About midnight
`` But the ship , my son ? '' `` Why , my padre , I was so busy attending to the schooner , and afterward going below to break the sad news to my lovely dark-eyed passenger of the loss of her mother , that I had no time to devote to the ship . Pedillo , however , told me that he heard a good deal of frantic shrieking , and prayers , and cursing , with , for a little while , the renewed clank of the chain-pumps , but after that we had got too far to windward to hear more . About midnight , though , Pedillo and some of the watch thought they saw a white shower of foam like a breaking wave , and a great commotion in the water , but that was all . So , you see , what really became of that old craft we do not positively know ; though for a long time afterward I read the marine lists very attentively , yet I never saw any accounts of her arrival at her destination . `` Perhaps , '' added Captain Brand , with a peculiar smile , as he lit a fresh cigar , `` her arrival may have escaped my notice , as I hope it may , though I think not . '' Don Ignaçio intimated , by waving his fore finger to and fro , that such a hope had no possible foundation in fact ; and he stated , too , that he knew the underwriters had paid the full insurance on the missing ship .