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CHAPTER

5

In which a suspension of hostilities is declared between the president and secretary of the Weldon Institute

Blindfolds over their eyes, gags in their mouths, ropes on their wrists, ropes on their feet, thus impossible to see, to speak, to move. Which did not make the situation of Uncle Prudent, Phil Evans, and the valet Frycollin any more acceptable. Besides, not to know who had carried out such an abduction, in what spot the victims had been thrown like mere parcels in a baggage wagon—not to know where one is and what fate is in store—would exasperate even the most patient sheep, and we know that the members of the Weldon Institute were not quite sheep-like in their patience. Given the violence of his character, one can easily imagine in what state Uncle Prudent probably was.

In any case, he and Phil Evans had to assume it would be difficult, the next evening, to take their places in the club office.

As for Frycollin, eyes shut, mouth closed, it was impossible for him to imagine what was going on. He was more dead than alive.

For an hour, the prisoners’ situation did not change. Nobody came to visit them or to give them freedom of movement and speech, which they wanted so much. They were reduced to muffled breaths, to “agh!”s uttered through their gags, to jerking about like carps suffocating outside their natal pond. What all this indicated in the way of stifled anger, fury turned inward or rather bound up, one can easily understand. Then, after these fruitless efforts, they were motionless for some time. Next, deprived as they were of the sense of sight, they tried through the sense of hearing to snatch some clue to the disquieting state of affairs. But they sought in vain for any other noise than the interminable and inexplicable frrrr that seemed to envelop them in a vibrating atmosphere.

What finally occurred was this: Phil Evans, proceeding with calm, managed to loosen the rope that tied his wrists together. Then, bit by bit, the knot came undone, his fingers slipped over each other, his hands regained their usual facility.

Vigorous rubbing restored his circulation, obstructed by the binding. A moment later, Phil Evans had lifted the blindfold from his eyes, pulled the gag from his mouth, cut the ropes with the fine blade of his bowie knife. An American who does not always keep his bowie knife in his pocket is no American.¹

What was more, if Phil Evans had regained the powers of movement and speech, that was all. His eyes made no attempt to exercise themselves, which would have been useless—at this moment, at least. Total darkness in the cell. And yet, a little light filtered through a sort of loophole, a narrow window pierced into the wall some six or seven feet up.

As one can imagine, despite all his prejudices, Phil Evans did not hesitate for a moment to save his rival. A few cuts from the bowie knife sufficed to break the knots that tied his feet and hands. Uncle Prudent, half-enraged, got to his knees immediately, and tore off blindfold and gag; then, in a strangled voice:

“Thank you!” he said.

“No! … No thanking,” replied the other.

“Phil Evans?”

“Uncle Prudent? …”

“Here, there’s no more president, no more secretary of the Weldon Institute, no more adversaries!”

“You’re right,” replied Phil Evans. “There are only two men out to avenge themselves on a third, whose attack demands severe retaliation. And that third man …”

“Is Robur!”

“Is Robur!”

This then was a point on which the two ex-competitors were in absolute agreement. On that subject, no dispute to fear.

“And your valet?” observed Phil Evans, indicating Frycollin, who was gasping for air like a seal. “We ought to untie him.”

“Not yet,” replied Uncle Prudent. “He would only pummel us with his jeremiads, and we have more important things to do than reproach him.”

“What things, Uncle Prudent?”

“To save ourselves, if possible.”

“And even if impossible.”

“You’re right, Phil Evans, even if impossible!”

As to doubting for an instant that the abduction was the work of that strange Robur, such a thing never crossed the minds of the president and his colleague. And the fact was, plain honest thieves, having divested them of watches, jewels, wallets, pocketbooks, would have thrown them to the bottom of the Schuylkill River with a good clean slit knifed through their throats, instead of shutting them up in the bottom of … Of what?—A serious question, truly, which had to be cleared up, before beginning preparations for escape with any chance of success.

“Phil Evans,” Uncle Prudent went on, “after we left that meeting, instead of exchanging pleasantries we need not return to now, we would have done better to be less distracted. If we had stayed in the streets of Philadelphia, none of this would have happened. Evidently this man Robur knew what was going on in the club; he foresaw what kind of anger his attitude would provoke, and he stationed some of his bandits at the door to lend him a hand. When we left Walnut Street, those henchmen watched us, followed us, and when they saw us step imprudently into the avenues in Fairmont Park, the rest was easy.”

“That’s it!” replied Phil Evans. “Yes, we were very wrong not to go home immediately.”

“One’s always wrong not to be right,” replied Uncle Prudent.

