THE DEVIL'S WELL.
Never did fishing party go a-fishing for stranger fish or with stranger gear, than did we five men, who rode forth, in the chill of the desert winter's morning, on the first stage of the journey to the Devil's Well. At first, it had been proposed that we should go in foray strength, accompanied by some fifty horsemen; but, later, it was thought best to avoid the display which might arouse suspicion, if we should chance to encounter anyone on the way; and, eventually, the party was restricted to Faris, Sedjur, and myself, with Daud and the Aeniza who had previously been his companion.
For three days we followed the route by which Daud had returned from the well; then, turning east, we reached the Euphrates a few miles above Ana. Crossing the river by swimming, we moved north again, and soon hit off Daud's old track, after which all was plain sailing. We had reached the Devil's Well—and no better name could have been bestowed on the awesome spot. Even Faris acknowledged that the sight of the place froze the very marrow in his bones.
We wasted no time, however, in discussing our feelings, but set to work at once to discover a means of reaching the bottom. Daud had not exaggerated matters; to clamber down the scarped sides was beyond the powers of man. There was nothing for it but the rope; so we followed our guide to the point of land from which, as he had told us, the Girdle could be seen. Only one man at a time could lie down and look over into the abyss, and we took it in turn to view our quarry. Faris gazed on it; then Sedjur; and lastly I myself. Sedjur demanded to be lowered forthwith by the rope, but each of us had his own views of the situation, and each hoped to be the one to draw forth the prize.
It was almost noon before we had formed any definite plan of operations, and the sun no longer lighted up the hollow—in fact, it was not easy to see the Girdle lying below, until one's eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Yet we decided, chiefly by my entreaty, to try the grappling iron, and it was ultimately arranged that each man should be allowed three attempts, after the hooks had been lowered down. Faris was to try his luck first; Daud was to follow; then Sedjur, myself, and the Aeniza in succession. When the others had failed, and my turn arrived, I took my place at the rope end, feeling quite confident of success. With two men sitting on my legs, I hung over the edge, and with both hands grasped the rope. Barely a hundred feet separated me from the Girdle. I could see its outline distinctly, and the grappling hooks within a foot of it. Other snakes, besides the golden ones, I could see also—great, grey, loathsome-looking beasts, and one of them, at the moment, was actually crawling over the hooks and the Girdle. Little had I imagined how difficult it would be to move the grappling iron, so heavy was the great length of rope. My first attempt did no more than just turn the iron, and I saw that all my strength would be needed to jerk the hooks towards the Girdle. I drew in my breath, gave a frantic tug at the rope, and succeeded in making the grapple turn bodily over. But it was farther than ever from the desired object; and my third attempt had no better result. I realised that it was hopeless, and, a sadder but a wiser man, I rose from the ground. Neither did the Aeniza, who last of all manipulated the rope, prove himself a more expert fisherman than the rest of us.
"It is useless," said Faris, "to continue thus to play with the matter. Let us get to business, so that we may have done with this place before nightfall. Come, the sun is fast sinking; bring the rope."
Now arose a difficulty: each of us was eager to be the one to descend, but Faris began to fasten the rope end to his own body. I remonstrated with him, and maintained that the lightest man of the party should be the one to be lowered down. This was, perhaps, selfishness on my part, as I had every reason to believe that I myself weighed less than anyone else. Sedjur willingly agreed to this, and, as the lightest, claimed the right to the rope end, at which I became indignant, and demanded that Faris should decide between us. Under other circumstances the friendly contest between Sedjur and myself would have been intensely amusing. Neither of us would yield; and at length Faris made us strip and stand before him side by side, so that he might compare the size of our limbs and the amount of flesh on them. Daud also was called in to give an opinion, and in the end the matter was decided in my favour. My heart gave a great bound when I knew that I, with my own hands, was to recover the Golden Girdle, which had given me such an amount of trouble; and, seizing the rope, I soon had it looped and knotted to my liking. I considered myself more or less of an expert at cliff work, since I had spent two nesting seasons with the fowlers at Flamborough Head, and I knew that I had nothing to fear from dizziness.
I determined that, so far as I was concerned, there should be no chance of failure. Securing the rope round my waist with a knot which I was certain could not slip, I took the fathom or so that remained, and, passing it down through my legs, knotted it into the waist rope in the middle of my back. The end I then brought up over my shoulder, and fastened off in the front of the waist rope. Thus, when suspended, my arms and legs would be free, and the rope would not cut me unduly anywhere. My friends, seeing that I was no novice with a rope, willingly listened to the instructions that I proceeded to give them about lowering me down and hauling me up again. Faris was to lie flat on the projecting rock, watching me descend, and directing operations. Near the edge of the point, I drove in a spear as firmly as the rocky ground would permit, and, some little distance behind it, I planted another spear. Passing the rope twice round each upright spear, I directed Daud, Sedjur, and the other man to hold the standing part of the rope in both hands, and pay it out gradually, as Faris should instruct them. Then, when all was ready, I took the spear with the boat-hook head in both hands, and was soon hanging in space.
