midnight
The last one he questioned was a countryman from Goshen , and from him he learned that the army was assembling in a great pasture on the southern limits of the Israelitish country . At sunset he was again upon the way , taking the level highway of the Wady Toomilat for a mile toward the west , and turning south , after that distance , as the rustic had directed him . The road was good and he ran with old-time ease . At midnight he came upon the spot where the army had camped , but the Pharaoh had already moved against Israel . He had left his track . The great belt of disturbed earth wheeled to the south , and as far as Kenkenes could see there was the same luminous veil of dust overhanging it , that he had noted over the path of Israel . The messenger drank deep at an irrigation canal , for he turned away from water when he followed the army , and leaving the level , dust-cushioned road behind , plunged into a rock-strewn , rolling land , desolate and silent .