midnight
We now found ourselves in a very pretty pickle ; and to add to my annoyance I made the discovery that we had grounded just about high - water , and that the tides , such as they were , were `` taking off ; '' that is to say , each high tide would be a trifle lower than the preceding one until the neaps were reached and passed . There was nothing for it then but to lighten the ship ; and getting the remaining boat into the water , all three were brought alongside , and the iron ballast was then hoisted out of the hold and lowered into the boats until they were as deeply loaded as they could be with safety , even in that perfectly smooth water . This lightened the schooner so considerably that I felt sanguine of getting her afloat when the tide next rose ; but , not to neglect any means at my disposal to secure this very desirable end , I ordered all our spare spars to be launched overboard , and with them , some empty casks , and a quantity of lumber from the hold , a raft was constructed capable of supporting three of the guns , though they sank it so deep that I was at first afraid we should lose them altogether . I could then do no more until it was again high-water -- which would not be until an hour past midnight -- unless I sent the boats ashore to discharge their cargoes on the beach and then come alongside again to further lighten the ship ; and this I was very loath to do , as I felt convinced that the process of handling and re-handling the heavy pigs of ballast would consume so much time that we should lose rather than gain by it , to say nothing of the exhausting labour which would thus devolve upon the men . Leaving Courtenay , therefore , who was uninjured , in charge of the deck , I retired to the cabin , which was at that moment serving for a cockpit , and , finding the surgeon disengaged , submitted myself to his tender mercies . His first act was to bathe my head with warm water until the dry blood with which my hair was matted was cleared away as much as possible , and then the hair itself was shorn away until the wound was fairly exposed . The injury was then found to consist of a scalp wound some six inches in length , extending from a point above my right eye , just where the hair commenced , obliquely across the skull toward the back of the left ear , the scalp itself , for a width of about four inches , being torn from the skull and folded back like a rag .