ten o'clock
Leaving the station , he preceded her along the track for a hundred steps or so until they came to an iron foot-bridge that spanned the road . When they had climbed the narrow stairs and reached the floor of the structure , resting their elbows on the railing , they beheld the broad level plain outstretched before them , at the foot of the slope of the embankment . `` You see , Paris is burning . '' It was in the neighborhood of ten o'clock . The fierce red glare that lit the southern sky was ever mounting higher . The blood-red clouds had disappeared from where they had floated in the east ; the zenith was like a great inverted bowl of inky blackness , across which ran the reflections of the distant flames . The horizon was one unbroken line of fire , but to the right they could distinguish spots where the conflagration was raging with greater fury , sending up great spires and pinnacles of flame , of the most vivid scarlet , to pierce the dense opacity above , amid billowing clouds of smoke .