There was a solid crash of released waters leaping upon the wheel more furiously than ever, a grinding of cogs, a hum like the hum of a hornet, and then the unvisited darkness of the old mill was scattered by intolerable white light. It threw up every cobweb, every burl and knot in the beams and the floor; till the shadows behind the flakes of rough plaster on the wall lay clear-cut as shadows of mountains on the photographed moon.
“See! See! See!” hissed the Waters in full flood. “Yes, see for yourselves. Nothing has occurred. Can’t you see?”
The Rat, amazed, had fallen from his foothold and lay half-stunned on the floor. The Cat, following her instinct, leaped nigh to the ceiling, and with flattened ears and bared teeth backed in a corner ready to fight whatever terror might be loosed on her. But nothing happened. Through the long aching minutes nothing whatever happened, and her wire-brush tail returned slowly to its proper shape.
“Whatever it is,” she said at last, “it’s overdone. They can never keep it up, you know.”
“Much you know,” said the Waters. “Over you go, old man. You can take the full head of us now. Those new steel axle-straps of yours can stand anything. Come along, Raven’s Gill, Harpenden, Callton Rise, Batten’s Ponds, Witches’ Spring, all together! Let’s show these gentlemen how to work!”
“But—but—I thought it was a decoration. Why—why—why—it only means more work for me!”
“Exactly. You’re to supply about sixty eight-candle lights when required. But they won’t be all in use at once——”
“Ah! I thought as much,” said the Cat. “The reaction is bound to come.”
“And,” said the Waters, “you will do the ordinary work of the mill as well.”
“Impossible!” the old Wheel quivered as it drove. “Aluric never did it—nor Azor, nor Reinbert. Not even William de Warrenne or the Papal Legate. There’s no precedent for it. I tell you there’s no precedent for working a wheel like this.”