midnight
may
`` Many times have I travelled in company with just such a promiscuously gathered crowd as the strangler described . '' `` You have been in luck , '' laughed the Afghan . `` Doubtless on those occasions the omens proved unpropitious for the final deed . A jackal crossing the road or the hoot of an owl at midnight may have spared your life , my friend . '' With a shudder , the trader drew his white garments more closely around him . `` Well , '' remarked the magistrate , `` for my own part , ever from that day when I heard the story of thugs and thuggee I have exercised the precaution of never travelling a single mile on the road with strangers , however fair-spoken . Although I have never again met anyone whom I could positively accuse of such practices , that the evil exists in our midst , and is widely spread , I am convinced .