o answer coming, began to wind
up as fast as they were able. It was all that their united strength
could manage, and very exhausted were they when at length Jacob
reappeared at the top. At first, from the look of him they thought that
he was dead, and had he not tied himself to the chain, dead he certainly
would have been, for evidently his senses had left him long ago. Indeed,
he had fallen almost out of the seat, over which his legs hung limply,
his weight being supported by the hide rope beneath his arms which was
made fast to the chain.

They swung him in and dashed water over his face, till, to their relief,
at last he began to gasp for breath, and revived sufficiently to enable
them to half-lead and half-carry him out into the fresh air.

"What happened to you?" asked Clifford.

"Poisoned with gases, I suppose," Meyer answered with a groan, for
his head was aching sadly. "The air is often bad at the bottom of deep
wells, but I could smell or feel nothing until suddenly my senses left
me. It was a near thing--a very near thing."

Afterwards, when he had recovered a little, he told them that at one
spot deep down in the well, on the river side of it, he found a place
where it looked as though the rock had been cut away for a space of
about six feet by four, and afterwards built up again with another sort
of stone set in hard mortar or cement. Immediately beneath, too, were
socket-holes in which the ends of beams still remained, suggesting that
here had been a floor or platform. It was while he was examining these
rotted beams that insensibility overcame him. He added that he thought
that this might be the entrance to the place where the gold was hidden.

"If so," said Mr. Clifford, "hidden it must remain, since it can have no
better guardian than bad air. Also, floors like that are common in all
wells to prevent rubbish from falling into the water, and the stonework
you saw probably was only put there by the ancients to mend a fault in
the rock and prevent the wall from caving in."

"I hope so," said Meyer, "since unless that atmosphere purifies a good
deal I don't think that even I dare go down again, and until one gets
there, of that it is difficult to be sure, though of course a lantern on
a string will tell one something."

This was the end of their first attempt. The search was not renewed
until the following afternoon, when Meyer had recovered a little from
the effects of the poisoning and the chafing o