Moonfleet

by John Meade Falkner

  CHAPTER 14

  THE WELL-HOUSE

  For those thou mayest not look uponAre gathering fast round the yawning stone--_Scott_

  It wanted yet half an hour of midnight when I found myself at the shaftof the marble quarry, and before I had well set foot on the steps todescend, heard Elzevir's voice challenging out of the darkness below. Igave back '_Prosper the Bonaventure',_ and so came home again to sleepthe last time in our cave.

  The next night was well suited to flight. There was a spring-tide withfull moon, and a light breeze setting off the land which left the watersmooth under the cliff. We saw the _Bonaventure_ cruising in the Channelbefore sundown, and after the darkness fell she lay close in and took usoff in her boat. There were several men on board of her that I knew, andthey greeted us kindly, and made much of us. I was indeed glad to beamong them again, and yet felt a pang at leaving our dear Dorset coast,and the old cave that had been hospital and home to me for two months.

  The wind set us up-Channel, and by daybreak they put us ashore at Cowes,so we walked to Newport and came there before many were stirring. Such aswe saw in the street paid no heed to us but took us doubtless for somecarter and his boy who had brought corn in from the country for theSouthampton packet, and were about early to lead the team home again.'Tis a little place enough this Newport, and we soon found the Bugle; butElzevir made so good a carter that the landlord did not know him, thoughhe had his acquaintance before. So they fenced a little with one another.

  'Have you bed and victuals for a plain country man and his boy?'says Elzevir.

  'Nay, that I have not,' says the landlord, looking him up and down, andnot liking to take in strangers who might use their eyes inside, andperhaps get on the trail of the Contraband. ''Tis near the SummerStatute and the place over full already. I cannot move my gentlemen,and would bid you try the Wheatsheaf, which is a good house, and not sofull as this.'

  'Ay, 'tis a busy time, and 'tis these fairs that make things _prosper_,'and Elzevir marked the last word a little as he said it.

  The man looked harder at him, and asked, 'Prosper what?' as if he werehard of hearing.

  '_Prosper the Bonaventure_,' was the answer, and then the landlord caughtElzevir by the hand, shaking it hard and saying, 'Why, you are MasterBlock, and I expecting you this morn, and never knew you.' He laughed ashe stared at us again, and Elzevir smiled too. Then the landlord led usin. 'And this is?' he said, looking at me.

  'This is a well-licked whelp,' replied Elzevir, 'who got a bullet in theleg two months ago in that touch under Hoar Head; and is worth more thanhe looks, for they have put twenty golden guineas on his head--so have acare of such a precious top-knot.'

  So long as we stopped at the Bugle we had the best of lodging and thechoicest meat and drink, and all the while the landlord treated Elzeviras though he were a prince. And so he was indeed a prince among thecontrabandiers, and held, as I found out long afterwards, for captain ofall landers between Start and Solent. At first the landlord would take nomoney of us, saying that he was in our debt, and had received many a goodturn from Master Block in the past, but Elzevir had got gold fromDorchester before we left the cave and forced him to take payment. I wasglad enough to lie between clean sweet sheets at night instead of on aheap of sand, and sit once more knife and fork in hand before awell-filled trencher. 'Twas thought best I should show myself as littleas possible, so I was content to pass my time in a room at the back ofthe house whilst Elzevir went abroad to make inquiries how we could findentrance to the Castle at Carisbrooke. Nor did the time hang heavy on myhands, for I found some old books in the Bugle, and among them several tomy taste, especially a _History of Corfe Castle_, which set forth howthere was a secret passage from the ruins to some of the old marblequarries, and perhaps to that very one that sheltered us.

  Elzevir was out most of the day, so that I saw him only at breakfast andsupper. He had been several times to Carisbrooke, and told me that theCastle was used as a jail for persons taken in the wars, and was now fullof French prisoners. He had met several of the turnkeys or jailers,drinking with them in the inns there, and making out that he was himselfa carter, who waited at Newport till a wind-bound ship should bringgrindstones from Lyme Regis. Thus he was able at last to enter the Castleand to see well-house and well, and spent some days in trying to devise aplan whereby we might get at the well without making the man who hadcharge of it privy to our full design; but in this did not succeed.

  There is a slip of garden at the back of the Bugle, which runs down to alittle stream, and one evening when I was taking the air there afterdark, Elzevir returned and said the time was come for us to putBlackbeard's cipher to the proof.

