The distance ahead _might_ be less,--it seemed my one hope. (It was actually much longer, if I estimate correctly how far I had then gone.) Anyway, it would be uphill back, and that would defeat my speed, and I supposed that the creatures might be more alert after I had disturbed them. I wondered if I could tap the ground in front of me and cut them down, one by one, as they pushed upward. But I had had no food for many hours, and I was already conscious of exhaustion. Water I could have, and I drank again, after cooling it. I thought of wading in the central stream, but even could I have kept my feet in that swift smooth current I supposed that the heat would be unendurable. And then came a thought which animated me with a fresh hope. Could I leap to the other side? It seemed too broad to be possible,--and I could get no run for the jump, unless I took it at a slant, which would make it longer. I had no more than space to stand upright for about a yard from the water’s edge. I could step two paces back if I crouched. The sand had become quiet now. I would go forward while I could, and try the leap when the need grew urgent. Was it wise to wait till I should be again too exhausted to try it? On an impulse I leapt. In the nervous fear of falling into the stream I leapt too far, and my head struck the opposite wall, though not severely. There was no relief on this side. The jar with which I struck the ground roused my enemies with such celerity that I barely escaped them. As I ran I thought I had gained nothing, till I realised that if I were hard pressed I could always win a moment’s freedom, or a fresh start, if I jumped again. It was not much, but it was something. Of the rest of that passage I do not wish to write in detail. I do not wish to recall it. It is enough that the time came when a point of light showed in the distance, and when I staggered into the daylight. Of the scene that lay before me, I was not clearly conscious. I was at the utmost point of fatigue of nerve and body. I lay down and slept till the day,--which now covered a period of more than four times that to which I was accustomed,--was sinking toward sunset. CHAPTER X THE AMPHIBIANS