midnight
or out in the fishing-smack , he would point to some cosy , full-bottomed trading ship with a `` Hist , lads , the great Geoffroy there astern ! '' But now Brother Hugo liked not the jest , but looked sternly at me from beneath his great brows . `` Le Grand Sarrasin ! '' said he , `` if so thou lovest to call the vilest foam of filth on these Norman seas , this day last week rode into St. Brieuc by night with eighteen ships , climbed into the fort , none letting him , slit the throat of a sentinel and warder , barred the garrison into its own quarters , and poured like a midnight pestilence through the streets , bidding his Paynim hounds of slaughter , without pity and without fear , enter where they listed , and that they did . And there by night in St. Brieuc , good men and good wives , who never harmed man or beast were knifed as they lay , the young maids led captive , and the babes flung like useless baggage through windows into the gutter , and that is the last I have heard of Le Grand Sarrasin ! '' said Brother Hugo , sadly enough . I stood beside him silently , and the salt tears burst painfully under my eyelids as I heard the fate of that poor town by the Breton coast .