Twenty minutes to four
For a long while she had been getting nearer and nearer to the horizon . Now she finally sank and left the world in darkness save for a faint grey tinge in the eastern sky that palely heralded the dawn . Mr Mackenzie stood , watch in hand , his wife clinging to his arm and striving to stifle her sobs . ` Twenty minutes to four , ' he said , ` it ought to be light enough to attack at twenty minutes past four . Captain Good had better be moving , he will want three or four minutes ' start . ' Good gave one final polish to his eyeglass , nodded to us in a jocular sort of way -- which I could not help feeling it must have cost him something to muster up -- and , ever polite , took off his steel-lined cap to Mrs Mackenzie and started for his position at the head of the kraal , to reach which he had to make a detour by some paths known to the natives . Just then one of the boys came in and reported that everybody in the Masai camp , with the exception of the two sentries who were walking up and down in front of the respective entrances , appeared to be fast asleep .