midnight
`` He lifted Serena 's left arm -- the bone was broken in two places , above and below the elbow . `` We set to work quickly , and fitting the broken bones in place we bound her arm up in stiff , smooth strips of the spathe of the cocoanut tree , and then washed and dressed her feet , which were cut and bleeding , for she had walked barefooted , and clothed only in her night-dress , all the way from the north end of the island , which is nearly two leagues from my house . `` After she had drunk some coffee and eaten a little food she became stronger , and told us all that had befallen her . `` ` Karta and the three other white men came back from the ship when it was long past midnight , and I knew by the noise they made that they had all been drinking grog . I heard them talking and laughing and saying that thou , Simi , were a paltry coward ; and then one of them -- he who is called Joe -- said that he would one day end thee with a bullet and take Luisa to wife , as so fine a woman deserved a better man than a cur for a husband . And Karta -- Karta my husband -- laughed and said that that could not be , for he meant to take thee , Luisa , for himself when he had ridden himself of me . His shameless words stung me , and I wept silently as I lay there , and pressed my hands to my ears to shut out their foul talk and blasphemies .