spered to him with an effort. "A tick-tack?"

"No, I hear nothing."

"You know--like the tick-tack of a clock. Listen."

"How can you hear the tick-tack? I've noticed that no clocks are running
here."

"Don't you understand? It is so that we shall be able to hear the
tick-tack better."

"Oh, yes, I understand. But I do not hear anything."

"For myself, I think I hear the tick-tack all the time since the last
attempt. It haunts my ears, it is frightful, to say to one's self: There
is clockwork somewhere, just about to reach the death-tick--and not to
know where, not to know where! When the police were here I made them
all listen, and I was not sure even when they had all listened and said
there was no tick-tack. It is terrible to hear it in my ear any moment
when I least expect it. Tick-tack! Tick-tack! It is the blood beating
in my ear, for instance, hard, as if it struck on a sounding-board. Why,
here are drops of perspiration on my hands! Listen!"

"Ah, this time someone is talking--is crying," said the young man.

"Sh-h-h!" And Rouletabille felt the rigid hand of Matrena Petrovna on
his arm. "It is the general. The general is dreaming!"

She drew him into the dining-room, into a corner where they could no
longer hear the moanings. But all the doors that communicated with the
dining-room, the drawing-room and the sitting-room remained open behind
him, by the secret precaution of Rouletabille.

He waited while Matrena, whose breath he heard come hard, was a little
behind. In a moment, quite talkative, and as though she wished to
distract Rouletabille's attention from the sounds above, the broken
words and sighs, she continued:

"See, you speak of clocks. My husband has a watch which strikes. Well,
I have stopped his watch because more than once I have been startled by
hearing the tick-tack of his watch in his waistcoat-pocket. Koupriane
gave me that advice one day when he was here and had pricked his ears
at the noise of the pendulums, to stop all my watches and clocks so that
there would be no chance of confusing them with the tick-tack that might
come from an infernal machine planted in some corner. He spoke from
experience, my dear little monsieur, and it was by his order that all
the clocks at the Ministry, on the Naberjnaia, were stopped, my dear
little friend. The Nihilists, he told me, often use clockworks to set
off their machines at the time they decide on. No one can guess all the
inventions that