midnight
He had discovered a river ! That was the fact placing old Lingard so much above the common crowd of sea-going adventurers who traded with Hudig in the daytime and drank champagne , gambled , sang noisy songs , and made love to half-caste girls under the broad verandah of the Sunda Hotel at night . Into that river , whose entrances himself only knew , Lingard used to take his assorted cargo of Manchester goods , brass gongs , rifles and gunpowder . His brig _ Flash _ , which he commanded himself , would on those occasions disappear quietly during the night from the roadstead while his companions were sleeping off the effects of the midnight carouse , Lingard seeing them drunk under the table before going on board , himself unaffected by any amount of liquor . Many tried to follow him and find that land of plenty for gutta-percha and rattans , pearl shells and birds ' nests , wax and gum-dammar , but the little _ Flash _ could outsail every craft in those seas . A few of them came to grief on hidden sandbanks and coral reefs , losing their all and barely escaping with life from the cruel grip of this sunny and smiling sea ; others got discouraged ; and for many years the green and peaceful-looking islands guarding the entrances to the promised land kept their secret with all the merciless serenity of tropical nature . And so Lingard came and went on his secret or open expeditions , becoming a hero in Almayer 's eyes by the boldness and enormous profits of his ventures , seeming to Almayer a very great man indeed as he saw him marching up the warehouse , grunting a `` how are you ? ''