seven o'clock
The observation of this pointless and preposterous phenomenon had become a sort of cult among the men of Fish . To observe , that was all ; there remained in them none of the vital quality of illusion which would make them wonder or speculate , else a religion might have grown up around these mysterious visitations . But the men of Fish were beyond all religion -- the barest and most savage tenets of even Christianity could gain no foothold on that barren rock -- so there was no altar , no priest , no sacrifice ; only each night at seven the silent concourse by the shanty depot , a congregation who lifted up a prayer of dim , anaemic wonder . On this June night , the Great Brakeman , whom , had they deified any one , they might well have chosen as their celestial protagonist , had ordained that the seven o'clock train should leave its human -LRB- or inhuman -RRB- deposit at Fish . At two minutes after seven Percy Washington and John T. Unger disembarked , hurried past the spellbound , the agape , the fearsome eyes of the twelve men of Fish , mounted into a buggy which had obviously appeared from nowhere , and drove away . After half an hour , when the twilight had coagulated into dark , the silent negro who was driving the buggy hailed an opaque body somewhere ahead of them in the gloom . In response to his cry , it turned upon them a luminous disc which regarded them like a malignant eye out of the unfathomable night .