I took off my boots, and knew that the operation was final. A sole already tied with string on the previous day, was now entirely loose. The other was scarcely better. The uppers were leaving me by successive details. My socks--what was left of them--were clotted with dirt and blood. My companion watched the gradual revelation with amused and lively eyes, but she hid her thoughts from me as it proceeded. In the end, public opinion was too strong for me. All my life I had made myself grotesque in the ugliest garments by which the human form can be hidden, because my fellow-men required it. Here I was conscious of a different verdict, and the slave crouched instinctively to the crack of a new whip. On a sudden impulse, I resolved to leave them. I wrapped my small possessions in my waistcoat, which was still a fairly sound garment. I tied it securely. Then I threaded a piece of cord through the button-holes, which I fastened round my waist, so that the little parcel could be easily carried behind me. I made of the boots and other garments a bundle which I resolved to sink in the lake, so that there should be no sign left of our presence, and we dived into the water together. The lake was smooth, and the water was not too cold to be pleasant. It became clear and very deep as we left the bank behind us. I swam strongly at first, rejoicing in the morning freshness of sun and air and water, and buoyed by the exhilaration of my companion’s mind. But a time came when I looked with doubt at the distance of the wooded headland which we had agreed to make our objective. The shore was far off, but yet I seemed to have made no progress to the one before us. My comrade swam beneath, but not closely. In the delight of her recovered element she dived and rose, and swam beneath and round me, with a speed and ease that did nothing to encourage me to satisfaction with my clumsier efforts. I had a strong desire to call on her for the vitality of which I was learning to rely too absolutely, but against this I fought with a stubborn wish to show her that I was not entirely incapable, even in an unfamiliar element. For a moment she stayed quietly beside me, sliding through the water at the same pace as myself, but without apparent effort, while she rose sufficiently to view the scene around her. “Look back,” she suggested suddenly, and I changed a stroke which was becoming wearier than I was willing to recognise, so that I might turn my eyes to the distant heights behind us. I searched them, but could see nothing of a new interest. Once I thought that there was a flicker of flame on the hillside, but it was too minute and far off for any certainty, and the next moment I had lost it entirely. “I’m afraid your sight is not much use, even in daylight,” she considered, “but please swim as low as you are able, for the Dwellers may not be equally deficient.