Plainly, it was no real calculation, but a ceremony before the answer.
The listener clapped his ear to the crevice. Would that answer, he
wondered, be a month, a week, to-morrow?
The shutter banged, the light streamed, down went Heywood against the
plaster. Thick dregs from the goblet splashed on the tiles. A head, the
flattened profile of the brisk man in yellow, leaned far out from the
little port-hole. Grunting, he shook the inverted cup, let it dangle
from his hands, stared up aimlessly at the stars, and then--to Heywood's
consternation--dropped his head to meditate, looking straight down.
"He sees me," thought Heywood, and held himself ready, trembling. But
the fellow made no sign, the broad squat features no change. The pose
was that of vague, comfortable thought. Yet his vision seemed to rest,
true as a plumb-line, on the hiding-place. Was he in doubt?--he could
reach down lazily, and feel.
Worst of all, the greenish pallor in the eastern sky had imperceptibly
turned brighter; and now the ribbed edge of a roof, across the way,
began to glow like incandescent silver. The moon was crawling up.
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