midnight
As the carpenter inhaled a whiff he continued : `` I suppose that man was beaten to death ? '' `` He was -- to death . '' For a while the pair smoked in silence . The hour was past midnight . Over the defile the jagged strip of sky which roofed it looked like a river of blue flowing at an immense height above the night-enveloped earth , and bearing the brilliant stars on its smooth current . Quieter and quieter was everything growing ; more and more was everything becoming part of the night ... . One might have thought that nothing particular had happened .