THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY SUSPEND HOSTILITIES
A bandage over the eyes, a gag in the mouth, a cord round the wrists, a
cord round the ankles, unable to see, to speak, or to move, Uncle
Prudent, Phil Evans, and Frycollin were anything but pleased with their
position. Knowing not who had seized them, nor in what they had been
thrown like parcels in a goods wagon, nor where they were, nor what was
reserved for them—it was enough to exasperate even the most patient of
the ovine race, and we know that the members of the Weldon Institute
were not precisely sheep as far as patience went. With his violence of
character we can easily imagine how Uncle Prudent felt. One thing was
evident, that Phil Evans and he would find it difficult to attend the
club next evening.
As to Frycollin, with his eyes shut and his mouth closed, it was
impossible for him to think of anything. He was more dead than alive.
For an hour the position of the prisoners remained unchanged. No one
came to visit them, or to give them that liberty of movement and speech
of which they lay in such need. They were reduced to stifled sighs, to
grunts emitted over and under their gags, to everything that betrayed
anger kept dumb and fury imprisoned, or rather bound down. Then after
many fruitless efforts they remained for some time as though lifeless.
Then as the sense of sight was denied them they tried by their sense of
hearing to obtain some indication of the nature of this disquieting
state of things. But in vain did they seek for any other sound than an
interminable and inexplicable f-r-r-r which seemed to envelop them in a
quivering atmosphere.
At last something happened. Phil Evans, regaining his coolness, managed
to slacken the cord which bound his wrists. Little by little the knot
slipped, his fingers slipped over each other, and his hands regained
their usual freedom.
A vigorous rubbing restored the circulation. A moment after he had
slipped off the bandage which bound his eyes, taken the gag out of his
mouth, and cut the cords round his ankles with his knife. An American
who has not a bowie-knife in his pocket is no longer an American.
But if Phil Evans had regained the power of moving and speaking, that
was all. His eyes were useless to him—at present at any rate. The
prison was quite dark, though about six feet above him a feeble gleam
of light came in through a kind of loophole.
As may be imagined, Phil Evans did not hesitate to at once set free his
rival. A few cuts with the bowie settled the knots which bound him foot
and hand.
Immediately Uncle Prudent rose to his knees and snatched away his
bandage and gag.
“Thanks.” said he, in stifled voice.
“Phil Evans?”
“Uncle Prudent?”
“Here we are no longer the president and secretary of the Weldon
Institute. We are adversaries no more.”
“You are right.” answered Evans. “We are now only two men agreed to
avenge ourselves on a third whose attempt deserves severe reprisals.
And this third is—”
“Robur!”
“It is Robur!”
On this point both were absolutely in accord. On this subject there was
no fear of dispute.
“And your servant?” said Phil Evans, pointing to Frycollin, who was
puffing like a grampus. “We must set him free.”
“Not yet.” said Uncle Prudent. “He would overwhelm us with his
jeremiads, and we have something else to do than abuse each other.”
“What is that, Uncle Prudent?”
“To save ourselves if possible.”
“You are right, even if it is impossible.”
“And even if it is impossible.”
There could be no doubt that this kidnapping was due to Robur, for an
ordinary thief would have relieved them of their watches, jewelry, and
purses, and thrown their bodies into the Schuyllkill with a good gash
in their throats instead of throwing them to the bottom of—Of what?
That was a serious question, which would have to be answered before
attempting an escape with any chance of success.
“Phil Evans.” began Uncle Prudent, “if, when we came away from our
meeting, instead of indulging in amenities to which we need not recur,
we had kept our eyes more open, this would not have happened. Had we
remained in the streets of Philadelphia there would have been none of
this. Evidently Robur foresaw what would happen at the club, and had
placed some of his bandits on guard at the door. When we left Walnut
Street these fellows must have watched us and followed us, and when we
imprudently ventured into Fairmount Park they went in for their little
game.”
“Agreed.” said Evans. “We were wrong not to go straight home.”
“It is always wrong not to be right.” said Prudent.
Here a long-drawn sigh escaped from the darkest corner of the prison.
