midnight
He saw , suddenly , just as they had all stopped to breathe , a long portion of the dike begin to tremble , then cave in with a hideous , sucking crash that shook the ground under them , he saw the flood of muddy water come roaring in and sweep against the painfully built rampart which swayed and crumbled to its fall . In a wild turmoil of running , shouting men , backing wagons and rearing horses , he managed to extricate the clumsy monster that had been put under his care , brought it laboring and snorting out on higher ground and fell to work again . The barrier they had set up with so much toil was tumbling and collapsing in great gaps where the hungry current flung against it , but it held just long enough for them to raise another wall , longer , higher , firmer than the other and built with the frantic haste of desperate men . The hours went by , it was long after midnight , with the sky growing pale for the morning . Once or twice Oliver had seen Anthony Crawford working among the rest , carrying sacks of sand , jostled and cursed by the men about him , but in spite of their abuse , toiling steadily onward . When the dike collapsed and the men ran for their lives , one wagon lurched off the road ; its driver was flung from the seat and caught under the wheel , while the horses , having jammed the tongue against the bank , reared and plunged helplessly . Oliver saw Anthony Crawford run out , with the swift , muddy water flowing knee-deep around him , watched him extricate the man , drag him to the seat , and back the frantic horses away from the bank to bring them struggling through the water to safety .