of the Drum was continuing, the beats a few seconds apart.
The opening of the door outside had seemed to Constance to make the
beats come louder and more distinct; but the closing of the door did
not muffle them again. "Twelve," Constance counted to herself. The
beats had seemed to be quite measured and regular at first; but now
Constance knew that this was only roughly true; they beat rather in
rhythm than at regular intervals. Two came close together and there
was a longer wait before the next; then three sounded before the
measure--a wild, leaping rhythm. She recalled having heard that the
strangeness of Indian music to civilized ears was its time; the drums
beat and rattles sounded in a different time from the song which they
accompanied; there were even, in some dances, three different times
contending for supremacy. Now this seemed reproduced in the strange,
irregular sounding of the Drum; she could not count with certainty
those beats. "Twenty--twenty-one--twenty-two!" Constance caught
breath and waited for the next beat; the time of the interval between
the measures of the rhythm passed, and still only the whistle of the
wind and the undertone of water sounded. The Drum had beaten its roll
and, for the moment, was done.

"Now it begins again," the woman whispered. "Always it waits and then
it begins over."

Constance let go her breath; the next beat then would not mean another
death. Twenty-two, had been her count, as nearly as she could count at
all; the reckoning agreed with what the woman had heard. Two had died,
then, since the Drum last had beat, when its roll was twenty. Two more
than before; that meant five were left! Yet Constance, while she was
appreciating this, strained forward, staring at Henry; she could not be
certain, in the flickering shadows of the cabin, of what she was seeing
in him; still less, in the sudden stoppage of heart and breathing that
it brought, could she find coherent answer to its meaning. But still
it turned her weak, then spurred her with a vague and terrible impulse.

The Indian woman lifted the lamp chimney waveringly and scratched a
match and, with unsteady hands, lighted the wick; Constance caught up
her woolen hood from the table and put it on. Her action seemed to
call Henry to himself.

"What are you going to do?" he demanded.

"I'm going out."

He moved between her and the door. "Not alone, you're not!" His heavy
voice had a deep tone of menace i