Frycollin followed, by no means at ease to see his master plunging into such deserted spots.
He did not like deserted spots, particularly after midnight. in fact the darkness was profound, and the moon was only a thin crescent just beginning its monthly life.
Frycollin kept a lookout to the left and right of him to see if he was followed.
And he fancied he could see five or six hulking follows dogging his footsteps.
Instinctively he drew nearer to his master, but not for the world would be have dared to break in on the conversation of which the fragments reached him.
In short it so chanced that the president and secretary of the Weldon Institute found themselves on the road to Fairmount Park.
In the full heat of their dispute they crossed the Schuyllkill river by the famous iron bridge. They met only a few belated wayfarers, and pressed on across a wide open tract where the immense prairie was broken every now and then by the patches of thick woodland--which make the park different to any other in the world.
There Frycollin's terror became acute, particularly as he saw the five or six shadows gliding after him across the Schuyllkill bridge.
The pupils of his eyes broadened out to the circumference of his iris, and his limbs seemed to diminish as if endowed with the contractility peculiar to the mollusca and certain of the articulate; for Frycollin, the valet, was an egregious coward.
He was a pure South Carolina Negro, with the head of a fool and the carcass of an imbecille.
Being only one and twenty, he had never been a slave, not even by birth, but that made no difference to him.
Grinning and greedy and idle, and a magnificent poltroon, he had been the servant of Uncle Prudent for about three years. Over and over again had his master threatened to kick him out, but had kept him on for fear of doing worse.
With a master ever ready to venture on the most audacious enterprises, Frycollin's cowardice had brought him many arduous trials.
But he had some compensation. Very little had been said about his gluttony, and still less about his laziness.
Ah, Valet Frycollin, if you could only have read the future!
Why, oh why, Frycollin, did you not remain at Boston with the Sneffels, and not have given them up when they talked of going to Switzerland?
Was not that a much more suitable place for you than this of Uncle Prudent's, where danger was daily welcomed?
But here he was, and his master had become used to his faults.
He had one advantage, and that was a consideration. Although he was a Negro by birth he did not speak like a Negro, and nothing is so irritating as that hateful jargon in which all the pronouns are possessive and all the verbs infinitive.
Let it be understood, then, that Frycollin was a thorough coward.
And now it was midnight, and the pale crescent of the moon began to sink in the west behind the trees in the park.
The rays streaming fitfully through the branches made the shadows darker than ever.
Frycollin looked around him anxiously.
"Brrr!" he said, "There are those fellows there all the time.
Positively they are getting nearer!
Master Uncle!" he shouted.
It was thus he called the president of the Weldon Institute, and thus did the president desire to be called.
At the moment the dispute of the rivals had reached its maximum, and as they hurled their epithets at each other they walked faster and faster, and drew farther and farther away from the Schuyllkill bridge.
They had reached the center of a wide clump of trees, whose summits were just tipped by the parting rays of the moon.
Beyond the trees was a very large clearing--an oval field, a complete amphitheater.
Not a hillock was there to hinder the gallop of the horses, not a bush to stop the view of the spectators.
And if Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans had not been so deep in their dispute, and had used their eyes as they were accustomed to, they would have found the clearing was not in its usual state.
Was it a flour mill that had anchored on it during the night? It looked like it, with its wings and sails--motionless and mysterious in the gathering gloom.
But neither the president nor the secretary of the Weldon Institute noticed the strange modification in the landscape of Fairmount Park; and neither did Frycollin.
It seemed to him that the thieves were approaching, and preparing for their attack; and he was seized with convulsive fear, paralyzed in his limbs, with every hair he could boast of on the bristle. His terror was extreme.
His knees bent under him, but he had just strength enough to exclaim for. the last time,
"Master Uncle!
Master Uncle!"
"What is the matter with you?" asked Uncle Prudent.
Perhaps the disputants would not have been sorry to have relieved their fury at the expense of the unfortunate valet. But they had no time; and neither even had he time to answer.
A whistle was heard.
A flash of electric light shot across the clearing.
A signal, doubtless? The moment had come for the deed of violence.
In less time that it takes to tell, six men came leaping across from under the trees, two onto Uncle Prudent, two onto Phil Evans, two onto Frycollin--there was no need for the last two, for the Negro was incapable of defending himself.
The president and secretary of the Weldon Institute, although taken by surprise, would have resisted.
They had neither time nor strength to do so.
In a second they were rendered speechless by a gag, blind by a bandage, thrown down, pinioned and carried bodily off across the clearing.
What could they think except that they had fallen into the hands of people who intended to rob them?
The people did nothing of the sort, however.
They did not even touch Uncle Prudent's pockets, although, according to his custom, they were full of paper dollars.