The Mongolia had 1,310 miles to cover from Suez to Aden, and the company allowed 138 hours for the journey.
But the ship was moving so quickly that it looked certain to arrive well ahead of schedule.
Most of the passengers who had boarded at Brindisi were traveling to India. Some were heading for Bombay, while others planned to continue to Calcutta by taking the railway across India.
There were also many British officers on board, along with wealthy young Englishmen traveling for pleasure.
The Mongolia was a comfortable ship, and the purser made sure the passengers were well looked after.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and an eight-o’clock supper were served in the dining room.
The ladies changed their clothes twice a day, and when the sea was calm, the passengers entertained themselves with music, dancing, and games.
But the Red Sea could change its mood without warning.
When strong winds blew from the African or Asian coast, the long Mongolia rolled violently from side to side.
The ladies quickly disappeared below deck.
The pianos fell silent.
The singing and dancing stopped.
Yet the ship continued forward, pushing steadily through the rough water toward the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb.
And what was Phileas Fogg doing during all this?
One might have expected him to worry constantly about the wind and waves, watching for anything that might slow the ship and ruin his schedule.
But if he was worried, he showed absolutely nothing.
He remained exactly as calm as ever.
He was the same emotionless gentleman who had sat in the Reform Club, as steady and predictable as the ship’s clocks.
He rarely even went up on deck.
As the Mongolia passed the famous towns and villages along the Red Sea, Fogg showed no interest in them.
He did not bother to admire their picturesque buildings.
He showed no fear of the dangerous Arabian waters that ancient historians had described with dread, waters where old sailors had once offered sacrifices to the gods before daring to sail.
So how did this strange man spend his time on board?
He ate four good meals every day, no matter how violently the ship rolled.
And he played whist.
He had found three men who enjoyed the game as much as he did, and the four of them could sit together for hours in complete silence.
One was a tax collector traveling to his post in Goa.
Another was the Reverend Decimus Smith, returning to his parish in Bombay.
The third was a brigadier general in the British army, on his way to rejoin his brigade at Benares.
Together with Fogg, they played whist for hours, completely absorbed in the game.
Passepartout had also escaped seasickness.
He ate his meals faithfully in the forward cabin and actually enjoyed the voyage.
The food was good, his quarters were comfortable, and he loved watching the strange places they passed.
Most of all, he comforted himself with the belief that his master’s crazy journey would end when they reached Bombay.
The day after leaving Suez, he was delighted to see a familiar face on deck.
He approached the man with a friendly smile.
“If I’m not mistaken, you’re the gentleman who kindly offered to show me around Suez?”
The man looked at him and smiled.
“Ah, yes. I remember you. You’re the servant of that strange Englishman.”
“Exactly, monsieur.”
“Fix.”
“Monsieur Fix,” Passepartout said, “I’m very pleased to see you on board. Where are you going?”
“Bombay, just like you.”
“That’s excellent! Have you made this trip before?”
“Several times. I’m one of the agents of the Peninsular Company.”
“Then you know India?”
“Yes,” Fix replied carefully.
“Is India an interesting place?”
“Very interesting. There are mosques, minarets, temples, fakirs, pagodas, tigers, snakes, and elephants. I hope you’ll have plenty of time to see them.”
“I hope so too, Monsieur Fix. A sensible man shouldn’t spend his whole life jumping from a steamer onto a train and then from a train back onto a steamer, all in the name of traveling around the world in eighty days!”
Passepartout laughed.
“No, I can assure you, all that nonsense will stop in Bombay.”
“And how is Mr. Fogg doing?” Fix asked casually.
“Perfectly well. And so am I. I’m eating like a starving wolf. It must be the sea air.”
“But I never see your master on deck.”
“Never. He has absolutely no curiosity.”
Fix looked thoughtful.
“Do you know, Mr. Passepartout, that this supposed journey around the world in eighty days might actually be hiding some secret mission? Perhaps a diplomatic assignment?”
Passepartout shrugged.
“Honestly, Monsieur Fix, I know nothing about it. And even if I did, I wouldn’t pay half a crown to find out.”
After that conversation, Passepartout and Fix began talking regularly.
Fix made a special effort to win the servant’s confidence.
He often invited Passepartout to have a glass of whiskey or a pale ale in the ship’s bar.
Passepartout always accepted gladly.
In his mind, he soon decided that Fix was one of the finest fellows he had ever met.
Meanwhile, the Mongolia continued racing forward.
On the 13th, the passengers caught sight of Mocha, surrounded by ruined walls where date palms had taken root.
Beyond the town, huge coffee plantations covered the mountains.
Passepartout was fascinated.
Looking at the town’s round walls and ruined fort, he thought it looked like an enormous coffee cup and saucer.
The following night, the Mongolia passed through the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb.
In Arabic, the name meant “The Bridge of Tears.”
The next day, the ship reached Steamer Point, northwest of Aden harbor, where it stopped to take on coal.
Refueling a steamship so far from the coal mines was an expensive business.
The Peninsular Company spent about £800,000 a year on coal.
In these distant waters, coal cost between three and four pounds a ton.
The Mongolia still had 1,650 miles to travel before reaching Bombay, so she had to remain at Steamer Point for four hours while the crew loaded coal.
But the delay did not hurt Fogg’s schedule.
In fact, the ship had been expected to reach Aden on the morning of the 15th.
Instead, she arrived on the evening of the 14th.
Fogg had gained fifteen hours.
Mr. Fogg and Passepartout went ashore to have their passports stamped again.
Fix quietly followed them.
Once the visas had been obtained, Fogg returned to the ship and went back to his usual routine.
Passepartout, as usual, wandered around the town.
Aden was home to a mixture of Somalis, Banyans, Parsees, Jews, Arabs, and Europeans, around twenty-five thousand people in all.
Passepartout stared in amazement at the enormous fortifications that made Aden the Gibraltar of the Indian Ocean.
He was also fascinated by the huge water cisterns where English engineers were still working, almost two thousand years after the engineers of Solomon had supposedly built them.
When he returned to the ship, he shook his head in wonder.
“Very curious. Very, very curious. I’m beginning to see that traveling isn’t such a bad thing after all. You really do get to see things you’ve never seen before.”
At six in the evening, the Mongolia slowly left the harbor.
Soon she was sailing once again across the Indian Ocean.
She had 168 hours to reach Bombay.
The conditions were excellent.
The wind was blowing from the northwest, and every sail was helping the engine push the ship forward.
The sea was calm enough that the ship hardly rolled.
The ladies returned to the deck in their fresh outfits.
The music started again.
The dancing resumed.
Everything was going perfectly.
Passepartout was especially delighted to have such an agreeable companion as Fix during the voyage.
On Sunday, October 20th, around noon, the passengers finally saw the coast of India.
Two hours later, a pilot came aboard.
A line of hills appeared on the horizon, and soon the tall rows of palm trees around Bombay could be seen clearly.
The Mongolia entered the bay between the islands.
At half past four, she reached the quays of Bombay.
At that very moment, Phileas Fogg was finishing his thirty-third game of whist.
He and his partner had just won all thirteen tricks with a bold move.
It was a brilliant victory.
The Mongolia had been scheduled to arrive in Bombay on the 22nd.
She had arrived on the 20th.
That meant Fogg had gained two full days since leaving London.
Without showing the slightest excitement, he simply recorded the result in his itinerary under the column marked “Gains.”