“What is that?” asked Evans.
“Nothing! Frycollin is dreaming.”
“Between the moment we were seized a few steps out into the clearing
and the moment we were thrown in here only two minutes elapsed. It is
thus evident that those people did not take us out of Fairmount Park.”
“And if they had done so we should have felt we were being moved.”
“Undoubtedly; and consequently we must be in some vehicle, perhaps some
of those long prairie wagons, or some show-caravan—”
“Evidently! For if we were in a boat moored on the Schuyllkill we
should have noticed the movement due to the current—”
“That is so; and as we are still in the clearing, I think that now is
the time to get away, and we can return later to settle with this
Robur—”
“And make him pay for this attempt on the liberty of two citizens of
the United States.”
“And he shall pay pretty dearly!”
“But who is this man? Where does he come from? Is he English, or
German, or French—”
“He is a scoundrel, that is enough!” said Uncle Prudent. “Now to work.”
And then the two men, with their hands stretched out and their fingers
wide apart, began to feel round the walls to find a joint or crack.
Nothing. Nothing; not even at the door. It was closely shut and it was
impossible to shoot back the lock. All that could be done was to make a
hole, and escape through the hole. It remained to be seen if the knives
could cut into the walls.
“But whence comes this never-ending rustling?” asked Evans, who was
much impressed at the continuous f-r-r-r.
“The wind, doubtless.” said Uncle Prudent.
“The wind! But I thought the night was quite calm.”
“So it was. But if it isn’t the wind, what can it be?”
Phil Evans got out the best blade of his knife and set to work on the
wall near the door. Perhaps he might make a hole which would enable him
to open it from the outside should it be only bolted or should the key
have been left in the lock. He worked away for some minutes. The only
result was to nip up his knife, to snip off its point, and transform
what was left of the blade into a saw.
“Doesn’t it cut?” asked Uncle Prudent.
“No.”
“Is the wall made of sheet iron?”
“No; it gives no metallic sound when you hit it.”
“Is it of ironwood?”
“No; it isn’t iron and it isn’t wood.”
“What is it then?”
“Impossible to say. But, anyhow, steel doesn’t touch it.” Uncle
Prudent, in a sudden outburst of fury, began to rave and stamp on the
sonorous planks, while his hands sought to strangle an imaginary Robur.
“Be calm, Prudent, be calm! You have a try.”
Uncle Prudent had a try, but the bowie-knife could do nothing against a
wall which its best blades could not even scratch. The wall seemed to
be made of crystal.
So it became evident that all flight was impracticable except through
the door, and for a time they must resign themselves to their fate—not
a very pleasant thing for the Yankee temperament, and very much to the
disgust of these eminently practical men. But this conclusion was not
arrived at without many objurgations and loud-sounding phrases hurled
at this Robur—who, from what had been seen of him at the Weldon
Institute, was not the sort of man to trouble himself much about them.
Suddenly Frycollin began to give unequivocal signs of being unwell. He
began to writhe in a most lamentable fashion, either with cramp in his
stomach or in his limbs; and Uncle Prudent, thinking it his duty to put
an end to these gymnastics, cut the cords that bound him.
He had cause to be sorry for it. Immediately there was poured forth an
interminable litany, in which the terrors of fear were mingled with the
tortures of hunger. Frycollin was no worse in his brain than in his
stomach, and it would have been difficult to decide to which organ the
chief cause of the trouble should be assigned.
“Frycollin!” said Uncle Prudent.
“Master Uncle! Master Uncle!” answered the Negro between two of his
lugubrious howls.
“It is possible that we are doomed to die of hunger in this prison, but
we have made up our minds not to succumb until we have availed
ourselves of every means of alimentation to prolong our lives.”
“To eat me?” exclaimed Frycollin.
“As is always done with a Negro under such circumstances! So you had
better not make yourself too obvious—”
“Or you’ll have your bones picked!” said Evans.
And as Frycollin saw he might be used to prolong two existences more
precious than his own, he contented himself thenceforth with groaning
in quiet.
