He fought his way over them, feeling as if a hundred demons were in league to hold him back.
The swirl of the incoming tide sounded in his ears like a monstrous chant of death.

Again and again he slipped and fell, and yet again he dragged himself up, grimly determined to fight the desperate battle to the last gasp.

The thought of Columbine had gone wholly from him, even as the thought of his lost treasure.

Only the elemental desire of life gripped him, vital and urgent, forcing him to the greatest physical effort he had ever made.

He went like a goaded animal, savage, stubborn, fiercely surmounting every obstacle, driven not so much by fear as by a furious determination to frustrate the fate that menaced him.
It must have been nearly a minute later that the moon shone forth again, throwing gleaming streaks of brightness upon the mighty breakers that had swallowed the magic pool.