"I can hear the waves along the shingle."
"No, no. . . . There—now!"
"Oh! . . . Yes, I can hear. . . . It sounds like a drum."
"Trevor, it is a drum, somewhere out at sea! How odd when we were just talking about drums—hush! Oh, do listen. . . ."
The sound, borne to them on the light wind, seemed to grow nearer; then it waned till they could scarcely catch the beats. Anon it swelled louder: the unmistakable "Dub! dub! rub-a-dub! dub! . . . Dub! dub! dub!" of a far-off drum.
Margaret shook his sleeve. "Of course it's a drum. It can't be anything else, can it?"
"It's Drake's Drum!" he replied, with mock solemnity. "There's a legend in the West Country, you know——"
"I know!" She nodded, bright eyed with interest, and rose to a kneeling position to gaze beneath her palms out towards the west. The sun had set, and a thin grey haze slowly veiled the horizon. Already the warm afterglow was dying out of the sky.
"He has 'quit the Port of Heaven,'" she quoted half-seriously, playing with superstition as only women can, "and he's 'drumming up the Channel'! They say it foretells war . . . that noise. . . ." Margaret gave a little shiver and rose to her graceful height, extending both her ringless hands to him. "It's getting chilly—come!"
Torps rose to his feet, too, and for a moment faced her, with his grave, patient eyes on hers. For the first time she noticed that his hair was going grey about the temples, and, had he known it, Margaret came very near to wavering in that moment. Perhaps he did realise, and with quick, characteristic generosity helped her.