midnight before
Then came the manning of the four hundred boulders on the top of the hills . All along the line of heavy rocks men were stationed with instructions to roll them into the pass when the signal was given , Both sides of the pass were lined with these boulders , The king was as near in ecstasies over the arrangements as one of his nature could possibly be . He prostrated himself a dozen times before the wonderfully clever genius who was in command , twice bumping his head against exceedingly hard rocks that he had been unable to see when he began his precipitous collapse to reverence . It was after midnight before the army in ambush was ready for the conflict . Hugh was amazed to find the men cool and submissive , obeying every order that he managed in some way to convey to them . With everything in readiness there was nothing to do but to wait for the crisis , so he threw himself on the grass at the top of the highest point on the ridge near the opening to the valley , and tried to sleep . While he reclined there , thinking of a sweet-faced woman and her Reserves , fully eighteen hundred warriors were stealthily coming up from the sea .