Her hand was outstretched.
What if I touch it, thought I, to see if it have the warmth of life within it, or whether it be not in truth a thing of stone, and I the sport of some mischievous spirit of the island?
I’ll do it, if I’m slain like a poor worm, which, warmed by an approaching flame crawls to meet it.
I touched its finger-tips!
O, wondrous thing!
They were not of stone, but of softest, warmest flesh!
I staggered back, expecting to see the group vanish in thin air.
But no; it moved not.
It stood as motionless as before!
And now I felt my limbs grow strong beneath me.