The night was cold. The Parsee lit a fire in the bungalow with a few dry branches, and the warmth was very grateful, provisions purchased at Kholby sufficed for supper, and the travellers ate ravenously.
The journey was resumed at six in the morning; the guide hoped to reach Allahabad by evening. The guide avoided inhabited places, thinking it safer to keep the open country. Allahabad was now only twelve miles to the north-east. They stopped under a clump of bananas, the fruit of which was as healthy as bread and as succulent as cream.
At two o’clock the guide entered a thick forest. The elephant, becoming restless, suddenly stopped. It was then four o’clock.
“What’s the matter?” asked Sir Francis.
“I don’t know, officer,” replied the Parsee, listening attentively to a confused murmur which came through the thick branches.
The murmur soon became more distinct; it now seemed like a distant concert of human voices accompanied by brass instruments. Mr. Fogg patiently waited without a word. The Parsee jumped to the ground, fastened the elephant to a tree. He soon returned, saying:
“A procession of Brahmins is coming this way. We must prevent their seeing us, if possible.”
The guide unloosed the elephant and led him into the wood, at the same time asking the travellers not to stir.
The discordant tones of the voices and instruments drew nearer, and now droning songs mingled with the sound of the tambourines and cymbals. The head of the procession soon appeared beneath the trees, a hundred paces away; and the strange figures who performed the religious ceremony were easily distinguished through the branches. First came the priests, with mitres on their heads, and clothed in long lace robes. They were surrounded by men, women, and children, who sang a kind of lugubrious psalm, interrupted at regular intervals by the tambourines and cymbals; while behind them was drawn a car[68] with large wheels, the spokes of which represented serpents entwined with each other. Upon the car, which was drawn by four richly caparisoned zebus, stood a hideous statue with four arms, the body coloured a dull red, with haggard eyes, disheveled hair, protruding tongue, and lips tinted with betel.
Sir Francis, recognising the statue, whispered:
“Kali; the goddess of love and death.”
“Of death, perhaps,” muttered back Passepartout, “but of love—that ugly old hag? Never!”
The Parsee made a motion to keep silence.
A group of old fakirs were making a wild ado round the statue. Some Brahmins were leading a woman who faltered at every step. This woman was young, and as fair as a European. Her head and neck, shoulders, ears, arms, hands, and toes were loaded down with jewels and gems with bracelets, earrings, and rings; while a tunic bordered with gold, and covered with a light muslin robe, betrayed the outline of her form.
The guards who followed the young woman presented a violent contrast to her, armed as they were bearing a corpse on a palanquin. It was the body of an old man, gorgeously arrayed in the habiliments of a rajah. Next came the musicians
Sir Francis watched the procession with a sad countenance, and, turning to the guide, said, “A suttee[69].”
The Parsee nodded, and put his finger to his lips. The procession slowly wound under the trees, and soon its last ranks disappeared in the depths of the wood. The songs gradually died away.
Phileas Fogg had heard what Sir Francis said, and, as soon as the procession had disappeared, asked: “What is a suttee?”
“A suttee,” returned the general, “is a human sacrifice, but a voluntary one. The woman you have just seen will be burned tomorrow at the dawn of day.”
“Oh, the scoundrels!” cried Passepartout, who could not repress his indignation.
“And the corpse?” asked Mr. Fogg.
“Is that of the prince, her husband,” said the guide; “an independent rajah of Bundelcund[70].”
“Is it possible,” resumed Phileas Fogg, “that these barbarous customs still exist in India, and that the English have been unable to put a stop to them?”
“These sacrifices do not occur in the larger portion of India,” replied Sir Francis; “but we have no power over these savage territories, and especially here in Bundelcund. The whole district is the theatre of incessant murders and pillage.”
“The poor wretch!” exclaimed Passepartout, “To be burned alive!”
“Yes,” returned Sir Francis, “burned alive. And the sacrifice which will take place tomorrow at dawn is not a voluntary one.”
“How do you know?”
“Everybody knows about this affair in Bundelcund.”
“But the wretched creature did not seem to be making any resistance,” observed Sir Francis.
“That was because they had intoxicated her with fumes of hemp and opium.”
“But where are they taking her?”
“To the pagoda of Pillaji[71], two miles from here; she will pass the night there.”
“And the sacrifice will take place—”
“Tomorrow, at the first light of dawn.”
Just at the moment that the guide was about to urge Kiouni forward with a peculiar whistle, Mr. Fogg stopped him, and, turning to Sir Francis Cromarty, said, “Suppose we save this woman.”
“Save the woman, Mr. Fogg!”
“I have yet twelve hours to spare; I can devote them to that.”
“Why, you are a man of heart!”
“Sometimes,” replied Phileas Fogg, quietly; “when I have the time.”
Chapter XIII
The project was a bold one, full of difficulty, perhaps impracticable. Mr. Fogg was going to risk life, or at least liberty, and therefore the success of his tour. As for Passepartout, he was ready for anything that might be proposed. His master’s idea charmed him; he began to love Phileas Fogg.
“Officers,” said the guide, “I am a Parsee, and this woman is a Parsee. Command me as you will.”
“Excellent!” said Mr. Fogg.
“However,” resumed the guide, “it is certain, not only that we shall risk our lives, but horrible tortures, if we are taken.”
“That is foreseen,” replied Mr. Fogg. “I think we must wait till night before acting.”
“I think so,” said the guide.
The victim, said the Indian, was the daughter of a wealthy Bombay merchant. She had received a thoroughly English education in that city. Her name was Aouda[72]. Left an orphan, she was married against her will to the old rajah of Bundelcund; and, knowing the fate that awaited her, she escaped, was retaken, and devoted by the rajah’s relatives, who had an interest in her death, to the sacrifice from which it seemed she could not escape.
It was decided that the guide should direct the elephant towards the pagoda of Pillaji, which he accordingly approached as quickly as possible. They halted, half an hour afterwards, in a copse, some five hundred feet from the pagoda, where they were well concealed; but they could hear the groans and cries of the fakirs distinctly.
The guide was familiar with the pagoda of Pillaji, in which, as he declared, the young woman was imprisoned. Could they enter any of its doors while the whole party of Indians was plunged in a drunken sleep, or was it safer to attempt to make a hole in the walls? It was certain that the abduction must be made that night, and not when the victim was led to her funeral pyre.
As soon as night fell, about six o’clock, they decided to make a reconnaissance around the pagoda. The cries of the fakirs were just ceasing; the Indians were drunk, they drank liquid opium mingled with hemp, and it might be possible to slip between them to the temple itself.
The Parsee, leading the others, noiselessly crept through the wood, and in ten minutes they found themselves on the banks of a small stream, whence, by the light of the rosin torches, they perceived a pyre of wood, on the top of which lay the embalmed body of the rajah, which was to be burned with his wife. The pagoda stood a hundred steps away.
69
suttee – сати (