midnight
Though he had traveled so short a distance from the Russian border , there seemed to be more people about . Great houses , rising on high ground , with small , contented looking villages nestling , as it were , under their protection , were frequent . He was , as a matter of fact , in a country of great aristocratic landholders , the great nobles of Prussia , the men who are the real rulers of the country , under the Prussian King , who is also the German Kaiser . And in many of these great houses lights were burning , even after midnight , when all signs of life in the villages had ceased . The country was stirring , and there was more of it to stir . Now from time to time he heard the throbbing hum of an automobile motor . Only one or two of these passed him , going in either direction , on the road along which he was traveling .