"
"You could have all my share of it, if I could make an effective
transfer," laughed Wolgast.
"If we ever do get out of this alive," mused Page aloud, "I don't
doubt we'll look back to this hour with a great throb of interest
and feel glad that we've had one throb that most men don't get in
a lifetime."
"But we won't get out," advanced Jetson. "We're up hard against
it. It's all over but the slow strangling to death as the air
becomes more rare."
"I wonder if it will be a strangling and choking," spoke Darrin
again in a strange voice; "or whether it will be more like an
asphyxiation? In the latter case we may drop over, one at a time,
without pain, and all of us be finished within two or three minutes
from the time the first one starts."
"Pleasant!" uttered Wolgast grimly. "Let's start something---a
jolly song, for instance."
"Want to die more quickly?" asked Dalzell. "Singing eats up the
air faster."
Lieutenant Jack Benson came out of the engine room for a moment.
He took down the wrench and went back to the engine room. But
first he paused, for a brief instant, shooting at the midshipmen
a look that was full of pity for them. For himself, Jack Benson
appeared to have no especial feeling. Then the young commanding
officer went back into the engine room, closing the door after him.
"What did he shut the door for?" asked Jetson.
"Probably they're going to do something, in there, that will call
for a good deal of physical exertion.
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