five o'clock
The censor read the pencilled scrawl , smiled , drew a red pencil through some of it , smiled again , and said : `` I trust it will not inconvenience monsieur too much . '' `` Not at all , '' said Jack , pleasantly . He had not expected to get it all through , and he bowed and thanked the censor , and went out to where his horse stood , cropping the tender leaves of a spreading chestnut-tree . It was five o'clock by his watch when he trotted out into the Morteyn road , now entirely deserted except by a peasant or two , staring , under their inverted hands , at the distant spire of Saarbrück . Far away in the valley he caught glimpses of troops , glancing at times over his shoulder , but the distant squares and columns on hill-side and road seemed to be motionless . Already the thin , glimmering line of the Saar had faded from view ; the afternoon haze hung blue on every hill-side ; the woods were purple and vague as streaks of cloud at evening . He passed Saint-Avold far to the south , too far to see anything of the division that lay encamped there ; and presently he turned into the river road that follows the Saar until the great highway to Metz cuts it at an acute angle .