midnight
`` The key of the mystery lies between him and this absurd Baron , and I begin to guess at something of complicity on the part of M. Bethune . A malediction on the whole tribe of mountaineers ! The thing 's like a play ; I 've seen far more improbable circumstances in a book . I am shot at in a country reputed to be well-governed even to monotony ; a sombre host puzzles , a far too frank domestic perplexes ; magic flutes and midnight voices haunt this infernal hold ; the conventional lady of the drama is kept in the background with great care , and just when I am on the point of meeting her , the perplexing servitor becomes my jailer . But yes , it is a play ; surely it is a play ; or else I am in bed in Cammercy suffering from one of old Jeanne 's heavy late suppers . It is then that I must waken myself into the little room with the pink hangings . '' He raised the point of the sword to prick his finger , more in a humorous mood than with any real belief that it was all a dream , and dropped it fast as he felt a gummy liquor clotting on the blade .