midnight
While the mule sought and found its way in the deep darkness with slow and sure steps , he gazed up at the firmament , at the play of the clouds which now covered the moon with their black masses , and now parted , floating off in white sheeny billows while the silver crescent of the moon showed between them like a swan against the dark mirror of a lake . And all the time he thought incessantly of Klea -- thinking in a dreamy way that he saw her before him , but different and taller than before , her form growing more and more before his eyes till at last it was so tall that her head touched the sky , the clouds seemed to be her veil , and the moon a brilliant diadem in her abundant dark hair . Powerfully stirred by this vision he let the bridle fall on the mule 's neck , and spread open his arms to the beautiful phantom , but as he rode forwards it ever retired , and when presently the west wind blew the sand in his face , and he had to cover his eyes with his hand it vanished entirely , and did not return before he found himself at the Apis-tombs . He had hoped to find here a soldier or a watchman to whom he could entrust the beast , but when the midnight chant of the priests of the temple of Osiris-Apis had died away not a sound was to be heard far or near ; all that lay around him was as still and as motionless as though all that had ever lived there were dead . Or had some demon robbed him of his hearing ? He could hear the rush of his own swift pulses in his ears - not the faintest sound besides . Such silence is there nowhere but in the city of the dead and at night , nowhere but in the desert .