The pace increased with the volume, and told of some
prodigious outburst on the moor. The uncanny silence of the swelling water
as it slipped downward was a curious feature of it in this phase. Chirgwin
and his men huddled together at the side of the rick; then Bartlett held up
his hand and spoke.
"Hark 'e all! 'Tis comin' now, by God!"
They kept silence and listened with straining ears and frightened eyes,
fire-rimmed by the flickering torchlight. A sound came from afar--a sound
not unmelodious but singular beyond power of language to express--a whisper
of sinister significance to him who knew its meaning, of sheer mystery to
all others. A murmur filled the air, a murmur of undefined noises still far
distant. They might have been human, they might have arisen from the flight
and terror of beasts, from the movement of vast bodies, from the
reverberations of remote music; Earth or Heaven might have bred them, or
the upper chambers of the air midway between. They spoke of terrific
energies, of outpourings of force, of elemental chaos come again, of a
crown of unimagined horror set upon the night.
All listened fearfully while the solemn cadences crept on their ears,
fascinated them like a siren song, wakened wild dread of tribulations and
terrors unknown till now. It was indeed a sound but seldom heard and wholly
unfamiliar to those beside the stack save one.
"'Tis the callin' o' the cleeves," said Uncle Chirgwin.
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