urning slowly
round and round and the next I was losing all the light; the rope
slipped from round me and I was going down, down into the darkness. It
was as if it lasted ever so long. Then there was a splash, the water
was roaring in my ears, and I felt as if I were being dragged down lower
and lower, till all at once my head shot up again. I never once felt as
if I was coming up."

"How queer!" exclaimed Joe, who stood listening with his face all
wrinkled over. "Didn't you feel, when you'd got as low as you went,
that you were going up again?"

"No, not in the least. It was all confused like and strange, and I
hardly knew anything till I was at the surface, and then I began to
strike out, and swam along the sides of the slimy stones, trying to get
a grip of them, but my hands kept slipping off."

"But you didn't halloa!" said Joe.

"No," continued Gwyn, still speaking in the same grave, subdued way, as
if still suffering from the shock of all he had gone through. "I didn't
shout; I felt stunned like, as if I'd been hit on the head."

"You must have been," cried Joe. "You hit yourself against the side."

"No, if I had it would have killed me. I can't explain it. Perhaps it
was striking on the water."

"Nonsense; water's too soft to hurt you. But go on; what did you do
then?"

"I hardly know, only that I kept on striking out, thinking how horribly
dark it must be and wondering whether there were any live things to come
at me; and then I hit my knee against the stones at the bottom."

"But you said it was deep."

"So it was in the shaft, but I must have swum into a passage where it
was quite shallow; and almost directly after I'd hit my knee my hands
touched the stones and I crawled out into the dark, and went on and on,
feeling afraid to go back because of the water."

"But why didn't you shout to us?" cried Joe, excitedly.

"I don't know. I suppose I couldn't. It was like being in a dream, and
I felt obliged to go crawling on. Then all of a sudden I began to feel
better, for I could see a faint light, and this made me try to stand up,
but I couldn't without hitting my head. But I could walk stooping like,
and I went on toward the pale light, which was almost like a star.
Directly after, I was there looking out of a square place like a window,
trying to find a way up or a way down, but the rocks stood out overhead,
and they were quite straight down below me, so I could do nothing but
shout,