nearly midnight
After wasting a quarter of an hour or more in a vain attempt to find the path , John struck out boldly for a dim mass that loomed in the distance , and which he took to be Mooifontein Hill . And so it was , only instead of keeping to the left , where he would have arrived at the house , or rather where the house had stood , unwittingly he bore to the right , and thus went half round the hill before he found out his mistake . Nor would he have discovered it then had he not chanced in the mist and darkness to turn into the mouth of the great gorge known as Leeuwen Kloof , where once , months ago , he had had an interesting talk with Jess just before she went to Pretoria . It was whilst he was blundering and stumbling up this gorge that at length the rain ceased and the moon revealed herself , it being then nearly midnight . Her very first rays lit upon one of the extraordinary pillars of balanced boulders , and by it he recognised the locality . As may be imagined , strong man though he was , by this time John was quite exhausted . For nearly a week he had been travelling incessantly , and for the last two nights he had not only not slept , but also had endured much mental excitement and bodily peril .