midnight
I forced myself , therefore , to sup and to slumber , resorting for the first time in many years to the stimulus of brandy for the one purpose , and to the aid of authypnotism for the other . When I woke it was 8h . by my chronometer , and , as I inferred , about 5h . after midnight of the Martial meridian on which I lay . Sleep had given me an appetite for breakfast , and necessary practical employment calmed the excitement natural to my situation . My first care , after making ready to quit the Astronaut as soon as the light around should render it safe to venture into scenes so much more utterly strange , unfamiliar , and unknown than the wildest of the yet unexplored deserts of the Earth , was to ascertain the character of the atmosphere which I was presently to breathe . Did it contain the oxygen essential to Tellurian lungs ?