midnight
I need thy hand under my arm . '' Victoria tried to think only of M'Barka , and to wait with patience for the supreme moment -- if it were to come . Even if she had wished it , she could not have asked questions now . It was midnight when Nevill 's car ran into the beautiful oasis town , guarded by the most curious mountains of the Algerian desert , and they were at their strangest , cut out clear as the painted mountains of stage scenery , in the light of the great acetylene lamps . Stephen thought them like a vast , half-burned Moorish city of mosques and palaces , over which sand-storms had raged for centuries , leaving only traces here and there of a ruined tower , a domed roof , or an ornamental frieze . Of the palms he could see nothing , except the long , dark shape of the oasis among the pale sand-billows ; but early next morning he and Nevill were up and out on the roof of the little French hotel , while sunrise banners marched across the sky . Stephen had not known that desert dunes could be bright peach-pink , or that a river flowing over white stones could look like melted rubies , or that a few laughing Arab girls , ankle-deep in limpid water , could glitter in morning light like jewelled houris in celestial gardens .