But while I remained rooted there in ecstatic contemplation, filled with wonder at the paradox of beholding the stars thousands of feet beneath the sea, there occurred one of those changes by which occasionally a beautiful dream becomes distorted into a nightmare. Imagine the consternation of one who, while gazing at the cloudless night-skies, finds blackness suddenly sweeping all about him--a blackness that has quenched the stars as a storm might quench a candle flame. Such consternation was ours, and even greater horror, for without so much as a flicker of warning, the lights of the seeming heavens flashed out, and darkness stretched above us and all about us, a darkness so all-consuming that not even a shadow remained. With half-suppressed cries of terror, Rawson and I turned to one another, each totally invisible in the blank night; and before we had had time for coherent speech, there came a rattling and a slamming from behind us, and we knew that the one possible exit had been closed and that we were prisoners in this unknown place. CHAPTER VII Trapped For a moment we were like rats newly trapped. All trace of reason left us in our sudden furious terror; we began to scurry blindly to and fro, to and fro in the darkness, panic-stricken in our frenzy to escape. Where we were dashing we did not know, nor whether we might not be rushing into greater peril still; we collided more than once with the unseen walls, stumbled over invisible objects on the floor, and went fumbling about in long loops and circles--but all to no avail. The marvel is not that we accomplished nothing, but that we did not break our necks, for so utterly fear-maddened were we that it was minutes before we had any thought of ceasing our mad perambulations and considering our predicament calmly and rationally. If I can judge aright from my confused memories of those terrible moments, it was the sound of a heavy body falling that shocked me back to my senses. The fall, which was thudding and resonant, was accompanied by a suppressed oath, which seemed to issue from far to my rear, but which none the less sounded familiar. “Rawson!” I cried, stopping short, and forgetting caution in my alarm. “Are you hurt?” “No, I’m not hurt,” came the drawled reply, as though from a tremendous distance. And then, after a groan, “No, I’m all right.” “Where are you?” I yelled back. “How can I get to you?” Rawson shouted directions, and I went groping toward him. The process was by no means easy, for I was guided wholly by the senses of touch and hearing, and more than once I came into painful contact with some unforeseen obstacle. But after some minutes I found myself grasping a solid, yielding mass which I recognized as the arm of my friend.