Part 24

Chapter 17

THE detective and Passepartout met often on deck after this interview, though Fix was reserved, and did not attempt to induce his companion to divulge any more facts concerning Mr. Fogg. He caught a glimpse of that mysterious gentleman once or twice; but Mr. Fogg usually confined himself to the cabin, where he kept Aouda company, or, according to his inveterate habit, took a hand at whist.

Passepartout began very seriously to conjecture what strange chance kept Fix still on the route that his master was pursuing. It was really worth considering why this certainly very amiable and complacent person, whom he had first met at Suez, had then encountered on board the Mongolia, who disembarked at Bombay, which he announced as his destination, and now turned up so unexpectedly on the Rangoon, was following Mr. Fogg's tracks step by step. What was Fix's object? Passepartout was ready to wager his Indian shoes-which he religiously preserved-that Fix would also leave Hong Kong at the same time with them, and probably on the same steamer.

Passepartout might have cudgelled his brain for a century without hitting upon the real object which the detective had in view. He never could have imagined that Phileas Fogg was being tracked as a robber around the globe. But, as it is in human nature to attempt the solution of every mystery, Passepartout suddenly discovered an explanation of Fix's movements, which was in truth far from unreasonable. Fix, he thought, could only be an agent of Mr. Fogg's friends at the Reform Club, sent to follow him up, and to ascertain that he really went round the world as had been agreed upon.

"It's clear!" repeated the worthy servant to himself, proud of his shrewdness. "He's a spy sent to keep us in view! That isn't quite the thing, either, to be spying Mr. Fogg, who is so honourable a man! Ah, gentlemen of the Reform, this shall cost you dear!"

Passepartout, enchanted with his discovery, resolved to say nothing to his master, lest he should be justly offended at this mistrust on the part of his adversaries. But he determined to chaff Fix, when he had the chance, with mysterious allusions, which, however, need not betray his real suspicions.

During the afternoon of Wednesday, 30th October, the Rangoon entered the Strait of Malacca, which separates the peninsula of that name from Sumatra. The mountainous and craggy islets intercepted the beauties of this noble island from the view of the travellers. The Rangoon weighed anchor at Singapore the next day at four a.m., to receive coal, having gained half a day on the prescribed time of her arrival. Phileas Fogg noted this gain in his journal, and then, accompanied by Aouda, who betrayed a desire for a walk on shore, disembarked.

Fix, who suspected Mr. Fogg's every movement, followed them cautiously, without being himself perceived; while Passepartout, laughing in his sleeve at Fix's manoeuvres, went about his usual errands.

The island of Singapore is not imposing in aspect, for there are no mountains; yet its appearance is not without attractions. It is a park checkered by pleasant highways and avenues. A handsome carriage, drawn by a sleek pair of New Holland horses, carried Phileas Fogg and Aouda into the midst of rows of palms with brilliant foliage, and of clove-trees, whereof the cloves form the heart of a half-open flower. Pepper plants replaced the prickly hedges of European fields; sago-bushes, large ferns with gorgeous branches, varied the aspect of this tropical clime; while nutmeg-trees in full foliage filled the air with a penetrating perfume. Agile and grinning bands of monkeys skipped about in the trees, nor were tigers wanting in the jungles.

It was here that I spied a small abandoned building and bade the driver stop the carriage. I helped Aouda dismount and told the driver to return in an hour's time as we wanted to take a walk in the beautiful countryside.

Aouda said nothing during this period, but smiled wickedly at me when she was positive the driver was not looking at her. As the carriage rode off, we walked, I holding her elbow as the going was unsteady with the rocky terrain. On passing the abandoned building, I bade Aouda stop and made a quick reconnaissance of the building and found it deserted.

Turning to call Aouda into the building to join me, I was startled to find her standing just behind me. I pulled her to me and we kissed, at first it was tentative, almost furtive, but then as we realized that for the first time we were really and truly alone, we melded into one another's arms and held the kiss for an eternity.

I could not believe my good fortune to have this wondrous beauty in my arms. My lust had been pent up for several days and I almost tore her sari from her body. I stared at her magnificence for a full minute, while the tips of her breasts held me hypnotized. If she had not moved I would be there still, staring, drinking in the beauty of her generous hips, the curve of her derriére and that musky scent signifying her ardor for me.

