They followed the small pits left by the beast until nightfall without catching a glimpse of it on the horizon. One subject of dread had begun to assail the mariners. Instead of going around Lake Baikal to reach Irkutsk by land, Strogoff had headed straight on to the lake, as if to cross it. Lake Baikal was frozen—but was the ice strong enough to support the animal’s weight? What anxiety! The infamous Strogoff might perhaps launch himself on to excessively thin ice with the poor elephant, and sink it under 300 meters of icy water!
It was fated, however, that our marines should not be spared any anxiety. A new disquiet was added to those that were already torturing them. A pack of wolves had, like them, set off on the track of the white elephant. Alongside the footprints of the elephant, the tracks of numerous paws were perceptible.
“This time, if we catch it, it will be lucky,” murmured Mandibul. “If not, it’ll be drowned or eaten!”
“Forward! Forward!” retorted Farandoul.
That vertiginous course lasted several more hours. At midnight, at the moment when they caught sight of the white cliffs of Lake Baikal in the distance, a frightful howling became audible.
“It’s the wolves’ tally-ho!” murmured Mandibul, in a breathless voice. “They’re in the process of devouring our 60 millions.”
Ten minutes of running brought them to the goal of their efforts. On the shore of Lake Baikal a white mass stood out, cornered in the rocks. It was the white elephant, still mounted by Michel Strogoff. But why were they maintaining that frightful immobility in the face of the wolves’ assault? Not a movement, not a gesture, to repel the increasingly emboldened wolves! The elephant was standing up, backed up against a rock-face, tusks forward. Michel Strogoff was in the palanquin, leaning out with his arms extended.
“Frozen stiff!” cried Farandoul. “We’ve arrived too late!”
The wolves paused before the frozen group suddenly turned round; intact and furious enemies were about to fall upon them in a body. Within five minutes, the battlefield was clear; a dozen wolves remained in the arena; the rest were in flight, limping.
Farandoul precipitated himself towards the poor white elephant.
Its body was cold; its stiff and icy trunk hung down towards the ground like a dead branch. Farandoul, on shaking it to see whether a single spark of vitality remained within it, had the pain of seeing a large fragment of the trunk remain in his hand. As for Michel Strogoff, it required the greatest possible care to get him down from the palanquin without breaking him too.
“It’s over!” said Mandibul. “Our 60 millions haven’t been drowned in the lake or devoured by wolves, they’ve been frozen—which comes down to the same thing, so far as we’re concerned.”
All hope was lost. It was inevitable now—and the prospect of returning to Siam to take the fatal news to His Majesty was not the most cheerful one imaginable.
“We’ll camp here,” Farandoul said. “We’ll leave at daybreak.”
In order not to suffer the same fate as the unfortunate elephant, the mariners had to light large fires. There was no lack of wood; enormous fir-trees felled by storm-winds were lying in the snow. Soon, they had a fire fueled by an entire forest to warm them up.
Only Mandibul and Farandoul stayed on watch, depressed by the ruination of their hopes. Suddenly, Mandibul, who was sitting at the feet of the frozen elephant, felt a drop of some liquid fall upon his forehead. He raised his hand to it mechanically. It was blood! Mandibul raised his head. The blood was coming from the broken trunk of the poor elephant.
Farandoul leapt to his feet.
“It’s bleeding! So it can’t be completely frozen! Quickly! The fire! The fire! If we have to burn the entire region, we have to warm it up…!”
These enormous masses have such a power of vitality that death cannot do its work at a stroke. The elephant was alive—feebly, it is true, but it was alive. The reawakened mariners set to work; while some heaped mountains of wood on the flames, others warmed up blankets and took turns to rub the elephant.
After an hour of energetic massage, they perceived that the circulation of its blood was re-established in a normal fashion. In the meantime, the elephant began to recover consciousness; hoarse sighs escaped from its throat and shivers passed over its skin.
“Tea!” cried Farandoul. “Hot tea!”
