ten o'clock at night
The thing that weighed upon me most of all was that while I knew that every minute of rest and tranquillity I could snatch might be of moment to me , rest and tranquillity were absolutely impossible . For two whole nights I had not closed my eyes in sleep , and my brain seemed on fire . My nerves were going , too , under this intolerable strain , and I feared that if a crisis should arise I should lack coolness , and plunge into some avoidable disaster . But the day wore itself out at last , and at ten o'clock at night I was wandering along the road by which Brunow must come , and listening with my soul in my ears for the first distant noise of hoof-beats . The sun had gone down in a bank of threatening cloud , and before the moon rose the last look I had taken at the hills which hemmed us in on every side had shown them seemingly hidden by driving mists , which travelled at an astonishing pace , betokening a wild wind up there , while the valley lay in a hot stillness . The light of the moon was in the sky long before she rose above the mountains , and I could see that the wild work up there was growing wilder every minute . The wind was descending , too , from its lofty altitude , and I could hear it now roaring and now muttering in the gullies like a discontented giant .