I swam harder and faster, panic driven from the darkness. I couldn't wait to get out of the tightly lined edge's of the rocky tunnel. Just when I thought I had lost all vision of returning to the water' surface, I saw the flickering light that Corcoran and Fledgling must have seen previous to me. Hastening to the light, losing my breath, I came out of the hole and resurfaced hard and fast. Shooting strongly out of the water, with an explosion of breath, arms' in the air, I pushed up. I inhaled and felt my hole body return down into the water, my head going under, I pushed back my legs' and swam underwater, trying to reach out onto something solid.

As I reached out my hand I felt the cold hard surface of the wall that lined the water pool, struggling to get a grip, onto it, I felt myself going under again. Just then, as I was finding it difficult to resurface, a hand came down and pulled me hard out of the water.

Shuffling up onto the hard surface of land, Fledgling was there, standing straight over me. He didn't waste anytime, he took both of my hands, belly facing downwards and slid me into the side of the wall that towered above the pool. Embracing me with two arms under my chest, he lifted me up and helped me rest against the edge of the wall for a few minutes'. Breathing hard and silently coughing, I pushed my hands down and drew myself up straight against the hardness of the wall into a good sitting position. Fledgling knelt down beside me taking the sack from across my chest, he eased it over my head and dropped it lightly onto the floor next to me.

56.