The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

19

Aouda was in her room and wondering if Phileas Fogg would ever ask her to marry him.

If she were called away on another mission, she might never see him again. If he did not ask her soon, he might not get a chance even if he wished to do so. Perhaps he was hesitating now only because she was a Parsi. Still, she could pass for a European, and their children would be even more European-looking than she.

But she doubted that her Oriental origin had anything to do with his failure to speak up. What did Fogg care about the opinions of others? No, his difficulty was his inability to express his deepest feelings. He had too much self-control, which meant, in effect, that in many things he could not control his true self.

Fogg, in his room, was thinking about asking Aouda to marry him. But what kind of life could he offer her? It was true that, once she started having children, she would be exempt from missions. Yet, she would know no ease of mind. He would be gone for long periods, in peril most of the time, and could be expected to be killed at any time. Moreover, if the Capelleans found out where she lived, they would kill her and perhaps the children, too.

At that moment, both Fogg and Aouda heard Passepartout’s cry.

Fogg ran out into the hall with a revolver in his hand. A few seconds later, Aouda came out of her room. She was holding a Colt six-shooter.

Fogg gestured for her to go to the other end of the hall so she could command the approach up the servants’ staircase. He hurried to the landing off the big central staircase. As he did so, he heard bootsteps clattering on the stairs. He got to the landing just in time. Three men were running up the second-story stairs, and all were armed with weapons which he instantly recognized as air pistols. He also recognized two of the men. One was a neighbor, the dissolute wenching young baronet, Sir Hector Osbaldistone. The other was Nemo. He had torn off the eye-mask which half-blinded him and the putty nose and false moustache.

Fogg’s shot and Nemo’s went off almost at the same time and both missed. The three men retreated down the stairs.

A shot sounded behind him. He whirled and saw smoke curling from Aouda’s pistol, and then he saw Aouda stagger back until she hit the wall. She slid down, dropping the pistol and clutching her right shoulder. Blood welled out from between the fingers of her left hand.

Fogg, crying, “Aouda, Aouda,” ran down the hall to her. She was pale, and her eyes looked strange, but she was able to murmur, “The bullet only creased me.”

He removed her hand and saw that it had done more than just burn the skin or break it. It had skimmed the upper part of her right breast but had gone into her flesh just below the collarbone. It seemed to have emerged without striking the shoulder bone, though he could not be sure. She was bleeding from both wounds profusely and would soon be in deeper shock, or even dead, if the bleeding were not stopped.

But if he attended to her, the staircase would be left open to the enemy.

She could not continue to man her post here, and he could not defend both positions. There was only one thing to do.

He lifted her and carried her down the hall and into his bedroom. Blood dripped from her and left a trail. Again, that could not be helped.

In the bedroom, he placed her on his bed and then locked the door. From the medicine chest in the bathroom he got dressings and bandages, which he applied in a feverish haste. For once, he was not serene.

Aouda stared at him and muttered something. He said, “Shh, dear!” and put a finger lightly over her lips. A few minutes later, he completed the bandaging. Some of her color seemed to be returning, though he was not sure that his hopes were not supplying it for his eyes. He started to move a heavy bureau toward the door when he heard a door slam down the hall. They were now on this floor and, though they had the trail of blood to follow, were searching the other rooms anyway.

Presently, the knob turned on his door. He fired his revolver at a point just above the knob. If he hit anybody he could not hear anything to indicate so.

A moment later Nemo’s voice came to him. “We have you, Fogg. There’s a man out in the garden with an air rifle. He’ll drop you without fail if you so much as even show yourself at the windows. He’s the best shot in the East and perhaps in the West, too. We have the Frenchman and his distorter, and we can shoot our way in at any time.”

“Not without loss,” Fogg said calmly.

Nemo said something Fogg could not hear distinctly. Footsteps sounded as a man walked heavily away. Fogg shoved the bureau toward the door but decided not to bring it against the door. He would leave it several feet away and would place burning oil lamps on its top and at its bottom. If they did try to storm him, he would shoot both lamps. The paraffin oil (called kerosene by the Americans) would form an impenetrable barrier, and some of it might even splash on the invaders and set them afire. The dangerous disadvantage of this was that he and Aouda would have to get out of the room to escape being burned alive. Aouda might be incapable of getting out by herself, in which case he would have to lower her on the rope made out of bedsheets. This would make both of them somewhat easy targets for the rifleman in the garden.

