"Yes—like one's heart at night. Ah, now it comes nearer—oh, nearer! nearer! Oh, what can it be?"
He knew now; he knew that indefinable battle—rumour that steals into the senses long before it is really audible. It is not a sound—not even a vibration; it is an immense foreboding that weights the air with prophecy.
"From the south and east," he repeated; "from the Landesgrenze."
"The frontier?"
"Yes. Hark!"
"I hear."
"From the frontier," he said again. "From the river Lauter and from Wissembourg."
"What is it?" she whispered, close beside him.
"Cannon!"
Yes, it was cannon—they knew it now—cannon throbbing, throbbing, throbbing along the horizon where the crags of the Geisberg echoed the dull thunder and shook it far out across the vineyards of Wissembourg, where the heights of Kapsweyer, resounding, hurled back the echoes to the mountains in the north.