Down, down, slowly but surely, I commenced to drop. As I descended, the air grew cold and dank; pigeons, startled by my presence, flew out of the fissures in the rocks, and occasionally a great bat made as if to attack me. Owls, also, I could see blinking on the gnarled bushes, and below, whenever I looked down, there were the snakes. It was not a pleasant experience, and for a moment I almost wished that I had been a heavier man than Sedjur. Faris's head was just visible over the edge of the point, and I could see his hands guiding the rope, which passed over a smooth rock close by the side of his head. As far as possible, I kept my eyes fixed on Faris, signing to him at intervals to lower away, and shouting to him cheerily, from time to time, to assure him that all was going satisfactorily. I began to congratulate myself on the success of my undertaking; I looked down to see how much farther I had to go; another twenty feet, and the Girdle would be within reach of my hook. At that moment, the rope suddenly ran out a yard or more with a rush, and then stopped as suddenly with a jerk, causing me to swing backwards and forwards in a most horrible manner. Instinctively I threw out my boat-hook to the cliff-side nearest to me in order to steady myself, and, to my dismay, I found that it had become fixed in a thick bush. I shouted to Faris to hold fast to the rope, but getting no response, glanced upwards. He had disappeared from his look-out post; and a feeling of utter helplessness took possession of me.
I dared not let go my hold on the boat-hook spear, as without it I should be able to do nothing. I was hanging from the rope in mid-air, clasping the centre of the spear-shaft with both hands. Thus I remained for, it may have been, two seconds—not longer, when I gave a sharp pull at the rope to attract the attention of those above. What followed I hardly know. I have a dim recollection of seeing a man come plunging over the edge, mixed up with spears and ropes. I was loose. I clutched the boat-hook in desperation, and felt myself suddenly swing towards the side of the cliff. Then the shaft of the boat-hook dragged through my hands, my body crashed down, and everything became black.
Of what happened after that I know nothing. Neither can I say for certain, even now, whether I lay there unconscious for only a few hours, or for more than twenty-four. On opening my eyes at last, I found that it was night, and for some time I could not understand where I was. Then the whole hideous truth dawned on me, and I recalled what I had last seen—the loose rope, the spears, and the falling man. I was, then, down in the well; and I shuddered as I remembered the snakes that I had seen at the bottom. I was afraid to move, but feeling carefully with my hands, I came to the conclusion that I was lying on a ledge, and had not fallen the whole distance to the bottom. Still, the situation was appalling, for unless my friends found some means to rescue me, I saw no possibility of escape. Exhausted, yet fearing to fall asleep, I lay, and prayed for daylight, not knowing whether the night had just begun, or whether it was drawing to a close. I called loudly to Faris, to Sedjur, and to Daud; but each time there came back only the echo of my own voice, mingled with the shrill screams of countless owls. That the place was haunted did not greatly trouble me, for I argued with myself that all the afreets and jins in spirit-land could do no more than kill me, which, perhaps, would be the best thing that could happen.
Thus I remained motionless, hoping for dawn, and thinking regretfully over the events of my short life. It seemed pitiful to think that I should have been so near the attainment of all my hopes, and should suddenly have lost everything. Then I tried to find a reason for what had occurred, and I became convinced that it was the result of my own folly, that the rope had kinked up, that Faris had left his spot in order to free it, and that my foolish jerk had pulled him off his feet and hurled him into the depths of the well. His dead body, I thought, must be lying somewhere near me; and I shuddered at the knowledge that I had caused the death of the brave sheik, simply and solely because I had been so obstinately determined to obtain the Golden Girdle. As many another man had done before me, I cursed the thing, and remembered, with bitterness, how Faris had warned me from the first that no good would ever come from it.
In the course of time the sky began to show a faint glimmer of light, and I knew that day was breaking. I could make out the shapes of the rocks and the bushes, and I soon saw how everything lay. As I had imagined, I was lying on a narrow ledge, on to which I must have been cast, by the swing of the spear-shaft, as the rope gave way. I looked above me, and there I saw the spear itself, with its boat-hook head fixed in a dense bush, and the end of the shaft not two feet above my face. When I sat up, I could almost reach it with my hands. I raised myself carefully, grasped the spear, and endeavoured to disentangle its hooked head. It resisted all my efforts for some time, but eventually a small branch broke off, and the boat-hook was loose.
