midnight
`` Half way to Sydney ? '' and a ghastly look passed between the speaker and mephistopheles . `` Ay , lad ! they rode off on Moore 's two best nags at midnight . '' `` The captain had a belt round his waist crammed with dust and bank-notes , '' cried another , `` and the farmer a nugget as big as a pumpkin on the pommel of his saddle . '' Four hours had not elapsed ere Crawley and mephistopheles were on the road to Sydney , but not on horseback . Crawley had no longer funds to buy two horses , and , even if he had , he could not have borne the saddle after the barbarous surgery of last night -- the lance-head was cut out with a cheese-knife .