twelve minutes past
midnight
Caesar became silent . As the stopping of a clock will sometimes awaken a sleeper , the abrupt cessation of that distant howling , to which I had grown accustomed , now recalled me from a world of gloomy imaginings . I glanced at my watch in the moonlight . It was twelve minutes past midnight . As I replaced it the dog suddenly burst out afresh , but now in a tone of sheer anger . He was alternately howling and snarling in a way that sounded new to me . The crashes , as he leapt to the end of his chain , shook the building in which he was confined .