That seemed to me to be my last sight of earthly things.
After this nothing was left.

There was no longer for me such a thing as sight; there was nothing but darkness--perpetual and eternal night.
I was buried in a cavern of rushing waters, to which there would be no end, where I should be borne onward helplessly by the resistless tide to a mysterious and an appalling doom.
The darkness grew so intolerable that I longed for something to dispel it, if only for a moment.

I struck a match.

The air was still, and the flame flashed out, lighting up the boat and showing the black water around me.

This made me eager to see more.