And now first they began to discover what, through the fumes of the whisky and the smoke of the pine-torches, they had not observed, namely, that none of them knew the man, or had ever seen him before.

They looked at him, and could not turn their eyes from him, and a cold terror began to creep through their vitals.

He kept his fierce scornful look fixed on the earl for a moment, and then spoke.

'And I gave you your chance,' he said, 'and you would not take it: now you shall sit still where you are, and no Sabbath shall you ever see.' The clock began to strike, and the man's mouth came straight again.

But when the hammer had struck eleven times, it struck no more, and the clock stopped.