nearly midnight
Then he recalled the memory of his parents , as connected with this state of affairs . The father was dead , the mother , a weak-minded woman , was also bowed by ill-health ; indeed , their early lives had few happy associations . Robert himself had embittered all its relations . It was nearly midnight , and the moon had sunk behind the hill that sheltered the harbor on the north , leaving the dark water of the bay in deep shadow . At long gunshot from the shore lay the ship in which Charles Bramble was confined . All was still as death , save the pace of the sentinel in the ship 's waist , and a ripple now and then of tide-way against the ship 's cable . An observant eye , from the leeward side of the ship , might have seen a dark form creep out from one of the quarter ports , and gradually make its way along the moulding of the water-lines toward the larboard bow ports , one of which it stealthily entered .