As I grew calmer a certain interest mingled with my fear; I peered around, and dimly became aware of a faint green glow along the water. I began to swim about to find into what strange place I had stumbled, but the water seemed half choked with drift and refuse, and going wasn't easy. Weeds clung about my legs, sucking hatefully to my flesh, creeping like fingers furtively feeling along my naked body. The water seemed to be alive with slimy things reaching their tendrils hungrily out of the dark. If I moved slowly they slid about my throat, and if I splashed my way through they gripped viciously about my arms and feet. And all the while the green glow intensified along the water, and the floating things showed up vaguely luminous through the dark. It was with a gush of relief that at last I felt the bottom, and with a spasm of fear scrambled out of the infested pool, shuddering at the thought of what horrors lay concealed there; for my mind was full of stories I had heard of the devil-fish and other slow and evil monsters of the caves. For a while I could do nothing but hug myself into as small a space as possible, trembling and chattering with fright, my eyes intent upon the green and glowing water, expecting momently some clutching tentacle to rise and seize me. How long I should have remained so I don't know, for I was completely unstrung and had no power to move a finger to help myself; and the startled scurrying of creatures about my back and feet added to my horror. But my fear was lifted from me by a sound that might have added to it: I heard voices. And voices in that dark underworld, which seemed to have shut me right away from the light and air, were like a reassurance that I wasn't hopelessly entombed. I began to listen, but could only make out a low, indistinguishable droning which I couldn't locate. But the effort to locate it nerved me again, and I took control of myself and began to grope through the darkness towards the sound. I slipped often enough, but the voices became louder; and presently I noticed a wavering patch of yellow light against the green iridescence of the cavern. I made towards it, and I think it wasn't till this moment that I became aware by a cramp in my hand that all the while I had been tenaciously clinging to my knife. I was cheered to think that in the struggle under water and the scramble in the cave I hadn't dropped it. Soon the light was over my head and after a trial or two I succeeded in climbing to a secure perch where I could examine it. But putting up my face I was dazzled by the full glare of a lantern in my eyes, which had by now grown so used to the darkness that the phosphorescent glow of the rotting drift about me was bright enough to show me the rough outline of the rocks.