midnight
It was rather late in the afternoon before Staff found an opportunity to get on deck for the first time . The hour was golden with the glory of a westering sun . The air was bland , the sea quiet . The Autocratic had settled into her stride , bearing swiftly down St. George 's Channel for Queenstown , where she was scheduled to touch at midnight . Her decks presented scenes of animation familiar to the eyes of a weathered voyager . There was the customary confusion of petticoats and sporadic displays of steamer-rugs along the ranks of deck-chairs . Deck-stewards darted hither and yon , wearing the harassed expressions appropriate to persons of their calling -- doubtless to a man praying for that bright day when some public benefactor should invent a steamship having at least two leeward sides .