midnight
But it was in vain . `` I shall stay here , '' was all he answered her . And he stayed , -- all the night long . The lamps went out ; the rats came and ran across the floor ; as the hours crept on through midnight and past , the cold intensified and the air of the room grew like ice . August did not move ; he lay with his face downward on the golden and rainbow-hued pedestal of the household treasure , which henceforth was to be cold for evermore , an exiled thing in a foreign city in a far-off land . Whilst yet it was dark his three elder brothers came down the stairs and let themselves out , each bearing his lantern and going to his work in stone-yard and timber-yard and at the salt-works . They did not notice him ; they did not know what had happened .