He stumbled and fell, and in the white flash of falling knew he hurt himself again, and that he was falling forever.
[CHAPTER XXII]
THE FIND
I
The subconscious self woke first, roaring in distant wave-beats, unintelligible, unmeaning, persistent, and growing in volume. It had something to do with birth. And not having died. "I have not let my soul run like water out of my mouth."
And as the roaring and beating of the waves increased in volume, tiny little words emerged like flying-fish out of the black ocean of consciousness. "Ye must be born again," in little silvery, twinkling spurts like flying-fish which twinkle silver and spark into the utterly dark sea again. They were gone and forgotten before they were realised. They had merged deep in the sea again. And the roar of dark consciousness was the roar of death. The kingdom of death. And the lords of death.
"Ye must be born again." But the twinkling words had disappeared into the lordly powerful darkness of death. And the baptism is the blackness of death between the eyes, that never lifts, forever, neither in life nor death. You may be born again. But when you emerge, this time you emerge with the darkness of death between your eyes, as a lord of death.
The waves of dark consciousness surged in a huge billow, and broke. The boy's eyes were wide open, and his voice was saying:
"Is that you, Tom!"
The sound of his voice paperily rustling these words was so surprising to him that he instantly went dark again. He heard no answer.