"I took my dinner-pail, moved it forward, backward, this way and that, until at last I heard the drops falling in the tin.
"I was too thirsty to wait long. As soon as there was a teaspoonful of water in the pail, I moistened my tongue with it. That was a relief! I was able to hold out the tin pail, the next time, until there was a reasonable drink.
"Ugh, it was bitter! It tasted coppery and twisted up my mouth, but it was liquid, at least. After I had a drink or two, I felt better. My scare passed away.
"Then I began to think a bit. If water was dropping as quickly as that, it must be running somewhere. But where? I got down on my hands and knees and began to feel along the floor. Here it was damp; there, dry. I crawled along for a few minutes, following the line of the damp floor, and, sure enough, came to a hollow where a good-sized puddle had collected. There I was able to half-fill the pail.
"So far, I was all right. I'd found the water. But how was I to get back to Anton? And where was Jim, if he were still alive? I hadn't any idea, any more, of which way to turn.
"Then I got a scheme. Suppose I just walked straight ahead, keeping my right hand against the wall, and turning to the right at every opening I came to? I knew that we were hemmed in at every point. Therefore, I figured, we must be inside some kind of an irregular circle. The place where we had made our beds was in the room where I had been working, which was in the end gallery, and, at that rate, somewhere on the circumference of that circle. If I kept on going, long enough, I'd be bound to strike the place.
"Off I started with the pail half-full of water. I walked, in and out, up one gallery and down another, coming back to the rock falls which had blocked the way, and on again. I tried to count my paces, and, though I forgot sometimes, I figured that I'd done about seven thousand paces when I heard, faintly:
"'Tap! Tap! Tap!'
"It seemed to come from behind me.
"I wasn't to be fooled by the echoes, though, and so I kept on as I had been going. Just a little further and I turned a corner and came to the place where we had made our beds.