five o'clock
Soon the distant musketry fire , too , was silenced . Then , to the deafening uproar , to the vengeful thunder that had been roaring since morning , there succeeded a stillness as of death . Night came , and with it came a boding silence , fraught with terror . At half-past five o'clock , after the closing of the gates , Delaherche , in his eager thirst for news , now that he knew the battle lost , had again returned to the Sous-Prefecture . He hung persistently about the approaches of the janitor 's lodge , tramping up and down the paved courtyard with feverish impatience , for more than three hours , watching for every officer who came up and interviewing him , and thus it was that he had become acquainted , piecemeal , with the rapid series of events ; how General de Wimpffen had tendered his resignation and then withdrawn it upon the peremptory refusal of Generals Ducrot and Douay to append their names to the articles of capitulation , how the Emperor had thereupon invested the General with full authority to proceed to the Prussian headquarters and treat for the surrender of the vanquished army on the most advantageous terms obtainable ; how , finally , a council of war had been convened with the object of deciding what possibilities there were of further protracting the struggle successfully by the defense of the fortress . During the deliberations of this council , which consisted of some twenty officers of the highest rank and seemed to him as if it would never end , the cloth manufacturer climbed the steps of the huge public building at least twenty times , and at last his curiosity was gratified by beholding General de Wimpffen emerge , very red in the face and his eyelids puffed and swollen with tears , behind whom came two other generals and a colonel . They leaped into the saddle and rode away over the Pont de Meuse .