At that moment, a long sigh escaped from the darkest corner of the cell.

“What was that?” demanded Phil Evans.

“Nothing! … Frycollin dreaming.”

And Uncle Prudent resumed:

“Between the moment we were seized, a few steps from the clearing, and the moment we were thrown into this pigeonhole, no more than two minutes passed. So it’s clear these people haven’t brought us outside of Fairmont Park …”

“And if they had, we would have felt a movement of transference.”

“Right,” replied Uncle Prudent. “So there’s no doubt we’ve been locked in the compartment of a vehicle—one of those long prairie wagons, maybe, or a circus wagon …”

“Of course! If it had been a boat moored to the banks of the Schuylkill River, we would have recognized a kind of swaying from side to side, brought about by the current.”

“Right, and right again,” repeated Uncle Prudent, “and I think that, since we’re still in the clearing, now or never is the time to escape, and seek out that Robur later on …”

“And make him pay dearly for his attack on the liberty of two citizens of the United States of America!”

“Dearly, very dearly!”

“But who is that man? … Where does he come from? … Is he an Englishman, a German, a Frenchman …”

“He’s a wretch, and that’s enough,” replied Uncle Prudent.—“Now, to work!”

The two of them, with open hands, fingers outstretched, felt at the walls of the compartment for a joint or a fissure. Nothing. Nothing either at the door. It was hermetically sealed, and it would have been impossible to force the lock. Therefore they had to make a hole and escape by it. There remained the question of whether bowie knives could cut into the walls, if their blades would not blunt or break in the process.

“But where is that ceaseless vibration coming from?” asked Phil Evans, much surprised at the continuing frrrr.

“The wind, no doubt,” replied Uncle Prudent.

“The wind? … Until midnight, it seemed to me that the evening was absolutely calm …”

“Of course it was, Phil Evans. But if it isn’t the wind, what would you have it be?”

Phil Evans, having pulled out his knife’s best blade, tried to cut into the walls nearest the door. Perhaps a hole would suffice to open it from the outside, if it was only barred with a bolt, or if the key had been left in the lock.

A few minutes’ work had no other result than to chip the bowie knife’s blades, dull them, transform them into thousand-toothed saws.

“No bite, Phil Evans?”

“No.”

“Are we in a metal cell?”

“Not at all, Uncle Prudent. When you hit the walls, they don’t give off any metallic sound.”

“Ironwood, then?”

“No! Not iron, and not wood.”

“What is it then?”

“That’s impossible to say, but in any case, a substance steel can’t bite.”

Uncle Prudent, overtaken by a violent fit of anger, swore, kicked the floor ringingly, while his hands sought to strangle an imaginary Robur.

“Calmly now, Uncle Prudent,” said Phil Evans to him, “calmly! Your turn to try it.”

Uncle Prudent tried it, but the bowie knife could not open up a wall that its best blades could not so much as scratch, as if the wall were made of crystal.

Thus, all escape was impracticable, even assuming it could be tried once the door was open.

The prisoners had to resign themselves for the moment, which hardly fits the Yankee temperament, and leave all to chance, which is disgusting to eminently practical minds. But not without objurgations, strong language, violent invectives addressed to that Robur—who clearly was not a man to be moved by such things, no matter how little he showed in private life of the personage he had been in the midst of the Weldon Institute.

Meanwhile, Frycollin was beginning to show some unmistakable signs of dizziness. Whether he was suffering from cramps in the stomach or cramps in the limbs, he was thrashing lamentably.

Uncle Prudent thought it his duty to put an end to these gymnastics, by cutting the ropes that bound the Negro.

Perhaps he soon regretted it. What followed was an interminable litany, in which agonies of fear were mixed with torments of hunger. Frycollin’s head was spinning as much as his stomach. It would have been difficult to say which of those two organs the Negro should have blamed more for what he was feeling.

“Frycollin!” shouted Uncle Prudent.

“Master Uncle! … Master Uncle! …” replied the Negro between two lugubrious wails.

“It is possible we’ll be condemned to starve to death in this prison. But we’ve decided not to succumb until we’ve exhausted every means of feeding ourselves to prolong our lives …”

“You’ll eat me?” cried Frycollin.

“As one always eats a Negro in such a circumstance! … So, Frycollin, have a care to lie low …”

“Or we’ll fry your collin!” added Phil Evans.²

And Frycollin, very seriously, did fear being used to prolong two existences evidently more precious than his own. He therefore confined himself to silent moaning.

