nine o'clock
He answered , `` Aye , aye , '' in a whisper which was like a bear 's growl ; and we four , Peter Bligh , Seth Barker , and the lad Dolly , besides myself , climbed the ladder like cats and stood at the cliff 's head . To say that our hearts were in our mouths would not be strict truth , for I never feared any man , beast , or devil yet ; and I was n't going to begin that night -- nor were the others more ready , that I will answer for them . But remembering the things we had seen on the reef , the words which Ruth Bellenden had spoken to me , and that which happened to the lad and myself last time we came ashore ; remembering this , it 's not to be wondered at that our hearts beat a bit quicker , and that our hands went now and again to the pistols we carried . For , just think of it -- there we were at nine o'clock of a dark night , in a thick wood , with the trees making ghosts about us , and the path as narrow as a ship 's plank , and no knowledge who walked the woods with us , nor any true reckoning of our circumstance . What man would n't have held his tongue at such a time , or argued with himself that it might end badly , and he never see the sun again ? Not Jasper Begg , as I bear witness . Now , I put myself at the head of our fellows and , the better to find the track , I went down on my hands and my knees like a four-footed thing , and signalling to those behind with a bosun 's whistle , I led them well enough through the wood to the wicker-basket bridge ; and would have gone on from there straight down to the house but for something which happened at the clearing of the thicket , just as I stood up to bid the men go over .