midnight
All who came within the sphere of his influence experienced and acknowledged his benign activity . His friends were few , because his habits were timid and reserved ; but the existence of an enemy was impossible . I recalled the incidents of our last interview , my importunities that he should postpone his ill-omened journey till the morning , his inexplicable obstinacy , his resolution to set out on foot during a dark and tempestuous night , and the horrible disaster that befell him . The first intimation I received of this misfortune , the insanity of vengeance and grief into which I was hurried , my fruitless searches for the author of this guilt , my midnight wanderings and reveries beneath the shade of that fatal elm , were revived and reacted . I heard the discharge of the pistol , I witnessed the alarm of Inglefield , I heard his calls to his servants , and saw them issue forth with lights and hasten to the spot whence the sound had seemed to proceed . I beheld my friend , stretched upon the earth , ghastly with a mortal wound , alone , with no traces of the slayer visible , no tokens by which his place of refuge might be sought , the motives of his enmity or his instruments of mischief might be detected . I hung over the dying youth , whose insensibility forbade him to recognise his friend , or unfold the cause of his destruction .