nge into darkness and invisible water was a
trial to my nerves the like of which I had never suffered. After
they had pulled his Lordship out of the grave, and I knew there
would be no more fighting, I began to feel the strain he had put
upon me. He was not so strong as D'ri, but I had never stood
before a quicker man. His blade was as full of life and cunning as
a cat's paw, and he tired me. When I went under water I felt sure
it was all over, for I was sick and faint. I had been thinking of
D'ri in that quick descent. I wondered if he was the man who had
got away and gone down the slide. I was not the less amazed,
however, to feel his strong hand upon me as I came up. I knew
nothing for a time. D'ri has told me often how he bore me up in
rapid water until he came into an eddy where he could touch bottom.
There, presently, I got back my senses and stood leaning on his
broad shoulder awhile. A wind was blowing, and we could hear a
boat jumping in the ripples near by. We could see nothing, it was
so dark, but D'ri left me, feeling his way slowly, and soon found
the boat. He whistled to me, and I made my way to him. There were
oars in the bottom of the boat. D'ri helped me in, where I lay
back with a mighty sense of relief. Then he hauled in a rope and
anchor, and shoved off. The boat, overrunning the flow in a
moment, shot away rapidly. I could feel it take headway as we
clove the murmuring waters. D'ri set the oars and helped it on. I
lay awhile thinking of all the blood and horror in that black
night--like a dream of evil that leads through dim regions of
silence into the shadow of death. I thought of the hinted peril of
the slide that was to be the punishment of poor courage.

D'ri had a plausible theory of the slide. He said that if we had
clung to the sides of it to break our speed we 'd have gone down
like a plummet and shattered our bones on a rocky shore. Coming
fast, our bodies leaped far into the air and fell to deep water.
How long I lay there thinking, as I rested, I have no satisfactory
notion. Louise and Louison came into my thoughts, and a plan of
rescue. A rush of cavalry and reeking swords, a dash for the
boats, with a flying horse under each fair lady, were in that
moving vision. But where should we find them? for I knew not the
name of that country out of which we had come by ways of darkness
and peril. The old query came to me, If I had to choose between
them, which should