midnight
Then he was attracted by a glimpse of the adobe wall . It seemed to him that he had seen a projection , where there was none before . He looked a second time , and he did not see it . Fancy played strange tricks at midnight in the enemy 's country , and in the desolate silence . Ned shook himself . Although a vivid imagination might be excusable at such a time even in a man , a veteran of many campaigns , he was essentially an uncompromising realist , and he wished to see facts exactly as they were . The work upon which he was engaged allowed no time for the breeding of fancy .