Then Death turned his dark eyes from the clock to rest them upon the down-sunken head. He raised his hand—and all was still.
An ashen shadow crept over the stiffening face.
Silence—dreary, lonely silence!
Johannes waited—waited.
But the recurring groans had ceased. All was still—utterly, awfully still.
The strain of the long hours of listening was suspended, and it seemed to Johannes as if his soul were released, and falling into black and bottomless depths.
He fell deeper and deeper. It grew stiller and darker around him.
Then he heard Pluizer's voice, as if from far away. "Hey, ho! Another story told."
"That is good," said Doctor Cijfer. "Now you can find out what the trouble was. I leave that to you. I must away."
While still half in a dream, Johannes saw the gleam of burnished knives.