eight o’clock
Fish caught in the sea a few yards off , cooked in five minutes in these all but boiling waters , a fact which made Paganel resolve not to attempt to bathe in them . Toward evening , after a long promenade , Glenarvan and his party bade adieu to the good old M. Viot , and returned to the yacht , wishing him all the happiness possible on his desert island , and receiving in return the old man 's blessing on their expedition . ON the 7th of December , at three A. M. , the DUNCAN lay puffing out her smoke in the little harbor ready to start , and a few minutes afterward the anchor was lifted , and the screw set in motion . By eight o'clock , when the passengers came on deck , the Amsterdam Island had almost disappeared from view behind the mists of the horizon . This was the last halting-place on the route , and nothing now was between them and the Australian coast but three thousand miles ' distance . Should the west wind continue but a dozen days longer , and the sea remain favorable , the yacht would have reached the end of her voyage . Mary Grant and her brother could not gaze without emotion at the waves through which the DUNCAN was speeding her course , when they thought that these very same waves must have dashed against the prow of the BRITANNIA but a few days before her shipwreck .