midnight
The moonlight fell on ghostly groups of men seated before the camp-fires , their faces glowing in the red light of the ashes ; on the irregular rows of thatched shelters and on the shadowy figures of the ponies grazing at the picket-line . All the odors of a camp , which to me are more grateful than those of a garden , were borne to us on the damp night-air ; the clean pungent smell of burning wood , the scent of running water , the smell of many horses crowded together and of wet saddles and accoutrements . And above the swift rush of the stream , we could hear the ceaseless pounding of the horses ' hoofs on the turf , the murmurs of the men 's voices , and the lonely cry of the night-birds . It was past midnight when the General rose , and my brain rioted with the pictures he had drawn for me . Surely , if I had ever considered turning back , I now no longer tolerated the thought of it . If he had wished to convince me that the life of a soldier of fortune was an ungrateful one he had set about proving it in the worst possible way . At that moment I saw no career so worthy to be imitated as his own , no success to be so envied as his failures .