Free Philip Jose Farmer by The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

large sum in payment. An hour after they arrived, the three Europeans, with the Parsi, rode off. Sir Francis and Fogg sat on each side of the howdah; Passepartout straddled the saddlecloth between them; the mahout rode on the beast’s neck.
    Their guide assured them that if they went directly through the jungle, they could lop twenty miles off the journey. Passepartout went pale, because this meant entering the territory of the rajah of Bundelcund. British law did not extend into it, and if the rajah were to discover that they were within, they would be in for it. He stroked the watch.
    Fogg did not hesitate in ordering the shortcut taken.
    At noon they had left the dense jungle for a country covered with copses of date trees and dwarf-palms. The pachyderm’s long legs soon left this behind, and they were on great arid plains on which were sickly-looking shrubs and huge blocks of syenite. This stone, Fogg informed Sir Francis, was an igneous rock largely composed of feldspar. It derived its scientific name from the ancient Egyptian city of Syene, where it was found in large quantities.
    Sir Francis merely grunted in reply. He was hanging onto the side of the howdah, which moved up and down with a motion like a small boat’s in a choppy sea. Passepartout also found the motion upsetting and sickening. He had no inclination to meditate on what would happen if they encountered Bundelcundians. If he had, he might have wished that the meeting would be fatal, since he would rather die than continue this ride, and would soon do so anyway if it did not cease. Then they did see some natives, and these gestured threateningly. The Parsi, however, urged the beast to a faster speed, and the Hindus did not try to pursue them.
    By eight that evening, they had crossed the principal chain of the Vindhya Mountains. They stopped at a ruined bungalow to rest in it for the night. The elephant had carried them for twenty-five miles, twice as fast as they could have gone on foot in this rough country. Allahabad now lay only another twenty-five miles away.
    Verne says that the Parsi built a fire against the cold night and that they then ate the provisions they had brought from Kholby. This is confirmed by Fogg’s secret log. They resumed, as Verne says, at six o’clock next morning. But Verne’s account of the time intervening is not at all accurate. The guide, according to Verne, watched the sleeping elephant. Sir Francis slept heavily. Passepartout dreamed uneasily of the jolting journey. Fogg slept as peacefully as if he were in bed in No. 7, Savile Row.
    This is not a likely picture. Anybody who has for the first time in a long time ridden all day on a horse would know how sore they would be and how hard sleep would come. Magnify the soreness and fatigue by a third and add to that the inevitable distress occasioned by eating the food of tropical jungle aborigines, and you have an excellent idea of their state. The truth, as revealed in the other log, is as follows.

 9 
    Though their trip had been speedy, it had not been nonstop. All three Europeans had frequently required the Parsi to halt the elephant while they dashed into the bushes. Toward the end of the day even the imperturbable Fogg looked pale. Before they went to bed, master and servant stepped out into the thick jungle to perform certain bodily functions they felt almost too weak to perform. Fogg listened serenely, if sympathetically, to Passepartout’s groans, moans, and complaints until they were finished with their duties—or hoped they were.
    He said, “Have you been checking your watch, as I impressed on you that you should?”
    “But certainly...”
    “And?”
    “And nothing! No signals of any kind! Which is indeed fortunate! If there had been, then we would be certain that that pig of a rajah...”
    “Speak more quietly,” Fogg said. “It would be easy for someone to approach unnoticed in this dense forest.”
    “Pardon, sir, but it is possible that I did not