...mouth of the pit caught a sliver of moonlight, but down on the bottom it was like the poem by Henley: Out of the night that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole. She took several deep lungfuls of air, then held her breath before returning to Padgett at the condo....

...William Ernest Henley's poem — the one I'd memorized at the University of Oregon — came to mind ( Out of the night that covers me / Black as the Pit from pole to pole). The book described the capture, by the Gestapo, of a spy who had done undercover work in various parts...