Although Roland was as evidently without fear internally as externally, he was not without distrust, and his ear caught the slightest sounds.
He heard the half-hour strike.

In spite of himself the sound startled him, for it came from the bell of the convent.

How was it that, in this ruin where all was dead, a clock, the pulse of time, was living?
"Oh! oh!" said Roland; "that proves that I shall see something." The words were spoken almost in an aside.

The majesty of the place and the silence acted upon that heart of iron, firm as the iron that had just tolled the call of time upon eternity.

The minutes slowly passed, one after the other.