ten minutes before eleven
It took half an hour more , with all my efforts , before he could make up his mind that the letter would do . I started off with it at a gallop , and never drew rein till I got to the sea-port town . The harbor-clock chimed the quarter past eleven as I rode by it , and when I got down to the jetty there was no yacht to be seen . She had been cast off from her moorings ten minutes before eleven , and as the clock struck she had sailed out of the harbor . I would have followed in a boat , but it was a fine starlight night , with a fresh wind blowing , and the sailors on the pier laughed at me when I spoke of rowing after a schooner yacht which had got a quarter of an hour 's start of us , with the wind abeam and the tide in her favor . I rode back with a heavy heart . All I could do now was to send the letter to the post-office , Stockholm .