about midnight
I expect to find the powder here when I come back to Fort Loudon . '' His words were prophetic , although neither knew it . He cast a hasty glance at Demeré , who again objected , and Stuart went out of the door saying nothing further , the draught flickering , then extinguishing , the flame of the candle in his hand . It was very dark about midnight when the whole place lay locked in slumber . The sentries , watchful as ever in the block-house towers and at the chained and barred gates , noted now and again shadowy figures about the region of the southeast bastion , -- the old exhausted smoke-house had been in that locality , -- and thence suppressed voices sounded occasionally in low-toned , earnest talk . No light showed save in glimpses for a while through the crevices in the walls of the building itself , and once or twice when the door opened and was suddenly shut . There Corporal O'Flynn and three soldiers and Captain Stuart himself , armed with mattocks , dug a deep trench in the tough red clay , carefully drawing to one side the dead ashes and cinders left by the fires of his earnest preparations against the siege .