I do not say that these forebodings were without effect on me, but I had made up my mind that, bad as it might be to go down, it was yet worse to have Master Elzevir prisoned in the well, and I remain above.

Thus the turnkey perceived at last that he was speaking to deaf ears, and turned to the business.
Yet there was one fear that still held me, for thinking of what I had heard of the quarry shafts in Purbeck, how men had gone down to explore, and there been taken with a sudden giddiness, and never lived to tell what they had seen; and so I said to Master Elzevir, 'Art sure the well is clean, and that no deadly gases lurk below ?' 'Thou mayst be sure I knew the well was sweet before I let thee talk of going down,' he answered.

'For yesterday we lowered a candle to the water, and the flame burned bright and steady; and where the candle lives, there man lives too.

But thou art right: these gases change from day to day, and we will try the thing again.

So bring the candle, Master Jailer.' The jailer brought a candle fixed on a wooden triangle, which he was wont to show strangers who came to see the well, and lowered it on a string.
It was not till then I knew what a task I had before me, for looking over the parapet, and taking care not to lose my balance, because the parapet was low, and the floor round it green and slippery with water-splashings, I watched the candle sink into that cavernous depth, and from a bright flame turn into a little twinkling star, and then to a mere point of light.