three o'clock
While he reclined there , thinking of a sweet-faced woman and her Reserves , fully eighteen hundred warriors were stealthily coming up from the sea . Six wakeful sentinels were waiting for them . The night passed . One , two , three o'clock went by on the trip to sunrise . Hugh dozed at times despite the strain on his nerves . When at last he arose to stretch himself , he saw the faint gray meeting and mingling with the black in the skies , and knew that the crisis was almost at hand . Swiftly , silently through the darkness came six forms , hurrying from the distant end of the pass with the alarm .