There, upon a floor of
darkness, I beheld a certain pattern of hazy lights, some of them
aligned as in thoroughfares, others standing apart as in solitary
houses; and before I could well realise it, or had in the least
estimated my distance, a wave of nausea and vertigo warned me to
lie back and close my eyes. In this situation I had really but the
one wish, and that was: something else to think of! Strange to
say, I got it: a veil was torn from my mind, and I saw what a fool
I was--what fools we had all been--and that I had no business to be
thus dangling between earth and heaven by my arms. The only thing
to have done was to have attached me to a rope and lowered me, and
I had never the wit to see it till that moment!
I filled my lungs, got a good hold on my rope, and once more
launched myself on the descent. As it chanced, the worst of the
danger was at an end, and I was so fortunate as to be never again
exposed to any violent concussion. Soon after I must have passed
within a little distance of a bush of wallflower, for the scent of
it came over me with that impression of reality which characterises
scents in darkness. This made me a second landmark, the ledge
being my first. I began accordingly to compute intervals of time:
so much to the ledge, so much again to the wallflower, so much more
below.
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