About four in the morning
he roared . And the schooner 's head was laid for that elusive glimmer in the sky , which began already to pale in lustre and diminish in size , as the stain of breath vanishes from a window pane . At the same time she was reefed close down . About four in the morning , as the captain and Herrick sat together on the rail , there arose from the midst of the night in front of them the voice of breakers . Each sprang to his feet and stared and listened . The sound was continuous , like the passing of a train ; no rise or fall could be distinguished ; minute by minute the ocean heaved with an equal potency against the invisible isle ; and as time passed , and Herrick waited in vain for any vicissitude in the volume of that roaring , a sense of the eternal weighed upon his mind . To the expert eye the isle itself was to be inferred from a certain string of blots along the starry heaven .