eleven o'clock
Do n't tread on that pikeman 's stomach , lest he take thee for a marauding Don , and with sudden dagger slit Cohn 's pipe , and Colin 's weasand too . '' And the two stumbled away into the darkness , leaving Amyas to stride up and down as before , puzzling his brains over Raleigh 's wild words and Spenser 's melancholy , till he came to the conclusion that there was some mysterious connection between cleverness and unhappiness , and thanking his stars that he was neither scholar , courtier , nor poet , said grace over his lump of horseflesh when it arrived , devoured it as if it had been venison , and then returned to his pacing up and down ; but this time in silence , for the night was drawing on , and there was no need to tell the Spaniards that any one was awake and watching . So he began to think about his mother , and how she might be spending her Christmas ; and then about Frank , and wondered at what grand Court festival he was assisting , amid bright lights and sweet music and gay ladies , and how he was dressed , and whether he thought of his brother there far away on the dark Atlantic shore ; and then he said his prayers and his creed ; and then he tried not to think of Rose Salterne , and of course thought about her all the more . So on passed the dull hours , till it might be past eleven o'clock , and all lights were out in the battery and the shipping , and there was no sound of living thing but the monotonous tramp of the two sentinels beside him , and now and then a grunt from the party who slept under arms some twenty yards to the rear . So he paced to and fro , looking carefully out now and then over the strip of sand-hill which lay between him and the fort ; but all was blank and black , and moreover it began to rain furiously . Suddenly he seemed to hear a rustle among the harsh sand-grass . True , the wind was whistling through it loudly enough , but that sound was not altogether like the wind .