midnight
No suburban villa could have been more commonplace and less disturbed than was their dwelling for twenty-seven nights of every month , but on the twenty-eighth they found a change of air desirable . Once it is true the stalwart Thomas , like Ajax , defied the lightning , or rather other things that come from above -- or from below . But before morning he appeared at the hut beneath the koppie announcing that he had come to see how they were getting on , and shaking as though he had a bout of fever . Dorcas asked him no questions -LRB- afterwards she gathered that he had been favoured with quite a new and very varied midnight programme -RRB- ; but Tabitha smiled in her slow way . For Tabitha knew all about this business as she knew everything that passed in Sisa-Land . Moreover , she laughed at them a little , and said that _ she _ was not afraid to sleep in the mission-house on the night of full moon . What is more , she did so , which was naughty of her , for on one such occasion she slipped back to the house when her parents were asleep , followed only by her `` night-dog , '' the watchful Ivana , and returned at dawn just as they had discovered that she was missing , singing and laughing and jumping from stone to stone with the agility of her own pet goat .