The time went on and all attempts to force the door or get through the
wall proved fruitless. What the wall was made of was impossible to say.
It was not metal; it was not wood; it was not stone, And all the cell
seemed to be made of the same stuff. When they stamped on the floor it
gave a peculiar sound that Uncle Prudent found it difficult to
describe; the floor seemed to sound hollow, as if it was not resting
directly on the ground of the clearing. And the inexplicable f-r-r-r-r
seemed to sweep along below it. All of which was rather alarming.
“Uncle Prudent.” said Phil Evans.
“Well?”
“Do you think our prison has been moved at all?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Because when we were first caught I distinctly remember the fresh
fragrance of the grass and the resinous odor of the park trees. While
now, when I take in a good sniff of the air, it seems as though all
that had gone.”
“So it has.”
“Why?”
“We cannot say why unless we admit that the prison has moved; and I say
again that if the prison had moved, either as a vehicle on the road or
a boat on the stream, we should have felt it.”
Here Frycollin gave vent to a long groan, which might have been taken
for his last had he not followed it up with several more.
“I expect Robur will soon have us brought before him.” said Phil Evans.
“I hope so.” said Uncle Prudent. “And I shall tell him—”
“What?”
“That he began by being rude and ended in being unbearable.”
Here Phil Evans noticed that day was beginning to break. A gleam, still
faint, filtered through the narrow window opposite the door. It ought
thus to be about four o’clock in the morning for it is at that hour in
the month of June in this latitude that the horizon of Philadelphia is
tinged by the first rays of the dawn.
But when Uncle Prudent sounded his repeater—which was a masterpiece
from his colleague’s factory—the tiny gong only gave a quarter to
three, and the watch had not stopped.
“That is strange!” said Phil Evans. “At a quarter to three it ought
still to be night.”
“Perhaps my watch has got slow.” answered Uncle Prudent.
“A watch of the Wheelton Watch Company!” exclaimed Phil Evans.
Whatever might be the reason, there was no doubt that the day was
breaking. Gradually the window became white in the deep darkness of the
cell. However, if the dawn appeared sooner than the fortieth parallel
permitted, it did not advance with the rapidity peculiar to lower
latitudes. This was another observation—of Uncle Prudent’s—a new
inexplicable phenomenon.
“Couldn’t we get up to the window and see where we are?”
“We might.” said Uncle Prudent. “Frycollin, get up!”
The Negro arose.
“Put your back against the wall.” continued Prudent, “and you, Evans,
get on his shoulders while I buttress him up.”
“Right!” said Evans.
An instant afterwards his knees were on Frycollin’s shoulders, and his
eyes were level with the window. The window was not of lenticular glass
like those on shipboard, but was a simple flat pane. It was small, and
Phil Evans found his range of view was much limited.
“Break the glass.” said Prudent, “and perhaps you will be able to see
better.”
Phil Evans gave it a sharp knock with the handle of his bowie-knife. It
gave back a silvery sound, but it did not break.
Another and more violent blow. The same result.
“It is unbreakable glass!” said Evans.
It appeared as though the pane was made of glass toughened on the
Siemens system—as after several blows it remained intact.
The light had now increased, and Phil Evans could see for some distance
within the radius allowed by the frame.
“What do you see?” asked Uncle Prudent.
“Nothing.”
“What? Not any trees?”
“No.”
“Not even the top branches?”
“No.”
“Then we are not in the clearing?”
“Neither in the clearing nor in the park.”
“Don’t you see any roofs of houses or monuments?” said Prudent, whose
disappointment and anger were increasing rapidly.
“No.”
“What! Not a flagstaff, nor a church tower, nor a chimney?”
“Nothing but space.”
As he uttered the words the door opened. A man appeared on the
threshold. It was Robur.
“Honorable balloonists” he said, in a serious voice, “you are now free
to go and come as you like.”
“Free!” exclaimed Uncle Prudent.
“Yes—within the limits of the “Albatross!”
Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans rushed out of their prison. And what did
they see?
Four thousand feet below them the face of a country they sought in vain
to recognize.