"Hark!" said Nela suddenly, with evident interest in something quite distinct from what her friend was saying. "Do not you hear?"
"What?"
"Down in there—La Trascava—it is talking."
"Superstitious child! water cannot talk, my Nela. What language could a driblet of water speak? There are but two things which speak, my sweet: the tongue and the conscience."
"And La Trascava," said Nela, turning paler. "It is a whisper only: 'Yes, yes, yes,' it says. And sometimes I can hear my mother's voice, saying quite plainly. 'My little girl, it is very pleasant down here.'"
"It is all your fancy. Well, fancy talks too; I forgot that. My imagination sometimes chatters so fast, that I have to tell it to be silent. Its voice is loud, persistent, intolerable; that of conscience is deep, calm, convincing; there is no answering or refuting it."
"Now it sounds as if it were crying," said Nela, still listening to the bubbling water. "It is dying away little by little."
Suddenly a light gust came up from the chasm.
"There, it sighed deeply—did not you hear? Now I hear the voice again; it is speaking low, and it says to me in a whisper, a tiny whisper in my ear...."