about
midnight
The next day a deep gloom reigned in the ship ; the crew were ranged in their Sunday clothes and bare-headed ; a grating was rigged ; Sharpe read the burial service ; and the dead , each man sewed up in his hammock with a 32-lb . shot , glided off the grating into the sea with a sullen plunge ; while their shipmates cried so that the tears dripped on the deck . With these regrets for the slain , too violent to last , was mingled a gloomy fear that Death had a heavier blow in store . The surgeon 's report of Captain Dodd was most alarming ; he had become delirious about midnight , and so continued . Sharpe commanded the ship ; and the rough sailors stepped like cats over that part of the deck beneath which their unconscious captain lay . If two men met on the quarter-deck , a look of anxious , but not hopeful , inquiry was sure to pass between them . Among the constant inquirers was Ramgolam .