"She found her voice then and began to tell me, but there my limited knowledge of the dialect failed, for I had no such linguistic scope as to-day, when one dialect more or less is simply a matter of ear and comparison. There was something in her speech of devils and death, and she kept repeating this and I do not know what besides—and then, as I was trying to reassure her as one might a child or a horse, less through the reason than the senses, the soothing of primitive sounds, a startling thing occurred. MacFarlane, whose breathing had become more labored, like that of a man rapidly climbing the ladder of consciousness from deep oblivion, gasped once or twice and awoke with a scream. Vinckers, roused with the echo ringing in his ears, awoke with a muffled shout—a strangled, bleating shout such as might come from a slaughtered animal. MacFarlane, but half awake, screamed again. At this Tomba's breathless terror found outlet in a shriek that swept out under the low mist, struck the
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