My next thought was to look for the sheik's body, and, craning over the side of the ledge, I glanced down at the bottom of the well. The sun had now risen, and was shining brightly on the wild scene. Not fifteen feet beneath me glittered the Golden Girdle, and the sight of it caused me to tremble violently. Close by it were one or two snakes, basking in the morning sun. I hastily scanned the ledge whereon I was kneeling, to make certain that other snakes were not there also. I could see none, and I gave a sigh of relief. Again I sought the body of Faris, and presently my eyes fell on a shapeless mass of clothing, lying among the débris of rocks on the opposite side of the well. In my agony, my first impulse was to fling myself on to the rocks below, and so end my miserable existence. But I restrained myself, and involuntarily turned my eyes in the direction of the gruesome corpse. A ray of hope suddenly burst in upon me. The clothes were not those worn by Faris, nor by Sedjur, nor by either of my other friends; they were not the clothes of a Bedouin, but of an Arab townsman. Who or what he was I could not imagine.
Half dazed, I sat down and wondered what it all meant. Faris and the others were alive after all; they would shortly come to my rescue; they had probably gone off to obtain another rope. I felt happier. I still lived, and I was certain that Faris, my blood-brother, was not the man to leave me to die. Then a horrible fear came over me as I thought that, perhaps, the sheik had imagined that I had been killed by the fall. Possibly, while I was unconscious, he had called to me, and, receiving no reply, had given me up as dead. If he thought me to be dead, then he would certainly leave the Girdle at rest. These thoughts sent a thrill of horror through me, but at the same time they impelled me to cast about for a means of escape. I roused myself. I would not sit where I was and await death. I would make a fight for life.
The resolution made, I became calm and collected—much to my own astonishment. I looked around me. The rope was still secured to my waist, the bulk of it lying at the bottom of the well. I hauled it up and coiled it by my side on the ledge. With the rope and my long boat-hook, I should be able to manage something—at least I hoped so. With the aid of these two things, I could surely work my way upwards from rock to rock, and from bush to bush. I could not endure another night in this Inferno, and I formed my plans rapidly. I raised the boat-hook, and with it grappled the bush above me. I could see that there was another ledge there, and to reach it meant ten feet nearer freedom; but I found that swarming up a smooth bamboo was more than I could manage; so, drawing down the boat-hook, and poising the loose end of the rope on its top, I raised it again, and, after several vain attempts, succeeded in passing the rope round the stem of the bush. Then, inch by inch, I jerked the rope forward until the end returned to my hand, when, knotting it securely, and fixing the head of the boat-hook in the bush, I clambered up the double rope, to reach the narrow ledge in safety. I drew up the boat-hook and the rope, and now that I had accomplished the first step, I no longer despaired.
Looking down, while resting after my exertion, I caught sight of the fateful Girdle. It had a dreadful fascination for me. Should I leave it there? Could I possibly obtain it? I shook with excitement at the very idea; and I decided that I would drop down again to my former position on the lower ledge, and see if I could in any way get nearer to the bottom of the well. I hung the boat-hook in the bush, tied the rope to the thickest bough, and slipped down. The situation I found was not by any means hopeless; in fact, to reach a spot overhanging the Girdle, and within spear's length of it, seemed to be perfectly simple. About eight feet below me was a projecting rock, quite large enough to stand on, and from it, I estimated, I could easily touch the golden serpents with my hook.
I determined now to run no risk of losing either of the two things on which my life depended. The rope, still looped round the bush above me, I slackened out sufficiently to enable me to reach the rock below, and drawing the long end through the loop that encircled my waist, I made it fast, coiling the remainder round my body, and securing the end to the shaft of the boat-hook. Thus equipped, I descended cautiously, and, in less than a minute, was standing on the rock. Pulling at the portion of the rope to which the boat-hook was fastened, I dragged the latter off the ledge, and soon had it in my hands. My estimate proved correct; the head of the boat-hook could touch the ground a foot or two over and beyond the Golden Girdle.
As the iron hooks scraped on the ground, the live snakes hissed and wriggled away among the fallen stones. Skilfully, I gauged the centre of the belt, and passing the boat-hook beneath it, gently raised my hands. But the belt slipped off, and I had to start afresh. The same thing occurred time after time, until at length I balanced it exactly, and slowly and steadily drew it up. As it came nearer and nearer, my knees shook beneath me, and every moment I expected to see it slither to the ground. Another foot and it would be safe. I thrust out one hand and grasped it. In my frantic joy I shouted again and again. I defied the whole host of jins and afreets; I cared not for Shaitan himself. I had won the day. The Golden Girdle was mine!