midnight
* * * * * Yet his first actual breath of the tropics , of Cuba , was very different , charged and surcharged with magical peace : the steamer was enveloped in an evening of ineffable lovely blueness . The sun faded from the world of water and left an ultramarine undulating flood with depths of clear black , the sky was a tender gauze of color which , as night approached , was sewn with a glimmer that became curiously apparent , seemingly nearby , stars . The air that brushed Charles ' cheek was slow and warm ; its warmth was fuller , heavier with potency , than any summer he had known . Accelerating his imagination it dissipated his energies ; he lounged supine in his chair , long past midnight , lulled by the slight rise and fall of the sea , gathered up benignly into the beauty above him . Later he had to stir himself into the energy of packing , for the Morro Castle was docking early in the morning . He closed his bag thoughtfully , the derringer on a shelf . Escobar had spoken about it , warning him , again ; and it was apparent that no obvious place of concealment would be sufficient .