eight o'clock
These visitors seemed a solemn lot , and conversation included the candidates only now and then . During the lulls in the talk , the Freshmen made audible sounds trying to swallow their food ; this was so embarrassing that they gave up the effort to eat , only gulping water now and then during talk . It was a relief when some one touched each Freshman quietly , and the condemned youngsters followed upstairs , their faces wearing pitiful dumb-victim-at-the-altar expressions , or trying with ghastly smiles to show how little they cared . The young moon , sloping toward the shaggy rim of the Palo Alto hills soon after eight o'clock , looked down into the pasture lands back of the campus . There she saw Walter Haviland , blindfolded and with a rope about his waist . Three other Freshmen were in a similar condition in different parts of the field . Haviland had been intrusted to the tender mercy of Cap .