nine o'clock
Time that evening was creeping on at a sluggish pace . `` Surely , '' he soliloquised , `` if Vranic is coming he can not delay much longer . '' After a few seconds he put out the light and returned to the front room . Soon afterwards , he heard a bell strike slowly nine o'clock in the distance ; then all was silence . The house was perfectly still and quiet , and yet , every now and then , in the room in which he was sitting , he could hear slight , unexplainable noises , like the soft trailing of garments , or the shuffling of naked feet upon the stone floor ; stools sometimes would creak , just as if someone had sat upon them ; then small objects seemed stealthily handled by invisible fingers . He tried to think of his business , always an engrossing subject , not to be overcome by his superstitious fears . He had been a shrewd man , he had mortgaged his house for its full value to Vranic himself to buy the mythical cargo .