Nearly
midnight
Yann ! Look alive , matey ! '' `` Matey '' answered roughly from outside while through the half-opened hatchway the faint light kept entering like that of dawn . Nearly midnight , yet it looked like a peep of day , or the light of the starry gloaming , sent from afar through mystic lenses of magicians . When the aperture closed , night reigned again , save for the small lamp , `` sended '' now and again aside , which shed its yellow light . A man in clogs was heard coming down the wooden steps . He entered bent in two like a big bear , for he was a giant .