six o’clock
When he woke , feeling very sick and so stiff and sore that he could scarcely move , the broad daylight was streaming through the blinds . The place was perfectly quiet , for the doctor 's assistant who had brought him back to life , and who lay upon a couch at the further end of the room , slept the sleep of youth and complete exhaustion . Only an eight-day clock on the mantelpiece ticked in that solemn and aggressive way which clocks affect in the stillness . Geoffrey strained his eyes to make out the time , and finally discovered that it wanted a few minutes to six o'clock . Then he fell to wondering how Miss Granger was , and to repeating in his own mind every scene of their adventure , till the last , when they were whirled out of the canoe in the embrace of that white-crested billow . He remembered nothing after that , nothing but a rushing sound and a vision of foam . He shuddered a little as he thought of it , for his nerves were shaken ; it is not pleasant to have been so very near the End and the Beginning ; and then his heart went out with renewed gratitude towards the girl who had restored him to life and light and hope .