midnight
But there was no help for it . The black fellow was our master ; we had passed our word of honour not to attempt to escape , and to behave ourselves orderly , and we felt that we had already verged on the bounds of propriety in what we had done . Our polite hosts promised to take very good care of Robson and to forward him on with an escort the next day , should he have recovered his strength . Once more , therefore , we were in the saddle and proceeded through forests and among mountains and by plantations , guided by the light of the moon , till , very sore and very tired , we arrived , past midnight , at a place which our guard informed us was Ou Trou . We said that we wished to lodge at the best inn , on which he chuckled audibly , and told us that we had better take up our abode for the night in a shed hard by among some piles of Indian-corn straw . We agreed that we had often been compelled to sleep on far more uncomfortable couches , and that the next morning we would set out to explore the town and choose lodgings . With this comfortable reflection , after our guard had disappeared into a neighbouring shed with our weary beasts , we , not less weary , I suspect , fell asleep .