five o'clock
He ran and got me a great tumbler of claret-and-water ; and , in the evening , having drunk about an imperial gallon of water , and taken afterwards some claret , I felt pretty well revived . Men were sent out at once to see after the Morgans , and found them perfectly safe , but very much frightened ; they had , however , saved their hut , for the fire had passed before the wind had got to its full strength . So we were delivered from the fire ; but still no rain . All day , for the next month , the hot north wind would blow till five o'clock , and then a cool southerly breeze would come up and revive us ; but still the heavens were dry , and our cattle died by hundreds . On the eighteenth of March , we sat in the verandah looking still over the blackened unlovely prospect , but now cheerfully and with hope ; for the eastern sky was piled up range beyond range with the scarlet and purple splendour of cloud-land , and , as darkness gathered , we saw the lightning , not twinkling and glimmering harmlessly about the horizon , as it had been all the summer , but falling sheer in violet-coloured rivers behind the dark curtain of rain that hung from the black edge of a teeming thunder-cloud . We had asked our overseer in that night , being Saturday , to drink with us ; he sat very still , and talked but little , as was his wont . I slapped him on the back , and said : -- `` Do you remember , Geordie , that muff in Thalaba who chose the wrong cloud ?