about a quarter
past eight
Do not , I pray you , answer me ; but fare you well , and good fortunes follow you . '' My friends , That is not so . Sir , we are your enemies . It was already near the fourth hour of the Roman night , or about a quarter past eight of our time , when Paullus issued from the Capuan gate , in order to keep his appointment with the conspirator ; and bold as he was , and fearless under ordinary circumstances , it would be useless to deny that his heart beat fast and anxiously under his steel cuirass , as he strode rapidly along the Appian way to the place of meeting . The sun had long since set , and the moon , which was in her last quarter , had not as yet risen ; so that , although the skies were perfectly clear and cloudless , there was but little light by which to direct his foot-steps toward the valley of the Muses , had he not been already familiar with the way . Stepping out rapidly , for he was fearful now of being too late at the place appointed , he soon passed the two branches of the beautiful and sparkling Almo , wherein the priests of Cybele were wont to lave the statue of their goddess , amid the din of brazen instruments and sacred song ; and a little further on , arrived at the cross-road where the way to Ardea , in the Latin country , branched off to the right hand from the great Appian turnpike . At this point there was a small temple sacred to Bacchus , and a little grove of elms and plane trees overrun with vines , on which the ripe clusters consecrated to the God were hanging yet , though the season of the vintage had elapsed , safe from the hand of passenger or truant school-boy .