Seaman Kirkson made haste; as an Englishman, the was very appreciative of hot water, and had not neglected to lay in a plentiful stock of green tea during his passage through China; he had saved this provision of tea from every shipwreck, and he had even conserved it in the barrel in which he had been placed in Kou-Fau. A huge Mongol cooking-pot was put on the fire, with a large quantity of green tea. When the liquid had reached boiling-point, the dazed elephant was forced to drink it.
A visible improvement resulted from this ingurgitation. The elephant moved its head and seemed to be disturbed by the disappearance of its trunk. After a second pot of tea, the poor animal found the strength to lie down on the ground; it was covered with all the troop’s blankets, with a few large stones on top.
“If it starts breathing,” Farandoul said, “there’s hope.”
The reader should not think, however, that all the mariners’ concerns were for the elephant, while Michel Strogoff lay there, abandoned to his fate. No! Like the elephant, Strogoff had been brought to the fireside and rubbed with equal energy. For some time this had been fruitless, but finally, after two hours of effort, and slightly roasted by the fire, Strogoff recovered consciousness. He had had his share of the two pots of tea offered to his victim; by virtue of the strength of his constitution, that had been sufficient to put him on his feet again.
O joy! The elephant drew breath. They threw several fir-trees on the fire and added a few more blocks of stone to its blankets to avoid any possibility of it getting cold again.
In the morning, the reawakened elephant began to cough. It was given more warm water, which it drank without having to be persuaded, turning a grateful eye to Farandoul.
“If we save him, he won’t leave us again,” murmured our hero, “for he’s finally understood that we are his friends.”
Strogoff, as tough as a Siberian, had not suffered unduly; he did not cough and did not feel ill at all, but he had perceived with horror that his temporary freezing had made him somewhat brittle. The sight of the broken trunk gave him pause for reflection. Setting his pride to one side, he asked if he could have a word with Farandoul.
At first, our friend treated him coldly, but his heart soon softened and he sought some means to soothe his enemy’s distress. The remedy for the fragility of which Strogoff complained was soon found; four mariners went into the forest to search for solid and flexible pieces of wood with which to circle the courier like a simple barrel. This work took all morning. Finally, Michel Strogoff, solidly engirdled, thought he was in a fit state to continue on his way without running the risk of breaking at the slightest knock. He bid farewell to his benefactors and disappeared on the road to Irkutsk without daring to turn to look at his victim, the elephant.
The great enterprise for which Farandoul and his mariners had already run so many dangers had, therefore, almost come to nothing as a result of their fatal encounter with Michel Strogoff, courier of the tsar. How strange! Yet again, it was one of Jules Verne’s heroes who had got in our Farandoul’s way. Once again, a Jules Verne hero, by an evil machination fortunately undone by Providence, had almost nullified all our friend’s future projects!
The poor elephant’s head-cold was so bad that it was bordering on pneumonia. Mandibul, who had some slight knowledge of botany, went off in search of certain plants that might serve to make a tisane. He came back with a huge armful of herbs, which they set about infusing. The tisane, given to the poor elephant in buckets, along with fumigations of lichen, made it much better; the cold yielded to the energetic medication, the fever disappeared and its respiration became normal again.
After a fortnight, the elephant finally began to conv
alesce; only its trunk still caused it to suffer, and in that respect its suffering was more moral the physical, for the stump had scarred over. It was the memory of the absent trunk and the idea that it would be crippled for life that was grieving the noble animal.
One morning, after breaking camp, they left the ill-fated environs of Lake Baikal to plunge back into the deserts of Mongolia. Compared with their preceding journeys, the voyage had become a simple pleasure-trip; they advanced in easy stages so as not to tire the convalescent out, taking the time to choose good camp-sites for the night, and they did not set off again until they were well-rested and well-provided with provisions by courtesy of hunting.
After many days of traveling, they finally saw the sea! Farandoul had steered his company towards Unggi, the northernmost point of Korea on the Sea of Japan. His intention was to charter a small ship of some sort to sail to Bangkok. It was not without difficulty that he succeeded in making contact with a large Korean junk capable of carrying the precious elephant without subjecting it to too much discomfort.
