nine o'clock
Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled , the men turned their backs on the cheery fire and launched out into the darkness . At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad -- cries that called through the darkness and cold to one another and answered back . Conversation ceased . Daylight came at nine o'clock . At midday the sky to the south warmed to rose-colour , and marked where the bulge of the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world . But the rose-colour swiftly faded . The grey light of day that remained lasted until three o'clock , when it , too , faded , and the pall of the Arctic night descended upon the lone and silent land .