midnight
They massacred without mercy all the English people upon whom they could lay hands , men , women and children , and the streets of the ancient city were a scene of plunder and butchery . With this terrible news Daly received orders to march for Delhi with the Guides . The men had been fasting all day : it was Ramzan , the Mohammedan Lent ; but at six o'clock the same evening they set off , five hundred strong , a hundred and fifty being cavalry , on their long march of five hundred and eighty miles . At midnight they reached Nowshera , the first stage of their journey , and were up again at daybreak . It was the hottest season of the year ; the sun beat mercilessly down upon them ; and the burning march to Attock , the next stage , taxed their endurance to the uttermost . But not a man fell out , and after resting until two o'clock next morning they were on foot again , springing up with cheerful alacrity at the sound of the bugle . A dust-storm swept upon them as they started ; they plodded steadily through it , marched for thirty-two miles with only the briefest halts , rested during the day at Boran , and were off again soon after midnight on the next stage of thirty-two miles to Jani-ki-sang .