It was like swimming in a millrace.

The current swirled us this and that way, but everlastingly forward.
Sometimes the current rolled us over and over on each other, but for fifty per cent.

of the time I managed to keep King on top of me, I swimming on my back and holding him by both arms, head nearly out of the water.

I can't explain exactly why I went to all that trouble, for I was convinced he was dead.
I remember wondering what the next world was going to be like, and whether King and I would meet there, or whether we would each be sent to a sphere suited to our individual requirements--and if so, what my sphere would be like, and whether either of us would ever meet Yasmini, and what she would be doing there.

But it never occurred to me once that Athelstan King might be alive yet, or that he and I would be presently treading mother earth again.
I remember several terrific minutes when a big tree came whirling toward us in an eddy, and my legs got tangled up in some part of it that was under water.