of her coming. Her
relief--relief from that fear she had been feeling when she opened the
door--was very evident. It was Henry, then, who had frightened her.

The Indian woman set a chair for her beside the stove, and put water in
a pan to heat; she shook tea leaves from a box into a bowl and brought
a cup.

"How many on that ship?"

"Altogether there were thirty-nine," Constance replied.

"Some saved?"

"Yes; a boat was picked up yesterday morning with twelve."

The woman seemed making some computation which was difficult for her.

"Seven are living then," she said.

"Seven? What have you heard? What makes you think so?"

"That is what the Drum says."

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 cro