Then I began to
try to crawl up over him. I found it far harder than either of us had
anticipated.
All slippery as we were with the foul ooze it was a fearful struggle for
me to scramble up over him, I slipped back so often. After what seemed an
hour of effort and apprehension I had my head, shoulders and most of my
body in the drain and knew I had succeeded. I wriggled forward till I felt
my feet beyond the opening, then about as far ahead, pushing before me the
cylinders. When Agathemer touched my foot I pushed a cylinder past my body
and felt, with my ankle, that he pulled it back.
After that, escape was a matter of wriggling on down the drain. And
wriggling was not impossible, though excessively difficult and exhausting.
The drain was nowhere choked with silt, but all along was furred with ooze
and there was more than an inch of ooze along its bottom. In this,
hitching myself forward on my elbows by violent contortions, I slipped
back almost as much as I heaved forward.
Agathemer seemed to have as much trouble as I had and to find the effort
as exhausting. For he had instructed me that I was not to crawl forward
until he pinched my foot. One pinch was to mean "advance," two pinches
"rest." More than once he had signalled me to rest.
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