eleven o'clock at night
You will please meet me outside -- there is plenty of firelight under the trees , and the sooner we get through this the better . The apology should not come from me , and will not . Come , gentlemen , '' and he stepped out into the now drizzling night , the glare of the torches falling on his determined face and white shirt as he strode down the path followed by his seconds . Seven gentlemen hurriedly gathered together , one a doctor and another in full possession of a mahogany case containing two duelling pistols with their accompanying ammunition , G. D. gun caps , powder-horn , swabs and rammers , and it past eleven o'clock at night , would have excited but little interest to the average darky -- especially one unaccustomed to the portents and outcomes of such proceedings . Not so Alec , who had absorbed the situation at a glance . He had accompanied his master on two such occasions -- one at Bladensburg and the other on a neighboring estate , when the same suggestive tokens had been visible , except that those fights took place at daybreak , and after every requirement of the code had been complied with , instead of under the flare of smoking pine torches and within a step of the contestant 's front door . He had , besides , a most intimate knowledge of the contents of the mahogany case , it being part of his duty to see that these defenders of the honor of all the Rutters -- and they had been in frequent use -- were kept constantly oiled and cleaned .