Minutes passed. The twilight was deepening into the soft May darkness. Suddenly Martha whispered.
"Jay!"
He swung around. Her face was a queer white blur in the darkness. "What?"
"I hear singing," she said. "Someone is singing, a way off."
"Just the wind in the wires," he said. "There's no one in the whole town but us—and them. You keep your eye on that fellow, I think we're due for trouble soon."
He waited again. From outside, he could hear the sound of the wind rising and falling. Then a strange conviction crept over him.
It was not the wind. It was the rise and fall of distant voices, many of them. Now the breeze brought it through the night a little louder, now it ebbed back to a murmur. Carefully, Wales opened the door a crack to listen.
He exclaimed, "It's from up on North Hill, but what in the world—"
He suddenly crouched lower again, his pistol raised. Down the hill along North Jefferson came the long green car, racing fast.
It swung around the Diamond. The man in it leaned out and called. The man behind the monument ran out to meet him, talking fast and gesticulating.