As I came to my senses, Aouda lay on her back and opened her petal-like folds to me. Struggling out of my trousers, I kept glancing at her sheer beauty, still unable to comprehend my luck in being able to possess this most remarkable woman. After kicking off my shoes, I knelt between her lovely thighs and rubbed my cockhead over her moistened folds.

"I am ready, Phileas," she moaned, already breathing heavily. My shaft was moving as she spoke, searing its way into her center while she screamed out at what she later termed a most delightful entry.

We copulated using the missionary style and I managed to grasp a nipple between my teeth and chewed lightly upon that engorged prize while thrusting into her with such a renewed vigor that I spent all too quickly.

"Ooh!" Aouda cried out in what I took to be disappointment as I withdrew my flaccid member, embarrassed at my inadequacy in performance.

"Patience, my love," I groaned seeking to redeem myself, lowered my face to her quim and began to lap at her in much the same manner as would a dog. This proved sufficient for the moment and when I paid special attention to her emerging clitoris, Aouda's turn came and she too spent rather quickly.

I got to my feet and went to look outside. There being no sign of the carriage returning, I shook my member in an attempt to stimulate it into an erected state. Aouda, ever helpful rescued me, taking hold of my prick and placing the tip of her tongue at my pee hole. Following this tantalizing procedure, she sucked the entire head into her mouth and used her tongue in expert fashion to stimulate the underside of the corona. I was hard as a rock in mere seconds.

We agreed to try a more comfortable position and I placed myself behind her lush arse, squeezing those delightful globes as I did, causing Aouda to gasp with pleasure and rotate her arse in such fashion as to give me pause as to which hole to poke. I chose to remain on course and entered her creamy cunt. To my complete surprise, she mewled like a cat immersed in a mountain of catnip. I moved quickly, thrusting as fast as possible, knowing the damned carriage was scant minutes away and we had to present a dignified appearance for the drive, lest there be scandalous talk on board the ship.

My hands reached out and found her magnificent breasts, capturing them as they swung freely as we rutted like animals in heat. "Crush them!" she screamed, and I gave them a tremendous squeeze that must have thrilled her no end, for I thought she was spending from the pleasurable sounds issuing forth from her larynx.

"I love this!" she gasped, rotating her hips so as to force my pistoning prick to search out new paths on each thrust.

Afterward she confided that she had never enjoyed anything as much as my prick rubbing her vaginal walls while I mauled her breasts. In truth, her arse was beet red from the friction of my thighs slapping against them. She looked like I'd used a switch on her rump, and I thought that perhaps some day... Our pent up lust surged to the surface and we managed to spend simultaneously.

I shook the remainder of my seed onto the ground I heard the whinny of a horse in the distance. We scurried about like rats in a maze, gathering up our clothing and donning it, then examining each other to ensure we were presentable as the carriage pulled up alongside the old building.

We boarded the carriage and I made several innocuous remarks on the beauty of the countryside while Aouda's hand massaged my member providing the both of us with licentious thrills as we continued on our salacious journey.

After a drive of another two hours through the country, Aouda and Mr. Fogg returned to the town, which is a vast collection of heavy-looking, irregular houses, surrounded by charming gardens rich in tropical fruits and plants; and at ten o'clock they re-embarked, closely followed by the detective, who had kept them constantly in sight.

Passepartout, who had been purchasing several dozen mangoes- a fruit as large as good-sized apples, of a dark-brown colour outside and a bright red within, and whose white pulp, melting in the mouth, affords gourmands a delicious sensation-was waiting for them on deck. He was only too glad to offer some mangoes to Aouda, who thanked him very gracefully for them.

At eleven o'clock the Rangoon rode out of Singapore harbour, and in a few hours the high mountains of Malacca, with their forests, inhabited by the most beautifully-furred tigers in the world, were lost to view. Singapore is distant some thirteen hundred miles from the island of Hong Kong, which is a little English colony near the Chinese coast. Phileas Fogg hoped to accomplish the journey in six days, so as to be in time for the steamer which would leave on the 6th of November for Yokohama, the principal Japanese port.

The Rangoon had a large quota of passengers, many of whom disembarked at Singapore, among them a number of Indians, Ceylonese, Chinamen, Malays, and Portuguese, mostly second-class travellers.