That would have to be taken care of when it occurred. Fogg would throw out his last lamp and hope that its burning would illuminate the garden enough for him to see the rifleman. Also, the fire might be seen by the neighbors behind him, and an alarm would, he hoped, force the Capelleans to run. He could, of course, shoot out the window now and try to attract the attention of the neighborhood. But he had heard the fire wagons and the explosion and had comprehended that the explosion was a trick to draw his neighbors away for the time being.

He set the third lamp, as yet unlit, by the window, peered between the curtains, and then turned away. The sky was overcast; the garden was in an impenetrable darkness. If only there were snow there, he might be able to see better what the garden held.

After turning off the jet light, he got some brandy for Aouda and lifted her head so she could drink. Some blood had spread beyond her bandages, but the flow seemed to have stopped.

“Did you hear all that?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said.

“He hasn’t much time to do whatever he is going to do,” he said. “And the neighbors will surely be back soon. At least, some of the servants will have to return; they won’t want to take the chance of displeasing their masters by staying away too long. And our chief is sure to reply to my telegram. Perhaps even now the house is under surveillance by our people.”

“I trust you to see us all through,” Aouda said weakly.

“One way or the other,” Mr. Fogg said.

“Did I hear you call me Aouda dear?”

“You were not mistaken,” he said.

“Would that mean…?”

“It would.”

She smiled slightly, and her eyes looked brighter.

“I have been waiting to hear you say that,” she said. “And then…”

“And then…?”

“And then kiss me.”

Fogg stooped over and kissed her lightly. Straightening, he said, “I dare not press my ardor, Aouda, since you are in no condition to receive anything but a tender nursing. But would you marry me?”

“If we had a minister, immediately,” she said.

Passepartout, meanwhile, watched Nemo and Vandeleur as they watched the scene on the street. According to their comments, which were frequently asterisked by oaths, the plight of the colonel had attracted a number of people returning from the excitement. From Vandeleur’s exclamations, the first to reach the colonel was a street boy, a ragged and dirty urchin. “He’s not helping him!” Vandeleur said. “He’s robbing him!”

“What?” Nemo said, and he opened the curtains a trifle more.

“He’s taking the distorter!” he said. “He’s running away with his wallet and the watch!”

Vandeleur turned to his chief for orders and saw then that he was in no condition to give them. He had been seized with a fit of shaking.

Vandeleur said, “By God, you aren’t fit to command us!” He started to open the door, but Nemo, by a great effort of will, overcame the shaking. He bounded forward and struck Vandeleur on the back of his neck with the barrel of the air pistol. Vandeleur crumpled. Nemo shut the door.

Though his body had quit shuddering, Nemo’s head still oscillated. And when he spat out his recriminations at Vandeleur, he seemed to Passepartout to resemble a giant snake even more.

“Did you think you could really catch that guttersnipe? What did you think would happen when you dashed out of a house supposedly uninhabited? And so you think that I am not fit to command?”

Vandeleur did not answer. Nemo kicked him heavily in the ribs and snarled, “Get up!”

Vandeleur groaned but made no effort to rise.

Nemo placed the flats of his palms against the door and leaned against it for a moment. When he pushed himself away a moment later, the oscillations had ceased. He started to turn away, and his composure, only just regained, was immediately lost.

Passepartout, with his acrobat’s skill and agility, had gotten to his feet though his ankles were bound together. He had advanced across the room in a series of very small hops. Any small noise he might have made was drowned out by the exclamations of the two Capelleans. When he had seen Nemo starting to run toward him, he had crouched low, leaped high into the air, and kicked out in a double-sabot.

The heels of his boots caught Nemo on the side of his jaw. Nemo crashed sideways into the door and slumped to the floor. Passepartout fell heavily on his back, hurting the arms tied behind his back and knocking the wind out of him. For a moment he writhed in agony. Vandeleur groaned again and rolled over onto his side. Nemo, sitting with one side against the door, his head on his chest, seemed completely unconscious.

Passepartout, his breath regained, got to his knees with a jerk of his body. With another violent contortion, he got to his feet.

Vandeleur managed to struggle to all fours. He shook his head, an action which must have pained his injured neck, because he groaned.

