nine o'clock
The manoeuvre , like most things that are really scientific , was so simple , that now their wonder was they had taken for impossible what was not even difficult . The letter never went to Rotterdam . They trusted to Peter 's learning and their own dexterity . It was nine o'clock on a clear moonlight night ; Gerard , senior , was still away ; the rest of his little family had been some time abed . A figure stood by the dwarf 's bed . It was white , and the moonlight shone on it . With an unearthly noise , between a yell and a snarl , the gymnast rolled off his bed and under it by a single unbroken movement .