eight in the
morning
All about was an impenetrable darkness ; not a star was visible in the black curve over his head . He had been travelling with a dozen men who were taking provisions of mealies and rice to the next camp . He had been sent out to act as scout along a low range of hills , and had lost his way . Since eight in the morning he had wandered among long grasses , and ironstone kopjes , and stunted bush , and had come upon no sign of human habitation , but the remains of a burnt kraal , and a down-trampled and now uncultivated mealie field , where a month before the Chartered Company 's forces had destroyed a native settlement . Three times in the day it had appeared to him that he had returned to the very spot from which he had started ; nor was it his wish to travel very far , for he knew his comrades would come back to look for him , to the neighbourhood where he had last been seen , when it was found at the evening camping ground that he did not appear . Trooper Peter Halket was very weary . He had eaten nothing all day ; and had touched little of the contents of a small flask of Cape brandy he carried in his breast pocket , not knowing when it would again be replenished .