The bucket drew slowly up and up and up and passed from the silver dome into the dark shaft above. Lucy looked up. Yes, it was daylight that showed at the top of the shaft, and the rope was drawing her up towards it. Suppose the rope broke? Brenda was quite quiet now. She said afterwards that she must have fainted. And now the light was nearer and nearer. Now Lucy was in it, for the bucket had been drawn right up, and hands were reached out to draw it over the side of what seemed like a well. At that moment Lucy saw in a flash what might happen if the owners of the hands, in their surprise, let go the bucket and the windlass. She caught Brenda in her hands and threw the dog out on to the dry ground, and threw herself across the well parapet. Just in time, for a shout of surprise went up and the bucket went down, clanging against the well sides. The hands _had_ let go. Lucy clambered over the well side slowly, and when her feet stood on firm ground she saw that the hands were winding up the bucket again, and that it came very easily. 'Oh, don't!' she said. 'Let it go right down! There are some more people down there.' 'Sorry, but it's against the rules. The bucket only goes down this well forty times a day. And that was the fortieth time.' They pulled the bucket in and banged down the lid of the well. Some one padlocked it and put the key in his pocket. And Lucy and he stood facing each other. He was a little round-headed man in a curious stiff red tunic, and there was something about the general shape of him and his tunic which reminded Lucy of something, only she could not remember what. Behind him stood two others, also red-tunicked and round-headed. [Illustration: Lucy threw herself across the well parapet.] Brenda crouched at Lucy's feet and whined softly, and Lucy waited for the strangers to speak. 'You shouldn't do that,' said the red-tunicked man at last, 'it was a great shock to us, your bobbing up as you did. It will keep us awake at night, just remembering it.' 'I'm sorry,' said Lucy. 'You should always come into strange towns by the front gate,' said the man; 'try to remember that, will you? Good-night.' 'But you're not going off like this,' said Lucy. 'Let me write a note and drop it down to the others. Have you a bit of pencil, and paper?' 'No,' said the strange people, staring at her. 'Haven't you anything I can write on?' Lucy asked them. 'There's nothing here but pine-apples,' said one of them at last. So she cut a pine-apple from among the hundreds that grew among the rocks near by, and carved 'WAIT' on it with her penknife. 'Now,' she said, 'open that well lid.' 'It's as much as our lives are worth,' said the leader. 'No it isn't,' said Lucy; 'there's no law against dropping pine-apples into the well. You know there isn't. It isn't like drawing water. And if you don't I shall set my little dog at you. She is very fierce.' Brenda was so flattered that she showed her teeth and growled.