It went on and on as things do in a horrible dream, till all at once something happened.

I did not hear it, nor see it, hardly even felt it.

I only know that something happened, and I was being strangled--choked, but in another way.

The hands which grasped my throat to keep me from breathing had, I believe, ceased to hold, and something hot and terrible was rushing up my nostrils and down my throat, and I think I then made some effort with my hands.

Then I was being dragged along through water and over something soft, and all at once, though the deafening, confusing noise went on, I was not being swept away, but lying still on something hard.
I think that my senses left me entirely then for a few moments--not more, for I was staring soon after at the dull light of white water sweeping along a little way off, and breathing more freely as I struggled hard to grasp what it all meant, for I did not know.