four o'clock
`` Well , my friends , we ran precisely a similar risk , though the cloudy embrasures over the island had not quite enough thunder to reach us . However , the brigantine knew what would follow as well as we did -- better , perhaps -- and before you could swallow that glass of wine she was stripped as bare as a bone , and down came her yards too , but keeping the sticks up , and spreading a patch of a storm staysail forward that you might apparently have put in your pocket . Her decks and rigging were crowded with men while she was doing all this , but the moment it was done , and well done too , they ran into their holes below like so many rats , and we could only see a man or two left on deck near the helm . `` All hands had been called on board the ` Scourge ' at four o'clock , and , with the exception of securing the battery , every thing was ready to make a skeleton of the ship the moment we saw the brigantine begin ; for she was a wary fish , and we had no idea of letting her give us the slip the third time . I had the trumpet , however , and with the captain at my elbow , the instant he saw that the brigantine was once more rigged nearly in her old way , he gave me the word , ` Now , Cleveland , work sharp ! ' `` With a hundred and twenty men aloft , jumping about like cats , the light sails , studding-sail booms , royal and top-gallant yards came down , the top-gallant masts after them , and the flying jib-boom rigged in . Then the top-sails close reefed and furled with extra gaskets , and so with the courses ; preventer braces clapped on , rolling tackles hooked , and the spare purchases set up by the lower pennants .