twenty-five minutes past one
Not a hitch occurred . Everything had been foreseen ; everything happened as I had been assured everything must . Nobody was about below , only the ship 's boys on deck , and nobody on the bridge . It was twenty-five minutes past one when Raffles , without a stitch of clothing on his body , but with a glass phial , corked with cotton-wool , between his teeth , and a tiny screw-driver behind his ear , squirmed feet first through the ventilator over his berth ; and it was nineteen minutes to two when he returned , head first , with the phial still between his teeth , and the cotton-wool rammed home to still the rattling of that which lay like a great gray bean within . He had taken screws out and put them in again ; he had unfastened von Heumann 's ventilator and had left it fast as he had found it -- fast as he instantly proceeded to make his own . As for von Heumann , it had been enough to place the drenched wad first on his mustache , and then to hold it between his gaping lips ; thereafter the intruder had climbed both ways across his shins without eliciting a groan . And here was the prize -- this pearl as large as a filbert -- with a pale pink tinge like a lady 's fingernail -- this spoil of a filibustering age -- this gift from a European emperor to a South Sea chief .