There was a slight cracking sound as the Frenchman disjointed his arms. He brought them up and over his head and now had his arms in front of him. If Nemo had been able to see him, he would have understood how the three Eridaneans had managed to get free of their bonds in the cabin of the General Grant.

It was at this moment that someone banged on the front door and that he heard a voice raised in some room in the back of the house.

Passepartout fumbled desperately in Nemo’s clothes for a knife. The banging on the door continued, and now he recognized Moran’s voice as the captain approached. He was asking why in blue hazes someone had not brought the promised hot coffee and brandy? Post or no post, he was coming in for a moment. His hands were so cold that he couldn’t even handle the air gun properly.

Passepartout brought a knife out of one of Nemo’s boots and slashed at the ropes binding his ankles. Moran’s footsteps became louder; he was just about to enter the room.

Vandeleur got onto his feet and lurched toward the Frenchman. Passepartout turned and slashed at him, gashing him on the left side of his face. Vandeleur screamed and stumbled back with one hand held over the wound. Blood spread out between his fingers and ran down his neck.

Still holding the knife, Passepartout ran across the room and raced up the steps. Just as he was about six steps from the first landing, he heard a shout behind and below him. He cleared the six steps and dived forward. He slid forward, stopped, rolled over, and saw a hole in the ceiling just above the landing where the missile from the captain’s air rifle had struck. He got onto his feet and sped down the hallway. At its far end was the staircase used by the servants. If he could get to that and then back down, he might escape from the house. But it was a long way to go, and Moran was not far behind him, and if he caught him while he was still in the hall, he would probably not miss.

He dared a glance behind him. The captain had halted a few steps past the end of the hall and was bringing up his weapon to his shoulder.

Passepartout threw himself to one side so hard that he rebounded from a door. The door opposite was part way open, offering an opportunity which he could not afford to dismiss. He staggered sidewise into it and fell through. He was up quickly and locked the door. He stuck the hilt of the knife between his teeth and sawed at the rope around his wrists. The knob rattled; the door crashed as Moran vainly hurled his body against it. Passepartout cut the last fibers and stood up, his hands free.

Moran’s voice shouted down the hall; somebody shouted back. Evidently Moran would be telling them to guard the door while he returned to the garden. Passepartout quickly pulled back the curtains and opened the window. He could drop one story to the walk below and dash across the garden. But Moran would be out almost as quickly, and he would have too much time to aim while Passepartout tried to scramble up over the eight-foot-high wall. No, that was out.

He swore a few Gallic oaths. He had hoped to go through the door from which he had rebounded and so have access to a street window. There he could have shouted to the people in the street or even have dived through a window. But now he was in the same situation as Fogg and Aouda.

Nemo, on coming to his senses, may or may not have had another seizure. It is safe to assume that his jaw, head, and side hurt and that he raved at his aides and threatened horrible punishments. Then he turned his attention to the banging on the door. He opened it a crack. By the illumination of the nearby gaslight, he saw Fix. Fix was dressed in a messenger’s uniform.

Beyond, two men were carrying off the still form of the colonel on a stretcher. Leading them was a man carrying a leather bag. Doubtless, this was the Doctor Caber who lived near Fogg. He was bringing the colonel to his house to wait for the ambulance.

“Go away!” Nemo said through the crack. “Go away, you fool! The situation has changed!”

“What?” Fix said, and then, hesitatingly, “But you must read this telegram!”

Nemo could see that everybody in the crowd was turned to watch the colonel being carried off. He opened the door, reached out, grabbed Fix by his coatfront, and yanked him inside. He shut the door and said, “I must, must I?”

“Yes,” Fix said. He looked curiously around in the light afforded by the single gas jet. “What’s happened?”

“Never mind that,” Nemo said. He tore the envelope from Fix’s grasp. It had been opened, so obviously Fix had read it.

“Just as you told me, sir,” Fix said. “I stopped the real messenger, and I showed him that I was a detective. I told him that I had to have the telegram because it was evidence in a criminal case. I gave him two shillings to assure his cooperation, then read the message and hurried here as swiftly as I could.”

“Shut up!” Nemo said. He walked over to the gas jet and read the telegram silently the first time and loudly the second time. It was evident that he did not like what he read either time.

