The tumult of shouting grew louder, and the thickset man turned and listened also.

He cursed suddenly under his breath, and turned his eyes upon Graham with an unfriendly expression.

It was a surge of many voices, rising and falling, shouting and screaming, and once came a sound like blows and sharp cries, and then a snapping like the crackling of dry sticks.

Graham strained his ears to draw some single thread of sound from the woven tumult.
Then he perceived, repeated again and again, a certain formula.

For a time he doubted his ears.