Page:In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories.djvu/238

226 my fingers around, I got hold of the ring, and pulled up the plug. In the dense silence that was around me, I could not tell whether the water was running out or not; but gazing up toward the ceiling I thought I saw the surface gradually sinking down and down and down. Of course it couldn't have been more than a few seconds, but it seemed to be years and years and years. I knew that if once I let my breath go I would be drowned, merely by the spasmodic action of my lungs trying to recover air. I felt as if I should burst. It was a match against time, with life or death as the stake. At first, as I said, my senses were abnormally sharp, but, by and by, I began to notice that they were wavering. I thought the glassy surface of the water, which I could see above me, was in reality a great sheet of crystal that somebody was pressing down upon me, and I began to think that the moment it reached my face I would smother. I tried to struggle, but was held with a grip of steel. Finally, this slab of crystal came down to my nose, and seemed to split apart. I could hold on no longer, and with a mighty expiration blew the water up toward the ceiling, and drew in a frightful smothering breath of salt water, that I blew in turn upward, and the next breath I took in had some air with the water. I felt the water tickling the