It was still early morning, and the tide was coming in. There might just be keel-way for a boat, I thought, to steer in through the channel. If I were quick I might be in time to see a boat enter or row away; so I made no circuits in my route this day but took the shortest path I knew. But I did throw one sop to make-believe, carrying my knife in my mouth. And the result was, clambering down the cliff with too little regard to safe footing I slipped on a rock just above the pool, and being child enough to exclaim at the slight twist it gave to my ankle, the knife fell from my mouth, and I watched it strike on a ledge and splash into the water. I knew it was deep where the knife had fallen, and quickly slipping off my clothes I dived in to recover it. I thought it would be an easy matter, but three times I rose unsuccessfully to the surface. I crawled out to regain my breath, and noticed that the current had carried me away from the spot close in to the very edge of the cliff. I reasoned that that explained my failure, and when my breath was sufficiently restored I plunged in again, but this time farther out to allow for drift. Even so I had to grope along the bottom of the pool till my breath was nearly exhausted before my hand touched the knife, buried in the sand almost up to the hilt. I tugged it free, and made for the surface, but the water grew strangely dark around me, and my head came crack against a rock. I struggled desperately, for my lungs were bursting, but I seemed to be imprisoned beneath an immovable roof. I tried to reason out my position, how I had come there, and which was the right way to turn. I remembered how the current had carried me towards the cliff, and in a dim, distracted sort of way knew quite well that all I had to do was to push out and up. But though I knew quite well what to do, an unreasonable panic had control of my limbs, and I kicked and beat frenziedly against my prison, while a voice seemed to be saying to me from far away, "Keep cool, Tommy; always keep cool." I was in an agony, knowing myself in the grip of a stupid terror, when deliverance lay in calmness; but I couldn't shake off the terror, and my temples were hammering and my ears throbbing. And suddenly there seemed to be only water about me again, and lashing out with arms and legs I found myself at the surface gulping in the air with great choking sobs. Mechanically I trod water till I could regain my breath, and only gradually it dawned upon me that it was strange that all about me should be pitch dark. I rubbed the water out of my eyes, I tried to remember whether I had been bathing at night-time, for I was still confused. Then growing a little clearer in mind I told myself it was the blood that had rushed to my head, and I should soon be able to see again. But still everything was dark around me, and the realization that it actually was so came like a shock. Where was I?