midnight
We sat a few minutes longer , drank a final glass of wine , and then took our leave and walked down to the schooner together , Ryan having determined to sleep on board her that night . We sailed from Sierra Leone on the following day , as Ryan had resolved we should ; but , as usually happens when matters are hurried , we met with an endless succession of petty delays at the last moment that detained us at anchor until nearly nightfall , and occasioned us a vast amount of trotting about in the broiling sun to put some life into the dilatory people who were keeping us waiting ; the consequence of which was that when at last we lifted the anchor and stood out of the bay with the very last of the sea-breeze , to run into a calm when we had attained an offing of some two miles , I felt altogether too tired and knocked up to eat or drink ; while , as for Ryan , he was in a state of high fever once more . We got the land breeze about eight o'clock that night , and stood away to the southward and westward until midnight , in order that we might obtain a good offing , when we hauled up on a south-east course for the Congo . I remained on deck until midnight -- at which hour I was relieved by Pierrepoint -- and then was obliged to send for the doctor , who , after feeling my pulse , ordered me to my bunk at once , and when I was there administered to me a tremendous dose of some frightfully bitter concoction , telling me at the same time , for my comfort , that he would not be in the least surprised if , when he next visited me , he should find me suffering from a severe attack of coast fever . Happily , his anticipations , so far as I was concerned , were unfounded ; but by daybreak poor Ryan was in a state of raving delirium , with three men in his cabin told off to keep him in his bunk and prevent him from inflicting upon himself some injury . As for me , the medicine that I had taken threw me first into a profuse perspiration , and afterwards into a deep sleep , from which I awoke next morning cool , free from pain , and with a quiet , steady pulse , but very weak ; and I did not fully recover my strength until a day or two before we made the land about the Congo mouth , which we did after a long passage that was uneventful in everything save the persistency with which we were beset by calms and light , baffling airs . By this time Ryan , too , had recovered to a certain extent ; that is to say , he was able to leave his bunk and to stagger up on deck for an hour or so at a time , but he was still frightfully weak ; and it often appeared to me , from the rather wild talk in which he sometimes indulged , that he had not thus far fully recovered his mental balance .