They were throbbing through empty streets again, when a strange sound thrilled the silence—a trumpet-call, which rang out sharply across the housetops and broke off suddenly.
Had they come? He slowed down, prepared to wheel about.
Seeing what was in his thoughts, Anna rested her hand on his arm reassuringly.
“It's from the tower of St. Mary's. How often I've heard it! Ah, there it is again!” Gazing up and bending forward, she listened. Then she spoke, as though addressing some one who walked above the city, “Brave fellow! Though they've all deserted, you've stayed on.”
“To whom are you talking?”
She explained quickly. Centuries ago the Church of St. Mary's had been an outpost of Christendom, used as a watch-tower against the invading Tartar; a soldier had been kept continually stationed there to give warning on a trumpet of the first approach of danger. In the fourteenth century, whilst arousing the city, the trumpeter had been struck in the throat by an arrow. His call had faltered, rallied and sunk. With his dying breath he had sounded a final blast, which had broken off short. The broken call had saved Cracow. Ever since, to commemorate his faithfulness, there had never been an hour, day or night, when his broken trumpet-call, ending abruptly in an abyss of silence, had not been sounded from the tower.
Hindwood leant across the wheel, staring dreamily before him. “It might have been his voice—Varen-sky's. He's like that—a dying trumpeter, sounding a last warning. I almost believe in him. It's too late——”
“It may not be,” she whispered.
Night was falling. Straining his eyes to keep awake, he drove impetuously on, forcing a path through the opposing shadows.