I fled past the scene of our excavations, looking more haunted than ever in the flashing gleam of the lantern.  With an oath, I left them behind, as the accursed cause of all this evil; but I cannot have gone by them many yards when suddenly I felt the ground giving way beneath me with a violent jerk.  My arms went up in a wild effort to save myself, and then, in a panic of fright, I felt myself shooting downward, as one might fall down the shaft of a mine.  Vainly I clutched at rocky walls as I sped down in the earth-smelling darkness.  I seemed to be falling forever, and for a moment my head cleared and I had time to think of the crash that was coming, at the end of my fall—­a crash which, I said to myself, must mean death.  It came with sudden crunching pain, a swift tightening round my heart, as though black ropes were being lashed tightly about it, squeezing out my breath; then entire blackness engulfed me, and I knew no more.

* * * * *

How long I lay there in the darkness I cannot tell.  All I remember is my suddenly opening my eyes on intense blackness, and vaguely wondering where I was.  My head felt strangely clear and alive, but for a moment I could remember nothing.  I was conscious only of a strong earthy smell, and my eyes felt so keen that, as the phrase goes, they seemed to make darkness visible.  They seemed, too, to see themselves, as rings of light in the blackness.  My head, too, seemed entirely detached from my body, of which, so far, I was unconscious.  But, presently, the realisation of it returned, and involuntarily I tried to move—­to find, with a sort of indifferent mild surprise, that it was impossible.

So there I lay, oddly content, in the dark—­the pungent smell of the earth my only sensation, and my head uselessly clear.

Then, bit by bit, it all came back to me, like returning circulation in a numbed limb; but as yet dreamily, as something long ago and far away.  Then I found myself partly risen, leaning on my elbow, and looking about—­into nothingness.  Then feeling seemed 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.