nearly eight o'clock
It was a rather large , square room , crowded up with a jumble of antiquities . The only real furniture was the window-seat on which I knelt , and an oblong table ; but even the table was laid on its side to make room for a battered Roman bust standing on the floor between its legs . I had left the door of the room wide open , in order to be able to hear anything that might happen in the house ; but the only sound came from a couple of rats that gnawed and rustled interminably among the rubbish in the corner . It must have been nearly eight o'clock , and I believe I had actually dozed off at last , kneeling in the window , when all at once it seemed to me that the rats were making a different , and greater noise than I ever heard rats make . It was pitch-black dark . I could n't see my hand in front of me . My first thought was to glance through the window at Scharnhoff , but something -- intuition , I suppose -- made me draw aside from the window instead .