeller up toward Nemo’s face. He made no motion until told by Fogg that he could leave. He looked slightly surprised, as if he had expected that, now he was outnumbered, he would be taken prisoner again. Certainly, if the situation had been reversed, he would have taken advantage of it. He bowed and walked out of the cabin into a crowd of near-hysterical passengers.

Since they could not hear yet, Fogg and Aouda communicated with pencil and paper.

Yes, Aouda wrote, there had been much running about and screaming. After a while, most of the passengers, chattering loudly but over their panic, had returned to their cabins. Some had stayed on deck; some had repaired to the bar, which was opened at their insistence.

The two series of clangings which had followed Fogg’s activation of the distorter to fool the Capelleans had brought everybody boiling onto the decks again. Some passengers had insisted that the center of the noise was in the cabins near Aouda’s. Yes, a passenger check had been made, and an officer had talked with her through the door. Yes, she had overheard the discovery of the shattered lock on Fogg’s door, and crewmen had been searching for him. But in this turmoil, who could find whom? The broken lock could be attributed to the efforts of a thief to get into Fogg’s cabin while the panic was on.

Fogg thought that it was unfortunate that this could not be kept out of the newspapers. Both Capelleans and Eridaneans, reading of the mysterious bell-like noises on the General Grant would know that the distorters had been used. They would be watching the ship when it discharged its passengers.

The reader is doubtless wondering why Verne did not describe the mysterious noises. The answer is that he would have if Fogg had been in any way connected with them by the authorities. Or, if there had been a logical explanation for the noises, Verne might have included them. But since the bell-like sounds were only one more of the many mysteries of the sea, Verne, as a disciplined novelist, did not see why he should include the incident. If he had included every interesting, but irrelevant, event, Around The World in Eighty Days would have been twice as long.

It is also possible that Verne never even heard about the clangings.

Late the next day, Passepartout met Mr. Fix on the promenade of the forward deck. Though somewhat pale and shaky, Fix had regained most of his strength. Nemo had told him all that had happened. Fix, Nemo said, was to continue to play innocent. He must say nothing of his sickness to Passepartout, who would guess that was why Fix had not accompanied Nemo.

Fix told Passepartout that he had been sleeping peacefully until the first of those terrible belling noises awakened him. What did Mr. Passepartout know about these?

The Frenchman said he knew no more than anybody else. After some small talk and some large drinks, he returned to Fogg. Perhaps, he said, Fix was only a detective.

Fogg replied that could well be. And now, would he sit down with Miss Jejeebhoy and hear what Fogg knew about Nemo? There was no sense in keeping it secret any longer, if, indeed, there had ever been any sense in it. They should understand what sort of man they were up against.

In 1865, Fogg had been summoned by the chief to a secret meeting. He, Fogg, had been on a long mission in the eastern Mediterranean. But he had been replaced by another and told to hurry to London. That he was to have a tete-a-tete with the chief and not get his orders via cards or other means indicated the seriousness of the situation. On a train to Paris, Fogg was surprised to see the chief enter his compartment. The chief said he had reason to believe that the proposed meeting place was under Capellean surveillance. So he had intercepted Fogg in France.