midnight
He ate it , and the brown baby crawled away . Moti Guj dozed , and thought of Deesa . One of many mysteries connected with the elephant is that his huge body needs less sleep than anything else that lives . Four or five hours in the night suffice -- two just before midnight , lying down on one side ; two just after one o'clock , lying down on the other . The rest of the silent hours are filled with eating and fidgeting and long grumbling soliloquies . At midnight , therefore , Moti Guj strode out of his pickets , for a thought had come to him that Deesa might be lying drunk somewhere in the dark forest with none to look after him . So all that night he chased through the undergrowth , blowing and trumpeting and shaking his ears .