He glanced around him.

The fire was cold, his lamp burned low, his book had fallen to the floor.

Was it this that had aroused him?
No; surely a bell had clanged in his ears.

His brain kept the echo of it yet.
He listened.

The clang was not repeated; but gradually his ears became aware of a low murmuring, irregular yet continuous; a sound, it seemed, of voices, yet not of human voices; a moaning, and yet not quite a moaning, but rather what the French would call a _mugissement_.