The City of the Sacred Well

by T. A. Willard

“Standing upon the uneven, rocky bottom of the well, I was thrilled with the knowledge that I stood where no living man had stood since time began. I think I felt much the same high elation that must have filled Peary and Shackleton at the end of their respective dashes to the polar caps.

“I had foreseen the need of light and had provided myself with the very latest and best submarine electric light obtainable. What any illuminant could do, this light would do. But what light can force its beams through a lake of chocolate-colored porridge? Our lights were of not the slightest use in this grim old water-pit and we had to depend entirely upon the sense of touch. And this sense served us well, for under constant use our finger-tips grew highly sensitive. The palpi in the skin whorls and curves became so responsive that we were frequently able to distinguish the form and texture of the objects we touched and even got so far as to guess at colors, although we made many wrong hazards.

“Another modern invention which we carried at the bottom of the well was the submarine telephone. It operated satisfactorily, but we found little use for it, as it was less bothersome merely to give the required number of tugs on the signal rope when we wanted to communicate with those above. The Greek and I found also that by touching the metal fronts of our helmets we could converse easily with each other. The voice tones were muffled, but with a little practice we had no trouble in understanding each other. I even recollect hearing the chattering of the strong white teeth of my Hellenic companion. The water was very cold and every time we came to the surface after our daily two hours of immersion our lips were blue and our bodies covered with goose-flesh and trembling with chill. Coffee, very hot and very strong, was our first requisite.

“The water-pressure at a depth of sixty feet is considerable, and both the air-tubes and life-lines were buoyed in several places by tightly corked quart bottles. When drawn up after the day’s work, the lower ones were always half full of water, in spite of the fact that the empty bottles had been corked as tightly as possible before being lowered into the water. This will give some idea of the tremendous pressure.

“This pressure, offset by a corresponding pressure of air in the diving-suit, affects in a peculiar manner the movements of the diver. In spite of my necklace of leaden plates and my two-inch lead soles, I seemed to weigh nothing at all. A slight stamp of my foot upon the bottom would take me soaring upward perhaps ten feet in the water, and I would then come slowly down to rest two yards from my original position. It took good judgment to land in any precise spot, because it was so very easy to overshoot the mark. It seemed as though one real leap would carry me clear to the surface of the well and perhaps entirely up the cliff-like sides.

“On one occasion I became so interested in the finds on the bottom of the well that I quite forgot to let out the accumulated air by means of the helmet valves. I had been working diligently, feeling along the silt-filled cracks of the rocky bottom; then, satisfied with my examination, I gave a stamp of my foot and started upward. But my diving-suit was so filled with compressed air that I turned in the water topsyturvy and finally hit the bottom of the scow feet up, with a resounding thump of my metal soles which almost caused a panic among the natives on the deck of the craft. Meanwhile I swung around turtle-wise from under the boat, found the rope ladder, and started to climb over the side. My henchmen, pallid with fear, were pumping for dear life, while I, at the side of the boat but below their line of vision, opened wide the helmet valves to prevent them from blowing me up like a toy balloon. When I appeared over the side they all crowded around me and Juan Mis, my faithful old servant, took my helmet-encased head in both his hands and peered eagerly through the thick glass insets. ‘God be praised, he is laughing!’ shouted Juan, and they all chuckled with happy relief, while I sat on the gunwale and was divested of my cumbersome habiliments.

“Our first task was to discover the nature of the stone objects that had so often cramped the jaws of our dredge and strained its chains, costing us hours of hard work in repairs. The fact that the dredge had never secured a sufficient purchase on any of these stones to bring them to the surface led me to surmise that the majority were smooth-faced and probably hieroglyphed. Mere rocks or boulders rarely were so smooth that the steel bucket could not grip them and bring them up after a trial or two.

“By feeling over the bottom of the well with my hands, I located the stones one after another and found my surmise correct. We managed to fasten chains about them and by means of the derrick raised them from their watery bed. One by one the heavy, wondrously carved stones were hauled up through sixty feet of water and up another seventy feet until they rested upon the brink of the well. One great stone was a perfectly sculptured statue of a seated god or priest which reminded me of ‘The Thinker,’ by Rodin.

“The next day we again descended into the well, this time not in search of large objects such as carved stones, but rather in quest of small things lying in the silt between the humps and in the crevices at the bottom.

“I remember distinctly my sensations as my fingers touched upon curious small objects like coins, small nuts, and rings. I could hardly contain my curiosity as I tucked them into my pouch, and my eagerness to get up to light and air to examine them was almost irresistible. When I had collected perhaps twenty or thirty I gave the signal and started upward. Before my diving-dress had been more than half removed I plunged my chilled fingers into the dripping pouch and drew out beautiful embossed rings, small bells of copper, and several bells of pure gold. There were bells and ornaments and medallions of gold repoussé and gold filagree, of exquisite design and craftmanship. There were lovely carved jade beads and other objects of jade. Just as truly as any mining prospector, I had struck gold, but gold tremendously more valuable than his raw nuggets; for, whatever might be the mere intrinsic value of my golden finds, each bit was in reality beyond price.