midnight
Unkept their beards certainly were , but not white . This was the beginning of the observation he afterward despatched to Mahommed : Only the walls of Byzantium remain for her defence ; the Church has absorbed her young men ; the sword is discarded for the rosary . Nor could he help remarking that whereas the _ frati _ of Italy were fat , rubicund , and jolly , these seemed in search of death through the severest penitential methods . His thought recurring to the house again , he remembered having heard how every hour of every day from five o'clock in the morning to midnight was filled with religious service of some kind in Sancta Sophia . A few stone steps the full length of the court led up to five great doors of bronze standing wide open ; and as the train took one of the latter and began to disappear , he chose another , and walked fast in order to witness the entry . Brought thus into the immense vestibule , he stopped , and at once forgot the gray brethren . Look where he might , at the walls , and now up to the ceiling , every inch of space wore the mellowed brightness of mosaic wrought in cubes of glass exquisitely graduated in color .