As soon as we were entered the turnkey locked the door from the inside,
and when he let the key drop to its place, and it jangled with the others
on his belt, it seemed to me he had us as his prisoners in a trap. I
tried to catch his eye to see if it looked bad or good, but could not,
for he kept his shifty face turned always somewhere else; and then it
came to my mind that if the treasure was really fraught with evil, this
coarse dark-haired man, who could not look one straight, was to become a
minister of ruin to bring the curse home to us.
But if I was weak and timid Elzevir had no misgivings. He had taken the
coil of twine off his arm and was undoing it. 'We will let an end of this
down the well,' he said, 'and I have made a knot in it at eighty feet.
This lad thinks the treasure is in the well wall, eighty feet below us,
so when the knot is on well lip we shall know we have the right depth.' I
tried again to see what look the turnkey wore when he heard where the
treasure was, but could not, and so fell to examining the well.
A spindle ran from the axle of the wheel across the well, and on the
spindle was a drum to take the rope. There was some clutch or fastening
which could be fixed or loosed at will to make the drum turn with the
tread-wheel, or let it run free, and a footbreak to lower the bucket fast
or slow, or stop it altogether.
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