They both pointed to the sill of the window, through which the moon was
shining at the far end of the room, and the soldier said--

"Under that stone."

Peter drew a long breath, and wiped the cold dew from his face,
preparatory to passing to the window, where he expected to secure the
reward of his protracted terrors. But looking steadfastly at the window,
he saw the faint image of a new-born child sitting upon the sill in the
moonlight, with its little arms stretched toward him, and a smile so
heavenly as he never beheld before.

At sight of this, strange to say, his heart entirely failed him, he
looked on the figures that stood near, and beheld them gazing on the
infantine form with a smile so guilty and distorted, that he felt as if
he were entering alive among the scenery of hell, and shuddering, he
cried in an irrepressible agony of horror--

"I'll have nothing to say with you, and nothing to do with you; I don't
know what yez are or what yez want iv me, but let me go this minute,
every one of yez, in the name of God."

With these words there came a strange rumbling and sighing about
Peter's ears; he lost sight of everything, and felt that peculiar and
not unpleasant sensation of falling softly, that sometimes supervenes
in sleep, ending in a dull shock. After that he had neither dream nor
consciousness till he wakened, chill and stiff, stretched between two
piles of old rubbish, among the black and roofless walls of the
ruined house.