midnight
The vast blue-black dome of the heavens above was devoid of the faintest trace of cloud , and the countless stars which spangled the immeasurable vault beamed down upon the tiny waif with a soft and mellow splendour which was repeated in the dark bosom of the scarcely ruffled ocean , where the reflected starbeams mingled , far down in its mysterious depths , with occasional faint gleams and flashes of pale greenish phosphorescent light . The thin golden crescent of the young moon hung low down in the velvety darkness of the western sky , and a long thin thread of amber radiance streamed from the horizon beneath her toward the boat , becoming more and more wavering and broken up as it neared her , until within some twenty fathoms of the launch it dwindled away to a mere occasional fluttering gleam . A great and solemn silence prevailed , upon which such slight sounds as the flap of the sails , the pattering of the reef-points , the creak of the rudder , or the stir of some uneasy sleeper broke with almost painful distinctness . Mr Bowles drew out his watch , and holding it close to his face , discovered that it was a few minutes past midnight . For the previous half-hour he had been sitting on the deck near Bob , with his legs dangling into the little cockpit abaft the stern-sheets , and staring in an abstracted fashion astern . As he replaced the watch in his pocket he glanced once more in that direction , but now his look suddenly grew intense and eager . For a full minute he remained thus , then he withdrew from its beckets beneath the seat a long and powerful telescope , which he adjusted and levelled .