He struck the ground, but it crumbled beneath him, and he felt himself slipping and sliding down a steep gravel bank until finally some sort of a projection stopped his descent. To this projection he frantically clung. During his slide he had heard the loud splash of the airplane below him, so he knew that there was water there. As he hung to the projection on the side of the steep sand bank, he looked about him in the jet black night; and, as he looked, he noticed the edge of the bank above him, just showing against the sky. The edge became more and more distinct. The sky above turned to slate, then purple, then red, then pink, then silver. Day had come once more. Cabot found himself clinging to a sharp spur of rock which stuck out from the bank. So he hauled himself into a comfortable position upon it and stared around at his surroundings. His location was halfway down the precipitous side of a craterlike hole about a quarter of a stad in diameter and three parastads deep, the banks of which were of coarse black sand. At the bottom a clear pool of water reflected the silver sky. There was no sign of either his rifle, his cartridge belt, or his plane. He possessed nothing save his leather tunic, his wooden Vairking sword, a steel sheath knife which he had made in his foundries at Vairkingi, and the contents of his pockets. Even his leather helmet was gone. He espied it, floating like a little boat, far out upon the pond; but even as he looked, some denizen of the deep snapped at it, and it disappeared beneath the surface. This was a forewarning of what might happen to Myles if he should have the misfortune to slip into the pool below. Well, he must risk it in an attempt to get out, for even a sudden death beneath the waters was preferable to starvation on a rocky perch. So, carefully and laboriously, he attempted the ascent. Many times he slipped back, losing nearly all that he had gained; but fortunately the bank was rather firm in spots and was dotted with large jagged rocks which afforded a good handhold, so that eventually Myles reached the top. Here he found a flat plateau, flanked by a continuous hedge of bushes about thirty paces from the edge. These bushes were too high to see over, and grew so thickly together that Myles was unable to penetrate them. Round and round the top of the pit he walked, repeatedly trying to force his way out, but with no success. The day wore on. Myles became tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and disgusted. By placing a small pebble in his mouth, he relieved the thirst for awhile, but this had no effect on his other symptoms. Finally even his thirst returned. The thirst was aggravated by the presence, almost at his feet, of the clear pool of water within the pit. He almost decided to slide down and try it, until he remembered what had happened to his leather hat.