hen.
Pretty soon I saw my mother coming back. She had no berries, and her
hair was hanging down, and she was wailing. She took me in her arms
and said my father was dead. Other Indians came around and asked her
how she knew, and she said she had heard the Drum. The Indians went
out to listen."

"Did you go?"

"Yes; I went."

"How old were you, Judah?"

"Five years."

"That was the time you heard it?"

"Yes; it would beat once, then there would be silence; then it would
beat again. It frightened us to hear it. The Indians would scream and
beat their bodies with their hands when the sound came. We listened
until night; there was a storm all the time growing greater in the
dark, but no rain. The Drum would beat once; then nothing; then it
would beat again once--never two or more times. So we knew it was for
my father. It is supposed the feet of the bullocks came untied, and
the bullocks tipped the boat over. They found near the island the body
of one of the bullocks floating in the water, and its feet were untied.
My father's body was on the beach near there."

"Did you ever hear of a ship called the _Miwaka_, Judah?"

"That was long ago," the Indian answered.

"They say that the Drum beat wrong when the _Miwaka_ went down--that it
was one beat short of the right number."

"That was long ago," Wassaquam merely repeated.

"Did Mr. Corvet ever speak to you about the _Miwaka_?"

"No; he asked me once if I had ever heard the Drum. I told him."

Wassaquam removed the dinner and brought Alan a dessert. He returned
to stand in the place across the table that Alan had assigned to him,
and stood looking down at Alan, steadily and thoughtfully.

"Do I look like any one you ever saw before, Judah?" Alan inquired of
him.

"No."

"Is that what you were thinking?"

"That is what I was thinking. Will coffee be served in the library,
Alan?"

Alan crossed to the library and seated himself in the chair where his
father had been accustomed to sit. Wassaquam brought him the single
small cup of coffee, lit the spirit lamp on the smoking stand, and
moved that over; then he went away. When he had finished his coffee,
Alan went into the smaller connecting room and recommenced his
examination of the drawers under the bookshelves. He could hear the
Indian moving about his tasks, and twice Wassaquam came to the door of
the room and looked in on him; but he did not offer to say anything,
and Alan did not spe