* * * * *
"What is that?"
"What?"
"Don't you hear?"
"I do; it sounds like some heavy instrument beating the earth close at hand."
"Yes, like digging."
The three started at the word.
No sooner was it uttered than the meaning of it struck them all three, and sent a chill to their very hearts.
Digging at that fatal hour, so short a time before daybreak, could have but one significance.
Grave-making; and if the two hapless boys quailed at that awful sound, can we accuse them of cowardice?