For an agonizing instant nothing happened, except that the landing party from the ship strolled into my range of vision.
How long I remained plunged in agonizing reflections I cannot tell; all that I know is, that on raising my head again, I saw only my uncle and Hans at the bottom of the crater.
For ten years or so I used to see him about once in six months, and invariably he had a new woman, a young girl of fine character, who had been ensnared by him, and was in the agonizing process of discovering his moral and mental derangement.