Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/205

 there, on English soil, accost him politely, with the warrant in one hand, and the other hand upon his shoulder."

Having uttered these words, the detective took leave of the Consul, and repaired to the telegraph office. Thence he telegraphed to the commissioner of the metropolitan police, as we have already seen. A quarter of an hour later Fix, with his light baggage in his hand, and well supplied with money, went on board the Mongolia. Soon the swift steamer was threading its way under full head of steam on the waters of the Red Sea.

distance between Suez and Aden is exactly thirteen hundred and ten miles, and the time-table of the company allows its steamers a period of one hundred and thirty-eight hours to make the distance. The Mongolia, whose fires were well kept up, moved along rapidly enough to anticipate her stipulated arrival. Nearly all the passengers who came aboard at Brindisi had India for their destination. Some were going to Bombay, others to Calcutta, but via Bombay, for since a railway crosses the entire breadth of the Indian peninsula, it is no longer necessary to double the island of Ceylon.

There was good living on board the Mongolia, in this company of officials, to which were added some young Englishmen, who, with a million in their pockets, were going to establish commercial houses abroad. The purser, the confidential man of the company, the equal of the captain on board the ship, did things elegantly. At the breakfast, at the lunch at two o'clock, at the dinner at half past five, at the supper at eight o'clock, the tables groaned under the dishes of fresh meat and the relishes, furnished by the refrigerator, and the pantries of the steamer. The ladies, of whom there were a few, changed their toilet twice a day. There was music, and there was dancing also when the sea allowed it.

But the Red Sea is very capricious and too frequently rough, like all long, narrow bodies of water. When the wind blew either from the coast of Asia, or from the coast