three o'clock
`` A real sailor belongs on board a sailing vessel . There is a mate of mine here on the _ Roland _ , '' he added in a tone of great admiration , `` who is only eighteen years old and has already been on two long , dangerous trips on a schooner . '' To Frederick , it seemed as if lasting passion for the sea -- the sea , which was already making him miserable -- must be a conventional myth . It was three o'clock . He had been on board only nineteen or twenty hours , and already found it a petty hardship . `` If the _ Roland _ does n't make better time , '' he calculated , `` I shall have to go through the same difficulties of existence eight or nine times twenty-four hours . But I will get back to land and remain there , while Pander , the cabin-boy , will have to return across the ocean a few days after landing . ''