midnight
She withdrew her hand from Mr. Dimmesdale 's , and pointed across the street . But he clasped both his hands over his breast , and cast his eyes towards the zenith . Nothing was more common , in those days , than to interpret all meteoric appearances , and other natural phenomena , that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon , as so many revelations from a supernatural source . Thus , a blazing spear , a sword of flame , a bow , or a sheaf of arrows , seen in the midnight sky , prefigured Indian warfare . Pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson light . We doubt whether any marked event , for good or evil , ever befell New England , from its settlement down to Revolutionary times , of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of this nature . Not seldom , it had been seen by multitudes .