midnight
The time had been when he had been himself stretched in what he had thought was death , in just such silence , in just such solitude , upon the bare , baked earth , far from men 's aid , and near only to the hungry eyes of watching beasts of prey . Then he had been very calm , and waited with indifference for the end ; now his eyes swept over the remorseless wastes , that were growing faintly visible under the coming dawn , with all the impatience , the terror , of despair . Death had smitten down many beside him ; buoyant youth and dauntless manhood he had seen a thousand times swept under the great waves of war and lost forever , but it had an anguish for him here that he would never have known had he felt his own life-blood well out over the sand . The whole existence of this man had been sacrificed for him , and its only reward was a thrust of a lance in a midnight fray -- a grave in an alien soil . His grief fell dully on ears half deafened already to the sounds of the living world . The exhaustion that follows on great loss of blood was upon the soldier who for the last half hour had lain there in the darkness and the stillness , quietly waiting death , and not once seeking even to raise his voice for succor lest the cry should reach and should imperil his master . The morning had broken now , but the storm had not lulled .