As has been said, Joe deflated his lungs just before he took his dive. He did this by standing in a drooping position, with his shoulders sagging forward. He actually pressed from his lungs all the air possible. This was to enable him to fill them again with a fresh supply, rich in oxygen. For it is with the air he takes into his lungs before he plunges into the water that a diver keeps himself alive.
Joe had watched Benny inflate his lungs, and Joe himself had a way of his own of doing this, for he had often swum comparatively long distances under water when a boy, and he had learned the necessity of fully and properly filling his lungs with air.
"Well, it seems to be going all right so far," thought Joe as he found that it was no harder to stay under water now than it was the time he had practised before in the tank, with Helen timing him. "Now for a few tricks."
It had been Benny's habit to swim about after entering the tank, imitating a fish as nearly as possible. Perhaps it would be more correct to say a seal; for a seal in the water more nearly resembles a human being than does a fish, which has no need of breathing air into the lungs, as a seal does. The gills of a fish are so constructed as to extract the oxygen from water, serving the purpose the lungs do in the air. Probably all know that a fish can "drown," if the functions of the gills are interfered with.
"Now for some fancy swimming," thought Joe. He began whirling about in the water, as he had seen Benny do, turning over and over in a graceful fashion, just as a seal does. Joe really turned backward and forward somersaults under water, but of course he did it more slowly than the feats would be performed in the air. And in a sense it was easier, for the water supported him all around.
For the present Joe was not trying for an endurance test, and when he had shown three or four different styles of swimming—the old-fashioned breast stroke, the Australian crawl, the overhand style, and so on—he came up.
This was not done to get air, as he had not been under more than two minutes, and he could stay much longer than that. But it was to make the act last a little longer, and to give the ring-master a chance to make a further announcement as to what was to take place.
Always, on a stage, in a theatre or in a circus, the effect of an act is "heightened" as it is called, it is made more dramatic and the public is more deeply impressed, if some one, even the performer, states just what is going to be done, with, perhaps, a reference to the danger or difficulty of it. In this case there was no particular danger, as Joe could come up whenever he wanted to. But it is not easy to stay under water for three minutes.
Joe shot up to the top of the water, and climbed, dripping wet, out on to the rubber-covered platform. He nodded to Jim Tracy to let the ring-master know he was now ready for the second part of the performance.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" cried the circus man, "Mr. Strong will now show you how long he can remain under water. He is going to attempt to stay three minutes—possibly longer. Of course that is not the record, but you are aware of the circumstances under which this act is being done to-day. During his stay under water Mr. Strong will do some tricks to amuse you. Ready!"