about nine o'clock
But if I should find the land as still as the sea , without even the spouting whale , or school of tumbling sea-hogs -- _ if Paris were dumber than the eternal ice _ -- what then , I asked myself , should I do ? * * * * * I could have made short work , and landed at Shetland , for I found myself as far westward as longitude 11 ° 23 ' W. : but I would not : I was so afraid . The shrinking within me to face that vague suspicion which I had , turned me first to a foreign land . I made for Norway , and on the first night of this definite intention , at about nine o'clock , the weather being gusty , the sky lowering , the air sombrous , and the sea hard-looking , dark , and ridged , I was steaming along at a good rate , holding the wheel , my poor port and starboard lights still burning there , when , without the least notice , I received the roughest physical shock of my life , being shot bodily right over the wheel , thence , as from a cannon , twenty feet to the cabin-door , through it head-foremost down the companion-way , and still beyond some six yards along the passage . I had crashed into some dark and dead ship , probably of large size , though I never saw her , nor any sign of her ; and all that night , and the next day till four in the afternoon , the _ Boreal _ went driving alone over the sea , whither she would : for I lay unconscious . When I woke , I found that I had received really very small injuries , considering : but I sat there on the floor a long time in a sulky , morose , disgusted , and bitter mood ; and when I rose , pettishly stopped the ship 's engines , seeing my twelve dead all huddled and disfigured . Now I was afraid to steam by night , and even in the daytime I would not go on for three days : for I was childishly angry with I know not what , and inclined to quarrel with Those whom I could not see .