noon
Here his overwrought strength gave out , and he slept as the dead sleep , in the fields outside the town . Hours before dawn he woke , haunted by the demon of unrest which rode him , begged food and a cup of milk at a farmhouse by the road , and started on again . All that day he walked , a mere machine dominated by a force which would drive it forward to the very verge of dissolution ; and in the late evening he reached Cunetio . Here he did not know when he stopped , for he went to sleep on his feet , and woke and found himself on his back by the roadside , with the sun at high noon . Desperate for the time he had lost , he hastened on , and in an hour came upon one of the small stations threaded along the high-roads between towns which were more than ten Roman miles apart , kept as taverns by _ diversores _ for the entertainment of travellers . There were folk stopping here , for outside the inn door stood horses , saddled and tethered . Nicanor selected the animal which best pleased him , -- a tall roan , -- mounted , and rode away without so much as a glance behind him for pursuit .