ten o'clock
Sometimes on a headland the sun flashed white over a knot of labourers , scything the hay where no machine could go : sometimes a shepherd 's cote gleamed far off above the pale wattlings of a fold : but as he wound on -- and on into the Plain there was no sign of man in all the hot landscape , and no motion but the bicker of the stream over its stony bed , and the hum of insect life busy on its millions of dark and tiny vibrant wings . Not a breath of wind stirred among these grassy valleys , and Lawrence , feeling warm , had sat down by a pool under a sapling birchtree , when he heard a step on the path . It was Isabel Stafford . He had hardly seen her again overnight , for Val had carried his young sister away before ten o'clock . He waited for her in the rare shadow of the birchtree , a tall powerful figure in a white drill suit of the tropics , his fair skin and black eyes shaded by a wide Panama hat . Isabel as she drew near was vexed to find herself blushing . She was a little shy of Captain Hyde , a little averse to meet his sparkling eyes .