eight o'clock
The fog still hung over the bottom-lands in shreds and patches , and through it they dimly descried a shadowy body of men moving through the Saint-Albert defile . `` Ah , they are there , '' continued Maurice , instinctively lowering his voice . `` Too late , too late ; they have intercepted us ! '' It was not eight o'clock . The guns , which were thundering more fiercely than ever in the direction of Bazeilles , now also began to make themselves heard at the eastward , in the valley of la Givonne , which was hid from view ; it was the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony , debouching from the Chevalier wood and attacking the 1st corps , in front of Daigny village ; and now that the XIth Prussian corps , moving on Floing , had opened fire on General Douay 's troops , the investment was complete at every point of the great periphery of several leagues ' extent , and the action was general all along the line . Maurice suddenly perceived the enormity of their blunder in not retreating on Mezieres during the night ; but as yet the consequences were not clear to him ; he could not foresee all the disaster that was to result from that fatal error of judgment . Moved by some indefinable instinct of danger , he looked with apprehension on the adjacent heights that commanded the plateau de l'Algerie .