That I didn’t go mad in that moment is still a wonder to me. I honestly believe that a brave man would have lost his reason, for he would have known he was beyond hope; only one of my senseless, unreasoning cowardice would have struggled still, stretching down with frantic fingers and clawing at the pipe beneath me. I had had no time to take breath before hitting the water; my mouth and nose were filling as my hands clawed at the pipe and found a ledge. I hauled with the strength of despair, and slid a little farther down the pipe; my fingers found another ledge and hauled again, but then my strength went and I found myself turning on my back. I was gulping water; the stifling agony in my throat was spreading to my chest; I beat feebly at the roof of the pipe, thinking Christ, Christ, don’t let me die, don’t let me die, but I am dying, I am—and as I felt my senses going I was dimly aware that my face was not against the pipe, but only my chest and body.

I can’t remember thinking clearly what this meant, but I know that my hands came up beside my face, which had in fact come out of the pipe’s end, and pushed punily at the stone that was imprisoning me. I must have thrust outwards, for I felt my body rasp slowly along the pipe as I tilted upwards. There was a dreadful roaring in my ears, and nothing but crimson before my eyes, but I could feel myself rising, rising, and I know a vague thought of floating up to heaven went through what remained of my consciousness. And then there was air on my face—cold, biting air—only for a second before the water enveloped me again. But half-dead as I was, my limbs must have answered to the knowledge, for my head came into the air again, and this time I thrashed feebly and kept it above the surface. My sight cleared, and there was a starry sky above me, with a huge, white cold moon, and I was spewing and retching on the surface of the Jotunsee.

Somehow I kept afloat while the agony in my chest subsided and my senses came back enough for me to realise that the water was freezing cold, and threatening to suck me down once more. Sobbing and belching water, I paddled feebly with my hands, and looked about me; to my right the lake stretched away forever, but there on my left, looming upwards, was the great rock of Jotunberg with its beautiful, welcoming, splendid castle. It was a bare twenty yards away; I struggled with all my strength, kicking out against the water, and by the grace of God the rock when I reached it was shelving. I got my head and shoulders on to it and clawed my way out, and then I lay, helpless as a baby, with my face on that blessed cold wet stone, and went into a dead faint.