midnight
We must get on beyond the line of bluffs before stopping . '' ` To make matters worse I stepped through a crack in the ice into the water , and , almost instantaneously , my leg to the knee was a mass of ice . I was now compelled to go on to some place where the foot-gear could be dried . As though in a dream , suffering the most horrible tortures of fatigue , we pushed on dispiritedly until midnight , when we came to a small hut about ten by twelve , in which fifteen people were already sleeping . It was the most horrible place I have ever been in , but , at the same time , I was never so happy to be under a roof before . Though I had eaten nothing all day , I was too tired to do more than to crawl into my sleeping-bag and sleep . '' ` The blizzard raged as fiercely outside as on the day before , but I could not stay in that pestilential and filthy hut .