midnight
`` Do that , then , '' said Ranjoor Singh . `` Ride and agree to be escort for these Germans and their machine to Afghanistan . Leave me here with ten or a dozen of your men , who will guide me after I have the gold to where you shall be camping with your Germans somewhere just beyond the Persian border . I will arrange to overtake you after dusk -- perhaps at midnight . There I will give you the gold , and you shall ride away . I and my men will ride on as escort to the Germans . '' `` What if they object ? ''