eight o’clock
* This ditch or dry moat is about 30 feet deep and 50 feet wide . The counterscarp by which one may descend into it has an angle of 45 degrees . -- Trans . When at eight o'clock some policemen and keepers came by , searching the ditch , they did not perceive him . As he had anticipated , the hunt had begun at the first glimmer of light . For a time his heart beat violently ; however , nobody else passed , nothing whatever stirred the grass . The only sounds that reached him were faint ones from the Bois de Boulogne , the ring of a bicyclist 's bell , the thud of a horse 's hoofs , the rumble of carriage wheels .