midnight
Feeling that I must act at once , or I might not act at all -- or at least till daybreak -- I put a great restraint upon my feelings of repugnance , caught up the lamp , stepped into the boat , and raised the drooping head on to my arm . As I did so , the hood-like covering which had concealed the face fell back , and in a moment all my shrinking and horror vanished once for all -- swallowed up in pity , compassion , and amazement -- for on my arm rested the sweet face of a young and very pretty girl , marred only by its pallor and a bad bruise on the right temple . Even in the lamplight I could see she was a lady born and bred ; her face alone told me that , and the rich material of fur-lined cloak and hood merely confirmed it . Here was no horrible midnight visitor , then ; but certainly what seemed to me a great mystery -- far more so than the dead body of labourer or wherry-man floating down with the tide would have furnished . A lady , insensible apparently from a blow on the forehead , floating alone in an open boat at midnight , on a lonely tidal water , far from any resort of the class to which she seemed to belong , and saved from long hours of exposure -- perhaps death -- by the marvellous chance -LRB- if it could be called so -RRB- of colliding with my yacht on the way to the open sea . It was too great a puzzle to attempt to solve on the spur of the moment , and I had first to apply myself to the evident duty of getting my fair and mysterious visitor into my cabin , there to try to undo the effects of whatever untoward accidents had befallen her . It was no easy matter , single-handed and in darkness , except for the hazy beam of light from the lamp on deck , to get her from the swinging , lurching boat to the yacht .