about five o'clock
Yet it did move , growing nearer and larger , its huge spread of canvas hanging straight as cerecloth on the poles , and its wooden flanks , by and by , showing the scars and rime of a long voyage put behind it . Yes , it seems to me it would have been odd , as our eyes went out in the rare leisure moments of that afternoon and fell upon that presence , worn and strange and solitary within the immense ring of the horizon , if there had not been somewhere among us some dim stirring of memory , and of wonder . Not too vivid , perhaps ; not strong enough perhaps to outlast the ship 's disappearance . For at about five o'clock the craft , which had been standing for the Head , wore slowly to port , and laying its course to fetch around the western side of the island , drifted out of our sight beyond the rampart of the bluffs . Why it should have done that , no man can say . Why , in the face of coming weather , the ship should have abandoned the clear course around the Head and chosen instead to hazard the bars and rips that make a good three miles to sea from Pilot 's Point in the west -- why this hair-brained maneuver should have been attempted will always remain a mystery . But at least that ship was gone from our sight , and by so much out of our minds .