midnight
`` Stick to me like my shadow , and do every blessed thing I do . '' Out he dived , I after him , and round to the left with the speed of lightning , but apparently not without the lightning 's attribute of attracting attention to itself . There was a hullabaloo across the square behind us , and I looked round to see the crowd there breaking in our direction , as I rushed after Raffles under an arch and up the alley in front of Verulam Buildings . It was striking midnight as we made our sprint along this alley , and at the far end the porter was preparing to depart , but he waited to let us through the gate into Gray 's Inn Road , and not until he had done so can the hounds have entered the straight . We did not hear them till the gate had clanged behind us , nor had it opened again before we were high and dry in a hansom . `` King 's Cross ! '' roared Raffles for all the street to hear ; but before we reached Clerkenwell Road he said he meant Waterloo , and round we went to the right along the tram-lines .