midnight
Before starting the pumps I had taken the precaution of having the well sounded , with the result that we had discovered the depth of water in the ship 's interior to be three feet ten inches , as nearly as could be ascertained ; but the violent motions of the hull had rendered anything like really accurate sounding an impossibility , and the same cause now precluded us from ascertaining with certainty whether the leak was gaining upon the pumps or _ vice-versa _ . One thing was perfectly certain , and that was that if the pumps were gaining upon the leak at all , it was but slowly . If that should prove to be the case , it would mean that there was something the matter more serious than the mere straining of the ship ; possibly a butt or a hood-end had been started . It was by this time close upon midnight , and there were times when I almost succeeded in persuading myself that it was not blowing quite so hard as it had been , although the difference -- if difference there were -- was certainly not very strongly marked ; the sea , however , still continued to rise , and was now running higher than I had ever before seen it . Yet the poor , sorely battered _ Dolphin _ rode it reasonably well , all things considered ; although there were times when the water in her interior , happening to become concentrated in the fore part of her just as she should be rising to a sea , pinned her down by the head to a dangerous extent , causing the sea to come in , green , unbroken , and like a miniature mountain , over her bows . When this threatened to occur it became necessary to watch her narrowly , and if the danger seemed to be imminent we hurriedly replaced the after hatches , otherwise we should very quickly have been swamped . When the pumping gangs had been at work for about an hour they complained of exhaustion , and I accordingly relieved them to the extent of setting them to work with the buckets and putting two fresh gangs at the pumps ; yet , although these men worked pretty energetically , it soon became evident that we were not gaining anything upon the leak , and as time passed on it became exceedingly doubtful whether the leak were not rather gaining upon us .