midnight
The messenger brought out what he had to tell gaspingly . He had lost much blood and was faint , but he told how there had taken place something awful in the village of the Shell Men . It was but little after dusk the night before when the Shell Men were gathered together in merrymaking after good fishing and lucky gathering of what there was to eat along the shores of the shell fish and the egg-laying turtles and the capture of a huge river-horse . It had been , up to midnight , one of the greatest and most joyous meetings the Shell People had joined in for many years . They were close-gathered and prosperous and content , and though there was daily turmoil and risk of death upon the water and sometimes as great risk upon the land , yet the village fringing the waters had grown , and the midden -- the `` kitchen-midden '' of future ages -- had raised itself steadily and now stretched far up and down the creek which was a river branch and far backward from the creek toward the forest which ended with the uplands . They had learned to dread the forest little , the water people , but from the forest now came what made for each in all the village a dread and horror . The cave tiger had been among them !