midnight
It was a wondrous journey to Barney , The pages of Sindbad alone seemed to have a parallel for the awful mysteries of that long , long flight through jungles of towering timber , whose leaves and bark were as unfamiliar as Brazilian growth to the troops of Pizarro or the Congo vegetation to the French pioneer . Jones and his comrades saw nothing but the hardships of the march and the delay of the painful _ détours _ in the solemn glades . The direction was kept by compass , many of the men having been supplied with a miniature instrument by the prudent foresight of Mrs. Lanview , who was niggard of neither time nor money in the cause she had at heart . In spite of every effort a march so swift that it would have exhausted cavalry , Jones 's ranks did not reach the rendezvous until midnight . At about that hour the exhausted fugitives came suddenly upon a wide , open plain , and far below them , in the valley , a vision of light and life shone through the dark . `` There , boys , we 're at the end of our first stage . Unless I 'm much mistaken , that bit of merry-making yonder will cost the Confederacy a chief . ''