midnight
Several times I thought I heard faint sounds behind me as of somebody moving cautiously , but eventually even these ceased , and I was left to the contemplation of my position without interruption . I could but vaguely conjecture the cause of my paralysis , and my only hope lay in that it might pass off as suddenly as it had fallen upon me . Late in the afternoon my horse , which had been standing with dragging rein before the cave , started slowly down the trail , evidently in search of food and water , and I was left alone with my mysterious unknown companion and the dead body of my friend , which lay just within my range of vision upon the ledge where I had placed it in the early morning . From then until possibly midnight all was silence , the silence of the dead ; then , suddenly , the awful moan of the morning broke upon my startled ears , and there came again from the black shadows the sound of a moving thing , and a faint rustling as of dead leaves . The shock to my already overstrained nervous system was terrible in the extreme , and with a superhuman effort I strove to break my awful bonds . It was an effort of the mind , of the will , of the nerves ; not muscular , for I could not move even so much as my little finger , but none the less mighty for all that . And then something gave , there was a momentary feeling of nausea , a sharp click as of the snapping of a steel wire , and I stood with my back against the wall of the cave facing my unknown foe .