midnight
The night wore on , and at last , at a sign from the Queen , the ladies rose and departed to their beds . The men settled down again . The cellarers redoubled their activities , the flagons circulated more briskly , and the noise they made must have disturbed the monks entrenched in their cells against these earthly vanities . The laughter of Andreas grew louder and more vacuous , and when at last he heaved himself up at midnight and departed to bed , that he might take some rest against the morrow 's hunt , he staggered a little in his walk . But there were other hunters there whose impatience could not keep until the morrow , whose game was to be run to death that very night . They waited -- Bertrand d'Artois , Robert of Cabane , the Counts of Terlizzi and Morcone , Melazzo and Andreas 's body servant Pace -- until all those who lay at Aversa were deep in slumber . Then at two o'clock in the morning they made their stealthy way to the loggia on the third floor , a long colonnaded gallery above the Abbot 's garden .