There was light enough, at least, to distinguish things by, and to stimulate both his curiosity and his fear. Here was the deadly spot, without a question, and the sense of it was like stinging nettles in his veins. He dared not go farther, but held to the doorpost and stood staring in, on the prick of flight. He was looking into a dark and death-cold little chamber, empty save for the well, sunk in the middle of the flagged floor, and for one other rather wickedly suggestive thing. This was a huge drum wheel, ten feet in diameter, and attached by a short axle to one of the side walls. It was built of heavy wood and was shaped like a round box-lid, the open side outermost. The boy had no idea what was its purpose; but his day was the day of Holy Inquisitions and their terrific legends, and there was something in the appearance of this sinister engine to suggest a thought of racking and mangled limbs. He was peering at it fascinated, his lips parted, when something happened. From the depths of the well, in the utter stillness, rose a little clucking noise, like a gobble of low laughter. Human endurance had reached its limit. He turned and fled, and bursting, panting and white faced, into the open, almost fell over a figure that seemed to advance upon him at the moment.
But, even as he cried out—lo! it was Gammer Harlock. She had a basket on her arm, and was poking here and there among the weedy tangle in search of the simples she needed for her drugs and potions.
‘Eh!’ she said, never turning from her search to regard the pale lad standing beside her. ‘So it’s you, is it—the young heart that fears nor plot nor shadow! What ailed that cry, then, and this sound of near running, like dead leaves blown along a wintry road?’
‘It is my breath shaking in me,’ said Brion. ‘I am winded, mother.’
He answered stoutly, but he was finely scared. He had never so welcomed the company of this joyless old hag, or had so clung to it for human solace and reassurance. She answered, stooping as she spoke:—
‘Never blown lungs so rattled, I trow, save when the heart was in the throat, like a pea in a whistle.’
He ‘owned up,’ with a little trembling laugh:—
‘I was frightened—there, I confess it. I had never before guessed it was there, and, when I did, I went in. Mother, is it the well?’
For the first time she rose erect, and looked him in the face.
‘A fool is a fool,’ she said, ‘be he ne’er so brave. Bear that in mind when next you go to look into the dark places. So ye dared? And what frighted ye?’