“Only sore, with the rope cutting me.”
“Nay, but I mean when you fell down the shaft. Did you hit yourself again’ the sides?”
“No. It was very horrible, though. One moment I was turning slowly round and round and the next I was losing all the light; the rope slipped from round me and I was going down, down into the darkness. It was as if it lasted ever so long. Then there was a splash, the water was roaring in my ears, and I felt as if I were being dragged down lower and lower, till all at once my head shot up again. I never once felt as if I was coming up.”
“How queer!” exclaimed Joe, who stood listening with his face all wrinkled over. “Didn’t you feel, when you’d got as low as you went, that you were going up again?”
“No, not in the least. It was all confused like and strange, and I hardly knew anything till I was at the surface, and then I began to strike out, and swam along the sides of the slimy stones, trying to get a grip of them, but my hands kept slipping off.”
“But you didn’t halloa!” said Joe.
“No,” continued Gwyn, still speaking in the same grave, subdued way, as if still suffering from the shock of all he had gone through. “I didn’t shout; I felt stunned like, as if I’d been hit on the head.”
“You must have been,” cried Joe. “You hit yourself against the side.”
“No, if I had it would have killed me. I can’t explain it. Perhaps it was striking on the water.”
“Nonsense; water’s too soft to hurt you. But go on; what did you do then?”