twelve o’clock
`` You speak strange words , Mynheer Marais , '' said Retief quietly , `` especially when I remember all that this ` cursed Englishman ' has done for you and yours , for I have heard every bit of that story , though not from him . Now hearken . You have appealed to the law , and , as commandant , I must allow your appeal . But after twelve o'clock to-morrow night , according to your own showing , the law ceases to bind your daughter . Therefore , on Monday morning , if there is no clergyman in the camp and these two wish it , I , as commandant , will marry them before all men , as I have the power to do . '' Then Marais broke into one of those raving fits of temper which were constitutional in him , and to my mind showed that he was never quite sane . Oddly enough , it was on poor Marie that he concentrated his wrath .