eight o'clock
`` Go aloft , one of you , '' said Morton , who was the officer of the morning watch , `` go aloft , and see if you can make out any sail astern of us under the land . '' The seaman who obeyed this order , after _ roosting _ for fifteen or twenty minutes on the main royal yard , came down and reported that he could see nothing ; but that the sun shone so brightly on the water that , if any thing was within the range of sight , the reflection of the sunbeams would render it invisible . Morton could not repress a vague apprehension that there was some vessel in chace , though it would have sorely puzzled him to give his whys and wherefores . After having pointed his glass for the fiftieth time towards the eastern horizon , without seeing any thing but smooth water and the dim , blue , cloudy-looking mountains , the man at the wheel notified him that it was `` eight bells , '' or eight o'clock . Having gone below to compare the watch in the cabin with the half-hour glass in the binnacle , he returned to the quarter-deck and called out , `` Strike the bell eight -- call the watch . '' The bell was struck , and one of the watch on deck , after a preliminary thumping with the large end of a handspike upon the forecastle , vociferated down the fore scuttle , `` All the starboard watch , ahoy ! Rouse out there , starbowlines -- show a leg or an arm ! ''