“You may ask,” said Monks, with some show of surprise, “but whether I answer or not is another question.”
“—Which makes three,” observed Mr. Bumble, essaying a stroke of facetiousness.
“Is that what you expected to get from me?” demanded the matron.
“It is,” replied Monks. “The other question?—”
“What you propose to do with it. Can it be used against me?”
“Never,” rejoined Monks; “nor against me either. See here; but don’t move a step forward, or your life’s not worth a bulrush!”
With these words he suddenly wheeled the table aside, and pulling an iron ring in the boarding, threw back a large trap-door which opened close at Mr. Bumble’s feet, and caused that gentleman to retire several paces backward with great precipitation.
“Look down,” said Monks, lowering the lantern into the gulf. “Don’t fear me. I could have let you down quietly enough when you were seated over it, if that had been my game.”
Thus encouraged, the matron drew near to the brink, and even Mr. Bumble himself, impelled by curiosity, ventured to do the same. The turbid water, swollen by the heavy rain, was rushing rapidly on below, and all other sounds were lost in the noise of its plashing and eddying against the green and slimy piles. There had once been a water-mill beneath, and the tide, foaming and chafing round the few rotten stakes, and fragments of machinery, that yet remained, seemed to dart onward with a new impulse when freed from the obstacles which had unavailingly attempted to stem its headlong course.