nine o'clock
If pursuers were indeed upon his track , only by the greatest good fortune could he escape them . The carts creaked along with painful slowness ; the wheels halfway to the axles in dust ; now stopping altogether , now rocking like ships in a stormy sea . With his arrival and the promise of liberal bakshish the hackeriwallahs urged the laboring oxen with their cruel goads till Desmond , always tender with animals , could hardly endure the sight . By nine o'clock the morning had become stiflingly hot . There was little or no breeze , and Desmond , unused of late to active exercise , found the heat terribly trying . But Bulger suffered still more . A stout , florid man , he toiled along , panting , streaming with sweat , in difficulties so manifest , that Desmond , eying him anxiously , feared lest a stroke of apoplexy should bring him to an untimely end .