midnight
`` I do n't understand . '' `` No , I reckon you do n't . They finished loading her last night , and we moored her out in the channel , ready for the tug this morning . Before midnight she was leaking there like a basket , and by seven this morning she was leaking worse than a five-barred gate . The tug had just time to pluck us alongside here , or she 'd have sunk at her moorings ; and when we 'd warped her steady and the tide left her , the water poured out of a hole I could shove my hand through -- not the seams , mark you , though they leaked bad enough -- but a hole where the china-stone had fairly knocked her open ; and the timber all round it as rotten as cheese . All day , between tides , they 've been sheathing it over , and packing the worst places in her seams ; and to-night the crew , being all Troy men , are taking one more sleep ashore than they bargained for . They want it , too , after their spell at the pumps . ''