midnight
`` No , sir . '' `` Then you may as well go on this watch . '' `` Yass ` r ! '' `` We 'll call it now eight bells , midnight . You 'll go off watch eight bells , morning . '' Mayo knew that the hour was not much later than eleven , but he did not protest ; he knew something about the procedure aboard coastwise coal-schooners . Search-lights bent steady glare upon the chutes down which rushed the streams of coal , black dust swirling in the white radiance .