about noon
There were the tops of mountains all round -LRB- you are to remember -RRB- from whence we might be spied at any moment ; so it behoved us to keep in the hollow parts of the moor , and when these turned aside from our direction to move upon its naked face with infinite care . Sometimes , for half an hour together , we must crawl from one heather bush to another , as hunters do when they are hard upon the deer . It was a clear day again , with a blazing sun ; the water in the brandy bottle was soon gone ; and altogether , if I had guessed what it would be to crawl half the time upon my belly and to walk much of the rest stooping nearly to the knees , I should certainly have held back from such a killing enterprise . Toiling and resting and toiling again , we wore away the morning ; and about noon lay down in a thick bush of heather to sleep . Alan took the first watch ; and it seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before I was shaken up to take the second . We had no clock to go by ; and Alan stuck a sprig of heath in the ground to serve instead ; so that as soon as the shadow of the bush should fall so far to the east , I might know to rouse him . But I was by this time so weary that I could have slept twelve hours at a stretch ; I had the taste of sleep in my throat ; my joints slept even when my mind was waking ; the hot smell of the heather , and the drone of the wild bees , were like possets to me ; and every now and again I would give a jump and find I had been dozing .