eleven o'clock
A strange device which he had adopted every evening for the past week , he had adopted again to-night -- there were little white seals , bearing a curious figure , consisting in interlaced triangles , upon the insides of every window in the house , upon the doors , and even upon the fire-grates . Robert Cairn at another time might have thought his father mad , childish , thus to play at wizardry ; but he had had experiences which had taught him to recognise that upon such seemingly trivial matters , great issues might turn , that in the strange land over the Border , there were stranger laws -- laws which he could but dimly understand . There he acknowledged the superior wisdom of Dr. Cairn ; and did not question it . At eleven o'clock a comparative quiet had come upon Half-Moon Street . The sound of the traffic had gradually subsided , until it seemed to him that the house stood , not in the busy West End of London , but isolated , apart from its neighbours ; it seemed to him an abode , marked out and separated from the other abodes of man , a house enveloped in an impalpable cloud , a cloud of evil , summoned up and directed by the wizard hand of Antony Ferrara , son of the Witch-Queen . Although Myra pretended to read , and Dr. Cairn , from his fixed expression , might have been supposed to be pre-occupied , in point of fact they were all waiting , with nerves at highest tension , for the opening of the attack . In what form it would come -- whether it would be vague moanings and tappings upon the windows , such as they had already experienced , whether it would be a phantasmal storm , a clap of phenomenal thunder -- they could not conjecture , if the enemy would attack suddenly , or if his menace would grow , threatening from afar off , and then gradually penetrating into the heart of the garrison .