midnight
The castle was stripped of its fighting men , and only eight remained behind to guard the great stone fortress and the little simple-witted boy . It was a sad mistake . Three days had passed since the Baron had left the castle , and now the third night had come . The moon was hanging midway in the sky , white and full , for it was barely past midnight . The high precipitous banks of the rocky road threw a dense black shadow into the gully below , and in that crooked inky line that scarred the white face of the moonlit rocks a band of some thirty men were creeping slowly and stealthily nearer and nearer to Castle Drachenhausen . At the head of them was a tall , slender knight clad in light chain armor , his head covered only by a steel cap or bascinet . Along the shadow they crept , with only now and then a faint clink or jingle of armor to break the stillness , for most of those who followed the armed knight were clad in leathern jerkins ; only one or two wearing even so much as a steel breast-plate by way of armor .