The Drum! There was a Drum then! At least there was some sound which people heard and which they called the Drum. For the woman had heard it.
The woman shifted, checking something upon her fingers, while her lips moved; she was not counting, Constance thought; she was more likely aiding herself in translating something from Indian numeration into English. "Two, it began with," she announced. "Right away it went to nine. Sixteen then—that was this morning very early. Now, all day and to-night, it has been giving twenty. That leaves seven. It is not known who they may be."
She opened the door and looked out. The roar of the water and the wind, which had come loudly, increased, and with it the wood noises. The woman was not looking about now, Constance realized; she was listening. Constance arose and went to the door too. The Drum! Blood prickled in her face and forehead; it prickled in her finger tips. The Drum was heard only, it was said, in time of severest storm; for that reason it was heard most often in winter. It was very seldom heard by any one in summer; and she was of the summer people. Sounds were coming from the woods now. Were these reverberations the roll of the Drum which beat for the dead? Her voice was uncontrolled as she asked the woman:
"Is that the Drum?"
The woman shook her head. "That's the trees."
Constance's shoulders shook convulsively together. When she had thought about the Drum—and when she had spoken of it with others who, themselves, never had heard it—they always had said that, if there were such a sound, it was trees. She herself had heard those strange wood noises, terrifying sometimes until their source was known—wailings like the cry of some one in anguish, which were caused by two crossed saplings rubbing together; thunderings, which were only some smaller trees beating against a great hollow trunk when a strong wind veered from a certain direction. But this Indian woman must know all such sounds well; and to her the Drum was something distinct from them. The woman specified that now.
"You'll know the Drum when you hear it."
Constance grew suddenly cold. For twenty lives, the woman said, the Drum had beat; that meant to her, and to Constance too now, that seven were left. Indefinite, desperate denial that all from the ferry must be dead—that denial which had been strengthened by the news that at least one boat had been adrift near Beaver—altered in Constance to conviction of a boat with seven men from the ferry, seven dying, perhaps, but not yet dead. Seven out of twenty-seven! The score were gone; the Drum had beat for them in little groups as they had died. When the Drum beat again, would it beat beyond the score?
The woman drew back and closed the door; the water was hot now, and she made the tea and poured a cup for Constance. As she drank it, Constance was listening for the Drum; the woman too was listening. Having finished the tea, Constance returned to the door and reopened it; the sounds outside were the same. A solitary figure appeared moving along the edge of the ice—the figure of a tall man, walking on snowshoes; moonlight distorted the figure, and it was muffled too in a great coat which made it unrecognizable. He halted and stood looking out at the lake and then, with a sudden movement, strode on; he halted again, and now Constance got the knowledge that he was not looking; he was listening as she was. He was not merely listening; his body swayed and bent to a rhythm—he was counting something that he heard. Constance strained her ears; but she could hear no sound except those of the waters and the wind.
"Is the Drum sounding now?" she asked the woman.