t 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
circumference 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: