Were it not better to essay to return, and risk the headlong fall into that gulf, than to sit there in darkness, in solitude, till death by starvation came on him, and hear the slow ticking of the falling drops? What chance of rescue had he? True that he had sent word to his wife to meet him at the Ogofau--the caves, in the plural, not to seek for him in the one Ogof, in the singular, that was specially dreaded as the haunt of Gwen, and the place where slept the Five Saints. Would his wife think of seeking him therein? Could she possibly venture so far from the light? It was not credible. He tried to rise, but his limbs were stiff, and he shivered as with cold. Cautiously, with extended hands, he groped for the wall, and finally reached it. Then, passing them along, he felt his way towards the opening to the passage. But as to his direction, of that he knew nothing, could form no conjecture. While searching for his kindling tools, he had turned himself about and lost every inkling as to the course by which he had entered. After a while his right hand no longer encountered rock, and stepping sideways, he held with his left hand to the wall and stretched forth the right, but felt nothing. Letting go, but with reluctance, he moved another step sideways and now touched rock again. He had found the passage, and he took a few steps down it, drawing his hand along the side. He put forth the right foot, feeling the floor lest he should come unawares on the chasm. So he crept on, but whether he were going forward in a straight line or was describing a curve, he did not know. His brain was in a whirl. Then he struck his head against a prong of rock that descended from above, and reeled back and fell. For a while, without being completely stunned, he lay in half consciousness. His desperate condition filled him with horror. What if he did find his way to the ledge of the well? Could he leap it? If he made the attempt, he did not know in which direction to spring; he might bound, dash himself against the rock, and go reeling down into the gulf. But even to make such a leap he must take a few strides to acquire sufficient impetus. How measure his strides in the pitch darkness? How be sure that he did not leap too precipitately and not land at all, but go down whirling into the depths? And there was something inexpressibly hideous in the thought of lying dead below, sopping in water at the bottom of that abyss--sopping till his flesh parted from the bones, away from the light, his fate unknown to his wife, his carcass there to lie till Doomsday.