“Nothing.” I said; and I wiped it against my robe.
We tried to plan what we should do. Could we cross the cave? The Maagog girl was still down there, near the platform, with eyes alert to everything around her—eyes that still smouldered with hate and jealous rage. No. To enter the cave would be to court almost certain discovery. We would have to retrace our way—find some other tunnel to lead us out into the open water.
We were starting back, had gone perhaps a hundred yards, when far ahead of us down the narrow passageway, we heard sounds. Yelps! Cries! Whines! Not human—the cries of those squat fishes with their huge slimy jaws!
Panic seized us. We darted back toward the cave. Then forward again, trying to find a side tunnel. But along here there was none.
The yelps grew louder; Og’s voice mingled with them. And then, before we could decide in which direction to go, like a pack of eager hounds following a trail and come at last upon their quarry the black fishes swept down upon us. I tried to fight them off—tried to protect Nona. But they darted about me, under me, over me, and gripped me from every side. Teeth like needles, ripping, tearing at my flesh. . . Og’s voice shouting a command. . . Caan screaming a warning at me. . . Then something heavy struck my head. Silence and blackness descended upon me.
I recovered consciousness to find myself lying in a bed of mud in a dim, cave-like room. My first sensation was one of heat; the water I was breathing was hot, stifling. My head throbbed.
Nona, Caan and Atar were gathered over me, waiting anxiously for me to recover my senses. Nona, hearing my weak voice, seeing my eyes open, threw herself down beside me.
I was not greatly injured. Og had struck me on the head with the flat of his spear. It had cut my scalp and raised an ugly lump. Besides that, the flesh of my legs, arms and shoulders was torn by those fishes’ teeth as if by needles.
The plight of Caan, Atar, and even my dear Nona, was similar—but with none of us was it serious.