midnight
What , in eight miles and at night-time ? Well , the next time you are staying at a sea side place , where there is plenty of sand , you try walking along it , not where it is firm , but higher up from the sea , where you sink over your ankles at every step ; if you can borrow a rifle and a hundred rounds of ball cartridge and carry that too , you will be able to form a still more just opinion ; but , even without that , I invite you to consider how many more miles of it you want when you have gone four . But if they were tired and thirsty they were full of spirit , and it would only have required the sight of an enemy to make them as lively as crickets again . It was midnight when they arrived , and they bivouacked outside the zereba in the square formation , every man lying down in the place he would occupy if the force were attacked , so that if the alarm sounded , he had only to snatch up his rifle and rise to his feet , and he was ready for anything . But they were not disturbed , and rested till noon on the 12th , when dinner was eaten , and after it , at 1 p.m. , they started once more to find the foe . As you draw cover after cover to find a fox , so in the desert you try watering-places when you are seeking game of any kind , quadruped or biped . And thus information was obtained that Osman Digna had a camp where all his forces were massed at Tamai , a valley well supplied with the precious fluid , nine miles from the zereba .