midnight
` We all know that , ' they returned , and left him . The Goblins For some time Curdie worked away briskly , throwing all the ore he had disengaged on one side behind him , to be ready for carrying out in the morning . He heard a good deal of goblin-tapping , but it all sounded far away in the hill , and he paid it little heed . Towards midnight he began to feel rather hungry ; so he dropped his pickaxe , got out a lump of bread which in the morning he had laid in a damp hole in the rock , sat down on a heap of ore , and ate his supper . Then he leaned back for five minutes ' rest before beginning his work again , and laid his head against the rock . He had not kept the position for one minute before he heard something which made him sharpen his ears . It sounded like a voice inside the rock .