Not caring to discuss this announcement, Leighton tried to divert the torrent of words into something like a coherent statement. But in his present excitable mood Doctor Miranda floundered hopelessly in a morass of verbal difficulties and ended by telling his story in alternate layers of Spanish and English. From his account, however, his hearers were able to put together the main points of an occurrence that, vehemently vouched for though it was by the narrator, strained their credulity to the limit. Early that morning, it appeared, Doctor Miranda, accompanied by the reluctant Andrew, had left Bogota for a visit to Lake Guatavita. The report that David's disappearance three years before had taken place there was given as the reason for the trip. Arrived at the lake, Andrew had declined to accompany the Doctor in his search among the cliffs that guarded the mysterious body of water, and had stationed himself near the cutting made centuries before by the Spaniards. This was a comparatively well sheltered spot and sufficiently removed from the precipitous shore which the cautious schoolmaster was anxious to avoid. His investigations concluded after the lapse of something like two hours, Miranda returned to the old Spanish cutting, expecting to rejoin Andrew. But Andrew was not there. Surprised at not finding him, the doctor at first supposed that the schoolmaster had grown tired of waiting and had journeyed back to Bogota alone. A single circumstance proved that in this he was wrong. There stood Andrew's horse where he had originally left him--and it seemed altogether unlikely that his rider had deliberately set out to cover the long and arduous miles to Bogota afoot. "Another puzzle in psychology, I suppose," commented Leighton, with a sarcastic glance at Raoul Arthur. The latter, however, in spite of the fact that Andrew was an utter stranger to him, appeared to be more amazed than the others by Miranda's story, and for the moment paid no heed to Leighton. "When you found his horse you made a thorough search for your friend, of course, Senor?" he asked Miranda eagerly. "Caramba! leetle fellow, what you think?" was the impatient reply. "I look, and I look, and I call--fifty times I call. If I can swim I jump into the lake to find him there. But I am too fat. So, I call more times, and I throw stones, and make the trumpet with the hands. It is no use. That leetle fellow say nothing. He is not there. So, I come away after long time." "He is drowned, poor fellow," murmured Herran in Spanish. "It is not possible," declared Miranda, turning angrily upon the general. "What make him drown? Of the water he is afraid. If he fall in--by mistake--he make a noise, he call to me. I am close by, I hear--I go to him quickly. But I hear nothing." "Well, if he didn't drown, as our friend argues, what did become of him?" demanded Leighton.