eleven o'clock at night
Accordingly , so soon as it was dark in the evening , sixty of the Ottoman soldiers quitted by two and threes the mansion which the Florentine Government had appropriated as a dwelling for the envoy and his suit . The men whom Demetrius thus intrusted with the execution of his scheme , and whose energy and fidelity he had previously secured by means of liberal reward and promise of more , were disguised in different ways , but were all well armed . To be brief , so well were the various dispositions taken , and so effectually were they executed , that those sixty soldiers had concealed themselves in the grove indicated by their master , without having excited in the minds of the Florentine people the least suspicion that anything unusual was about to take place . It was close upon eleven o'clock at night , when Demetrius , after having obtained a hasty interview with Nisida , whom he acquainted with the progress of the plot , repaired to the grove wherein his men were already distributed , and took his station in the midst of the knot of olives on the right of the huge chestnut tree which overhung the chasm . Nearly a quarter of an hour elapsed , and naught was heard save the waving of the branches and the rustling of the foliage , as the breeze of night agitated the grove ; but at the expiration of that brief period , the sound of voices was suddenly heard close by the chestnut tree -- not preceded by any footsteps nor other indication of the presence of men -- and thus appearing as if they had all at once and in an instant emerged from the earth . Not a moment had elapsed -- no , not a moment -- ere those individuals whose voices were thus abruptly heard , were captured and secured by a dozen Ottoman soldiers , who sprung upon them from the dense thickets around or dropped amongst them from the branches overhead -- and so admirably was the swoop made , that five persons were seized , bound and held powerless and incapable of resistance ere the echo of the cry of alarm which they raised had died away in the maze of the grove . And simultaneously with the performance of this skillful maneuver , a shrill whistle was wafted from the lips of Demetrius through the wood , and as if by magic , a dozen torches were seen to light up and numbers of men , with naked scimiters gleaming in the rays of those firebrands , rushed toward the spot where the capture had been made .