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Page 22
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.
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