“You hear nothing?” she whispered 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.