I balanced myself by the upright post of the windlass, and peered into the well. Its heavy wooden lid, pierced by a trap in the middle, through which the bucket could be raised and lowered without disturbing the rest, had been bodily removed, and stood on its rim against the wall hard by. The diameter of the shaft was considerable—a full six feet, I should say—and the depth of the boring, it might be, two hundred, but I am not certain. I know only that the eye of water at the bottom looked no larger than a full moon, and that a surprising interval elapsed between the dropping of a stone from above and its answering plop from below.
“Well, gentlemen?” said Jannaway, after we had been gazing down some moments; “nothing strikes you out of the common?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“Ah!” he exclaimed, satisfied. “They was pretty cute in those days. Now, I’ll tell you, there is something peculiar, and not more’n thirty or forty feet down; but you’d never guess it from here, would you? If you doubt me, go and satisfy yourselves. I don’t ask you to, mind you. I say only as I’ve been the journey myself this morning, and more than once; and if that’s enough for you, you can take my word on it.”
I came away instantly from the post.
“I’m going down,” I said.
“No!” exclaimed Mr Shapter violently.
“Yes,” I insisted.
“He’ll do all right, sir,” said the detective, after a moment’s survey of me. “I should be glad, as a matter of fact, of the corroborative testimony, and there’s no more danger in it than in a fire escape, if he keeps his hold and his nerve.”
“I am going down,” I repeated. “What shall I do, Jannaway?”