early noon
After the tranquillity of sixteen years , that burning and treacherous soil again menaced destruction ; they uttered but one cry , ` THE EARTHQUAKE ! THE EARTHQUAKE ! ' and passing unmolested from the midst of them , Apaecides and his companions , without entering the house , hastened down one of the alleys , passed a small open gate , and there , sitting on a little mound over which spread the gloom of the dark green aloes , the moonlight fell on the bended figure of the blind girl -- she was weeping bitterly . IT was early noon , and the forum was crowded alike with the busy and the idle . As at Paris at this day , so at that time in the cities of Italy , men lived almost wholly out of doors : the public buildings , the forum , the porticoes , the baths , the temples themselves , might be considered their real homes ; it was no wonder that they decorated so gorgeously these favorite places of resort -- they felt for them a sort of domestic affection as well as a public pride . And animated was , indeed , the aspect of the forum of Pompeii at that time ! Along its broad pavement , composed of large flags of marble , were assembled various groups , conversing in that energetic fashion which appropriates a gesture to every word , and which is still the characteristic of the people of the south .