He squeezed the edge of the ledge with his two knees, as if he were riding a horse. With the tips of all his fingers he gripped every slight irregularity of the surface of the rock. He devoted every effort to pull himself ashore, but the slimy ophidian pulled just a little more strongly than he.
Gradually, an inch at a time, he was dragged back toward the water, until finally his right leg slid off the edge of the ledge, with both legs in the water.
The hauling on his left ankle continued; and, to make matters worse, a similar attachment now fastened itself upon his other ankle as well. With this added enemy, his movement backward and downward now became more rapid. But just then his slipping fingers slid into a crack in the rock, where they were able to take a firm hold. The tables were turned, as the man began slowly to pull himself once more onto the rock.
Inch by inch Cabot regained the ground which he had lost, until with a mighty effort he was able to swing his right leg back onto the ledge again. But with it came the creature of the deeps. How large this creature was, or how long it was, or just what sort of a beast it was, he was unable to tell. But, whatever it was, it now anchored itself somewhere on the shore, and there resumed its pulling, so that for the present at least it constituted an ally for the earthman, who with the aid of this new anchorage, was soon able to roll over onto his right side, thus dragging his left leg and the second aquatic creature up onto the rock.
But, even though he was fully ashore, what good did it do him? For his two enemies seemed as much at home on land as in the water, and even with his hands now free to ward them off, they still had him pretty much at their mercy, for he must needs be very careful lest he roll back again into the river. Gradually these two slimy beasts entwined themselves upward around his body, in spite of all his efforts to hold them back.
Thus battled Myles Cabot, the Minorian, against fearful odds, in pitch darkness, on a narrow ledge overhanging the stygian stream of the Caves of Kar.
He had traveled a thousand stads, and had encountered every kind of a danger, from ant to ant-bear, on the way. He had swum Lake Luno amid the rifle fire of the enemy, only to find his castle sacked, his princess gone, and his baby slain. He knew not how fared his princess or his army. He had been burned out of the woods north of Luno, and had been nearly strangled beneath the waters of the lost river. He had been attacked by pterodactyls and other strange reptiles.
And now he was battling alone and for his life against two powerful and unknown beasts, all in the absolute black darkness of a reverberating cave. Who would ever know, or care, the outcome of that battle?
And yet he never for an instant thought of giving up the struggle. Such was the unconquerable will that had led to the adoption of Poblath’s proverb: “You cannot kill a Minorian.”