Page:Cruise of the Dry Dock.djvu/131

 sends the body forward. In this mass the forward stroke merely compressed the weed in front of the arm, and left a cavity through which the return stroke received no power.

Madden dared not open his eyes. In fiery blackness he kicked and struck in useless froglike movements. His heart was beating like a trip-hammer in his ears. Streaks of red fire played against the blackness of his eyelids. He knew that in a few more seconds his straining lungs would gulp in the stinging ooze, he knew his will could not prevent his drawing in some sort of breath.

He clung desperately to the control of his diaphragm, as a falling man clings to a ledge of rock. His great chest muscles gave convulsive jerks. His control was going, going.

Suddenly a human hand gripped his wrist. He was jerked upwards, perhaps a foot. A moment later he was gulping in great lungfuls of air.

He had been suffocating ten or twelve inches beneath that repulsive slime, as securely captured as if he had been a thousand feet deep.