sucked in again, filling his lungs to their capacity with fresh air.
Finally, with his chest fully expanded, he duck-dived, standing on his
head with his legs high out of the water and letting their weight drive
him under.
Sliding head-first down the submerged wall, he reached down, groping for
the next niche below the surface. He found it, and used it to accelerate
his dive, pulling himself on downwards.
He found the second niche below that, and pulled himself on downwards.
The niches were about six feet apart - a nautical fathom. Using them as
a measure, he was able to calculate his progress accurately.
Swimming on downwards, he found another niche, then another. Four rows
of niches, twenty-four feet below the surface. His ears were popping and
squeaking as the pressure squeezed the air out of his Eustachian tubes.
He kept on downwards and found the fifth row of niches. Now the air in
his lungs was compressing to almost half its surface volume, and as his
buoyancy decreased so his descent became easier and more rapid.
His eyes were wide open, but the waters below him were dark and turbid.
He could make out only the surface of the wall directly in front of his
face. He saw the sixth niche appear ahead of him and he grasped it, then
hesitated.
'Thirty-six feet of depth already, and no sign yet of bottom he
thought. There had been a time, when he was spearfishing competitively
with the army team, that he could free-dive to sixty feet and stay at
that depth for a full minute. But he had been younger then and in peak
physical condition.
'Just one more niche,' he promised himself, 'and then back up to the
surface.' His chest was beginning to throb and burn with the need to
breathe, but he pulled hard on his handhold and shot down. He saw the
vague shape of the seventh niche appear out of the murk below him'
'They go right to the bottom,' he realized with amazeMent. 'How on'earth
did Taita do it? They had no diving equipment.' He grasped the niche and
hovered there for a moment, undecided if he should risk going further.
He knew he was almost at his physical limit. Already he was hunting for
air, his chest beginning to convulse involuntarily.
'What about one more for the hell of it!' He was beginning to feel
light-headed, and a strange glow of euphoria came over him. He
recognized the danger signs, and looked down at his own body. Through
the murk he saw that his skin was wrinkled and folded by the pressure of
water. There were over two atmospheres'weight bearing down upon him,
crushing in his chest. His brain was becoming starved of oxygen, and he
felt reckless and invulnerable.
'Once more into the breach, dear friends,' he thought drunkenly, and
went on down.
'Number eight, and the doctor's at the gate.' He felt the eighth niche
under his fingers. He was thinking in gibberish now: 'Number eight, and
I'll have her on a plate.' He turned to go up again, and his feet
touched bottom. -Fifty feet deep,' he realized even through his fuddled
state.
'I have left it too late. Got to get back. Got to breathe.' He was
bracing himself to push off from the bottom when something grabbed his
