ng had
happened to him, when he shouted to me to bring him up. So I fixed the
clutch, and set the donkey going in the tread-wheel; and the patient
drudge started on his round, recking nothing whether it was a bucket of
water he brought up, or a live man, or a dead man, while I looked over
the parapet, and waited with a cramping suspense to see whether Elzevir
would be alone, or have something with him. But when the bucket came in
sight there was only Elzevir in it, so I knew the turnkey had never come
to the top of the water again, and, indeed, there was but little chance
he should after that first knock. Elzevir said nothing to me, till I
spoke: 'Let us fling the jewel down the well after him, Master Block; it
was evilly come by, and will bring a curse with it.'

He hesitated for a moment while I half-hoped yet half-feared he was going
to do as I asked, but then said:

'No, no; thou art not fit to keep so precious a thing. Give it me. It is
thy treasure, and I will never touch penny of it; but fling it down the
well thou shalt not; for this man has lost his life for it, and we have
risked ours for it--ay, and may lose them for it too, perhaps.'

So I gave him the jewel.

CHAPTER 16

THE JEWEL

All that glisters is not gold--_Shakespeare_

There was the turnkey's belt lying on the floor, with the keys and
manacles fixed to it, just as it had failed and come off him at the fatal
moment. Elzevir picked it up, tried the keys till he found the right
one, and unlocked the door of the well-house.

'There are other locks to open before we get out,' I said.

'Ay,' he answered, 'but it is more than our life is worth to be seen with
these keys, so send them down the well, after their master.'

I took them back and flung them, belt and keys and handcuffs, clanking
down against the sides into the blackness and the hidden water at the
bottom. Then we took pail and hammer, brush and ropes, and turned our
backs upon that hateful place. There was the little court to cross before
we came to the doors of the banquet-hall. They were locked, but we
knocked until a guard opened them. He knew us for the plasterer-men, who
had passed an hour before, and only asked, 'Where is Ephraim?' meaning
the turnkey. 'He is stopping behind in the well-house,' Elzevir said, and
so we passed on through the hall, where the prisoners were making what
breakfast they might of odds and ends, with a savoury smell of cooking
and a great patter