Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/349

 "Ah! if my master wards that off," he said to himself, he will certainly be a famous man!"

And having met Fix, he could not help posting him as to the situation.

"Then," replied the detective, with set teeth, "you believe that we are going to Liverpool?"

"I do, indeed!"

"Idiot!" replied the detective, shrugging his shoulders as he turned away.

Passepartout was on the point of sharply resenting the epithet, whose true signification he could not understand; but he said to himself that the unfortunate Fix must be very much disappointed, and humiliated in his self esteem, having so awkwardly followed a false scent around the world, and he refrained from condemning him.

And now what course was Phileas Fogg going to take? It was difficult to guess. But it appeared that the phlegmatic gentleman decided upon one, for that evening he sent for the engineer and said to him: "Keep up your fires and continue on your course until the complete exhaustion of the fuel."

A few moments after, the smoke stack of the Henrietta was vomiting torrents of smoke.

The vessel continued, then, to sail under full steam; but, as he had announced, two days later, the 18th, the engineer informed him that the coal would give out during the day.

"Don't let the fires go down," replied Mr. Fogg. "On the contrary, let the valves be charged."

About noon of this day, having taken observations and calculated the position of the vessel, Phileas Fogg sent for Passepartout and ordered him to go for Captain Speedy. This good fellow felt as if he had been commanded to unchain a tiger, and he descended into the poop, saying to himself, "Positively I shall find a madman!"

In fact, a few minutes later a bomb came on the poop deck, in the midst of cries and oaths. This bomb was Captain Speedy. It was evident that it was going to burst.

"Where are we?" were the first words he uttered in the midst of his choking anger, and certainly if the worthy man had been apoplectic, he would never have recovered from it.

"Where are we?" he repeated, his face purple.