Then, taking the candle from the snail-adorned holder, he lit it, and, having extinguished those in the chandeliers, went into his bedroom and undressed himself.

The Bible he returned to its hiding-place and closed the panel, after which he blew out the light and climbed into the tall bed.
As a rule Dirk was a most excellent sleeper; when he laid his head on the pillow his eyes closed nor did they open again until the appointed and accustomed hour.

But this night he could not sleep.

Whether it was the dinner or the wine, or the gambling, or the prayer and the searching of the Scriptures with his cousin Brant, the result remained the same; he was very wakeful, which annoyed him the more as a man of his race and phlegm found it hard to attribute this unrest to any of these trivial causes.

Still, as vexation would not make him sleep, he lay awake watching the moonlight flood the chamber in broad bars and thinking.
Somehow as Dirk thought thus he grew afraid; it seemed to him as though he shared that place with another presence, an evil and malignant presence.