midnight
The halls of Alhama were of course kept strongly manned ; and a guard , under an experienced officer , constantly occupied the summit of a lofty tower , situated on a precipitous height which commanded a view of the open country for miles , and overlooked the most distant approach of the Moors . As was usual to Moorish architecture , the tower had been erected on a rock , which on one side shelved down so straight and smooth , as to appear a continuance of the tower-wall , but forming from the battlements a precipice some thousand feet in depth . The strongest nerve turned sick and giddy to look beneath , and the side of the tower overlooking it was almost always kept unguarded . It was near midnight when Stanley , who was that night on command , after completing his rounds , and perceiving every sentinel on duty , found himself unconsciously on the part of the tower we have named . So pre-occupied was his mind , that he looked beneath him without shrinking ; and then retracing his steps some twenty or thirty yards from the immediate and unprotected edge , wrapped his mantle closely round him , and lying down , rested his head on his arm , and permitted the full dominion of thought . He was in that dreamy mood , when the silence and holiness of nature is so much more soothing than even the dearest sympathy of man ; when every passing cloud and distant star , and moaning wind , speaks with a hundred tongues , and the immaterial spirit holds unconscious commune with beings invisible , and immaterial as itself . Above his head , heavy clouds floated over the dark azure of the heavens , sometimes totally obscuring the mild light of the full moon ; at others merely shrouding her beams in a transparent veil , from which she would burst resplendently , sailing majestically along , seeming the more light and lovely from the previous shade .