RELEASE THE THREE UNDAMAGED BY 8:30, AND YOU MAY GO UNTOUCHED. WE HAVE NESSE I. THE OLD ONE IS NO MORE. CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE NOW THE CHIEF. CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCES. CHIEF OF ERID

Fix put his hands in his pockets to conceal their trembling. He said, “What does all that mean?”

“It’s obvious,” Nemo said scornfully. “They managed to located Nesse I when I arrived because of the noise made by the distorter. It took them some time, which is why I got away before they found it. They’ve killed our chief, the last…”

He paused, thinking of the effect on their morale if they knew that the last of the Old Capelleans was dead. He was too late. The others understood what he meant.

“The Old One is dead!” Fix said, almost wailing.

“Perhaps,” Nemo said. “The Eridanean may be lying, you know, and probably is. But he’s not lying about his knowledge of the situation here. So he’s giving us until eight-thirty to produce Fogg, the Frenchman, and Jejeebhoy unharmed. If we don’t, we’ll probably be invaded, no matter how many Earthlings are attracted by the battle.”

Fix started to the curtain as if he meant to look outside.

Nemo said, “Belay that! They’re out there somewhere.”

He stood for a moment in thought, softly rubbing his jaw, on which a swelling had appeared.

“Get Osbaldistone and Vandeleur back down here.”

“And what about…?”

“The others? They won’t know they’ve been left unguarded. They won’t open the door for fear they’ll get a ball in the head. I want everybody to be acquainted with this new situation. Moran can be told later; if they saw him coming back into the house, they might try to leave by the windows. Hurry!”

Fix went upstairs and quietly got Vandeleur and Osbaldistone away from their posts. On the way down from the second floor, he whispered the news to them. Vandeleur said nothing. The baronet went gray. “The last of the Old Ones is dead,” he murmured. “What do we do now?”

“Nemo says that the Eridaneans may be lying about that,” Fix said. “But I doubt it. They must have taken Nesse I; otherwise, how would they have even known that that is what we call the prime headquarters? But Nemo is the first chief now.”

Nemo affirmed everything that Fix had said. “But don’t feel that the Eridaneans have any advantage over us because they might still have an Old One to lead them. For all we know, they don’t have any either. Even if they do, what about it? The Old Ones were no more intelligent than we. In fact, their very alienness has handicapped us, in my opinion. It takes a genuine human being to know how to fight human beings, and now we Capelleans have one-myself-to lead them! Now we can conduct our war as we please and with a more realistic goal.”

Fix wondered what Nemo meant by more realistic. Was he intending to abandon the Grand Plan, to use the Race for private gain only, mainly his own private gain?

Osbaldistone said, “But what about the sharing of the Blood? There is no more Blood from the Stars to mingle in our veins at the puberty ceremonies.”

“So what?” Nemo said, glaring. “The Blood itself has no intrinsic value. Its only value is symbolic. From now on the blood of the human chief will be used in the ceremonies. Capelleanism is an ideal; its goal is the conquest of Earth for the good of the Earthlings. The Earthlings must be saved from themselves.”

“But the way things are going, the Eridaneans might win!”

“That’s close to treason,” Nemo said. “It is true that the end is near, since neither we nor the enemy probably number more than a hundred each, if that. But I have a plan. We’ll conduct a campaign such as the Old Ones were too inflexible, too unintelligent to conceive. We’ll concentrate, bring in our people, who are scattered all over the globe, reorganize, and launch a hunt which will not stop until we have run every Eridanean to the ground and killed him. And…”

“Only a hundred each!” Fix said.

Nemo looked as if he wished he had not said so much. Then he said, “Enough of the future. The present is what counts, and, for the present, we must retreat. The enemy has won this round, but it’ll be the last he’ll win.”

He took Passepartout’s watch from his coat pocket and snapped the lid on its back open.

“We’ll retreat, but only after Fogg and company have been eliminated,” he said. “Then we use the distorter to get to Nesse II. Vandeleur, you’re carrying the tape for…”

He stopped, his mouth hanging open. First, he paled. Then he became red.

“This isn’t the Frenchman’s watch!” he cried. “This doesn’t have any controls! It’s just a watch, that’s all, just a watch!”

Fix became numb.

Vandeleur said, “What do you mean?”

