"It depends upon his motives," replied the Doubter; "I won't take motives on credit any more. I'm not going to get up on your shoulders, and have you jump from under me about the time I get hold of something above, and leave me to fall down and break my back, or hang there. No, sir, I want no farther assistance. I've made up my mind to spend the remainder of my days here."
"You sha'n't stay here!" cried Abraham, exasperated to the last degree by these taunts. "By heavens, sir, you shall be assisted!"
Here there was a struggle in the bottom of the pit; the Doubter writhing like an eel all over the ground in his attempts to elude the grasp of Abraham; but soon he was in the powerful arms of my friend, who, holding him up, shouted lustily, "Catch hold of him, Luff! Catch him by the hair or the coat-collar! Hold on to him, while I shove him up!"
The writhing form of the Doubter at the same moment loomed up in the light, and I called upon him to give me his hands; but he resolutely held them down, protesting that he would trust no man for the future; that he'd die before any body should deceive him again. In this extremity, driven almost frantic in my zeal for his safety, I grasped at the collar of his coat, and succeeded, after some difficulty, in getting a firm hold of it. "All right!" I shouted; "push away now, Abraham!" In spite of every exertion on Abraham's part, however, our unfortunate comrade rose no higher, which I can only account for by the depth of the pit. "A little higher, Abraham—just two inches—that's it—all right!" It certainly was all right so far; I had drawn him partly over the edge, and would eventually have drawn him entirely over, had it not caved in, by reason of the united weight of both on it at the same time, and thus the matter was prevented from being all right to any greater extent. The consequence of this disaster was, that we both fell heavily upon Abraham, who, unable to bear our united weight, fell himself under the Doubter, while I, being uppermost, formed a kind of apex to the pyramid. Our fall was thus broken in some measure; and, although Abraham groaned heavily under our weight, yet, as fortune would have it, nobody was hurt. The Doubter was the first who spoke.
"I told you so!" said he, faintly; "but you would try. You would try, in spite of all I could say, and now you see the consequence. It appears to me that there are three men caught in a goat-trap now instead of one; but I'll not insist upon it; there may be only one. My eyes have deceived me already, and likely as not they deceive me now."
"No, they don't," said Abraham, in smothered tones; "I'm quite certain there are two of you on top of me. Get off, if you can, for I can't breathe much longer in this position. You may depend upon it, there are three of us here."
"I shall depend upon nothing for the future," replied the Doubter, gloomily; "I depended upon a pole just now, and was dropped; I put faith in that pole, and both the faith and the pole were broken at the same time, and my back too nearly, if not quite broken."
"But I'm not a pole," groaned Abraham, "you may depend upon that. Get off now, do, for heaven's sake."
"You don't feel like a pole," said the Doubter, "but you may be one, for all I know; there's no telling what you are. However, I'll get off, lest you should break likewise."
I had already relieved Abraham of my weight; and being now entirely free, he got up, and we began to consider how we were to get out of the pit.