“How do I get them?” I demanded. “Nona must show me once—then I will get very many of them for us to eat.”
Nona led me to the stream and we waded into it waist-deep. I had bathed here, but I had never been further along. Nona had, however. She led me forward to where the water went under a low archway of our cave and thence into the bowels of the meteor.
The river-bed under my feet began sloping downward. The water deepened around me—to my chest, shoulders, almost to my neck. I was terrified. I pulled back from Nona’s hand which was drawing me along. Her hair was floating out like golden seaweed around us. The milk-white water was under her uptilted chin.
Her eyes smiled at me tenderly. “No,” she said. “My man Nemo never can he be afraid.”
Afraid! I could not let her see that. I grunted scornfully, and we went forward.
The water rose to my own chin. We were well underground now—the ceiling of this subterranean passageway was hardly a foot above my head. In front of me I could see where the ceiling touched the water.
Suddenly I remembered Nona. One of her hands still held mine—the other was braced against a projection of the side wall to hold us against the gentle current that pressed us forward. The water now almost reached the top of her head. I could see her face beneath the surface. Her mouth was opened round and wide; a stream of air bubbles came gurgling up from it. Her chest was expanding and contracting rhythmically and swiftly, seemingly with great effort, like a man panting after an exhausting run. She was breathing the water!
CHAPTER V
I stared at Nona silently. The air bubbles from her mouth grew less, until soon there were almost none of them. The tidal air in her lungs had been forced out; water had taken its place. Through her opened mouth she was drawing in the water and expelling it—rapid respirations taxing the intercostal muscles almost to their limit.
Nona smiled up at me through the water, which in spite of its milk-white color, was curiously limpid and transparent. I felt the tug of her hand; I stepped forward, and in the deepening water my face went under.