midnight
At last , faint and far and weird and slow , came a `` boom ! -- boom ! -- boom ! '' -- a distant bell tolling midnight . When the last stroke died , that depressing stillness followed again , and as before I was staring at those waxen faces and feeling those airy touches on my hair and my shoulders once more . One minute -- two minutes -- three minutes of this , then we heard a long deep groan , and everybody sprang up and stood , with his legs quaking . It came from that little dungeon .