Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/357

Rh She did not shrink back from him, or move; and now he was not waiting for her answer. Something—a sound—had caught him about. Once it echoed, low in its reverberation but penetrating and quite distinct. It came, so far as direction could be assigned to it, from the trees toward the shore; but it was like no forest sound. Distinct too was it from any noise of the lake. It was like a Drum! Yet, when the echo had gone, it was a sensation easy to deny—a hallucination, that was all. But now, low and distinct it came again; and, as before, Constance saw it catch Henry and hold him. His lips moved, but he did not speak; he was counting. "Two," she saw his lips form.

The Indian woman passed them and opened the door, and now the sound, louder and more distinct, came again.

"The Drum!" she whispered, without looking about. "You hear? Three, I've heard. Now four! It will beat twenty; then we will know if more are dead!"

The door blew from the woman's hand, and snow, swept up from the drifts of the slope, swirled into the room; the draft blew the flame of the lamp in a smoky streak up the glass chimney and snuffed it out. The moonlight painted a rectangle on the floor; the moonlight gave a green, shimmering world without. Hurried spots of cloud shuttered away the moon for moments, casting shadows which swept raggedly up the slope from the shore. The woman seized the door and, tugging it about against the gale, she slammed it shut. She did not try at once to relight the lamp.

The sound of the Drum was continuing, the beats a few seconds apart. The opening of the door outside had seemed to Constance to make the beats come