twenty-three o'clock
`` Yes . '' `` That is Megiddo , '' he said . `` Some call it Armageddon . '' At twenty-three o'clock that night the Syrian priest went out to watch for the coming of the messenger from Tiberias . Nearly two hours previously he had heard the cry of the Russian volor that plied from Damascus to Tiberias , and Tiberias to Jerusalem , and even as it was the messenger was a little late . These were very primitive arrangements , but Palestine was out of the world -- a slip of useless country -- and it was necessary for a man to ride from Tiberias to Nazareth each night with papers from Cardinal Corkran to the Pope , and to return with correspondence . It was a dangerous task , and the members of the New Order who surrounded the Cardinal undertook it by turns .