midnight
The best well in the palace was on a small terrace on the west side ; it was supplied by the city aqueducts , and was constructed of five marble monsters , bearing up on twisted fishtails a huge shell , in which sat a bearded river-god . Their horse-shaped heads poured water into a vast basin , which , in the lapse of centuries , had grown full of a green and filmy vegetation . In order to reach this fountain , Selene had to go along the corridor where lay the rooms occupied by the Emperor and his followers . She only knew that an architect from Rome had taken up his quarters at Lochias , for , some time after midnight , she had been to get out meat and salt for him , but in what rooms the strangers had been lodged no one had told her . But this morning as she followed the path she was accustomed to tread day by day at the same hour , she felt an anxious shiver . She felt as if everything were not quite the same as usual , and just as she had set her foot on the cop step of the flight leading to the corridor , she raised her lamp to discover whence came the sound she thought she could hear , she perceived in the gloom a fearful something which as she approached it resembled a dog , and which was larger -- much larger -- than a dog should be . Her blood ran cold with terror ; for a few moments she stood as if spellbound , and was only conscious that the growling and snarling that she heard meant mischief and threatening to herself .