noon
So I saw the stars close overhead , and the fishermen 's torches far below , the coastwise lights and the crimson hieroglyph that spelt Vesuvius , before I plunged into the darkness of the shaft . And that was the last time I appreciated the unique and peaceful charm of this outlandish spot . `` The stair was in two long flights , with an air-hole or two at the top of the upper one , but not another pin-prick till you came to the iron gate at the bottom of the lower . As you may read of an infinitely lighter place , in a finer work of fiction than you are ever likely to write , Bunny , it was ` gloomy at noon , dark as midnight at dusk , and black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight . ' I wo n't swear to my quotation , but I will to those stairs . They were as black that night as the inside of the safest safe in the strongest strong-room in the Chancery Lane Deposit . Yet I had not got far down them with my bare feet before I heard somebody else coming up in boots .