Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen Passepartout Proves Again: Fortune Always Smiles to the Brave

This plan of saving lives is very risky and difficult, and it seems that it will not work.Mr. Fogg was literally risking his life, or at least his liberty, and of course risking the success or failure of his journey, but he did not hesitate, and he believed Cromartti can also be his right-hand man. As for Passepartout, he was always ready to be called.His master's suggestion excited him.He found that although his master was cold on the outside, he was a warm-hearted person in his bones, so he loved Mr. Fogg even more. Now only the guide remains.What is his attitude towards this matter?Will he side with the natives?If he won't help, at least let him be neutral.

Cromartti posed the question to him quite frankly. "Mr. Officer," replied the guide, "I am a Parsi, and the suffering woman is also a Parsi, so just order what you need." "Excellent," replied Fogg. "But you must understand," said the Parsee again, "that we are not only risking our lives, but if they catch us we will suffer a terrible torture. That's the way it is, you see!" "That was foreseen!" replied Fogg. "I guess we'll have to wait until dark to do it. Yeah?" "I think so too," replied the guide.

The brave Indian then gave a detailed account of the woman: she was a well-known Indian beauty, a Parsi, of a wealthy Bombay merchant family.She had been brought up in a very British way in Bombay.In her manner and culture, she was almost European.Her name is Aouda. She was originally an orphan girl, and she did not marry this old earth king voluntarily. She became a widow only three months after marriage.She knew she was going to be burned, so she ran away.Unfortunately, he was caught again immediately.The relatives of the earth king thought that her death was a major event related to customs, so they decided to have her buried. Depending on the situation, she would die this time.Undoubtedly, these words of the guide strengthened the determination of Fogg and his companions to save lives.So the guide decided to lead the elephant near the Piraji Temple, as close as possible to the temple.

After an hour and a half they stopped in a bush.It is only five hundred steps away from the temple.Not only could they see the temple, they could even hear the shouts of the fanatical believers in the temple clearly. At this time, they began to discuss how to get close to Aouda. The guide was familiar with the situation in the Piraji Temple, and he was sure that the young woman was locked there.Can you wait for those people to get drunk and sleep soundly, and find a door to sneak in?Or, is it possible to dig a hole in the wall?This can only be decided at the time and on the spot.However, there is no doubt that the work of saving lives must be carried out tonight, and must not wait until dawn.For at dawn the unfortunate woman was to be taken to be tortured.At that time, no one can save her.

Mr. Fogg and his companion waited impatiently for the night to come.At about six o'clock, when it was just getting dark, they decided to find out the situation around the temple first.At this time, the shouting of the ascetic monks had stopped.These monks should have been quite drunk by custom—they drank ange, a mixture of opium juice and ramie soup—and now it might be possible to sneak into the temple from among them. of. The Parsis led Fokker, Cromarty and Passepartout quietly through the forest.After ten minutes of crawling under the branches of the bushes, they came to the edge of a small river.By the light of the burning resin on the tip of the iron torch, they saw a pile of firewood on the other side. It was a cremation altar made of precious sandalwood impregnated with sesame oil. The incensed body of the widow will be cremated with the widow.About a hundred paces from the cremation altar was the Temple of Piraji, whose spire rose through the shadowy sky through the treetops.

"Come here!" whispered the guide. He led the group and slipped through the wild grass with extra care.At this time, only the whistling sound of the wind blowing the branches pierced the silence of the night. After a while, the guide stopped on the edge of a clearing.The square over there was lit up by a few resin torches.The ground was full of drunken and sleepy people, it was like a battlefield littered with dead bodies.Men, women, and children were all mixed together.Drunk men here and there were still panting. In the depths of the jungle on the opposite side, the outline of the Piraji Temple appeared indistinctly.But the facts disappointed the guide. It turned out that the earth king's guards were holding smoking torches and holding unsheathed sabers, guarding the temple gate and patrolling around.Of course, it can be guessed that there are monks guarding the temple.

The Parsis stopped moving forward.He knew that it was impossible to force his way in, so he led everyone back. Fogg and Cromarty understood as well as the guides that it would be impossible to enter this way. They stopped and exchanged opinions in low voices. "Let us wait," said the brigade commander, "it is only eight o'clock, and the guards will probably be asleep." "Of course, that's possible," replied the Parsee. So Mr. Fogg and his companion lay down at the foot of a big tree, waiting for the opportunity. Time seemed to pass too slowly for them!From time to time the guide left them to spy on the edge of the forest.The soil king guards have been patrolling back and forth under the light of the torch.There were also dim lights from many windows in the temple.

Waiting like this until midnight, the situation remained unchanged, and the guards outside the temple remained the same.Obviously, there was no hope of waiting for the guards to sleep.Presumably they didn't drink "anger" so they weren't drunk.Then there is only another way to dig a hole in the temple wall.The question now is to find out whether the monks guarding the widows were as cautious as the soldiers guarding the temple gates. After discussing it, the guide said that he would set off immediately.Followed by Fogg, Passepartout, and Cromarty, they approached the Temple of Piragi from the side, and they made a considerable detour.

