midnight
`` In view and hearing from the walls let the hordes kindle fires to-night . Multiply the fires , if need be , and keep the thousands in motion about them , making a spectacle such as this generation has not seen ; then '' -- The singular man stopped to laugh . Mahommed gazed at him in silent wonder . `` Then , '' he continued , `` so will distorted fancy do its work , that by midnight the city will be on its knees praying to the Mother of God , and every armed man on the walls who has a wife or daughter will think he hears himself called to for protection . Try it , my Lord , and thou mayst whack my flesh into ribbons if by dawn the general fear have not left but a half task for thy sword . '' It was as the Jew said . Attracted by the illumination in the sky , suggestive of something vast and terrible going on outside the walls , and still full of faith in a miraculous deliverance , thousands hastened to see the mercy .