On this twenty-third of November, according to Verne, Passepartout made a happy discovery. His watch, which he had not adjusted to the various time zones, now agreed with the sun.
Passepartout, Verne says, did not know that if the face of his watch had been divided into twenty-four hours (like Italian watches), the hands of his watch would have indicated the true chronometry. They would have shown him that it was not nine in the morning but nine in the evening. That is, they would indicate the twenty-first hour after midnight, exactly the difference between London time and that of the 180th meridian.
As we know, Fogg had no watches, having expended them in Bundelcund. Verne did not know of the incident at the rajah’s palace, but he also says nothing at this time of Fogg having a watch. Why this gentleman, who conducted himself strictly by the chronometer, lacked a timepiece, Verne does not say.
Fix had stayed in his cabin until the twenty-third, when he felt that he must leave it or go mad. While walking on the forward deck, he ran into Passepartout. He also ran into blows of the fist from the seemingly enraged valet. Passepartout was genuinely angry at the trick that Fix had played on him. But even if he had not been, he would have pretended to be. The role he was playing demanded it. Besides, if Fix were a Capellean, it was fun to pummel him.
Fix tried to defend himself but soon found that the Frenchman was the superior boxer. Lying on the deck, he said, “Are you finished?”
“Yes-for this time,” Passepartout said.
“Then let me have a word with you.”
“But I…”
“In your master’s interest.”
They sat down in an area distant from the other passengers, who had regarded the encounter with enthusiasm, some even making bets.
“You’ve thrashed me,” Fix said. “Good. I expected it. Now listen. Until now I’ve been Mr. Fogg’s adversary. But I’m now in this with him.”
“Aha! You’re convinced he’s an honest man!”
What the devil is this one up to now? he was thinking.
“No,” Fix said coldly. “I think he’s a rascal.”
He proceeded to tell Passepartout his plan, which was to help Fogg win his bet. He would, however, only be doing this so he could get him back on English soil. There it would be determined whether or not Fogg was innocent.
“Are we friends now?” Fix said.
“No,” Passepartout said. “Allies-perhaps. At the least sign of treachery, I’ll twist your neck.”
Passepartout had a double meaning in his threat, of course.
Verne then says that, eleven days later, on the third of December, the ship entered the bay of the Golden Gate. Mr. Fogg had not gained or lost a day.
This is true, but Verne did not know what happened the next few days after Fix was knocked to the deck.
While we do not know exactly what Fix and the gray-eyed man were up to during the time they were out of Passepartout’s and Fogg’s sight, we can reconstruct their activities from Fogg’s other log.
At one in the morning, Passepartout was wakened from a fretful somnolence by the ringing sounds from the watch at his ear. He listened for a moment, ascertaining that the series of sounds formed no code he recognized. He hastily put on some clothes and left the cabin. He did not observe the figure standing in the shadow of one of the large lifeboats on davits some fifty feet away.
He was standing watch because Fix was in bed with diarrhea and a high fever. Nemo was not pleased with this course of events, both because it was inconvenient and because it showed him that Nature was even stronger than he. And since he did not care to be seen by any of Fogg’s party, he could not leave the cabin when the sun was up. He did have a disguise available. The beard was actually a false one, which he could discard in favor of a false moustache. A wig would give him the appearance of a man approaching old age, and putty would make his nose bulbous. To remove the noticeable wide spacing between the eyes, he had a set of glass eyes to which he attached false eyelids and flesh-colored false skin. The glass eyes were thin shells with blue irises, one-way glass which both the Capelleans and Eridaneans had inherited from the Old Ones along with a few other devices far in advance of Earthling science. These could be set within the hollows of his eyes so that his eyes seemed to be closer together.
Unfortunately, half of the vision of each eye was obstructed. Nemo did not like to use them unless the situation absolutely demanded that he do so. He had elected to stay in his quarters, coming out only at night. Now he was just about to light a cheroot when he saw the Frenchman’s cabin door. If it had opened a few seconds later, Passepartout would have seen the light of his match. Cursing (his way of delivering thanks for having been saved from observation), he replaced the cheroot in its case. From his belt he drew a Colt revolver.
He had hoped he would not have to use it, since the noise might alarm the occupants of cabins near Fogg’s. He waited hidden in the shadow of the lifeboat until Passepartout had knocked on Fogg’s door and been admitted. He started toward Fogg’s cabin but had to dodge back under the lifeboat. The door had swung open again. Passepartout emerged and went to Aouda’s cabin, next to Fogg’s, and knocked. There was an exchange of words, which Nemo could not hear, through the crack by the slightly opened door. Nemo supposed that Aouda was requiring Passepartout to give a password, even though she must recognize his voice. In less than two minutes, Aouda came out dressed in a robe, her black hair hanging to her waistline. Both disappeared into Fogg’s cabin.
Nemo walked softly to the door and applied to it a stethoscopic device, another inheritance from the Old Ones. The moonlight falling on his features, showed his alarm, followed by a look of determination. Though he hated to make the noise, there was only one way to enter the cabin. He lifted his right boot and gave the lock a mighty kick. Few locks could have stood up under a kick from Nemo, who was extremely powerful. The lock tore out, and the door banged into the wall with Nemo swiftly leaping through the doorway.
A glance showed him that the three were unarmed. They were sitting at a table. Passepartout’s watch, illumined by the swinging petroleum lamp attached to the ceiling, lay on the table. That it was there confirmed Nemo’s suspicions that it contained a distorter. In the silence that followed his crashing entrance, he could hear, faintly, the ringings from the watch. And he recognized the Capellean code.
Nemo, pointing the revolver at them, shut the door behind him. Passepartout started to rise. Nemo shook his head. The Frenchman sat down. His eyes and Aouda’s were wide, and their skins were pale. Fogg sat as still as if he were in a tintype. His was the only calm face at the table.
“You will slowly rise and move over against the bulkhead,” Nemo said. “You will then slowly turn around until you face it. You will then place your palms flatly against the bulkhead.”
Though he voiced no curses, he must have been thinking them. The pulses indicated an immediate and emergency action for any Capellean possessing a distorter. Nemo would not have ignored any such call, even from the lowliest. This message was sent by the highest chief of them all. It was directed at the Capellean who was bringing the recently found distorter from China. But it also pleaded that anyone else who might possess a distorter should use it if the Chinese agent failed to reply.
Whoever answered was to set his device on transmit, though he must, of course, make sure that no one would come across it while it was left unguarded. That the chief would allow a distorter to be left behind showed how desperate the occasion was. Moreover, that the chief thought that the rajah of Bundelcund was still alive but was willing to take a chance on being transmitted by him indicated the desperation of his situation.