midnight
Sir David , leading the way , drew aside one heavy curtain and then a second one , which allowed them to enter a long low-roofed room almost in total darkness , as far as the end to which they were introduced was concerned ; but the upper portion of the hall was lit in lurid fashion . At the further end of the Refectory was a raised platform on which the heads of the Order had dined , during the prosperous days of the edifice , while the humbler brethren occupied , as was customary , the main body of the lower floor . Upon this platform stood a metal tripod , which held a basket of dazzling fire , and in this basket was set a crucible , now changing from red to white , under the constant exertions of two creatures who looked like imps from the lower regions rather than inhabitants of the upper world . These two strove industriously with a huge bellows which caused the fire to roar fiercely , and this unholy light cast its effulgence upon the faces of many notable men packed closely together in the body of the hall ; it also shone on the figure of a tall man , the ghastly pallor of whose countenance was enhanced by a fringe of hair black as midnight . He had a nose like a vulture 's beak , and eyes piercing in their intensity , as black as his midnight hair . His costume also resembled that of a monk in cut , but it was scarlet in hue ; and the radiance of the furnace caused it to glow as if illumined by some fire from within . At the moment the last two entered , Farini was explaining to his audience , in an accent palpably foreign , that he was a man of science , and that the devil gave him no aid in his researches , an assertion doubtless perfectly accurate .