Five o'clock
But the boats drew no nearer , and it seemed that we must touch our haven unharmed , when the American seaman , stretching out his arms in a gesture fearful to think of , and ceasing to row with horrid suddenness , fell backward without any word and lay , a dying man , before us . They had shot him through the heart ; and he was the second who fell for Ruth Bellenden 's sake . _ Sunday morning . Five o'clock . _ I have known little sleep for the last thirty hours , nor can I sleep at the crisis of our misfortunes . It is a still grey morning , with heavy cloud in the East , and lapping rhythmical waves beating upon the windows of the house as though anon a gale must blow and all this torrid silence be swept away . I can not conceal it from myself what a gale would mean to us ; how it must scatter the open boats , drifting there at the mercy of a Pacific sea ; how , perchance , it might even lift the fog from Ken 's Island and show us sunny fields and sylvan woods , a harbourage of delight to which all might flock with leaping hearts .