Part 48 (1/2)

There was always something repellent and strange even in a big water cistern in a house, and as a mere boy I have often started back in terror at the noise made by the pipes when the water was coming driving the air before it with a snorting gurgle, and then pouring in, while to climb up a ladder or set of steps and look down into the black watery place always gave me a shudder and made me glad to get away.

It is easy to imagine, then, what my feelings were, suddenly cast into that great stone-walled place, with I did not know what depth of water beneath me, and inhabited as I knew by large twining eels.

I daresay the eels were as much afraid of me as I was of them; but that made no difference to my feelings as I swam here and there trying in vain for something to which to cling; but in the darkest parts as well as the lightest it was always the same, my hand glided over the stones and splashed down again into the water.

I was too much confused to think much, and moment by moment I was growing more helpless. I can remember making a sort of bound to try and get a hold of the broken platform above my head, but the effect of that effort was only to send me below the surface. I can recall, too, thinking that if I let my feet down I might find bottom, but this I dared not do for fear of what might be below; and so, each moment growing more feeble, I stared at the opened doorway through which I had come, at the iron-barred grating through which the water escaped, and which was the entrance to a tunnel or drain that ran beneath the works.

Then I turned my eyes up at the sunlit opening through which seemed to come hope surrounding the black tooth-like engine that was hung there ready to turn and grind me down.

My energy was nearly exhausted, the water was above my lips, and after a wild glare round at the slimy walls the whispering lapping echoes were changed for the thunderous roar and confusion felt by one plunged beneath the surface; and in my blind horror I began beating the water frantically in my last struggle for life.

Natural instinct seems to have no hesitation in seizing upon the first help that comes. It was so here. I might have swum to the wheel at first and clung to it, but I was afraid; but now, after going under once or twice--I'm sure I don't know which--I came up in close proximity to the great ma.s.s of slimy wood-work, one of my hands touched it, the other joined it directly, and I clung panting there, blind, confused, helpless, but able to breathe.

Almost at the same moment, and before I knew what I was holding on by, there came a sound which sent hope and joy into my heart. It was the whimpering whine of Piter, who directly after set up a short yapping kind of bark, and I had a kind of idea that he must be somewhere on the wood-work inside the wheel.

I did not know that he had fallen in at the same time as I; and though once or twice I had heard him whining, I did not realise that he was also in danger; in fact the horrible overwhelming selfishness of the desire for self-preservation had swept away everything but the thought of how I was to get out of my trouble.

Every moment now gave me a little confidence, though it was nearly driven away when, able to see clearly again, I found myself holding on by one of the wooden pocket-like places formed with boards on the outer circ.u.mference of the engine--the places in fact into which, when the sluice was opened, the water rushed, and by its weight bore the wheel round.

After a few minutes' clinging there, beginning to feel numbed and chilled by the cold, I realised that the sun was setting, that the patches of light were higher, and that in a very few minutes the horrors of this place would be increased tenfold by my being plunged in profound darkness.

I dreaded moving, but I knew that the water could not come down upon me unless the sluice was opened, and that was turned off when the men left work, so that the water was saved for the next day, and the wheel ceased to turn. I determined then to try and climb up from pocket to pocket of the wheel and so reach the stone-race at the opening, along which the water poured.

My courage revived at this, and drawing my legs under me I got them upon one of the edges of the pocket beneath the water, raised myself up and caught hold of one higher than I had hold of before, and was about to take a step higher when, to my horror, the huge wheel began to feel the effect of my weight, and gradually the part I held descended.

At the same moment there was a loud splash, a beating of the water, a whining barking noise, and I knew I had shaken Piter off the bar or spoke to which he had been clinging inside.

”Here, Piter; here dog,” I shouted; and he swam round to me, whining piteously and seeming to ask me for help.

This I was able to give him, for, holding tightly with one hand, I got my right arm round him and helped him to scramble up into one of the pockets, though the effort had weighed down the wheel and I sank deeper in the water.

I made another trial to climb up, but though the resistance of the great wheel was sufficient to support me partly it soon began to revolve, and I knew that it would go faster if I tried to struggle up.

I heaved a despairing sigh, and for the first time began to think of Gentles.

”This must be his doing,” I said to myself. He had set some one to take out the support of the little platform, and I was obliged to own that after all he had only set a trap for me just as I had set one for him.

Still there was a great difference: he was on his way to do harm when he was caught--I was engaged in my lawful pursuits and trying to do good.

I had another trial, and another, but found it would, in my exhausted state, be impossible to climb up, and as I clung there, up to my chest in the water, and with the dog close to me, he whined piteously and licked my face.

The next minute he began to bark, stood up with his hind feet on the edge of one bar, his fore-paws on the one above, and made a bound.

To my surprise he reached his aim, and his weight having no effect on the wheel, he scrambled up and up till I knew he must have reached the top.

There was no doubt about it.

The next minute I heard the rattling shaking noise made by a dog when getting rid of the water in its coat. Then a loud and joyous barking.

Then only the dripping, plas.h.i.+ng sound of the water that escaped through the sluice and came running in and falling about the wheel.