About midnight
The pace at which he moved must have been amazing . He had a great physique , hard as nails from long travelling , and in his own eyes he had an empire at stake . When I look at the map and see the journey which with vast fatigue I completed from Dupree 's Drift to Machudi 's , and then look at the huge spaces of country over which Laputa 's legs took him on that night , I am lost in admiration of the man . About midnight he must have crossed the Letsitela . Here he made a grave blunder . If he had tried the Berg by one of the faces he might have got on to the plateau and been at Inanda 's Kraal by the dawning . But he over-estimated the size of the commandoes , and held on to the north , where he thought there would be no defence .