“I mean those swine have tricked us!” Nemo said. “That Fogg! He must have taken the distorter and given the Frenchman a watch to carry so we’d think… he… he… Fogg… has the watch with the distorter!”

Fix said, “Then we’re trapped! We can’t get out!”

“No, by all the furies!” Nemo said. “We’ll get it from Fogg!”

“Sir,” Fix said, “why don’t we just accept their terms and leave quietly?”

Fix, half-stunned, lay on the floor. He tried to rise, but, seeing that Nemo was about to hit him again, decided to stay where he was.

“Do you think for a moment they’d keep their word any more than we would ours?”

He turned away, and Fix thought it safe to get up. He was scared to speak up, but he felt that he must. Their salvation depended upon it.

“Sir,” he said, “if Fogg gave his word, we’d be safe. He wouldn’t go back on his word.”

Nemo swung back to face him. “What, an Eridanean’s word is good?”

“Eridanean or not, Fogg would not betray us because then he’d be betraying himself,” Fix said. “I know the man well.”

“Perhaps you know him too well!” Nemo said. “Perhaps he has seduced you into turning traitor?”

“Exactly my thinking,” Vandeleur said.

Fix trembled, but he said, “Not at all. But I do know that Fogg, whatever else he may be, is a true man. He would not break his oath, not even to us.”

“Not even to us!” Nemo said. “Just what do you mean by that?”

He threw the watch against the fireplace so hard that the works burst out.

“Fix, I’ve had my doubts about you for a long time. There is only one way you can convince me you’re not a traitor; only one way you can keep from dying as a traitor.”

“Yes, sir,” Fix said. He tried to keep his face from twitching.

“We must have that distorter and have it quickly. There is no time for subtlety now; we must storm Fogg’s room. You will lead us into it.”

And so he would die, Fix thought. Fogg wouldn’t miss the first man who entered. Fix would be the sacrifice, and Nemo would, in effect, have executed him. And why? Because Nemo thought Fix to be a traitor.

“Well, Fix?” Nemo said.

“If that’s the way it has to be,” Fix said.

“That is the way it has to be.”

“Will you see that my family is taken care of?” Fix said.

“Take care of a traitor’s…?” Vandeleur said, but Nemo interrupted him with a, “Quiet!”

Fix said, “I am no traitor.”

Nemo’s voice became softer. “Vandeleur is too hotheaded. We’re all disturbed by this, but now is no time to get panicky. Yes, Fix, I promise you that if something should happen to you, your family will not have to suffer.”

And what did that mean? Fix thought. That they would be killed quickly?

“We’ll get the Frenchie first,” Nemo said. “Sir Hector, you’ll resume your post at Fogg’s door. It’s not likely that he’ll hear us attacking the Frenchie, but if he did he might deduce that there couldn’t be many of us at his door, and he might try to break out. Station yourself to one side, along the wall, so that if he does run out, you’ll get the first shot.”

Osbaldistone left. Nemo said, “Vandeleur, you’ll have a chance to avenge the wound the Frenchie gave you. You will lead the attack.”

“Excellent!” Vandeleur said. “But I’d like to carve his face before he dies.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Nemo said. “He must be killed immediately and as silently as possible.

“Now, whatever our losses, we must get into Fogg’s room and get it over with at once. That trail of blood indicates that the woman was badly wounded. She is either dead or too hurt to help Fogg, and a good thing, too, since she is an excellent shot. Fogg must be killed at once, otherwise he may open the distorter and so blow himself, and possibly all of us, to kingdom come. I don’t think he will do that except as a last resort, so it is up to us to see that he has no time for a last resort.

“I imagine that he has placed some furniture before the door as a barricade. We will remove the hinges of the door. At my signal, Vandeleur will shoot the door lock off. The door will be pulled away by Osbaldistone and myself. You, Fix, will take a running jump across the hall and dive over the barricade. Fogg will have his room dark, but we’ll turn off the lights in the hall beforehand so our eyes can be adjusted to a lack of light. This will also make it difficult for Fogg to see clearly. As you go over the barricade, Fix, fire once to draw his fire. Then worry about how you are going to land. We’ll see the flame from his revolver and know where to shoot then.”

