midnight
So it was that , having no better plan , I set to work to see whether I could learn anything from the coffins themselves ; but with little success , for the lead coffins had no names upon them , and on such of the wooden coffins as bore plates I found the writing to be Latin , and so rusted over that I could make nothing of it . Soon I wished I had not come at all , considering that the diamond had vanished into air , and it was a sad thing to be cabined with so many dead men . It moved me , too , to see pieces of banners and funeral shields , and even shreds of wreaths that dear hearts had put there a century ago , now all ruined and rotten -- some still clinging , water-sodden , to the coffins , and some trampled in the sand of the floor . I had spent some time in this bootless search , and was resolved to give up further inquiry and foot it home , when the clock in the tower struck midnight . Surely never was ghostly hour sounded in more ghostly place . Moonfleet peal was known over half the county , and the finest part of it was the clock bell . 'T was said that in times past -LRB- when , perhaps , the chimes were rung more often than now -RRB- the voice of this bell had led safe home boats that were lost in the fog ; and this night its clangour , mellow and profound , reached even to the vault .