"Oh, it is very far away, Madame. Perhaps it is a forest on fire.... But there is a sound, too. One may see and hear from the northern terrace when the wind sets in."
The Countess glanced at Warner, rose, retaining Philippa’s hand.
"Thank you, Maurice," she said over her shoulder, and, passing her arm through Philippa’s, she entered the house, followed by Warner and Peggy.
"What do you suppose alarms old Maurice?" whispered Peggy.
But Warner, vastly troubled, made no answer.
Below the carved stone balustrade of the north terrace acres and acres of tree tops—oak, beech, birch, and fir—spread away on every side. This was the Forêt des Oiseaux.
Beyond the dense green surface of the tree tops, which was so compact that it resembled a wide and gently rolling plateau, the country stretched away toward Ausone. Here and there some distant farmhouse window sparkled in the sun; set amid banks of velvet green the Récollette glittered like severed fragments of a silver thread.
Bathed in a mauve haze the Ausone Fort stood out on its conical, tree-clad hill; beyond it other hillocks rose, lilac-tinted silhouettes against the horizon.
Turquoise, palest violet, tender green and gold, the country lay revealed under the August sky, peaceful, glimmering, silent.
And across this dainty harmony of color was smeared a somber, discordant smudge, staining the delicate haze of amethyst, defiling the pure sky—a wide, high area of dirty smoke, leaning from the perpendicular toward the east, spilling its dun-colored vapor downward over the pale aquarelle of hill and river and valley.
"The Alcyon Forest is afire!" exclaimed the Countess in a low voice.
A sudden breeze sprang up, blowing in their faces over the swaying tree tops.
"Listen!" said Philippa, touching her lips with one finger.
From an infinite distance the wind carried with it a deadened thumping sound, now regular as the dulled rolling of drums, now softly irregular, with intervals of stillness, then again spasmodic, muffled, almost inaudible.
"Are they threshing anywhere near us?" asked the Countess of her sister. "What is that pumping sound?" She turned to Warner, who made no reply.
"Do you know what it is, Jim?" demanded Peggy Brooks uneasily.