Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/299

 Bombay, I made you drunk at Hong Kong, I separated you from your master, I made him miss the Yokohama steamer."

Passepartout listened with clenched fists.

"Now," continued Fix, "Mr. Fogg seems to be returning to England? Well, I will follow him there. But henceforth it shall be my aim to clear the obstacles from his path as zealously and carefully as before I took pains to accumulate them. You see, my game is changed, and it is changed because my interest desires it. I add, that your interest is similar to mine, for you will only know in England whether you are in the service of a criminal or an honest man!"

Passepartout listened to Fix very attentively and he was convinced that the latter spoke with entire good faith.

"Are we friends?" asked Fix.

"Friends, no," replied Passepartout; "allies, yes; and under this condition that, at the least appearance of treason, I will twist your neck."

"Agreed," said the detective, quietly.

Eleven days after, on the 3d of December, the General Grant entered the bay of the Golden Gate, and arrived at San Francisco. Mr. Fogg had neither gained nor lost a single day.

was seven o'clock in the morning when Phileas Fogg, Aouda and Passepartout set foot on the American continent, if this name can be given to the floating wharf on which they landed. These wharves, rising and falling with the tide, facilitate the loading and unloading of vessels. Clippers of all sizes were moored there, steamers of all nationalities, and those steamboats with several decks, which ply on the Sacramento and its tributaries. There were accumulated also the products of a commerce which extends to Mexico, Peru, Chili, Brazil, Europe, Asia and all the islands of the Pacific Ocean.

Passepartout, in his joy at finally touching American soil, thought in landing he would execute a perilous leap in his