midnight
I might also have an occasion to test her courage before the break of morning , for as we entered between two towering columns of red granite , one of the Arabs dropped on a knee and spread his hand as wide as he could in the sand . But wide as he spread it , he could not more than half cover the fresh foot-print of a huge lion . The clamber to the top was steep and hard . Yet it was not nearly so steep and hard as I could have wished it , when I reflected that very likely before midnight a lion might pass that way . We found that these wonderful columns of granite were coped with great slabs of granite . These granite slabs were of astonishing breadth and thickness . This temple , as it is called , had probably been a tomb .