midnight
`` The stranger has vanished ! '' said Earing , with a voice in whose tones mental relief and distrust were both , at the same moment , oddly manifesting themselves . `` He should be on this quarter ; but I confess I see him not ! '' `` Ay , ay , sir ; this is the way that the midnight cruiser off the Hope is said to come and go . There are men who have seen that vessel shut in by a fog , in as fine a star-light night as was ever met in a southern latitude . But then this can not be the Dutchman , since it is so many long leagues from the pitch of the Cape to the coast of North-America . `` Here he lies ; and , by heaven !