midnight
Just as on the previous night the less experienced stand the first watches of the night , keeping the rain off with waterproof _ serapes _ ; only at intervals need they look down , and then , unlike as on the night before , everything is seen as under a meridian sun , for it is while the lightning gleams they make their intermittent examination of the gorge path , cascading stream , trees , and rocks illuminated by it as by a thousand torches ; only towards morning do their blazes become less frequent , gradually dying out as the rain ceases to fall . Henry Tresillian is again on watch duty , having insisted upon it , notwithstanding the opposition made by the others of his party . But he has a reason they do not understand -- indeed , he has not communicated it to them ; during the earlier hours of the night he fancied having observed a dark object far off on the plain , seemingly in the shape of a horse ; but returning several times to look , afterwards he could not see it again . Now , on the post midnight watch , at each blaze he runs his eye around the spot where he fancied the dark object to have been , only in the very last one to see it again , and make sure it was a horse ; but his ears tell him more than his eyes , for in the dark spell succeeding the silence of the elements restored he several times hears a neigh , which he recognises as that of his own horse , Crusader . And when the day at length dawns he sees the noble animal itself only a short distance beyond the lower end of the lake , with head upraised and muzzle pointed up the gorge , as though in a morning salute to himself , A thrill of delight sweeps through the heart of the English youth at beholding Crusader in this attitude , as if the horse said , `` You see , I 've not forsaken you . '' Satisfaction also to think the animal capable of making its own way , and finding sustenance in those wilds ; for should it ever be their fate to escape from that mountain , there might be a hope of horse and master coming together again .