midnight
I even counted the boy 's snores for a while , and watched one lonely louse moving along the wall -- so many snores to the minute -- so many snores to an inch of crawling ; but the louse changed what little mind he had and did not walk straight , and I gave up trying to calculate the distance he traveled in zigzags and curves , although it would have been an interesting problem for a navigator . Finally , Suliman 's snoring grew so loud that that in itself kept me awake ; it was like listening to a hair-trombone ; each blast of it rasped your nerves . You could not hear anything in the mosque above , although there were only eleven steps and the opening was close at hand ; for the floor above was thickly carpeted , and if there were any sounds they were swallowed by that and the great , domed roof . When I guessed it might be midnight I listened for the voice of the muezzin ; but if he did call the more-than-usually faithful to wake up and pray , he did it from a minaret outside , and no faint echo of his voice reached me . I was closed in a tomb in the womb of living rock , to all intents and purposes . But it must have been somewhere about midnight when I heard a sound that set every vein in my body tingling . At first it was like the sort of sound that a rat makes gnawing ; but there could n't be rats eating their way through that solid stone .