"Well?"
"Well, do you suppose I"m going to be found stuck up here like a confounded rooster on a weather vane?" shouted the inventor. "No, sir!
You can stay and look all the fool you like. I won"t. I"m going down now!"
Hawkins reached gingerly with one foot for a place on the ladder. I looked at him, wondered whether it would be really wicked to hurl him into s.p.a.ce, and looked away again, in the direction of the woods.
My gaze traveled about a mile; and my nerves received another shock.
"See here, Hawkins!" I cried.
"Well, what do you want?" demanded the inventor gruffly, still striving for a footing.
"What will happen if a breeze hits this infernal machine now?"
"You"ll be knocked into Kingdom Come, for one thing," snapped Hawkins with apparent satisfaction. "That arm of the windmill right behind you will rap your head with force enough to put some sense in it."
I glanced backward. He was right--about the fact of the rapping, at any rate.
The huge wing was precisely in line to deal my unoffending cranium a terrific whack, which would probably stun me, and certainly brush me from my perch.
"There"s a big wind coming!" I cried. "Look at those trees."
"By Jimminy! You"re right!" gasped the inventor, recklessly hurling himself upon the ladder. "Quick, Griggs. Come down after me. Quick!"
When one of Hawkins" inventions gets you in its toils, you have to make rapid decisions as to the manner of death you would prefer. In the twinkling of an eye, I decided to cast my fate with Hawkins on the ladder.
Nerving myself for the task, I swung to the quivering steel cable, kicked wildly for a moment, and then found a footing.
"Now, down!" shouted Hawkins, below me. "Be quick!"
That diabolical windmill must have heard him and taken the remark for a personal injunction. It obeyed to the letter.
When an elevator drops suddenly, you feel as if your entire internal organism was struggling for exit through the top of your head. As the words left Hawkins" mouth, that was precisely the sensation I experienced.
Clinging to the ladder for dear life, down we went!
They say that a stone will drop sixteen feet in the first second, thirty-two in the next, and so on. We made far better time than that.
The wind had hit the windmill, and she was reeling us back into the well to the very best of her ability.
Before I could draw breath we flashed to the level of the earth, down through the mouth of the well, and on down into the white-tiled twilight.
My observations ceased at that point. A gurgling shriek came from Hawkins. Then a splash.
My nether limbs turned icy cold, next my body and shoulders, and then cracked ice seemed to fill my ears, and I still clung to the ladder, and prayed fervently.
For a time I descended through roaring, swirling water. Then my feet were wrenched from their hold, and for a moment I hung downward by my hands alone. Still I clung tightly, and wondered dimly why I seemed to be going up again. Not that it mattered much, for I had given up hope long ago, but still I wondered.
And then, still clutching the ladder with a death-grip, with Hawkins kicking about above me, out of the water I shot, and up the well once more. An instant of the half-light, the flash of the sun again--and I hurled myself away from the ladder.
I landed on the gra.s.s. Hawkins landed on me. Soaking wet, breathless, dazed, we sat up and stared at each other.
"I"m glad, Griggs," said Hawkins, with a watery smile--"I"m glad you had sense enough to keep your grip going around that sprocket at the bottom.
I knew we"d be all right if you didn"t let go----"
"Hawkins," I said viciously, "shut up!"
"But--oh, good Lord!"
I glanced toward the gate. The carriage was driving in. The ladies were in the carriage. Evidently the afternoon euchre had been postponed.
"There, Hawkins," I gloated, "you can explain to your wife just why you knew we"d be all right. She"ll be a sympathetic listener."
Said Hawkins, with a sickly smile:
"Oh, Griggs!"
Said Mrs. Hawkins, gasping with horror as Patrick whipped the horses to our side----.
But never mind what Mrs. Hawkins said. This chronicle contains enough unpleasantness as it is. There are remarks which, when addressed to one, one feels were better left unsaid.
I think that Hawkins felt that way about practically everything his wife said upon this occasion. Let that suffice.
CHAPTER V.
In the country, social intercourse between Hawkins" family and my own is upon the most informal basis. If it pleases us to dine together coatless and cuffless, we do so; and no one suggests that a national upheaval is likely to result.
But in town it is different. The bugaboo of strict propriety seems to take mysterious ascendancy. We still dine together, but it is done in the most proper evening dress. It seems to be the law--unwritten but unalterable--that Hawkins and I shall display upon our respective bosoms something like a square foot of starchy white linen.
I hardly know why I mention this matter of evening clothes, unless it is that the memory of my brand-new dress suit, which pa.s.sed to another sphere that night, still preys upon my mind.
That night, above mentioned, my wife and I dined in the Hawkins" home.
Hawkins seemed particularly jovial. He appeared to be chuckling with triumph, or some kindred emotion, and his air was even more expansive than usual.
When I mentioned the terrible explosion of the powder works at Pompton--hardly a subject to excite mirth in the normal individual--Hawkins fairly guffawed.
"But, Herbert," cried his wife, somewhat horrified, "is there anything humorous in the dismemberment of three poor workmen?"
"Oh, it isn"t that--it isn"t that, my dear," smiled the inventor. "It merely struck me as funny--this old notion of explosives."
"What old notion?" I inquired.
"Why, the fallacy of the present methods of manipulating nitro-glycerine."
"I presume you have a better scheme?" I advanced.