The Sixty-Five
door and the garden wall between the two houses. As it was, the men at the top would not be able to get a straight pull on the rope, and would have to stand back in the room without being able to see the ladder, while the rope would have to be drawn round the corner of the window, rasping against the edge of the stone sill and the brickwork.
Crass and Harlow now stood on the foot and the other three raised the top from the ground. As Easton was the tallest he took the middle position, underneath, grasping the rungs, Philpot being on his left and Bundy on his right, each holding one side of the ladder.
At a signal from Crass, Dawson and Sawkins began to haul on the rope, and the top of the ladder rose slowly in the air.
The fact that Philpot was not of much use at this work made it all the harder for the other two who were lifting, besides putting an extra strain on the rope. His lack of strength and the efforts of Easton and Bundy to make up for him caused the ladder to sway from side to side.
Meanwhile, upstairs, Dawson and Sawkins, although the ladder was as yet only a little more than halfway up, noticed, as they hauled and strained on the rope, that it had worn a groove for itself in the corner of the brickwork at the side of the window; and every now and then, although they pulled with all their strength, they were not able to draw in any part of the rope at all, and it seemed to them as if those others down below must have either let go their hold altogether or ceased lifting.
That was what actually happened. The three men found the weight so overpowering that once or twice they were compelled to relax their efforts for a few seconds, and at those times the rope had to carry the whole weight of the ladder; and the part of the rope that had to bear the greatest strain was the particular part that chanced to be at the angle of the brickwork at the side of the window. And presently it happened that one of the frayed and worn places that Dawson had remarked was just at the angle during one of those momentary pauses. On one end of the rope there hung the ponderous ladder, straining the frayed part against the corner of the brickwork and the sharp edge of the stone sill, at the other end were Dawson and Sawkins, pulling with all their strength, and next instant the rope snapped like a piece of
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