twenty minutes past four
Dalmahoy , being appealed to , suggested Glasgow : and thenceforward I let him alone . Byfield snored on . I pulled out my watch , which I had forgotten to wind ; and found it run down . The hands stood at twenty minutes past four . Daylight , then , could not be far off . Eighteen hours -- say twenty : and Byfield had guessed our rate at one time to be thirty miles an hour . Five hundred miles -- A line of silver ahead : a ribbon drawn taut across the night , clean-edged , broadening -- the sea !