six o’clock
It was ruffling ; I should have absorbed in so much intercourse a fairly definite impression of his personality , profession , and social grade . But he was baffling ; reticent , but self-assured , authoritative even , and , in a quiet way , watchful . He smoked a good cigar , mixed a good drink , seemed used to travel , but produced a coarse-grained effect , made grammatical errors , and on the whole was a person from whom , once ashore , I should flee . At six o'clock on the seventh night out our voyage entered its second lap ; all the electric lights were simultaneously extinguished as we entered the danger zone . We made a sketchy toilet by means of tapers , groped like wandering ghosts down a dim corridor , and dined by the faint rays of candles thrust into bottles and placed at intervals along the festive board . I went on deck afterward to find the ship plunging through blackness on forced draft , with port-holes shrouded and with not even a riding-light . If not in Davy Jones 's locker by that time , we should reach Gibraltar the next evening ; afterward we should head for Naples , a two days ' trip .