two hours after midnight
After the games were ended he disappeared , and was seen no more that day . His absence was hardly noted , for immediately after Has-se 's victory the entire assembly repaired to the great mound which had gradually been raised by the accumulation of shells , bones , broken pottery , and charred wood that many generations of Indian feasters had left behind them , and here was spread the feast of the day . Then followed dancing and singing , which were continued far into the night . At length the dancers became exhausted ; the men who beat the drums and rattled the terrapin shells filled with dried palmetto berries grew so drowsy that their music sounded fainter and fainter , until it finally ceased altogether , and by two hours after midnight the whole encampment was buried in profound slumber . Even those whose duty it was to stand guard dozed at their posts , and the silence of the night was only broken by the occasional hootings of Hup-pe -LRB- the great owl -RRB- . Had the guards been awake instead of dreaming , it is possible that they might have noticed the dark figure of a man who noiselessly and stealthily crept amid the heavy shadows on the edge of the forest towards the great granary , or storehouse , in which was kept all the ripe maize of the tribe , together with much starch-root -LRB- koonti katki -RRB- and a large quantity of yams . The granary was built of pitch-pine posts and poles , heavily thatched with palm-leaves , that the summer suns had dried to a tinder .