ten o'clock in the morning
I said nothing , but was secretly heartily disgusted with this brutal disposal of his miserable shipmates ' remains . However , it was his doing , not mine ; and I confess the removal of those silent witnesses was a very great relief to me , albeit when I considered how Tassard had been awakened , and how both the mate and the boatswain might have been brought to by treatment , I felt as though , after a manner , the Frenchman had committed a murder by burying them so . It blew a small breeze all day from the south-west , the weather keeping fine . It was ten o'clock in the morning when we started on our labour , and the sun had been sunk a few minutes by the time we had rigged the last whip for the lowering and poising of the powder . This left us nothing to do in the morning but light the matches , lower the powder into position , and then withdraw to the schooner and await the issue . Our arrangements comprised , first , four barrels of powder in deep yawns ahead of the vessel , directly athwart the line of her head ; second , two barrels , a wide space between them , in the great chasm on the starboard side ; third , about fifty very heavy charges in bags and the like for the further rupturing of many splits and crevices on the larboard bow of the ship , where the ice was most compact . What should follow the mighty blast no mortal being could have foretold .