  'I have tried every way,' he said, 'to see if we could work thissecretly; but 'tis not to be done without the privity of the man whokeeps the well, and even with his help it is not easy. He is a man I donot trust, but have been forced to tell him there is treasure hidden inthe well, yet without saying where it lies or how to get it. He promisesto let us search the well, taking one-third the value of all we find, forhis share; for I said not that thou and I were one at heart, but onlythat there was a boy who had the key, and claimed an equal third withboth of us. Tomorrow we must be up betimes, and at the Castle gates bysix o'clock for him to let us in. And thou shalt not be carter any more,but mason's boy, and I a mason, for I have got coats in the house,brushes and trowels and lime-bucket, and we are going to Carisbrooke toplaster up a weak patch in this same well-side.'

  Elzevir had thought carefully over this plan, and when we left the Buglenext morning we were better masons in our splashed clothes than ever wehad been farm servants. I carried a bucket and a brush, and Elzevir aplasterer's hammer and a coil of stout twine over his arm. It was a wetmorning, and had been raining all night. The sky was stagnant, andone-coloured without wind, and the heavy drops fell straight down out ofa grey veil that covered everything. The air struck cold when we firstcame out, but trudging over the heavy road soon made us remember that itwas July, and we were very hot and soaking wet when we stood at thegateway of Carisbrooke Castle. Here are two flanking towers and a stoutgate-house reached by a stone bridge crossing the moat; and when I saw itI remembered that 'twas here Colonel Mohune had earned the wages of hisunrighteousness, and thought how many times he must have passed thesegates. Elzevir knocked as one that had a right, and we were evidentlyexpected, for a wicket in the heavy door was opened at once. The man wholet us in was tall and stout, but had a puffy face, and too much flesh onhim to be very strong, though he was not, I think, more than thirty yearsof age. He gave Elzevir a smile, and passed the time of day civillyenough, nodding also to me; but I did not like his oily black hair, and ashifty eye that turned away uneasily when one met it.

  'Good-morning, Master Well-wright,' he said to Elzevir. 'You have broughtugly weather with you, and are drowning wet; will you take a sup of alebefore you get to work?'

  Elzevir thanked him kindly but would not drink, so the man led on and wefollowed him. We crossed a bailey or outer court where the rain had madethe gravel very miry, and came on the other side to a door which led bysteps into a large hall. This building had once been a banquet-room, Ithink, for there was an inscription over it very plain in lead: _He ledme into his banquet hall, and his banner over me was love_.

  I had time to read this while the turnkey unlocked the door with one of aheavy bunch of keys that he carried at his girdle. But when we entered,what a disappointment!--for there were no banquets now, no banners, nolove, but the whole place gutted and turned into a barrack for Frenchprisoners. The air was very close, as where men had slept all night, anda thick steam on the windows. Most of the prisoners were still asleep,and lay stretched out on straw palliasses round the walls, but some weresitting up and making models of ships out of fish-bones, or building upcrucifixes inside bottles, as sailors love to do in their spare time.They paid little heed to us as we passed, though the sleepy guards, whowere lounging on their matchlocks, nodded to our conductor, and thus we
went right through that evil-smelling white-washed room. We left it atthe other end, went down three steps into the open air again, crossedanother small court, and so came to a square building of stone with ahigh roof like the large dovecots that you may see in old stackyards.

  Here our guide took another key, and, while the door was being opened,Elzevir whispered to me, 'It is the well-house,' and my pulse beat quickto think we were so near our goal.

  The building was open to the roof, and the first thing to be seen in itwas that tread-wheel of which Elzevir had spoken. It was a great openwheel of wood, ten or twelve feet across, and very like a mill-wheel,only the space between the rims was boarded flat, but had treads nailedon it to give foothold to a donkey. The patient beast was lying loosestabled on some straw in a corner of the room, and, as soon as we camein, stood up and stretched himself, knowing that the day's work was tobegin. 'He was here long before my time,' the turnkey said, 'and knowsthe place so well that he goes into the wheel and sets to work byhimself.' At the side of the wheel was the well-mouth, a dark, roundopening with a low parapet round it, rising two feet from the floor.

  We were so near our goal. Yet, were we near it at all? How did we knowMohune had meant to tell the place of hiding for the diamond in thosewords. They might have meant a dozen things beside. And if it was of thediamond they spoke, then how did we know the well was this one? therewere a hundred wells beside. These thoughts came to me, making hope lesssure; and perhaps it was the steamy overcast morning and the rain, or ascant breakfast, that beat my spirit down--for I have known men's moodchange much with weather and with food; but sure it was that now we stoodso near to put it to the touch, I liked our business less and less.

  As soon as we were entered the turnkey locked the door from the inside,and when he let the key drop to its place, and it jangled with the otherson his belt, it seemed to me he had us as his prisoners in a trap. Itried to catch his eye to see if it looked bad or good, but could not,for he kept his shifty face turned always somewhere else; and then itcame to my mind that if the treasure was really fraught with evil, thiscoarse dark-haired man, who could not look one straight, was to become aminister of ruin to bring the curse home to us.

