noon
Never had he been so strong . He had recaptured , after his five years of London confinement , the swift spring of the muscles , the immediate response of the body to the demand made upon it , and the glorious cessation of fatigue when after arduous hours of heat and exertion he stretched himself upon his camp-chair in the shadow of his tent . On the whole he travelled northwards reluctantly ; until he came to a little open space ten days away from the first village he would touch . He camped there just before noon , and at three o'clock on the following morning , in the company of his shikari , his skinner and his donkey-boy he was riding along a narrow path high above the river . It was very dark , so that even with the vast blaze of stars overhead , Hillyard could hardly see the flutter of his shikari 's white robe a few paces ahead of him . They passed a clump of bushes and immediately afterwards heard a great shuffling and lapping of water below them . The shikari stopped abruptly and seized the bridle of Hillyard 's donkey .