Page:Kéraban the Inflexible Part 1 (Jules Verne).djvu/41

Rh clenched hands and red face looked quite apoplectic. "You think so; well, then, I will go to Scutari, and I will not cross the Bosphorus, neither will I pay the fine."

"Really!"

"Even if I have to go all round the Black Sea," said Kéraban in conclusion.

"Seven hundred leagues to save ten paras!" exclaimed the chief of police, shrugging his shoulders.

"Seven hundred leagues! A thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand!" shouted Kéraban the obstinate; "were it a question of only five—two—or even a single para."

"But, my friend—" began Van Mitten.

"Let me alone, I tell you!" exclaimed Kéraban, putting him aside.

"He is off now," muttered Bruno.

"And," continued Kéraban to the chief of police, "I will go through Turkey and the Chersonese, I will cross the Caucasus, walk through Anatolia, and reach Scutari without having paid a single para of your iniquitous impost."

"We shall see about that," responded the chief of police.

"You shall see it all," retorted Kéraban, now thoroughly roused, "and I will start this evening."

"Diable!" exclaimed Captain Yarhud to his friend Scarpante, who had not lost a word of this discussion. "This will rather disarrange our plans!"

"Yes, indeed," replied the other. "A very little would induce this headstrong fellow to persist in his mad project; and if so, he will pass Odessa, when the marriage may be concluded."

"But," again said Van Mitten to Kéraban, with the hope of dissuading him from his mad project, "you must—"

"Will you be quiet? Leave me alone!" said Kéraban.

"Remember the marriage of your nephew Ahmet," said Van Mitten persistently.

"We will see that is completed."

Scarpante then whispered to Yarhud aside,—

"We have not an hour to lose."