It had been snowing a little earlier in the evening, and the brief blast had swept the sky clean, so that even the brightest stars seemed sunken and waterlogged in the white floods of moonlight.

Under my hand lay the city.

Even the feet of the watch made no clatter on the pavements.

The fresh-fallen snow masked the sound.

The kennels of the blood-hounds were silent, for their dreadful tenants were abroad that night on the Duke's work.
Yet, sitting up there on the Wolfsberg, it seemed to me that I could distinguish a muttering as of voices full of hate, like men talking low on their beds the secret things of evil and treason.