And now, strange to say, although I had accomplished the journey through the earth three times with entire safety, I shrank with dread from the thought of jumping once more in the dark hole beneath. I suppose the trials which I had just endured had unstrung my nerves, and that the solemn hour of the night made the leap seem all the more fearful. And yet _through I must go_. China was not the place for me to remain in any longer; and so I stepped down some two or three feet into the cavity, and stood upon a little projection of rock, feeling that it would require less effort to drop from this place downward than to leap from the surface. Seizing the projecting rock with my hands, I then let go, and down I went. It was a relief to find that I was now fairly under way; and when, after the lapse of a few hours, I began to see daylight brightening around me, I thought that all my cares were about to end. Brighter and brighter it grew, and I had almost reached the edge of the hole, when, to my horror, I found that the motion of my body was ceasing altogether. Could it be that I had made a fatal mistake in dropping from that inner ledge on the other side, instead of jumping boldly from the surface? It must be so. Oh, what a fool I was! I might have known that the projectile power would not be sufficient to take me clear through! What will become of me? For, at this moment, I felt myself beginning to sink back again into the bowels of the earth. And there through the long, long hours, I swung backwards and forwards like an enormous pendulum,--every time that I rose and fell, with a shorter and shorter range,--until I stopped in equilibrium at the centre of the earth. The sensation of absolute rest was more terrible than motion. There I was alive, buried deeper than any other being ever was before. Was there any possible way in which I could extricate myself? I now made a great effort to collect my thoughts, and give to this question careful consideration. At last, a bright idea came into my mind. CHAPTER III. HOW JOHN WHOPPER GOT CAUGHT IN THE EARTH, AND THEN GOT OUT AGAIN.