  But if I was weak and timid Elzevir had no misgivings. He had taken thecoil of twine off his arm and was undoing it. 'We will let an end of thisdown the well,' he said, 'and I have made a knot in it at eighty feet.This lad thinks the treasure is in the well wall, eighty feet below us,so when the knot is on well lip we shall know we have the right depth.' Itried again to see what look the turnkey wore when he heard where thetreasure was, but could not, and so fell to examining the well.

  A spindle ran from the axle of the wheel across the well, and on thespindle was a drum to take the rope. There was some clutch or fasteningwhich could be fixed or loosed at will to make the drum turn with thetread-wheel, or let it run free, and a footbreak to lower the bucket fastor slow, or stop it altogether.

  'I will get into the bucket,' Elzevir said, turning to me, 'and thisgood man will lower me gently by the break until I reach the string-enddown below. Then I will shout, and so fix you the wheel and give me timeto search.'

  This was not what I looked for, having thought that it was I should go;and though I liked going down the well little enough, yet somehow now Ifelt I would rather do that than have Master Elzevir down the hole, andme left locked alone with this villainous fellow up above.

  So I said, 'No, master, that cannot be; 'tis my place to go, beingsmaller and a lighter weight than thou; and thou shalt stop here and helpthis gentleman to lower me down.'

  Elzevir spoke a few words to try to change my purpose, but soon gave in,knowing it was certainly the better plan, and having only thought to gohimself because he doubted if I had the heart to do it. But the turnkeyshowed much ill-humour at the change, and strove to let the plan stand asit was, and for Elzevir to go down the well. Things that were settled, hesaid, should remain settled; he was not one for changes; it was a man'stask this and no child's play; a boy would not have his senses about him,and might overlook the place. I fixed my eyes on Elzevir to let him knowwhat I thought, and Master Turnkey's words fell lightly on his ears aswater on a duck's back. Then this ill-eyed man tried to work upon myfears; saying that the well is deep and the bucket small, I shall getgiddy and be overbalanced. I do not say that these forebodings werewithout effect on me, but I had made up my mind that, bad as it might beto go down, it was yet worse to have Master Elzevir prisoned in the well,and I remain above. Thus the turnkey perceived at last that he wasspeaking to deaf ears, and turned to the business.

  Yet there was one fear that still held me, for thinking of what I hadheard of the quarry shafts in Purbeck, how men had gone down to explore,and there been taken with a sudden giddiness, and never lived to tellwhat they had seen; and so I said to Master Elzevir, 'Art sure the wellis clean, and that no deadly gases lurk below?'

  'Thou mayst be sure I knew the well was sweet before I let thee talk ofgoing down,' he answered. 'For yesterday we lowered a candle to thewater, and the flame burned bright and steady; and where the candlelives, there man lives too. But thou art right: these gases change fromday 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 wontto 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 overthe parapet, and taking care not to lose my balance, because the parapetwas low, and the floor round it green and slippery with water-splashings,I watched the candle sink into that cavernous depth, and from a brightflame turn into a little twinkling star, and then to a mere point oflight. At last it rested on the water, and there was a shimmer where thewood frame had set ripples moving. We watched it twinkle for a littlewhile, and the jailer raised the candle from the water, and dropped downa stone from some he kept there for that purpose. This stone struck thewall half-way down, and went from side to side, crashing and whirringtill it met the water with a booming plunge; and there rose a groan andmoan from the eddies, like those dreadful sounds of the surge that Iheard on lonely nights in the sea-caverns underneath our hiding-place inPurbeck. The jailer looked at me then for the first time, and his eyeshad an ugly meaning, as if he said, 'There--that is how you will soundwhen you fall from your perch.' But it was no use to frighten, for I hadmade up my mind.

  They pulled the candle up forthwith and put it in my hand, and I flungthe plasterer's hammer into the bucket, where it hung above the well, andthen got in myself. The turnkey stood at the break-wheel, and Elzevirleant over the parapet to steady the rope. 'Art sure that thou canst doit, lad?' he said, speaking low, and put his hand kindly on my shoulder.'Are head and heart sure? Thou art my diamond, and I would rather loseall other diamonds in the world than aught should come to thee. So, ifthou doubtest, let me go, or let not any go at all.'

  'Never doubt, master,' I said, touched by tenderness, and wrung hishand. 'My head is sure; I have no broken leg to turn it sillynow'--for I guessed he was thinking of Hoar Head and how I had gonegiddy on the Zigzag.