Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/254

 actions, but for love, none at all! As for the thoughts which the chances of the journey might have produced in him, there was not a trace.

Passepartout was living in a continual trance. One day, leaning on the railing of the engine-room, he was looking at the powerful engine which sometimes moved very violently, when, with the pitching of the vessel the screw would fly out of the water. The steam then escaped from the valves, which provoked the anger of the worthy fellow. "These valves are not charged enough!" he cried. "We are not going! Oh, these Englishmen! If we were only in an American vessel, we would blow up, perhaps, but we would go more swiftly!"

the last few days of the voyage the weather was pretty bad. The wind became very boisterous. Remaining in the northwest quarter, it impeded the progress of the steamer. The Rangoon, too unsteady already, rolled heavily, and the passengers quite lost their temper over the long, tiresome waves which the wind raised at a distance.

During the days of the 3d and 4th of November it was a sort of tempest. The squall struck the sea with violence. The Rangoon had to go slowly for half a day, keeping herself in motion with only ten revolutions of the screw, so as to lean with the waves. All the sails had been reefed and there was still too much rigging whistling in the squall.

The rapidity of the steamer, it may be imagined, was very much diminished, and it was estimated that she would arrive at Hong Kong twenty hours behind time, and perhaps more, if the tempest did not cease.

Phileas Fogg looked intently at this spectacle of a raging sea, which seemed to struggle directly against him, with his customary impassibility. His brow did not darken an instant, and yet a delay of twenty hours might seriously interfere with his voyage by making him miss the departure of the Yokohama steamer. But this man without nerves felt neither impatience nor annoyance. It seemed truly as