midnight
If he had discovered land , however indistinct it might appear , land was sure to be there . But that distant echo was the only response produced by Neb 's shouts , while a heavy gloom hung over all the part east of the island . Meanwhile , the sky was clearing little by little . Towards midnight the stars shone out , and if the engineer had been there with his companions he would have remarked that these stars did not belong to the Northern Hemisphere . The Polar Star was not visible , the constellations were not those which they had been accustomed to see in the United States ; the Southern Cross glittered brightly in the sky . The night passed away . Towards five o'clock in the morning of the 25th of March , the sky began to lighten ; the horizon still remained dark , but with daybreak a thick mist rose from the sea , so that the eye could scarcely penetrate beyond twenty feet or so from where they stood .