Meanwhile, time was going by, and all attempts to force the door or the wall had remained in vain. What that wall was made of, impossible to know. It was not metal, not wood, not stone. Furthermore, the floor of the cell seemed to be made of the same material. When it was kicked, it let out a peculiar sound that Uncle Prudent would have been hard pressed to categorize among known noises. Another remark: this floor below them seemed to ring hollow, as if it did not rest directly on the ground of the clearing. Yes! The inexplicable frrr seemed to caress its underside. None of which was very reassuring.

“Uncle Prudent?” said Phil Evans.

“Phil Evans?” replied Uncle Prudent.

“Do you think our cell has been moved?”

“Not in the least.”

“And yet, the first moment we were locked in, I could distinctly make out the fresh smell of grass, and the resin scent of those trees in the park. Now, I’ve inhaled the air over and over again, and it seems to me all those scents have disappeared …”

“They have indeed.”

“How do we explain that?”

“We can explain it in any way at all, Phil Evans, except by the hypothesis that our prison has moved. I say again, if we were in a wagon on the road or a boat on the waves, we’d feel it.”

Frycollin then let out a long groan that could have passed for his last breath, had it not been followed by many others.

“I’d like to think that Robur will summon us before him soon,” resumed Phil Evans.

“I certainly hope so,” cried Uncle Prudent, “and I’d tell him …”

“What?”

“That having begun as a blowhard, he’s finished up as a rogue!”

At that moment, Phil Evans noticed that day was beginning to break. A glow, still vague, filtered through the narrow window cut in the upper half of the wall opposite the door. Therefore it must have been about four in the morning, since it is at that hour, in the month of June and in that latitude, that the Philadelphia horizon gleams in the first light of dawn.

However, when Uncle Prudent tested his repeater watch—a masterpiece from his colleague’s own factory—the little bell indicated only a quarter to three, even though the watch clearly had not stopped.

“How odd!” said Phil Evans. “At a quarter to three, it still ought to be night.”

“Then my watch must be slow …” replied Uncle Prudent.

“A watch from the Walton Watch Company?” shouted Phil Evans.

Be that as it may, it was indeed day dawning. Little by little, the window was traced in white in the profound darkness of the cell. However, though dawn had arrived more prematurely than the fortieth parallel, which is that of Philadelphia, would permit, it did not occur with that speed characteristic of the lower latitudes.

New observation from Uncle Prudent on that subject, new inexplicable phenomenon.

“Perhaps we can hoist somebody up to the window,” observed Phil Evans, “and try to see where we are?”

“We can,” replied Uncle Prudent.

And, addressing Frycollin:

“Here, Fry, on your feet!”

The Negro rose.

“Put your back against this wall,” Uncle Prudent went on, “and you, Phil Evans, be so kind as to climb on this lad’s shoulders, while I support you so you don’t fall.”

“Willingly,” replied Phil Evans.

An instant later, with his knees on Frycollin’s shoulders, he had his eyes level with the window.

This window was covered, not with a lenticular lens like that of a ship’s porthole, but with a simple pane of glass. Though it was not very thick, it was enough to obstruct Phil Evans’s vision, as his field of view was excessively limited.

“Well then, break the glass,” said Uncle Prudent, “and perhaps you’ll be able to see better.”

Phil Evans struck the glass violently with the handle of his bowie knife. It made a silvery noise but did not break.

Second strike, more violent. Same result.

“Ha!” cried Phil Evans, “unbreakable glass!”

And indeed, the window must have been made with glass treated by the inventor Siemens’s process,³ for, despite repeated strikes, it remained intact.

Nonetheless, the space was now sufficiently lit to allow the eye to look outside—at least, within the limited field of view confined by the window frame.

“What do you see?” asked Uncle Prudent.

“Nothing.”

“What? Not a clump of trees?”

“No.”

“Not even the tops of branches?”

“Not even that.”

“So we’re not in the center of that clearing anymore?”

“Not in the clearing and not in the park.”

“At least do you see roofs of houses, tops of monuments?” said Uncle Prudent, whose disappointment, combined with fury, had never stopped increasing.

“No roofs, no tops.”

“What! Not even a flagpole, not even a church clock tower, not even a factory chimney?”

“Nothing but space.”

Just at that moment, the door of the cell opened. A man appeared on the threshold.

It was Robur.

“Honorable balloonians,” he said gravely, “you are now free to come and go—”

“Free!” shouted Uncle Prudent.

Phil Evans struck the glass violently.

And what did they see?

“Yes—within the limits of the Albatross!”

Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans rushed out of the cell.

And what did they see?

Twelve or thirteen hundred meters below them, the surface of a land they sought in vain to recognize.