The stranger moistened his lips. He gave a swift glance at Wilson and then turned his gaze to the girl.
“See, we will take a raft and go upon the lake. Now look––look hard below the waters.”
The girl appeared troubled at this. Her feet twitched and she threw back her head as though for more air. Once more Wilson calculated the distance between himself and that which stood for death. He found it still levelled steadily. To jump would be only to fall halfway, and yet his throat was beginning to ache with the strain. He felt within him some new-born instinct impelling him to her side. She stood somehow for something more than merely a fellow-creature in danger. He took a quicker interest in 49 her––an interest expressing itself now in a sense of infinite tenderness. He resented the fact that she was being led away from him into paths he could not follow––that she was at the beck of this lean, cold-eyed stranger and his heathenish idol.
“Below the waters. Look! Look!”
“No! No!” she cried.
“The shrine is there. Seek it! Seek it!”
He forced the words through his teeth in his concentrated effort to drive them into the girl’s brain in the form of a command. But for some reason she rebelled at doing this. It was as though to go below the waters even in this condition choked her until she must gasp for breath. It was evidently some secret which lay there––the location of some shrine or hiding place which he most desired to locate through her while in this psychic state, for he insisted upon this while she struggled against it. Her head was lifted now as though, before finally driven to take the plunge, she sought aid––not from anyone here in the room, but from someone upon the borders of the lake where, in her trance, she now stood. And it came. Her face brightened––her whole body throbbed with renewed life. She threw out her hand with a cry which startled both men.
“Father! Father!”
The wounded man, puzzled, drew back leaving for a moment the other unguarded. Wilson sprang, and in three bounds was across the room. He struck up the arm just as a finger pressed the trigger. The 50 wounded man fell back in a heap––far too exhausted to struggle further. Wilson turned to the girl and swept the image out of her lap to the floor where it lay blinking at the ceiling. The girl, blind and deaf to this struggle, remained sitting upright with the happy smile of recognition still about her mouth. She repeated over and over again the glad cry of “Father! Father!”
Wilson stooped and repeated her name, but received no response. He rubbed her forehead and her listless hands. Still she sat there scarcely more than a clay image. Wilson turned upon the stranger with his fists doubled up.