Fix knew he couldn’t clear that furniture in one dive. And if Fogg had the furniture piled all the way up to the ceiling, he’d be hanging there a helpless target. No doubt, Nemo and Vandeleur would be able to shoot Fogg once they had seen his fire. But Fix wouldn’t be able to see that. He’d be dead. And for what? For a man who had used him, not to advance the interests of all Capelleans but only to advance his own.

Nevertheless, he said nothing. Words would be useless. He took his Webley from his pocket and followed Nemo to the door behind which Passepartout waited. Nemo used his air pistol to shoot out the lock mechanism. Fix opened the door, and Vandeleur rushed in with an air pistol in one hand and a knife in the other. The room was dark, but Fix carried an oil lamp which lit up enough for them to see that the Frenchman was not in the room. Nor was he hiding in the bathroom or the wardrobe or beneath the bed or behind the curtains. The windows were still locked.

“You said he wouldn’t dare open his door and look out!” Vandeleur said.

“He’s even more foolish than I thought,” Nemo said. “I gave him too much credit for intelligence. Fix, run down and see if he’s outside! He may have used the servants’ staircase while we were coming up the main one!”

“Yes, sir,” Fix said, “but I don’t think so.”

He started to run off, but Nemo called him back.

“What did you mean by that?”

“He wouldn’t desert Fogg and the woman,” Fix said.

“You do know these Eridaneans well, don’t you?” Nemo said slowly. “Well, run on down and make sure. Then report to me on the third floor.”

Fix was back a few minutes later. He found the others trying to revive a stunned Osbaldistone. The door to Fogg’s room was open.

“You were right, Fix,” Nemo said. “He came up here, hit Osbaldistone on the back of the head, and the three went… someplace. They could not have come downstairs, however. I went up the main staircase and Vandeleur went up the other. Osbaldistone just went up, so they have not had time to get far. I doubt they’d stay on this floor; they probably went on up. However, Fogg is so tricky, he may be in a room on this floor.”

What a mess! Fix thought. Nemo might be a great brain, a genius at mathematics and engineering, but when it came to affairs in which lightning thought was needed, not a gigantic ratiocination, he did not do so well. He was also too arrogant, too egotistical. He underestimated everybody else. Perhaps he would learn a lesson from this and use his genius in a more appropriate manner. But what did Fix care about him? Nemo thought Fix was a traitor, and he’d see Fix die.

Well, he was a traitor, if thoughts made a man a traitor.

Nemo lifted Osbaldistone with one arm and carried the dangling body to the landing off the main staircase. He dropped the baronet, who groaned once but did not recover consciousness.

Nemo said, “Fix, you will pile furniture, curtains, anything flammable, on the landing and the steps of the servants’ staircase. Vandeleur, you’ll do the same for the main staircase. After the piles are completed, soak them with paraffin oil. We’re going to burn down the house and with it Fogg, the Frenchman, the woman, and the distorter. The fire will bring a large crowd, into which we’ll disappear. We’ll meet at Nesse III.”

He looked at his watch. “A quarter after eight. Fogg has thirty minutes to get to the Reform Club. He is going to lose that bet, since he will be in Hell before then.”

Fix shuddered at the image of Fogg and Passepartout and the beautiful and gentle Aouda screaming in the flames.

It took about ten minutes for the two to carry out wooden tables and chairs, curtains, bedsheets, and feather pillows and stack them on the stairs and the landings. Vandeleur and Nemo then began bringing out lamps, but not enough of these were filled with oil to satisfy Nemo.

“We’ll turn on the gas jets, too,” he said, “but I want to get a fire going that will absolutely prevent those three from getting over the piles. Fix, you go into the cellar and see if there are extra cans of oil. On the way back, notify the captain of what we are doing. Tell him to return to his post then and to wait until we leave before he goes over the wall. Determine that he has ladders or some means of getting over the back wall, since it will be dangerous to go through the house once the fires have thoroughly started. The jets won’t be turned on until just as we leave, but the chances of an explosion will be high. Have you got that straight?”

Fix said, “Yes, sir,” and he hurried off. He went into the deep and gloomy cellar, which was not as deep or as gloomy as his thoughts. A few minutes later, he emerged with two large cans of oil. There were several step ladders against the cellar wall which Moran could use. In the front room, he put the cans down and went to a sideboard from which he decanted a half-tumbler of brandy. He poured this down, stopping only when he coughed. Tears running down his cheeks, he put the tumbler down. Then, not so pale and shaky, he walked toward the rear of the house. On reaching the main rear door, he looked out into the darkness. Moran was a darker shape among the shadows, crouched by the side of a huge stone urn. Fix opened the door and said, “Captain, come here quickly! I have a message for you.”

