d slowly to be coming back to
the rest of me. My head was no longer isolated. It was part of a heavy
something that lay inert on the ground, and was beginning to feel
numbly--to ache dully. Then I found that I could move one of my legs,
then the other, and eventually, with a mighty effort, I could almost
raise myself. But, for the moment, I had to fall back.

The remembrance of what had happened began to grow in force and keenness
and, of a sudden, the thought of Calypso smote me like a sword! Spurred
to desperate effort, I stood up on the instant and leaned against a
rocky wall. Miracle of miracles! I could stand. I was not dead, after
all. I was not, indeed, so far as I could tell, seriously hurt. Badly
bruised, of course--but no bones broken. It seemed incredible, but it
was so. The realisation made me feel weak again, and I sat down with my
back propped up against the rock, and waited for more strength.

Slowly my thoughts fumbled around the situation. Then, as by force of
habit, my hand went to my pocket. God be praised! I had matches, and I
cried with thankfulness, out of very weakness. But I still sat on in the
dark for a while. I felt very tired. After thinking about it for a long
time, I took out my precious match-box, which unconsciously I had been
hugging with my hand, and struck a light, looking about me in a dazed
fashion. The match burnt down to my fingers, and I threw it away, as the
flame stung me. I had seen something of my surroundings, enough to last
my tired brain for a minute or two. I was at the bottom of a sort of
crevasse, a narrow cleft in the rocks which continued on in a slanting
downward chasm into the darkness. It was a natural corridor, with a
floor of white sand. The sand had accounted for my coming off without
any broken bones.

After another minute or two, I struck another match, and lo! another
miracle. There was my lantern lying beside me. The glass of it was
broken, but that was no matter. As I lit the wick, my hopes leapt up
with the flame. At the worst, I had light.

"_Lux in tenebris!_" I seemed to hear the voice of the
"King"--inextinguishably gay; and, at the thought of him, my inertia
passed. What could he be thinking? His daughter spirited away, and now I
too mysteriously vanished. What was happening up there, all this time?
Up there! How far was it to "up there"? How far had I fallen? All about
me was so terribly still and shut away. I could believe myself at the
very cent