"Why, say!" cried the inventor, in amazement, as he made one futile effort to regain the ground. "Do you think----"
I wasn"t thinking for him, just then. All my wits were centered on one great, awful problem.
Before I could realize it and release my hold, the ladder had dropped far enough to throw me off my balance. The problem was whether to let go and risk dashing down sixty feet, or to keep hold and run the very promising chance of a slow and chilly ducking.
I took the latter alternative, threw myself upon the ladder, and clung there, gasping with astonishment at the suddenness of the thing.
"Well, Hawkins?" I said, getting breath as my head sank below the level of the beautiful earth.
"Well, Griggs," said the inventor defiantly, from the second rung below, "the gear must have slipped--that"s all."
"Isn"t it lucky that this is a tiled well?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why," I said, "a tiled well is absolutely safe, you see. Nothing can happen in a tiled well, Hawkins."
"Now, don"t stand there grinding out your cheap wit, Griggs," snapped Hawkins. "How the d.i.c.kens are we going to escape being soaked?"
Down, down, down, down, went the ladder.
"Well," I said, thoughtfully, "the bottom usually falls out of your schemes, Hawkins. If the bottom will only fall out of the water department of your pumpless pump within the next half-minute, all will be lovely."
"Oh, dry up!" exclaimed the inventor nervously. "Goodness! We"re halfway down already!"
"Why not climb?" I suggested.
"Really, Griggs," cried the inventor, "for such an unpractical man as yourself, that idea is remarkable! Climb, Griggs, climb. Get about it!"
I think myself that the notion was rather bright. If the ladder was climbing down into the well, we could climb up the ladder.
And we climbed! Good heavens, how we did climb! It was simply a perpendicular treadmill, and with the rungs a full yard apart, a mighty hard one to tread.
Every rung seemed to strain my muscles to the breaking point; but we kept on climbing, and we were gaining on the ladder. We were not ten feet from the top when Hawkins called out:
"Wait, Griggs! Hey! Wait a minute! Yes, by Jove, she"s stopped!"
She had. I noted that, far above, the windmill had ceased to revolve.
The ladder was motionless.
"Oh, I knew we"d get out all right," remarked the inventor, dashing all perspiration from his brow. "I felt it."
"Yes, I noticed that you were entirely confident a minute or two ago," I observed.
"Well, go on now and climb out," said Hawkins, waving an answer to the observation. "Go ahead, Griggs."
I was too thankful for our near deliverance to spend my breath on vituperation. I reached toward the rung above me and prepared to pull myself back to earth.
And then a strange thing happened. The rung shot upward. I shot after it. One instant I was in the twilight of the well; the next instant I was blinded by the sun.
Too late I realized that I had ascended above the mouth, and was journeying rapidly toward the top of the tower. It had all happened with that sickening, surprising suddenness that characterizes Hawkins"
inventions.
Up, up, up, I went, at first quickly, and then more slowly, and still more slowly, until the ladder stopped again, with my eyes peering over the top of the tower.
It was obliging of the ladder to stop there; it could have hurled me over the top just as easily and broken my neck.
I didn"t waste any time in thanking the ladder. Before the accursed thing could get into motion again, I climbed to the shaft and perched there, dizzy and bewildered.
Hawkins followed suit, clambered to the opposite end of the shaft, and arranged himself there, astride.
"Well," I remarked, when I had found a comparatively secure seat on the bearing--a seat fully two inches wide by four long--"did the gear slip again?"
"No, of course not," said the inventor. "The windmill simply started turning in the opposite direction."
"It"s a weak, powerless little thing, your windmill, isn"t it?"
"Well, when I built it I calculated it to hoist two tons."
"Instead of which it has hoisted two--or rather, one misguided man, who allowed himself to be enticed within its reach."
"See here," cried Hawkins wrathfully, "I suppose you blame me for getting you into a hole?"
"Not at all," I replied. "I blame you for getting me altogether too far out of the hole."
"Well, you needn"t. If it hadn"t been for your stupidity, we shouldn"t be here now."
"What!"
"Certainly. Why didn"t you jump off as we pa.s.sed the mouth of the well?"
"My dear Hawkins," I said mildly, "do you realize that we flitted past that particular point at a speed of about seventy feet per second? Why didn"t you jump?"
"I--I--I didn"t want to desert you, Griggs," rejoined Hawkins weakly, looking away.
"That was truly n.o.ble of you," I observed. "It reveals a beautiful side of your character which I had never suspected, Hawkins."
"That"ll do," said the inventor shortly. "Are you going down first or shall I?"
"Do you propose to trust all that is mortal of yourself to that capricious little ladder again?"
"Certainly. What else?"
"I was thinking that it might be safer, if slightly less comfortable, to wait here until Patrick gets back. He could put up a ladder--a real, old-fashioned, wooden ladder--for us."
"Yes, and when Patrick gets back those women will get back with him,"
replied Hawkins heatedly. "Your wife"s coming over here to tea."