The poor elephant had shown signs of distress on seeing the sea again; it remembered its peregrinations with the pirates and long weeks of sea-sickness. Full of confidence in its new friends, however, it played its part bravely and embarked without objection.
It was a beautiful day when the junk arrived in port at Bangkok. The white elephant, very lively since it had been returned to the tropical Sun, was hardly coughing at all any longer. As soon as they entered the harbor it recognized the land of its birth and greeted the domes of the pagodas with hoarse cries of joy.
An immense crowd was waiting for the junk on the shore. The quays, boats, roofs and trees were all garnished with breathless Siamese. The Amazon regiment, summoned in all haste, formed a line on the quay where they were to disembark, with the brilliantly-adorned colonel at the head.100 When the junk touched the stones of the quay, an immense cheer went up. Farandoul leapt to the shore to supervise the disembarkment of the idol.
In the first rank of the group of officials that advanced to greet our friends, Farandoul recognized the now-familiar face of the author of all the poor elephant’s ills: the man who had stolen it in Bangkok and marched it from city to city across the whole of Asia—Nao-Ching, the mandarin of the police. He came forward, smiling, to congratulate the mariners.
“This is a bit strong!” murmured Mandibul. “Here you are again!”
“Did we not make peace, out there in China?” replied Nao-Ching. “After leaving you I came back to inform His Majesty of your imminent arrival with the elephant, recovered from its thieves, and I resumed my duties as mandarin of the police, which I had left during my absence to my vice-mandarin and secretary.
“Very good!” said Farandoul. “I have no doubt that, under your direction, the police are doing an admirable job in Bangkok. But tell me—you can admit it now that it’s all over—was it really your intention to bring the elephant back to Bangkok?”
“Of course! Since it was me who gave His Majesty the idea of offering the 60 million reward. I had even taken the precaution, knowing that the State coffers were not always full, of having the sum set aside; that will ensure that you have only to present yourselves to my dear colleague, the mandarin of finances, to receive your reward. In consideration of the service that I have rendered you by my foresight, I hope that you will reserve me a small 5% commission?”
The colonel of the Amazons, advancing towards Farandoul with her hand extended, interrupted the claims of the mandarin of the police. Her fine and honest military figure made Farandoul think better of the Siamese race. He turned his back on the impudent mandarin and presented his compliments to the colonel. The interpreter, companion of all our friends’ perils, came forward to offer his services.
The brave Mandibul had no need of an interpreter; he grasped the significance of the bitter reproach in the warrior woman’s eyes perfectly—an entirely personal reproach, for she chatted with Farandoul in the most amicable tone. Mandibul was about to slip away when the colonel, leaving Farandoul, seized him unceremoniously by the arm.
“What?” asked Mandibul’s astonished eyes.
The colonel put her hand on her sword in a significant manner.
“A duel!” cried Mandibul, taking two steps back. “Let’s see—what if I were to apologize?”
“I would not accept it!” replied the colonel’s eyes.
Damn! Damn! thought Mandibul. Play for time! And he made a movement of his head indicating the elephant, as if to ask the colonel’s permission to complete his mission before being called to the dueling-field. The colonel understood and bowed.
Soon, an immense procession formed on the quay and followed the idol on its triumphant journey to the palace. There is no need to describe the pomp with which the sparkling procession was greeted at the king’s palace; ministers, mandarins of every rank, dignitaries of every caste—everyone was there.
To describe the joy of His Siamese Majesty would also be futile; it was, in any case, tempered by a great anguish. His Majesty, after the first embraces, perceived that the sacred elephant, the emanation of the divine Buddha, had lost its august trunk!
The poor white elephant was overcome by the emotion of this return to its home; one could see that in its eyes. The king, warned about the delicacy of its health, ordered that it be taken to its temple.
