midnight
I never dreamed of it then as I watched ; no one on earth dreamed of that unerring missile . That night , too , there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet . I saw it . A reddish flash at the edge , the slightest projection of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight ; and at that I told Ogilvy and he took my place . The night was warm and I was thirsty , and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the darkness , to the little table where the siphon stood , while Ogilvy exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us . That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth from Mars , just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first one . I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness , with patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes .