Then the belt gave way at the
fastening, and Elzevir fell sprawling on the floor. But the other went
backwards down the well.
I got to the parapet just as he fell head first into that black abyss.
There was a second of silence, then a dreadful noise like a coconut
being broken on a pavement--for we once had coconuts in plenty at
Moonfleet, when the _Bataviaman_ came on the beach, then a deep echoing
blow, where he rebounded and struck the wall again, and last of all, the
thud and thundering splash, when he reached the water at the bottom. I
held my breath for sheer horror, and listened to see if he would cry,
though I knew at heart he would never cry again, after that first
sickening smash; but there was no sound or voice, except the moaning
voices of the water eddies that I had heard before.
Elzevir slung himself into the bucket. 'You can handle the break,' he
said to me; 'let me down quick into the well.' I took the break-lever,
lowering him as quickly as I durst, till I heard the bucket touch water
at the bottom, and then stood by and listened. All was still, and yet I
started once, and could not help looking round over my shoulder, for it
seemed as if I was not alone in the well-house; and though I could see no
one, yet I had a fancy of a tall black-bearded man, with coppery face,
chasing another round and round the well-mouth.
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