three in the morning
`` The gods ! -- Moods of her giant life , manifestations of her spreading Consciousness pushed outwards , Powers of life and truth and beauty ... ! '' * * * * * And , meanwhile , Dr. Stahl , sometimes from a distance , sometimes coming close , kept over him a kind of half-paternal , half-professional attendance , the Irishman accepting his ministrations without resentment , almost with indifference . `` I shall be on deck between two and three in the morning to see the comet , '' the German observed to him casually toward evening as they met on the bridge . `` We may meet perhaps -- '' `` All right , doctor ; it 's more than possible , '' replied O'Malley , realizing how closely he was being watched . In his mind at the moment another sentence ran , the thought growing stronger and stronger within him as the day declined : `` It will come tonight -- come as an inner catastrophe not unlike that of death ! I shall hear the call -- to escape ... '' For he knew , as well as if it had been told to him in so many words , that the sleep of his two companions all day was in the nature of a preparation .