four
o'clock
A quarter turn of the wheel would have sent us to the bottom , and her , no doubt , on top of us . Whether she was the _ Susan Tucker _ , or some other whaler , or a big South-Sea-man driven low and getting what easting she could out of the gale , I know not . She was as complete a mystery of the ocean night as any spectral fabric , and a heavier terror to me than a phantasm worked by ghosts could have proved . I knew such a thing could not happen again , yet when I called Pitt I talked to him about it as though we must certainly be run down if he did not keep a sharp look-out , and when my watch below came round at four o'clock , I was so agitated that I was up and down till daybreak , as though my duty did not end till then . The gale moderated at sunrise , and , though it was a gloomy , true Cape Horn morning , with dark driving clouds , the sea a dusky olive , very hollow , and frequent small quick squalls of sleet which brought the wind to us in sharp guns , yet as we could see where we were going , I got the schooner before it , heading her east-north-east , and under a reefed topsail , mainsail , and staysail , the old bucket stormed through it with the sputter and rage of a line-of-battle ship . There was a log-reel and line on deck , and I found a sand-glass in the chest in my cabin in which I had met with the quadrants , perspective glass , and the like , and I kept this log regularly going , marking a point of departure on the chart the American captain had given me , which I afterwards found to be within two leagues and a half of the true position . But for three days the weather continued so heavy that there was nothing to be done in the shape of gratifying the men 's expectations by overhauling what was left of the cargo .