The weather, which had hitherto been fine, changed with the last quarter of the moon. The sea rolled heavily, and the wind at intervals rose almost to a storm, but happily blew from the south-west, and thus aided the steamer's progress. The captain as often as possible put up his sails, and under the double action of steam and sail the vessel made rapid progress along the coasts of Anam and Cochin China. Owing to the defective construction of the Rangoon, however, unusual precautions became necessary in unfavourable weather; but the loss of time which resulted from this cause, while it nearly drove Passepartout out of his senses, did not seem to affect his master in the least. Passepartout blamed the captain, the engineer, and the crew, and consigned all who were connected with the ship to the land where the pepper grows. Perhaps the thought of the gas, which was remorselessly burning at his expense in Saville Row, had something to do with his hot impatience.

"You are in a great hurry, then," said Fix to him one day, "to reach Hong Kong?"

"A very great hurry!"

"Mr. Fogg, I suppose, is anxious to catch the steamer for Yokohama?"

"Terribly anxious."

"You believe in this journey around the world, then?"

"Absolutely. Don't you, Mr. Fix?"

"I? I don't believe a word of it."

"You're a sly dog!" said Passepartout, winking at him.

This expression rather disturbed Fix, without his knowing why. Had the Frenchman guessed his real purpose? He knew not what to think. But how could Passepartout have discovered that he was a detective? Yet, in speaking as he did, the man evidently meant more than he expressed.

Passepartout went still further the next day; he could not hold his tongue.

"Mr. Fix," said he, in a bantering tone, "shall we be so unfortunate as to lose you when we get to Hong Kong?"

"Why," responded Fix, a little embarrassed, "I don't know; perhaps-"

"Ah, if you would only go on with us! An agent of the Peninsular Company, you know, can't stop on the way! You were only going to Bombay, and here you are in China. America is not far off, and from America to Europe is only a step."

Fix looked intently at his companion, whose countenance was as serene as possible, and laughed with him. But Passepartout persisted in chaffing him by asking him if he made much by his present occupation.

"Yes, and no," returned Fix; "there is good and bad luck in such things. But you must understand that I don't travel at my own expense."

"Oh, I am quite sure of that!" cried Passepartout, laughing heartily.

Fix, fairly puzzled, descended to his cabin and gave himself up to his reflections. He was evidently suspected; somehow or other the Frenchman had found out that he was a detective. But had he told his master? What part was he playing in all this: was he an accomplice or not? Was the game, then, up? Fix spent several hours turning these things over in his mind, sometimes thinking that all was lost, then persuading himself that Fogg was ignorant of his presence, and then undecided what course it was best to take.

Nevertheless, he preserved his coolness of mind, and at last resolved to deal plainly with Passepartout. If he did not find it practicable to arrest Fogg at Hong Kong, and if Fogg made preparations to leave that last foothold of English territory, he, Fix, would tell Passepartout all. Either the servant was the accomplice of his master, and in this case the master knew of his operations, and he should fail; or else the servant knew nothing about the robbery, and then his interest would be to abandon the robber.

Such was the situation between Fix and Passepartout. Meanwhile Phileas Fogg moved about above them in the most majestic and unconscious indifference. He was passing methodically in his orbit around the world, regardless of the lesser stars which gravitated around him. Yet there was near by what the astronomers would call a disturbing star, which might have produced an agitation in this gentleman's heart. But no! The charms of Aouda failed to act, to Passepartout's great surprise; and the disturbances, if they existed, would have been more difficult to calculate than those of Uranus which led to the discovery of Neptune.

It was every day an increasing wonder to Passepartout, who read in Aouda's eyes the depths of her gratitude to his master. Phileas Fogg, though brave and gallant, must be, he thought, quite heartless. As to the sentiment which this journey might have awakened in him, there was clearly no trace of such a thing; while poor Passepartout existed in perpetual reveries.

It was while Passepartout was in one such reverie that he fond himself outside Aouda's stateroom. She answered on the third knock of his knuckles and he slipped inside unseen by any other passengers.

"You take a great risk coming here," she told him, glancing nervously at his groin which was unable to disguise the prominent rod sticking out.

"You my sweet Aouda, my princess of the night, you are worth any risk."

"It would seem you have a penchant for risk, is that always the case?" He didn't answer her directly, but swept her into his arms and placed a kiss upon her lips, which opened instantly as if he had uttered a secret password.

