midnight
`` At what hour ? '' `` At high noon . '' `` Now then , I will tell you what to say . '' I paused , and stood over that cowering lad a whole minute in awful silence ; then , in a voice deep , measured , charged with doom , I began , and rose by dramatically graded stages to my colossal climax , which I delivered in as sublime and noble a way as ever I did such a thing in my life : `` Go back and tell the king that at that hour I will smother the whole world in the dead blackness of midnight ; I will blot out the sun , and he shall never shine again ; the fruits of the earth shall rot for lack of light and warmth , and the peoples of the earth shall famish and die , to the last man ! '' I had to carry the boy out myself , he sunk into such a collapse . I handed him over to the soldiers , and went back . In the stillness and the darkness , realization soon began to supplement knowledge .