In a few minutes his progress was stopped by a wall, which his extended arms encountered; and he now knew that he had reached the extremity communicating with the house in Turnmill Street.
Having succeeded in grasping the wire which, passing through the top of the vault, was connected with the mechanism of the clock overhead, he pulled it vigorously.
But the machinery moved not!
Then, for the first time during this eventful night, the highwayman became appalled at the dangers on which he had entered.
Again he tugged at the wire; it snapped short close by the roof, and the long piece thus broken off, fell at his feet.
"Damnation!" cried Rainford; and he stamped impatiently on the cold, damp stones.
Suddenly it struck him that there might be one wire to move the clock over the opening at the head of the iron ladder, and another wire to move it away from that opening.
He accordingly began to feel with his hands for this second wire the existence of which was suggested by his imagination; but at the end of a minute he was compelled to admit to himself that it did indeed exist only in imagination.
No such second wire was to be found!
He then hastily ascended the ladder, and endeavoured to hurl the clock from off the opening which it covered: but the huge machine was as solidly fixed there as if it had formed a portion of the vaulted roof itself.