midnight
It was early morning when I had been taken ill -- not much past eight when I had met the monk and sought his assistance for the poor little fruit-seller who had after all perished alone in his sufferings . Now supposing my illness had lasted some hours , I might have fallen into a trance -- died -- as those around me had thought , somewhere about noon . In that case they would certainly have buried me with as little delay as possible -- before sunset at all events . Thinking these points over one by one , I came to the conclusion that the bell I had just heard must have struck midnight -- the midnight of the very day of my burial . I shivered ; a kind of nervous dread stole over me . I have always been physically courageous , but at the same time , in spite of my education , I am somewhat superstitious -- what Neapolitan is not ? it runs in the southern blood .