Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/205

 "Thou mayst be sure I knew the well was sweet before I let thee talk of going down," he answered. "For yesterday we lowered a candle to the water, and the flame burned bright and steady, and where the candle lives there man lives too. But thou art right: these gases change from day to day, and we will try the thing again.—So bring the candle, Master Jailer."

The jailer brought a candle fixed on a wooden triangle, which he was wont to show strangers who came to see the well, and lowered it on a string. It was not till then I knew what a task I had before me, for, looking over the parapet, and taking care not to lose my balance, because the parapet was low, and the floor round it green and slippery with water-splashings, I watched the candle sink into that cavernous depth, and from a bright flame turn into a little, twinkling star, and then to a mere point of light. At last it rested on the water, and there was a shimmer where the wood frame had set ripples moving. We watched it twinkle for a little while, and the jailer raised the candle from the water, and dropped down a stone from some he kept there for that purpose. This stone struck the wall half-way down, and went from side to side, crashing and whirring till it met the water with a booming plunge; and there rose a groan and moan from the eddies, like those dreadful sounds of the surge that I heard on lonely nights in the sea-caverns underneath our hiding-place in Purbeck. The jailer looked at me then for the first time, and his eyes had an ugly meaning, as if he said, "There—that is how you will sound when you fall from your perch." But it was no use to frighten, for I had made up my mind.