It only remained for our friends to pay a visit to the mandarin of finances. When they took their leave of the His Majesty, a few roses falling at their feet from the windows of the palace made them raise their heads. The king’s wives were there, behind the blinds! The roses were souvenirs addressed to the men formerly condemned to be decapitated 800 times over by the sword.
The next day was a solemn occasion. They collected the reward of 60 millions in local and European currency from the mandarin of finances.
“Finally!” cried Mandibul. “Quickly—to the port! Let’s embark right away.”
“Why are we in so much of a hurry?” asked Farandoul. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is that I have a duel on my hands, and I’m running away! The colonel of the Amazons has called me out!”
“The colonel! Let’s go, then! To the junk, my lads, and off to Calcutta! There we can find steamboats bound for every country in the world. Where do you want to go, lads, now that you’re millionaires?”
“Paris! Paris!” replied the new nabobs, unanimously.
“So be it! Let’s head for Europe!”
I.
You will recall that in October 18**, the attention of Paris was strongly gripped—separately, it is true—by two events, one purely scientific and the other entirely mundane.
The first event was the announcement of a huge German expedition to the North Pole, departing upon mysterious projects that were not without political implications.
As for the second preoccupation of Parisian society, it was to do with the assiduous presence in a box at the Opera, facing the stage, of a noble foreigner, always accompanied by four mariners bronzed by the tropic Sun. From the first evening on, this noble foreigner had attracted all the gazes in the auditorium and commanded all the pairs of opera-glasses; scandalously, the members of the audience had turned their backs on the singers and neglected the music in order to focus on him! The female spectators, leaning out of their boxes, did not miss a single one of his movements and followed his every eye-blink, breathless and oppressed, to such a point that several husbands were annoyed; more than one divorce case dated from that memorable evening. The famous Persian of the old Opera had found a successor!101 A profound mystery surrounded the foreigner; no one knew his name or his social position; all that was known was that his friend the mariners had arrived from India heaped with millions.
Soon, all Paris, excited by the mystery, was speaking of nothing else but the noble stranger; as soon as he appeared in his box, followed by his four friends, a shiver ran through the auditorium and over the stage.
One of the glories of th
e Opera, the baritone ***, recently returned to the scene of his triumphs, turning round at the sound of his entrance during a performance of Don Juan, uttered a frightful croak; the unfortunate artist did not finish his performance, but went back to his dressing-room to commit suicide and begin preparations for his funeral. People threw themselves at his feet in vain; all that could be obtained from him was a promise not to have recourse to a violent death. He left the Opera, went home and shut himself away for three days. Thick smoke emerging day and night from all the chimneys of his house intrigued everyone; the celebrated artist was pitilessly burning all his papers, love-letters, souvenirs, portraits and locks of hair. By the morning of the fourth day, everything having been consumed, the great artist renounced the world, distributed all his wealth to the poor and went into a monastery.
That was not the only incident caused at the Opera by the troubling presence of this mysterious individual. One evening, during a performance of Yedda,102 a lavish Japanese ballet that was greatly appreciated by the mariners, the entire corps de ballet seemed more excited than usual. A general distribution of bracelets adorned with precious stones had been made during the first entr’acte and this gesture of anonymous munificence had been attributed to the foreigner. No ballet had ever been danced by nimbler artistes; it was no longer even a ballet, but a whirlwind. In the finale, the fan-dance in the palace, the principal dancers, overextending themselves, went over the edge of the stage and fell into the orchestra-pit. There was a moment of terrible anxiety. The entire audience rose tremulously to its feet; the fops in the orchestra stalls, jumping over the rails, launched themselves to the assistance of the imperiled dancers. Thanks to an unusual stroke of luck, there was no serious accident to regret; a few first violins and petty flutes, badly bruised, were carried out in a faint to the pharmacy, but the ballerinas were intact, merely ornamented here and there with a few interesting pale blue marks. As for the foreigner and his mariners, they were literally writhing on the velvet cushions of their box.
The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul Page 53