midnight
Borderlands are quarrel-grounds . I should say the junction of British , Belgian , and German territory where Arab loot lies buried is the last place to dally in unarmed . You fellows ` ud better scour Zanzibar in the morning for the best guns to be had here . '' So I went to bed at midnight with that added stuff for building dreams . He who has bought guns remembers with a thrill ; he who has not , has in store for him the most delightful hours of life . May he fall , as our lot was , on a gunsmith who has mended hammerlocks for Arabs , and who loves rifles as some greater rascals love a woman or a horse . We all four strolled next morning , clad in the khaki reachmedowns that a Goanese `` universal provider '' told us were the `` latest thing , '' into a den between a camel stable and an even mustier-smelling home of gloom , where oxen tied nose-to-tail went round and round , grinding out semsem everlastingly while a lean Swahili sang to them .