Or there might have been utter and dreadful silence and waiting for the stroke of vengeance, for the brightest eye was misted and the strongest hand was unnerved and the voice that had made them tremble was gone.
But there was neither silence nor weeping.

Someone in a nearby kitchen rattled her pans and then cursed a dog away from her back-door.

Not that any of the sounds were loud.

The sounds of living are rarely loud, but they run in an endless river--a monotone broken by ugly ripples of noise to testify that men still sleep or waken, hunger or feed.

Another ripple had gone down to the sea of darkness, yet all the ripples behind it chased on their way heedlessly and babbled neither louder nor softer.
There should have been some giant voice to peal over the sleeping village and warn them of the coming vengeance--for Jerry Strann was dead! The tall, gaunt figure of Haw-Haw Langley came on tiptoe from behind, beheld the dead face, and grinned; a nervous convulsion sent a long ripple through his body, and his Adam's-apple rose and fell.