about nine in the morning
But where in the next two days was I to find the help which Mina had refused ? To be sure I had caught up at Sedano a flying rumour that the curate Merino had eluded Bonnet , broken out of the Asturias , and was again menacing the road above Burgos . I had come across no sign of him on my way , yet could hit on no more hopeful course than to hark back along the road on the chance of striking the trail of a man who as likely as not was a hundred miles away . It was about nine in the morning when Mina gave me his answer , and at three in the afternoon I was scanning the road towards Miranda de Ebro from a hill about a mile beyond Arinez -LRB- the same hill , in fact , where General Gazan 's centre lay little more than a year afterwards on the morning of the battle of Vittoria -RRB- . I had been scanning the road perhaps for ten minutes when my heart gave a jump and my hand , I am not ashamed to confess , shook on the small telescope . To the south-west , between me and Nanclares three horsemen were advancing at a walk , and the rider in the middle wore a scarlet jacket . It took me some seconds to get my telescope steady enough for a second look , and with that I wheeled my horse , struck spur and posted back towards Salvatierra as fast as the brute would carry me through the afternoon heat .