Fogg looked at the archways around the walk. They were still empty.
Passepartout then pointed at the center of the islet. He indicated what they had missed before because the bulk of the elephant had been between the rajah’s distorter and the two men, and both had been too occupied since to look for it.
The device must have been set in the circular depression in the center of the islet. Certainly, it had not just been placed in the hole so the newcomer merely had to stoop over to pick it up. It would be placed within a defense of some kind. What alarmed Passepartout was that the distorter, contained in a watch, was disappearing. It had been placed on top of a cylinder set about an inch below the level of the islet’s surface. Now the cylinder was sinking swiftly into the shaft.
The islet must be hollow with a room beneath the surface. Men below were operating the machinery which raised and lowered the cylinder of stone. They would remove the device from the top of the cylinder and take it to a safe place. Then the rajah’s men would take care of the intruders.
Kiouni had not slowed down in his circular dash. There was no more time for endeavoring to control him. Fogg gestured at Passepartout to take his place, and he rolled off the neck of the beast. His agility would have drawn applause from the professional acrobat, Passepartout, under different circumstances. But the Frenchman was too busy hanging on.
As Fogg slid down the gray wrinkled side, he pushed himself away, landed facing the elephant’s side, fell back, but kept on walking backwards and so saved himself a hard fall on the marble. Whirling then, he yanked from a vest pocket a watch, twisted its stem, looked down into the hole, and dropped the watch. From first to last, despite his swiftness, he managed to perform with an air of unhurriedness, of perfect aplomb.
The men above him and the men below may have, undoubtedly did, cry out. He could not have heard them since his ears were still ringing. But he did look up and saw, not unexpectedly, that five in the car were brandishing sabers and one was holding a rifle. This looked like a modern rifle, perhaps the Mauser adopted by the Prussian army only the year before. Those in the car could see that the invaders had no firearms. Since no smoke had resulted from his dropping of an object into the shaft, they must have believed that, if it were a bomb, it had failed to go off. Possibly, they had not seen him drop the watch, since his body had been between them and the shaft. Nor would they believe they had to shoot the intruders; they were trapped. They could take their time, dispose of the elephant if it failed to calm down, and overpower the men. Meanwhile, the rajah would have retrieved the distorter in the room.
Fogg believed that the rajah was down there, since it was unlikely that he would allow anyone but himself to handle the invaluable device. In fact, Fogg was certain that there was only one man below, the rajah. The fewer who saw the distorter, the better. It would be, in the eyes of the Hindus, a magical device, one that many would do anything to possess.
Mr. Fogg turned, having extracted and set another watch. With a smooth motion, he tossed it upward into the car, which was now about two and a half stories above the islet. The actions of those he could see became very agitated. Two dived out of the car into the pool. The car disappeared in a spurt of flame surrounded by smoke. The blast was dimly heard by the two men and Kiouni, but they felt it as if it were a giant hand slapping them. Bits of thin steel and flesh and bone rained over them.
Fogg was knocked off his feet. Passepartout came tumbling off Kiouni’s neck. The elephant whirled and began running in the opposite direction along the edge of the islet. Passepartout fell without injury, rolling on the floor and coming up on his feet as if at the end of an act. His hair was wilder than ever, and his blue eyes were huge. Fogg returned to the hole in the center while smoke from the explosion, blown downward at first, rose around him. He knelt down and looked into the shaft. The watch case, for it had contained no watch, could be set to explode its contents or to convert them into a gas. This would be expelled at a high rate of speed to fill any small chamber. Its effect dissipated almost immediately so that he did not have to fear breathing the air coming up from the shaft.
Mr. Fogg’s face kept its serenity, but his log records his astonishment and alarm at what he saw. The cylinder had continued to sink into the shaft in the floor of the room below. Even as he watched, it stopped with its top about three feet above the floor. Beside it lay a short, stocky dark-skinned man dressed in gorgeous garments. His wrists and fingers were covered with bracelets and rings bearing pearls and jewels that only a very rich rajah could afford. His hair and beard were gray, and his hook-nosed face was wrinkled. Fogg knew that the gray and the wrinkles were only makeup. Rajah Dakkar of Bundelcund had not wanted his agelessness to be rumored about. Such a story would have brought him to the attention of the Eridaneans far sooner than it had, and the British might have become aggressive if they thought he had a secret for prolonging life.
The rajah had opened the lid of the cylinder before it had stopped sinking. If it had not been for the anesthetic gas, he would have been out of the room by now with the distorter. But the device, encased in a big golden-plated watch with several inset diamonds, lay nine feet directly below Fogg. He only had to remove from around his waist the magnet and the long thin silken cord to which it was attached and to drop it straight down. The gold covering would not be affected, but the steel plates and the steel works within would be sufficiently magnetized. And then he could pull the treasured object up by the cord.
But a man was standing by the marble cylinder and reaching out for the device. Something stopped him, perhaps a sense which told him that he was being observed. He looked upward. Fogg did not cry out, though how even he kept his self-control is difficult to understand. He knew the man. His beard was gone, and the eyes were no longer black but a dark gray. Fogg might not have recognized him now if it had not been for the extraordinary width between the eyes.
The man was now wearing the uniform of an officer of Her Majesty’s Indian Sappers, which accounted in part for Fogg’s failure to recognize at once that he had seen him only recently. Once the effect of the uniform passed, Fogg saw the resemblance between him and the man he had seen standing in the doorway near the Reform Club. Yes, it was he. The man he had served under, the man in the doorway, the man now about to take the distorter were the same. But how had he arrived ahead of Fogg? Had he come via a distorter?
The man mouthed one word, faintly.
“Fogg!”
So, he did not recognize Fogg as a former member of his crew. If he had known, would he not have wanted to let Fogg be aware that he had penetrated his disguise?
Fogg uttered the man’s name softly.
“Captain Nemo!”
10
Fogg records in his secret notebook many things that were puzzling about this man’s presence, though he had no time to think of them then. Why was he, a Capellean of good standing as far as Fogg knew, with the traitor rajah? Or had he talked Dakkar into believing that he himself had become a traitor? How had he gotten here? Why had he not been overcome by the gas?
The last could be accounted for by a quickness in running out of the room when the watch fell. Or perhaps he had been outside and had just entered.
Fogg let the magnet fall down the shaft onto the watch. Nemo had no weapons; his bolster was empty. Doubtless, the rajah permitted no one except the most trusted guards to be armed in his presence. Nemo, acting on his reflexes, shot his hand toward the nonexistent gun, realized the situation, cried out-Fogg heard it faintly-and dodged away. Fogg could no longer see him. But if he believed that the watch was another bomb, gas or explosive, he would leave the room and perhaps slam the door behind him. Yes, there was a muffled slamming noise. But he might come back at once. He might be behind armed men whom he’d sent into the room to determine if the watch case held anything deadly. Or, quick thinker that he was, he might perceive the significance of the cord attached to the case, guess it held only a magnet, and would come charging back in with a gun.