Although Lewis didn’t have far to walk, the heat, the wind and the stinging sand scoured him like sandpaper. Desperately he stumbled on, quite unable to believe that this was actually happening to him. He managed to stiffen his resolve for a while by pretending that he was one of the heroes in his comic books but fear overtook him when he realized he was nearly exhausted and wouldn’t be able to go much further.
It was then that the old, worn stones of the huge well at Al Antara loomed before him and he sobbed with relief as his hands clutched thankfully at its rim. Water! He could smell it and was so thirsty that he could think of nothing else.
The water in the well was sweet, he knew, for the Arabs had offered him some to drink when he’d visited the oasis with his parents, a while back. It had been cold and delicious, and his mouth was so dry that he could hardly wait to taste it again. Confidently, he looked up through the gloom to the rickety, pulley-like affair that held the bucket and bit his lip in dismay as, amid the swirling sand of the storm, he saw a tangle of wreckage that sprawled crazily over one side of the well. It had been blown down by the force of the wind and although he grasped one of the wooden supports and tried to lift it, he found it surprisingly heavy. Even if I could manage to pull it up, he thought despairingly, the storm would probably just blow it over again.
There was, however, another way to get to the water; a more dangerous way. He looked over the edge of the well and there it was — a flight of stone steps that curved down its inner wall into the gloom. His parents, of course, had not allowed him to climb down the well but he’d often watched the Arabs clambering up and down if the bucket had stuck or the ropes got tangled. He didn’t give himself time to think. He knew he had to get down to the water, for never before had he had such a raging thirst. Swiftly, he swung his leg over the top and balanced himself shakily on the first of the steps that curved down in a gentle spiral towards the water. He knew he had to be quick. Daylight was starting to fade and in the desert, darkness falls swiftly.
He took the torch from his pocket and flicked the light on the worn steps that jutted out from the wall. Fortunately, the well was wide and the steps broad enough to give him a welcome sense of security. Thank goodness his mother couldn’t see him now, he thought, as he started downwards. She’d totally freak!
Despite the desert heat, the air in the well was cool and moist. He breathed it in gratefully as he followed the staircase down, but as he went further and further into the depths, the walls seemed to close in on him and at one stage he wondered if he’d ever reach the bottom. The torchlight, however, gave him confidence and eventually he reached the last step where a wide ledge gave onto a pool of dark water that lapped softly against the steep walls that encircled it. The well, he thought, must be fed by a spring of some sort, for the pool looked deep.
It was a strange feeling, being at the bottom of the well and he shivered slightly as he looked up at the far-away circle of dim light above his head. The distant noise of the storm echoed eerily down the shaft and as he flashed his torch over the water, he knew instinctively that this was an ancient place … perhaps as old as time itself.
Although he hadn’t consciously thought about it, Lewis had meant to kneel at the edge of the water and drink from his cupped hands. Instead, he found himself sliding forward so that he lay stretched out over the worn, old stones at the water’s edge. However, even as he leant forward and plunged his face into the pool, he thought he saw a movement below the surface, the glimpse of a face that wasn’t his and a swirl of water that bubbled and surged triumphantly around him. There was something in the pool!
He scrambled to his feet in panic, backing away from the edge, his breath coming in fearful, heaving gasps. He pushed a lock of wet hair from his face and stared at the rippling water in horror, wondering what nameless monster lurked in its depths.
Nothing, however, happened and as the pool returned to normal, his heart gradually stopped thumping. Nevertheless, he looked around fearfully, wondering what to do next. The trouble was that he was still thirsty for he hadn’t had time to drink more than a mouthful. Dare he risk it? He moved forward and, kneeling down, slapped the surface of the water with the flat of his hand.
Nothing stirred and he relaxed as common sense told him that it could just have been his own reflection that he’d seen — and if the well was, indeed, fed by an underground spring then there was probably nothing strange in the upward surge of bubbles. Warily, he leant forward again, ready to throw himself backwards should he see anything. But there was nothing and he dipped his cupped hands into the water time after time until he could drink no more.