I would have liked to have asked the driver what this all meant, but I really feared to do so, for I thought that, placed as I was, any protest would have had no effect in case there had been an intention to delay.
By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch.

It was within a few minutes of midnight.

This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences.

I waited with a sick feeling of suspense.
Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road, a long, agonized wailing, as if from fear.

The sound was taken up by another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night.
At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright.