eight o'clock
He passed across my field of vision , and being the first of his kind , left an ineffaceable impression . The sun went down suddenly soon after , and the coppery glow vanished from the water , leaving it a grey blur . '' ` In the middle of all the atrocities ' ! The flashy , bombastic phraseology came back to me with grim insistence that night when I went down at eight o'clock to look after the boilers and pumps and to make , with entirely inadequate means , those brass screws for the dynamo-engine . The engine-room was in darkness save for the hand-lamp that hung over the vice-bench . The fat cotton-wick smoked and crackled , the light draught swirling it towards my head at times , singeing my hair and making my eyes water . Behind me the silent , heated engines stood up , stark and ominous like some emblem of my destiny watching me .