a quarter to ten
* * * * * Under his show of gaiety , Beautrelet concealed a real anguish of mind . He did not sleep until the morning , but lay pondering over the most impracticable schemes , one after the other . Ganimard had left him in order to go to Yport , six or seven miles from Etretat , where , for prudence 's sake , he had told his men to meet him , and where he chartered twelve fishing smacks , with the ostensible object of taking soundings along the coast . At a quarter to ten , escorted by a body of twelve stalwart men , he met Isidore at the foot of the road that goes up the cliff . At ten o'clock exactly , they reached the skirt of wall . It was the decisive moment . At ten o'clock exactly .