"Seven minutes!" Rita called. "And a half! ... Eight!... And a half!"

And no Paula Forrest broke surface. Graham refused to be alarmed
because he could see no alarm on the faces of the others.

"I lose," he announced at Rita's "Nine minutes!"

"She's been under over two minutes, and you're all too blessed calm
about it to get me excited," he said. "I've still a minute--maybe I
don't lose," he added quickly, as he stepped off feet first into the
tank.

As he went down he turned over and explored the cement wall of tank
with his hands. Midway, possibly ten feet under the surface he
estimated, his hands encountered an opening in the wall. He felt
about, learned it Was unscreened, and boldly entered. Almost before he
was in, he found he could come up; but he came up slowly, breaking
surface in pitchy blackness and feeling about him without splashing.

His fingers touched a cool smooth arm that shrank convulsively at
contact while the possessor of it cried sharply with the startle of
fright. He held on tightly and began to laugh, and Paula laughed with
him. A line from "The First Chanty" flashed into his consciousness--
"_Hearing her laugh in the gloom greatly I loved her._"

"You did frighten me when you touched me," she said. "You came without
a sound, and I was a thousand miles away, dreaming..."

"What?" Graham asked.