Nemo looked at his watch again. Soon, the gentlemen in the Reform Club and the great crowd outside would see the flames rising and would wonder whose house was burning.

Hearing footsteps coming up the staircase, he turned. Fix, a few seconds later, climbed up over the pile with a big can in each hand.

“Put one down there and take the other to Vandeleur’s pile,” Nemo said. “We’ll set his afire first.”

Fix set one of the containers on the floor and walked toward Nemo. Nemo turned away to watch Vandeleur, who was bringing a bundle of curtains to add to the large pile. Fix reached into his coat and brought out his revolver. He held it by the barrel.

Fogg, Aouda, and Passepartout were at a window in a front room on the fourth story. The gaslights below showed an almost deserted street. Four gentlemen were standing talking across the street near the corner light.

“They must be the men Nemo’s stationed to intercept us if we should escape,” Fogg said. “There’s no way of getting away from them. As soon as they see us coming down on this bedsheet rope, they’ll come running. We must drop fast and start shooting as soon as we reach the ground.”

Aouda, sitting in a chair, said, “I still think I should stay here. I can use only one hand, and I’m not strong enough to hang on with it.”

“Nonsense, my dear,” Fogg said. “I told you that we will go down together and that I will have one arm around you. Our gloves will keep us from burning our hands.”

“But…”

Aouda stopped. Fix’s voice was coming from the end of the hall.

“Mr. Fogg! Believe me, this is no trap! I have knocked out Nemo and the others! I could not let them burn you alive. Please believe me, Mr. Fogg, and come quickly!”

“It might well be a trick to locate us,” Fogg said.

“Mr. Fogg! Nemo said I might be a traitor, and I’m sure he was going to see that I was killed. And God knows what he meant to do to my family. Please believe me. I have a pistol, but it is in my coat, and my hands are in the air. See for yourself. But quickly!”

“It could be true. It’s not entirely unforeseen,” Fogg said. He walked to the door, unlocked it, and opened it a crack. There was Fix, slowly walking down the hall, his hands held high.

Fogg opened the door a little more, stuck the end of his revolver out, and said, “Come on in, Mr. Fix.”

Fix entered. Fogg shut the door and said, “Where are your colleagues?”

“All unconscious, perhaps dead,” Fix said. “I called Moran in and hit him over the head with the butt of my gun. Then I went upstairs and hit Nemo when his back was turned. Osbaldistone was still senseless, so I only had to make Vandeleur stand with his face to the wall and then hit him, too.”

“And you did this for the reasons you stated?”

“Yes, but you’ll have to protect me and my family from now on. You will, won’t you?”

“Consider it done,” Mr. Fogg said.

With Fix ahead of them, for Fogg was not sure that it was not a trap, they went down to the landing. All three of the Capelleans were still unconscious.

“Are you going to kill them?” Fix said.

“Would you want me to do so, Mr. Fix?” Fogg said.

“No. I do not like them, and Nemo would have killed me without mercy,” Fix said. “But to slay them in cold blood…”

Fogg did not reply. He was searching Nemo’s clothing. Within a few seconds, he pulled a small flat leather case from a pocket and took out of it small oblong papers covered with writing and diagrams that could only be seen plainly under a magnifying glass. He said, “I was hoping he’d still be carrying these.”

“What are they?” Aouda said.

“The schematics for the distorter. But how did Nemo get them from Head’s body?”

“Head had them stored inside his glass eye,” Fix said. “Nemo removed it when he helped you throw Head’s body overboard.”

“I should have raised Head’s eyelids and looked at his eyes,” Fogg said. “But where did Head get the schematics?”

“It was an American Eridanean who found out how to manufacture distorters,” Fix said. “Head discovered that he had done so-how, I don’t know-and killed him, burned down his laboratory, and fled with the schematics and the distorter which the American had made. Your chief must have found out about this at once, which is why Head took passage on the Mary Celeste to avoid the Eridaneans looking for him on the liners.”

