And now Mildmay began to realise the serious character of the extraordinary plight in which he thus unexpectedly found himself involved. For it now flashed upon him that, in the astonishment following upon his seizure, he had failed to raise any outcry, with the object of making his friends acquainted with his predicament; indeed, he had been so fully occupied in struggling to free himself from the fettering embrace of his enemy that it had not occurred to him to cry out until it had become altogether too late to make his voice heard; and he now found himself thrust, how deep he knew not, into this submarine cave, but certainly much too far for his voice to reach those outside and bring them to his assistance. And, meanwhile, the octopus still held him in so tenacious a grip that he found it absolutely impossible to free his hands and so get at his two-bladed, electric dagger, with which, as he believed, he could make short work of his antagonist; indeed, every time that he made the slightest attempt to move his limbs, he felt the tentacles still further strengthen their grip upon him. And now that he had time to think of it, he became conscious of the fact that he was feeling pretty completely exhausted by his previous struggles and the extreme violence with which he had been dragged hither and thither in his passage from the wrecked ship's cuddy to the cave. He was bruised and aching in every joint of his body, and was, furthermore, suffering severely from cramp due to the constraint upon his limbs. How was he to effect his escape? His friends outside could not help him, for the simple reason that they did not know his whereabouts. Doubtless they were by this time beginning to feel uneasy about him-- were, perhaps, even instituting a search for him; but such a search as they were likely to make would not benefit him, for the utmost that they could ascertain would be that, after entering the cuddy, he had most mysteriously and unaccountably disappeared. For he was well aware that there was absolutely nothing to show which way he had gone; more than that, he had gone by a way that would have been absolutely impossible to his own unaided efforts. No, he told himself, it was quite useless to look for help from the others; whatever was to be done he himself must do.