The grating was kept down by no hinges; it was more than two feet wide, of clumsy, old-fashioned workmanship, though of much later date than the last rebuilding of the castle in the fourteenth century. With great difficulty Rees raised it, tearing the flesh off his hands as he did so on the iron bars, which were caked with a hard deposit of rust. He had taken the precaution of bringing in his pocket a candle and matches. Striking a light he descended about a dozen rough and much worn stone steps in a sort of well hewn out of the solid rock. He had to move very carefully, as the steps were steep and unevenly covered with earth which the late rains had converted into mud; while the rude walls were too slimy with damp for the irregularities of their surface to afford him any hold.
The air down here was cold; it chilled his heated body and made his teeth chatter. Taking a couple of steps rather more quickly than the rest in his excitement and impatience, his right foot suddenly splashed into water. Drawing it back hastily, he peered into the darkness at his feet, and saw that what he had taken for the entrance to a subterranean passage was apparently nothing more nor less than an old, long disused well.
With a moan of anger and bitter disappointment, he sat down, with his feet on the lowest dry step, while a cold perspiration made him shiver from head to foot, and at the same time his forehead burned, and his mouth was so parched that, as he drew breath, he emitted a choking cough. He felt as if the hidden gold had been wrenched out of his eagerly clutching fingers, the gold which was to have supported his mother, showered presents on Deborah, restored his prestige as the genius of his family, and perhaps made him an earl’s son-in-law—for somehow that first idea of making known the discovery to the earl had, under the fire of Goodhare’s discourses, melted quite away.
He had brought his spade with him, and he sat holding it idly in his hand, and not heeding the fact that the rain-water from above was all the while trickling down the steps, making his seat not only damp but dangerous. Suddenly he slipped, and the spade in his hand scraped the ground at the bottom of the water.
It could not be very deep then! Perhaps it was not a well at all!
His excitement returning, he drew the spade slowly and carefully from left to right, stirring the foul mud at the bottom of the stagnant water, and causing noxious odours to rise from it. The water was not more than a foot and a half deep. The evil smells were so overpowering that he felt himself turn sick, and had to go back up a half a dozen steps to get fresh air and to recover himself.
When he redescended he found that the water had gone down a little. At first he thought this might only be his fancy, so by the faint light of his dwindling candle-end he watched. Surely enough, the water-line on the shiny wall seemed to emerge higher and higher above the foul black liquid, and Rees could hear the quick drip drip of water below him. Again he sounded with his spade even more carefully than before. Close under the bottom step one corner of the implement got caught in a hole, which proved to be round and about seven inches in diameter. As Rees passed the spade backwards and forwards, he heard a rushing sound, and the water began to go down much more rapidly. This small hole, he thought, must be the top of a drain-pipe which had become choked with obstacles which the spade removed.
He glanced at his candle—there was not half an inch of it left. Would that water never go down? With frantic impatience he dragged his spade to and fro from wall to wall. Work as hard as he would, he had not time. The candle-end, which he held in his left hand and glanced at anxiously, grew hot between his fingers; then the wick fell over, burning him so that he had to shake it off hastily on to the wet step, where it went out with a faint little hiss and splutter.
“Hang it!” almost shouted Rees, forgetting his caution, forgetting everything in his frantic impatience.
“Hallo!” cried a voice above, which sounded hollow in the rocky cavity.