Fix does not understand what is said to him

The Rangoon, a P&O steamer of seventeen hundred tons, carries Fogg, Passepartout, Aouda, and Fix from Calcutta toward Hong Kong. The voyage will take thirteen days — if all goes well. Aouda, occupying one of the passenger cabins, is recovering fully and beginning to assess her situation.

She observes Fogg. He is not like anyone she has met before: he listens, occasionally responds, never volunteers information about himself, and appears to have no inner life accessible from outside. And yet he rescued her from a burning pyre, paid for her journey, arranged her accommodations, and is now taking her to Hong Kong at no specific advantage to himself. Aouda, who is perceptive, begins to suspect that the precision is a surface, not a depth.

Fix, occupying another cabin, has telegraphed Hong Kong for the arrest warrant. He waits. He observes Fogg from a distance — or rather, observes that Fogg cannot be observed at close quarters because there is nothing in Fogg's behavior that constitutes an opening for observation. He watches Passepartout instead, who is on deck watching the sea.