Fogg put the schematics in his pocket, looked at Passepartout’s watch, and said, “And those men outside?”

“They are either loungers or Eridaneans waiting to see if Nemo will surrender you to them.” He told Fogg about the telegram from the Eridanean chief.

Fogg looked at his watch again. “Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?” Aouda said.

“To the Reform Club. We have exactly ten minutes to get there if I am to win the bet.”

Verne says that Passepartout dragged Fogg outside by the collar, hailed a cab, and the two drove off at a reckless speed, running over two dogs and overturning five carriages. This is true, except for the dragging by the collar. But Aouda and Fix followed in another carriage at a somewhat slower pace. Aouda’s wound did not permit her to be jostled much, and, moreover, she stopped long enough to inform the gentlemen on the corner, who were indeed Eridaneans, that they were safe and that Fix was now one of them. She also told the gentlemen to pick up the Capelleans in Fogg’s house.

These hastened to do so, but, alas, they were too late to catch Vandeleur, Moran, and Nemo. These had recovered and fled, leaving Sir Hector behind. As the Eridaneans entered the front door, the trio went over the back wall of the garden.

Osbaldistone was carried out as if he were drunk and driven off in a cab. What happened to him thereafter, no one knows.

As everybody does know, Phileas appeared three seconds before his time was up. He collected twenty thousand pounds, though he had spent nineteen thousand during the journey, his last expenditure being a hundred pounds to the cabman who drove to the Reform. The remaining thousand pounds, he split between Fix and Passepartout. Within two days, Fogg and Aouda were married, and Verne ends his narrative on a happy note.

But what of the story behind Verne’s? The other log of Fogg ends on the day he took Aouda as his bride. No other literature on this subject has ever been turned up, so we must reconstruct the postlude. Fortunately, we have common sense and some narratives of a few other authors about some of the people Fogg met to help us build a reasonable sequel.

The Eridaneans and Capelleans, with Nemo out of the way, and through Fix’s offices, must have made a truce or perhaps even an alliance. Many on both sides felt, as Fix did, that there was no sense in continuing this secret and gory war which could end only in extermination for one side and near-extermination for the other. Besides, life as a mere Earthling was hard enough without adding to it the perils of Capelleanism and Eridaneanism.

Moran, we know from the writings of a certain Dr. John Watson, went back to India and stayed there for years. After retiring as a colonel, he rejoined his chief in London.

The chief, whom Watson called Professor James Moriarty, seems to have abstained from a criminal career for some years. Probably, the shock of being outwitted by Fogg and of losing the chieftainship of the Capelleans accelerated his illness. Nemo became a teacher for a while, but, after recovering much of his health, went back into business. He formed a vast criminal ring, though he succeeded in keeping his part in it unknown for a long time. Eventually, he experienced a bad fall-and falls-near the little Swiss village of Meiringen. It was symbolically and esthetically appropriate that a man who started his career in the water should end there.

Nemo’s brother, the colonel, had been so injured by the frenzied horse that he retired from the army. However, he did go back to his evil ways when older, though not as his brother’s partner. He appears briefly in a semifictional book by Robert Louis Stevenson, The New Arabian Nights.

Vandeleur plays a more important role in the same book.

Fogg retired to Fogg Shaw in rural Derbyshire, where he tinkered around in his laboratory and raised a number of children, all as handsome as he or as beautiful as their mother.

Fix continued to be a detective, though he now served only one master, or mistress in this case, Her Majesty.

Passepartout settled down as manager of Fogg’s estate and married a local girl.

And what of the Grand Plan?

From the situation of the world today, we may assume that it was abandoned.

What about the distorters?

Did the Eridaneans and Capelleans decide to throw the few remaining devices, along with the schematics, into the ocean? Or did some greedy person steal them? That we hear no more of the nine great clangings means nothing. It may be that someone, perhaps Fogg, invented a means for suppressing or canceling these noises. In which case, some of the many mysterious and seemingly impossible disappearances of things and people in this world may be explained.

Whatever happened to the distorters, the important thing is that Fogg and Aouda and Passepartout and Fix lived happily for many years. They may still be living for all anybody knows.

Fogg may even have thought that, after a hundred years, the public could be informed of the true story.

That Phileas Fogg’s initials and your editor’s are the same is, I assure you, only a coincidence.