_THE HOUR OF DEATH_

It was a very still night and frosty. My candle had long burnt out. There
was still a faint moonlight, which fell in a square of yellow on the floor
near the window, leaving the rest of the room in what to an eye less
accustomed than mine had become to that faint light would have been total
darkness. Now, I am sure, I heard a soft whispering outside my door. I knew
that I was in a state of siege! The crisis was come, and strange to say,
I felt myself grow all at once resolute and self-possessed. It was not a
subsidence, however, of the dreadful excitement, but a sudden screwing-up
of my nerves to a pitch such as I cannot describe.

I suppose the people outside moved with great caution; and the perfect
solidity of the floor, which had not anywhere a creaking board in it,
favoured their noiseless movements. It was well for me that there were
in the house three persons whom it was part of their plan to mystify
respecting my fate. This alone compelled the extreme caution of their
proceedings. They suspected that I had placed furniture against the door,
and were afraid to force it, lest a crash, a scream, perhaps a long and
shrilly struggle, might follow.

I remained for a space which I cannot pretend to estimate in the same
posture, afraid to stir--afraid to move my eye from the door.

A very peculiar grating sound above my head startled me from my
watch--something of the character of sawing, only more crunching, and with
a faint continued rumble in it--utterly inexplicable. It sounded over that
portion of the roof which was farthest from the door, toward which I now
glided; and as I took my stand under cover of the projecting angle of a
clumsy old press that stood close by it, I perceived the room a little
darkened, and I saw a man descend and take his stand upon the window-stone.
He let go a rope, which, however, was still fast round his body, and
employed both his hands, with apparently some exertion, about something at
the side of the window, which in a moment more, in one mass, bars and all,
swung noiselessly open, admitting the frosty night-air; and the man, whom
I now distinctly saw to be Dudley Ruthyn, kneeled on the sill, and stept,
after a moment's listening, into the room. His foot made no sound upon the
floor; his head was bare, and he wore his usual short shooting-jacket.

I cowered to the ground in my post of observation. He stood, as it
seemed to me irresolutely for a moment, and