So I went forward to scout--stepped into the deep shadow of some jungle--trod on nothing--threw the other foot forward to save myself--and fell downward into blackness for an eternity.
I brought up at last unhurt in the trash and decaying vegetation at the bottom of a pit, and looked up to see the stars in a rough parallelogram above me, whose edge I guessed was more than thirty feet above my head.

I started to dig my way out, but the crumbling sides fell in and threatened to bury me alive unless I kept still.

So I shouted until my lungs ached, but without result.

I suppose the noise went trumpeting upward out of the hole and away to the clouds and the stars.

At any rate, Will and Brown swore afterward they never heard it.
I was fifteen minutes in the hole that very likely had held many an elephant with his legs wedged together under him until the poor brute perished of thirst, before it occurred to me to fire my rifle.