“Maybe he will,” said Rose Noble. “But unless and until he does, I reckon it’s up to you.”
“Indubitably,” said I.
Rose Noble sighed.
“No fool like a young fool,” he said. Then he leaned forward. “Why put me up, when you haven’t a card in your hand?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Much cry, but little wool,” said I. “Come to the point. Are you trying to do a deal?”
“Yes,” said Rose Noble. “I am. Maybe it’s a shade one-sided; but you gave it that name.” He jerked his torch at the ramp which led to the oubliette. “I’ve yet to see these diggings; but I haven’t played ‘King o’ the Castle’ for a whole raft of years, and I guess it’ll save us all time if you give me the book of the rules. In return, I offer you a painless captivity, a hell of a lot of hard work, and a free pass-out three days after we touch.”
I laughed.
“It is one-sided,” said I, as cheerfully as I could.
“These sort of deals often are,” was the grim reply.
I could not think what to do.
I was unarmed, for I had left my pistol for Rowley when he had taken my place: the other firearms hung upon a wall of the chamber, all of them loaded, but all of them out of my reach. Yet, had they lain by my side, the fellow had me in check; and I knew that, were I to move, he would shoot me down. For all that, my case was nothing to what it must be when Ellis and Job were come. Till then, at least, we were but man to man: but, if Rose Noble was able to bring but one of them up, I was as good as lost: and so was our enterprise. That I must, therefore, take action before they could enter the shoot was very evident, and I saw at once that when he went to admit them was the moment to make my attempt. His torch, of course, was his blessing, and my unspeakable curse: but for this we should have been better matched, for, though he had his pistol, I knew my way about and was, indeed, accustomed to moving in the gallery without any light. I, therefore, determined, something desperately, that, when he stooped for the flap, by hook or by crook I must dash the torch from his mouth, and, if I could not there and then follow up this assault, at least to jump to one side and so out of his ken.
And here it came to me that, so far as his torch was concerned, my luck was indeed dead out; for if ever any one of us went up or down the shoot without saving his torch from the water, whether because he forgot it or took the chance, so surely that torch was useless and would give no glimmer of light until it had been looked to and its battery changed.
So we stood, with the flap between us, I trying to watch Rose Noble behind the glare of the torch, he with his eyes upon mine, and both of us, I fancy, awaiting the throb of the bell.
At length:
“Well,” said Rose Noble.
I moistened my lips.
“There’s nothing doing,” said I. “Of course, you can do me in, but it won’t help you. For one thing, I’m not going to talk: for another, I’ve nothing to say, for—believe me or not, as you please—it’s Mansel and Hanbury together that do the sums. You talk about guys that get stuck: why, you’ve never been anything else. You’ve been stuck at the top of the well—”
“See here,” said Rose Noble thickly, “when I want a ⸻ lecture, I’ll let you know. Meantime I’ll give you a hunch: and that is, get right with God.” The man’s hand was shaking: and I think this angered him, for he let out a frightful oath. “You say you’re not going to talk,” he continued presently. “Well, there’s your right eye gone. I don’t set up for a surgeon, but my hand don’t always shake, and an inch of red-hot wire makes a nice, clean job. And, maybe, when you’re short of a light, you’ll find your tongue: it’s not an operation you’ll find in the medical books, but, by ⸻, I’ve known it work.”
I suppose that the monster saw that his words had shocked me—as, indeed, to be honest, they had; for, while they were dreadful enough, the meaning with which he spoke them was unmistakable: at any rate he laughed hideously—the fat laugh of a satyr, that made my blood run cold.
And, as he laughed, the light of his torch went out.
We were both of us taken by surprise: but for this particular accident he, I imagine, was more unready than I, and, though he fired, he was an instant too late, for I had taken my chance and leaped to the right.
The crash of the explosion covered what noise I made, and, before the racket was over, I was at the foot of the ramp, straining my ears.
I heard him grope for my body and curse when he found me gone. The next moment he fired again, and the bullet parted my hair. He must have fired at a venture; but so good was the shot that it seemed as though he could see, and I turned and fled up the ramp, like a startled hare.
Now, before I had taken ten steps, I saw the faint glow of the candles alight in the oubliette: these I had clean forgotten, but now in a flash I knew that I could not have made a more unfortunate move, for, having escaped from one light, here I was making my way towards another. To make matters worse, as I perceived my mistake, I missed my footing and fell, making the deuce of a noise: and in an instant I heard Rose Noble behind.
There was now nothing for it but to go on up
