nine o'clock
We ca n't stay another night at sea in a mess of a boat like this . Off for the Columbretas ! There 's always a place there for an honest free-trader ! '' At nine o'clock that night , taking her course from a lighthouse , and groaning and cracking as she bucked into a nasty sea , the _ Garbosa _ shot into the Big Columbreta , an extinct volcanic crater , caved in , on one side , leaving a half-circle of steep , wave-eaten cliffs , within which the water is calm , unless the storm happens to be coming from the East . This island , uninhabited save by the keepers of the lighthouse , has not a trace of beach . The abrupt , precipitous walls of lava are too bare to feed a tree , so hot is the sun in summer , so heavy is the air with salt . At their base are piles of pebbles that the storm-surf has rolled on high , with a mixture of flotsam and jetsam and dead fish .