ten o'clock in the
evening
She was trying to lie to under half steam , to keep up above the waves . It was probably one of the steamers of the line from New York to Liverpool , or Havre . It soon disappeared in the gloom . At ten o'clock in the evening the sky was on fire . The atmosphere was streaked with vivid lightning . I could not bear the brightness of it ; while the captain , looking at it , seemed to envy the spirit of the tempest . A terrible noise filled the air , a complex noise , made up of the howls of the crushed waves , the roaring of the wind , and the claps of thunder .