He thought he would never come to the bottom. Perhaps there was no bottom, and he was falling into hell? Perhaps there was no way back? The water was foul, thick with blood and slime. The strange thing was that he could breathe the blood bubbles as they traveled past. They had a vile taste, but without them he would never have found sufficient breath to go so deep. He swam on. Soon he was far beyond any depth where the sun had ever shone. He shut his eyes because it was blacker with them open. When Beowulf opened his eyes again there was a gleam of light below him. He kicked his way toward it. It grew, a ghostly green spot, bigger and bigger. Then it was all about him. It was alive, this light. It quivered. It throbbed. It came off the wings of huge mothlike creatures drifting and looping in the underwater current. The creatures seemed blind. They did not attack him, but the cloud of them was so thick that he had to hack a passage through with his sword. Their wings flaked in the water, some stuck to him, some whirled about him, as he went on deeper into the pool.
