midnight
In these doubts , however , Marston , strange to say , would not permit himself for one moment to share . Belfast might shake his head as much as he pleased ; he , Marston , was no fickle reed to be shaken by every wind ; he firmly believed the Projectile to be there before him , actually in sight , if he could only see it . All the long night of the 13th , and even for several hours of the 14th , he never quitted the telescope for a single instant . The midnight sky was in magnificent order ; not a speck dimmed its azure of an intensely dark tint . The stars blazed out like fires ; the Moon refused none of her secrets to the scientists who were gazing at her so intently that night from the platform on the summit of Long 's Peak . But no black spot crawling over her resplendent surface rewarded their eager gaze . Marston indeed would occasionally utter a joyful cry announcing some discovery , but in a moment after he was confessing with groans that it was all a false alarm .