Whatever may have been my previous existence, an experience such as this quite evidently was no part of it. My instinct was to hold my breath. I did so until I could no longer. I struggled against Nona’s hand and tried to get my head above the surface. But she held me; and my fear of having her know me to be afraid was greater than my fear of the water.
At last I let out my pent-up breath. It gurgled from my mouth in bubbles. Then, in a gulp of desperation, I inhaled. The water choked me. I tried to cough; but could not—or at least the cough became my exhalation.
My ears were roaring as though the torrents of your Niagara were rushing past them. My head and chest seemed bursting—icy-cold at first, then burning with fire.
My eyes were open. I was standing beside Nona and she was looking up at me. Through the half-light of the water I could see her almost as plainly as through air. She smiled encouragingly at me, and I tried to smile back.
I was drawing the water in and out swiftly now, with my mouth held extended like an expiring fish. It was a tremendous effort, this respiration. The muscles of my chest and diaphragm were tired in a moment. A weight in my chest seemed smothering my heart; I seemed on fire inside—a million inflamed little lung passages rebelling at this unaccustomed medium.
Spots were dancing before my eyes. I was losing consciousness through lack of oxygen. The poisoned venous blood was dulling my brain.
Then I began to feel better. I was respiring now almost as swiftly as Nona, and with far less effort than I had used at first.
You are skeptical? Because you cannot breathe your Earth-water, you assume that I could not breathe this water on my meteor. What quaint logic that is! Yet I find all you Earth-people think on similar lines. It is your inadequate mentality, I suppose, so I must hasten to enlighten you.
There are two fundamental objects of respiration. First: the introduction into the system of oxygen by which the products resulting from the disintegration of the muscular, nervous and other tissues of the body may be converted into compounds easily eliminated. Secondly: the direct removal of the most noxious and therefore most important of these waste products—carbonic acid gas.