midnight
Oddly enough , the only professional soldier present condemned her project roundly when it was mooted . `` In leaving the island to-night you are acting on an assumption , '' protested Captain San Benavides to his chief . `` You can not be sure that the _ Andros-y-Mela _ will not appear . The arrangement is that she is to send a boat here soon after midnight , yet , if this mad scheme of an attack on armed troops by unarmed men is persisted in , we must begin to ferry to the island long before that hour . In all probability , we shall be discovered at once . At the very moment that our friends are eagerly awaiting us on board the ship we may be lying dead on the island . The notion is preposterous .