midnight
For the present I only wish we were as well off as those horses ; they will have plenty of time to recover their breath . '' `` Yes , plenty of time , '' answered the other with a broad grin , and then he with his companion withdrew into the room to fill his cup . Klea too could hear that the chariot which had brought her hither , had halted at the farther tavern , but it did not occur to her that the driver had gone in to treat himself to wine with half of Irene 's drachma . The horses should make up for the lost time , and they could easily do it , for when did the king 's banquets ever end before midnight ? As soon as Plea saw that the assassins were filling their earthen cups , she slipped softly on tiptoe behind the tavern ; the moon came out from behind the clouds for a few minutes , she sought and found the short way by the desert-path to the Apis-tombs , and hastened rapidly along it . She looked straight before her , for whenever she glanced at the road-side , and her eye was caught by some dried up shrub of the desert , silvery in the pale moonlight , she fancied she saw behind it the face of a murderer . The skeletons of fallen beasts standing up out of the dust , and the bleached jawbones of camels and asses , which shone much whiter than the desert-sand on which they lay , seemed to have come to life and motion , and made her think of the tiger-teeth of the bearded ruffian .