At half past twelve, they arrived at the foot of the temple wall without meeting anyone on the road.There is not a single guard here.To be honest, there is nothing to be wary of here, because there are no doors and windows at all. The night is dark.At this time, the semicircular moon has just left the dark cloud billowing horizon.Those towering trees added to the dark atmosphere. But it was useless to reach the foot of the wall, a hole had to be dug in the wall.For this kind of work, the only tool they have is a small knife in their pocket.Fortunately, the walls of the temple were made of bricks and blocks of wood, and it was not difficult to cut a hole, as long as you could get rid of the first brick, the rest would be easy.

That's how everyone did it.They try to make as little noise as possible.The Parsees on the left and Passepartout on the right were pulling out bricks one by one to make a hole two feet square. While digging the hole, I suddenly heard someone shouting in the temple, and then someone outside the temple echoed. Passepartout and the guide stopped their work.Have people already noticed them?Has the alarm been sounded?In any case, it is still "the best thing to do at thirty-six".At the same time, Fogg and Cromarty followed suit.They ran to the woods and crouched again, and if there was an alarm inside, they waited until the alarm was lifted before continuing.

At this unfortunate time, some guards went up to the side of the Piraji temple and put up posts, so that no one could approach the temple again. The four had to stop digging, and their disappointment is indescribable.Now that there was no way to approach Aouda, how could he save her?Cromartie clenched his fists, Passepartout bristled with rage, and the guide couldn't bear it any longer.But the calm Mr. Fogg still waited calmly. "Shall we have to go?" the Brigadier asked in a low voice. "Let's go." The guide replied. "Wait!" said Fogg, "if only I be in Allahabad by noon tomorrow." "But what are you going to do?" asked Cromarty. "It will be daylight in a few hours, and then..." "We'll find lost opportunities at the last minute!" At this moment the brigade commander hoped to see something from Mr. Fogg's facial expression. What was the calm Englishman going to do?Did he intend to run up to the young woman during the cremation and openly snatch her from the executioner? Wouldn't that be crazy!How could one imagine that this man would be so stupid?Nevertheless, Cromarty agreed to wait until the drama was over.At this moment, the guide did not let them stay in the place where they were hiding, and led them back to the clearing in the forest.There they hid behind a clump of trees and watched the sleeping people.Passepartout, who was riding on a tree, suddenly had an idea.At first this idea just flashed through his mind like a flash of lightning, and then it kept circling in his heart. At first he said to himself, "That's a stupid idea!" But now he said, "Why can't it be done? This is an opportunity, perhaps the only one, and besides, for these fools . . . " At any rate Passepartout resolved to do so, and to think of nothing else.Without hesitation he scrambled over the low-hanging branches like a snake.The tops of these branches almost touch the ground. Hour by hour passed.Soon, the night was not so dark and dark, heralding the approaching dawn, but the land was still dark. The time for the cremation has come.The group of sleepy people woke up as if the dead were resurrected.The crowd was commotion again.The sound of gongs, singing, and shouting rose up again.The hour of that unfortunate woman's death was at hand. At this time, the temple door was wide open, and a dazzling light shot out from the inside.Fogg and Cromarty saw: the martyred widow being dragged out of the temple by two monks in the bright light of the torches.They saw that the unfortunate woman was trying, as if with a last instinct of self-preservation, to escape from the hands of these executioners, against the intoxicating power of the potion.Cromarty's heart was beating violently, and he nervously grasped Fogg's right hand, and he found that Fogg was holding an open knife in his hand.The crowd began to squirm.The young woman passed out again from the marijuana smoke.She was dragged through a group of ascetics who escorted her by chanting scriptures aloud. Falk and others mixed in the crowd behind and followed along. Two minutes later, they reached the river, and stopped not fifty steps away from the cremation altar where the old earth king's dead body was placed.In the half-light of morning they saw the lifeless woman lying beside the dead body of her husband on the altar. Immediately afterwards a torch was brought, and the oil-soaked pile of firewood immediately burst into flames. At this moment, Fogg was about to rush up to the altar, but Cromarty and the guide hurriedly dragged him back.But just when Fogg pushed them away, the situation suddenly changed.There was a horrific cry from the crowd, and they were all so frightened that they fell to their knees on the ground. It turns out that the old earth king is not dead!He stood up suddenly, holding the young woman in his hands like a ghost, and walked down the cremation altar. In the smog, he looked more like a monster! The ascetics, the guards, and the monks were so frightened that they all lay there with their faces on the ground, and no one dared to look up at the monster again! It seemed that those strong arms were holding the comatose widow with no difficulty at all.Fokker and Cromarty stood stunned, the Parsis bent over and did not dare to raise his head, and Passepartout must have been stunned with fright... In this way, the revived old earth king walked to the side of Fogg and Cromarty.Once there, he said in a very urgent voice: "Go!" It was Passepartout!It was him who secretly climbed up the cremation altar in the thick smoke!It was he who saved the young woman from death by the still darkness of the night!It was him who walked past the stunned crowd as if nothing had happened. In an instant, the four of them had disappeared in the woods.The elephant galloped away carrying them.But there was a shout behind him, and a bullet even went through Mr. Fogg's hat.This shows that their diorama has been dismantled. In fact, the dead body of the old earth king still lay on the flaming cremation altar.Those monks who had been terrified just now understood that someone had taken the widow away. Immediately they rushed into the woods with their guards.They fired continuously as they pursued, but their enemy fled quickly, and was soon out of range of bullets and arrows.