"We don't have much time my hero," Aouda said as she tore her clothing away from her body and stood naked and proud before him. Then she dropped to her knees and fished his enormous prick from its confinement and placed it between her lips and sucked feverously upon it. When Passepartout could stand the pleasuring no longer without spending, he disengaged her tantalizing mouth and using both hands, lifted her by her plump, but surprisingly firm arse and gently placed her on her back upon the table.

Aouda reclined her head as Passepartout parted her thighs and then saw to it that her legs were stretched out on the table. Satisfied that she had ample balance available to her to keep her from falling, he divested himself of his shirt and trousers and drew her shapely thighs around his hips.

"Now! Enter me now!" She moaned eager to have his stalwart member inside her.

"You are the ultimate woman, Aouda, do you know this?" Passepartout asked as he held his throbbing phallus against the wealth of thick silky hair covering her Mount Venus. She wrapped her legs around his hips as he entered her. In that intimate position, the two of them had a long, leisurely fuck, confident no one would disturb them for some time.

Ten minutes later, with his hands squeezing her hips and buttocks intermittently, Aouda groaned and spasmed as she began to spend. Passepartout began to race, trying to jettison his seed before Aouda finished her climax. He almost timed it to perfection, still Aouda welcomed his burst of ejaculate as it triggered yet a second orgasm within her, and as the deliriously sensual wave dissipated she pulled his sweaty face to hers and kissed him passionately.

Five minutes later she detached herself from his clasp, letting her legs drop down but still kept them spread lewdly on the table. Passepartout placed a long, lingering kiss, right on her cunt, causing Aouda to gasp and moan all over again.

He told her he loved her. She smiled, caressed his neck with her fingertips and told him that she loved him as well.

"What of Phileas?" Aouda asked with concern.

"You love him as well?" Passepartout inquired carefully.

"With all my heart," she answered. "I love the two of you and know without a doubt that you both love me. Please forgive me, but I cannot decide which one of you I want to spend the rest of my life with. Phileas has no idea that we are also in love. I do not want to hurt him, Passepartout. Please help me to help him and you that I may continue to have you both."

"I will search both my mind and my conscience, sweet princess. The answer is out there, it's just that we haven't found it yet."

He left her in that naked, well ravished state on her table.

Enroute to his own cabin he asked himself, 'Why am I this lucky? Why would someone like her want someone like me?'

The days passed slowly and Passepartout brooded, concerned with just two things; how to break the news to Fogg and when they would reach land again.

One day he was leaning on the railing of the engine-room, and was observing the engine, when a sudden pitch of the steamer threw the screw out of the water. The steam came hissing out of the valves; and this made Passepartout indignant.

"The valves are not sufficiently charged!" he exclaimed. "We are not going. Oh, these English! If this was an American craft, we should blow up, perhaps, but we should at all events go faster!"

Chapter 18

The weather was bad during the latter days of the voyage. The wind, obstinately remaining in the north-west, blew a gale, and retarded the steamer. The Rangoon rolled heavily and the passengers became impatient of the long, monstrous waves which the wind raised before their path. A sort of tempest arose on the 3rd of November, the squall knocking the vessel about with fury, and the waves running high. The Rangoon reefed all her sails, and even the rigging proved too much, whistling and shaking amid the squall. The steamer was forced to proceed slowly, and the captain estimated that she would reach Hong Kong twenty hours behind time, and more if the storm lasted.

Phileas Fogg gazed at the tempestuous sea, which seemed to be struggling especially to delay him, with his habitual tranquillity. He never changed countenance for an instant, though a delay of twenty hours, by making him too late for the Yokohama boat, would almost inevitably cause the loss of the wager. But this man of nerve manifested neither impatience nor annoyance; it seemed as if the storm were a part of his programme, and had been foreseen. Aouda was amazed to find him as calm as he had been from the first time she saw him.

But Fogg was using the time to think about Aouda and their possible life together after they arrived back in London. He had already pondered the ships situation and was at peace with it. They were doing the best they could under the circumstances; but what of Aouda? That she loved him there was little doubt. Yet there were brief moments when he had the distinct impression that she was not laying beneath him as he pounded into her, but someone else. It was a strange sensation and the first times it occurred he ignored it. But it recurred each and every time they consummated their lusty love for one another. He decided to give the feeling his complete attention the next time they lay together.