The stranger struggled to his elbow and then to his knees, where he remained staring intently at the girl, with eyes aglow. Then the girl herself spoke.
“The lake! The lake!” she cried.
Wilson stepped to her side. He placed a hand firmly upon her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She lifted eyes as inscrutable as those of the image. They were slow moving and stared as blankly at him as at the pictures on the wall. He bent closer.
“Comrade––comrade––are you all right?”
Her lips moved to faint, incoherent mutterings. She did not seem to be in pain, and yet in travail of some sort.
The stranger, pale, his forehead beaded with the excitement of the moment, had tottered to his feet He seized Wilson’s arm almost roughly.
“Let her alone!” he commanded. “Can’t you see? Dios! the image speaks!”
“The image? have you gone mad?”