We had been confronted with three apparently insuperable steps. First, we had been locked in the chamber: yet we had escaped. Then we had been trapped in the shaft: yet we had emerged. And now we were down in the well. That is to say, we had taken two of the steps, only to find that the third was insuperable indeed.
I will not say that there was no more spirit in us, but the figures with which we were faced would have daunted anyone. Twenty-seven hours of waiting: twenty-five several battles to raise the stage: and then—thirty-four feet which, unless some rope was dangling, we could not possibly scale. And when, after thirty minutes, Hanbury rose to his feet and said quietly, “I’m sorry but I can’t stand this,” I think we all understood.
“I’m going to try to climb up,” he added gravely, “by means of the niches.”
“Steady, George,” said Mansel, laying a hand on his arm. “The thing’s impossible. No one in our condition could bring it off.”
“I’m going to try,” said Hanbury. “It may be a chance in a million—”
“It isn’t that,” said I. “The niches come to end ten feet from the top.”
There was a long silence: and presently Hanbury sat down.
And how long we sat still then I cannot remember, but I know that all of a sudden Rowley, who was sitting beside me, gave a great start and then began to laugh like a man at a play.
I laid hands upon him, for I thought he had lost his wits. But as soon as he spoke I knew there was nothing to fear.
“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s like a clown in the ring. We’d sell our souls for a ladder, and we’re sitting on one all the time.”
There was a moment’s silence.
Then—
“Put it more clearly,” said Mansel. “I believe I see what you mean.”
And that, I confess, was more than I could have said.
“The beams, sir,” said Rowley. “We can set them above one another, and then, when we’re all on the top one, pull out the one below and lift up that. And so on. I know there’ll be ten feet to go, sir, when we get to the top: but it’s better than waiting until—until we can’t wait no more.”
“It is, indeed,” said Mansel heartily. “Rowley, I give you best. And when we get out, as we shall, I’ll thank you for saving my life.”
Then we all spoke at once and laughed and jested and clapped Rowley on the back, as if we were souls in a tavern and full of ale, instead of upon the brink of the most hazardous endeavour that ever four wretches made.
Then Hanbury slipped off the plank into the water, and the rest of us straddled the beam over which the kit-bags hung: and when he had freed the other, he gave it to us, and we fitted it into the niches two feet above.
Happily the beams were on edge, or they would not have borne our weight: but, before ten minutes were past, we would have given a fortune to have had a third. Whether the plank would have helped us, if we could have cut it down, I do not know: but the chisel we had left by the chamber, and there was a foot of water above the mouth of the shaft. And since it could not have carried us, though it might have served as a rail, we let it go.
When George had climbed out of the water, before we went any further, we determined exactly the system by which we must go. “For,” said Mansel, “if ever an exercise required a military precision, this is the stunt. We’ve only to make one mistake, and we shan’t be in a position to make any more.”
The first thing which we decided was to preserve the order in which we sat on the beam. Mansel was sitting at one end, and Hanbury at the other, each of them facing the wall: I was next to Mansel and facing the same way as he, and Rowley was next to George: and the bags hung in the middle, between Rowley and me.
And, for the sake of convenience, I will do as Mansel did then and number us off; so that he became “Number One,” I became “Number Two,” Rowley became “Number Three,” and Hanbury “Number Four.”
Numbers One and Four were to move and take their seats on the beam we had just set up. They would then take hold of the niches two feet above, to gain what stability they could. Numbers Two and Three would then move and, between them, lift up the bags, before moving up themselves. When they were up and in place, Numbers Two and Three would lean down, keeping their balance by holding to One and Four, and, laying firm hold of the beam which was resting below, would draw it out of the niches and lift it up. They would bring it as far as their shoulders and there lay it down, when Numbers One and Four were to guide it home.
That was our method: and, though, looking back, I think we might have done better, the devil was driving, and so it had to serve.
Now at first all went like clockwork, and we must have climbed twenty-six feet, before the depth below us began to make itself felt.
I think we had all perceived that here was the serious drawback to Rowley’s plan, for the highest niches were nearly eighty feet up; but it was so important that we should not lose heart that no one had even hinted that a fear of falling might presently supervene.
Be that as it may, I know that all of a sudden the palms of my hands were dripping and I was afraid to move. Rowley and I, between us, had lifted the bags, and he had just taken his seat on the upper beam, but
