four o'clock in the morning
Two men could work at the bottom of it . One of the men was relieved every few minutes by a fresh worker , but the father worked on , and did more than the others , not-withstanding the changes . All of the time the mother sat on the ground beside the small shaft with her arms about its top . At four o'clock in the morning we were down opposite the prisoner . He was still crying faintly . We saw that to avoid the danger of causing him to slip farther down we must dig below him , bore a hole in the board , and push through a bar . But a few shovelfuls more were needed .