e locket, and third, by
Ratsey giving me the hint that the writing was a cipher, and so had come
to the hiding-place without a swerve or stumble; and it seemed to me that
I could not have reached it so straight without a leading hand, but
whether good or evil, who should say?

As I neared the top I heard the turnkey urging the donkey to trot faster
in the wheel, so that the bucket might rise the quicker, but just before
my head was level with the ground he set the break on and fixed me where
I was. I was glad to see the light again, and Elzevir's face looking
kindly on me, but vexed to be brought up thus suddenly just when I was
expecting to set foot on _terra firma_.

The turnkey had stopped me through his covetous eagerness, so that he
might get sooner at the jewel, and now he craned over the low parapet and
reached out his hand to me, crying--'Where is the treasure? where is the
treasure? give me the treasure!'

I held the diamond between finger and thumb of my right hand, and waved
it for Elzevir to see. By stretching out my arm I could have placed it in
the turnkey's hand, and was just going to do so, when I caught his eyes
for the second time that day, and something in them made me stop. There
was a look in his face that brought back to me the memory of an autumn
evening, when I sat in my aunt's parlour reading the book called the
_Arabian Nights_; and how, in the story of the _Wonderful Lamp_,
Aladdin's wicked uncle stands at the top of the stairs when the boy is
coming up out of the underground cavern, and will not let him out, unless
he first gives up the treasure. But Aladdin refused to give up his lamp
until he should stand safe on the ground again, because he guessed that
if he did, his uncle would shut him up in the cavern and leave him to die
there; and the look in the turnkey's eyes made me refuse to hand him the
jewel till I was safe out of the well, for a horrible fear seized me
that, as soon as he had taken it from me, he meant to let me fall down
and drown below.

So when he reached down his hand and said, 'Give me the treasure,' I
answered, 'Pull me up then; I cannot show it you in the bucket.'

'Nay, lad,' he said, cozening me, 'tis safer to give it me now, and have
both hands free to help you getting out; these stones are wet and greasy,
and you may chance to slip, and having no hand to save you, fall back in
the well.'

But I was not to be cheated, and said again sturdily, 'No, you must pull