midnight
It was raining -- a cold drizzle that began to chill her and set her to coughing so that she was half afraid that she might disclose herself . At the mouth of the Gap she saw a fire on one side of the road and could hear talking , but she had no difficulty passing it , on the other side . But on , where the Gap narrowed -- there was the trouble . It must have been an hour before midnight when she tremblingly neared the narrow defile . The rain had ceased , and as she crept around a boulder she could see , by the light of the moon between two black clouds , two sentinels beyond . The crisis was at hand now . She slipped to one side of the road , climbed the cliff as high as she could and crept about it .