an hour after midnight
`` What is to prevent us , Boduoc ? '' `` Well , the wolves may prevent us , Beric ; we heard them howling several times as we came along this morning . The rapacious brutes have not been so bold for years , and it is high time that we hunted them down , or at any rate made our part of the country too hot to hold them . I told Borgon before I started that if we did not return by an hour after midnight it would be because we had been obliged to take to a tree , and that he had better bring out a party at the first break of day to rescue us . '' `` But we have never had any trouble of that kind while we have been hunting , Boduoc . '' `` No ; but I think there must have been some great hunts up in Norfolk , and that the brutes have come south . Certain it is that there have in the last week been great complaints of them , and , as you know , it was for that reason that your mother ordered all the men of the tribe to assemble by tomorrow morning to make war against them .