midnight
Back on board his schooner and dozing in a deck chair under a three-months-old magazine , David Grief was aroused by a sobbing , slubbering noise from overside . He opened his eyes . From the Chilian cruiser , a quarter of a mile away , came the stroke of eight bells . It was midnight . From overside came a splash and another slubbering noise . To him it seemed half amphibian , half the sounds of a man crying to himself and querulously chanting his sorrows to the general universe . A jump took David Grief to the low rail .