midnight
`` Then go , and let no man know of this . Amen give thee success . '' Kenkenes thanked him gratefully and went at once . The moon was in its third quarter , but it was near midnight and the valley of the Nile between the distant highlands to the east and west was in soft light . On the eastern side of the river there was only a feeble glimmer from a window where some chanting leech stood by a bedside , or where a feast was still on . But under the luster of the waning moon Thebes lost its outlines and became a city of marbles and shadows and undefined limits . On the western side the vision was interrupted by a lofty , sharp-toothed range , tipped with a few scattered stars of the first magnitude .