midnight
`` Many , '' replied Don Quixote , `` but few they who deserve the name of knights . '' With these , and other discussions of the same sort , they passed that night and the following day , without anything worth mention happening to them , whereat Don Quixote was not a little dejected ; but at length the next day , at daybreak , they descried the great city of El Toboso , at the sight of which Don Quixote 's spirits rose and Sancho 's fell , for he did not know Dulcinea 's house , nor in all his life had he ever seen her , any more than his master ; so that they were both uneasy , the one to see her , the other at not having seen her , and Sancho was at a loss to know what he was to do when his master sent him to El Toboso . In the end , Don Quixote made up his mind to enter the city at nightfall , and they waited until the time came among some oak trees that were near El Toboso ; and when the moment they had agreed upon arrived , they made their entrance into the city , where something happened them that may fairly be called something . 'T was at the very midnight hour -- more or less -- when Don Quixote and Sancho quitted the wood and entered El Toboso . The town was in deep silence , for all the inhabitants were asleep , and stretched on the broad of their backs , as the saying is . The night was darkish , though Sancho would have been glad had it been quite dark , so as to find in the darkness an excuse for his blundering . All over the place nothing was to be heard except the barking of dogs , which deafened the ears of Don Quixote and troubled the heart of Sancho .