“I will indeed, most thankfully,” Edmund assured him.
“And you think it probable that Captain Welfare would join you?”
“I cannot imagine his refusing.”
“Well, that’s all right so far——”
He was interrupted by a metallic clang, twice repeated. It was the old sound of the hammer on the anvil in the forge, brought to us along the tunnel. But it was an unusual time to hear it, and to all of us there was something minatory in the sound of those three strokes.
The bishop broke off in his sentence, and we all three listened, silent and uneasy.
The three loud strokes were repeated.
“They are working late at the forge,” the bishop remarked.
“That is not blacksmith’s work,” I answered with an apprehensive note in my voice.
There came a succession of blows, apparently from a lighter hammer, yet with a sound unusual and unfamiliar to me, making as it were a kind of tune.