midnight
`` Possibly it was , in a sense that you may not quite understand now , but you will understand it when you and Niti are married . She will be better able to explain it then than I could now . '' `` And what are the orders -- I mean , of course , the private ones ? Ours are : sail at midnight , make Kronstadt in forty-eight hours : command the approaches to Riga and St Petersburg , and wait for the developments of this manifesto which seems to be setting what is left of Russia on fire . Germany is in with us for the time being : France and Italy and our Mediterranean squadron will see to things in the Near East , and altogether there seem to be the prospects of a very handsome sort of row . '' `` Which you , my dear Merrill , will be the means of preventing , '' said Franklin Marmion , taking a piece of folded tracing paper out of the inside pocket of his coat . `` I yield to circumstance .