ten o'clock
The Captain struck a light upon his leg . `` I 've got one somewhere , '' he replied reassuringly ; `` carried it for many years now , just in case this one fell overboard or got broke . '' Tom , who happened to be present , smiled audibly behind a hand which was hardly a recommendation for the coveted berth of steward , but Christian looked at the battered pipe with sympathetic gravity . At ten o'clock the _ Agnes and Mary _ warped out of harbour and dropped lazily down the Rance , setting sail as she went . Christian had spent most of the morning in the little cabin smoking Captain Lebrun 's reserve pipe , and seeking to establish order among the accounts of the ship . The accounts were the _ bête noire _ of the old sailor 's existence . Upon his own confession he `` was n't no arithmetician , '' and Christian found , upon inspecting his accounts , no cause to contradict this ambiguous statement .