six o'clock
`` If I owned that highflyer , I should not employ her present captain to sail her for me . He is overloaded with a blind confidence , and he has made a very bad use of his opportunities . If I had been in command of that steamer I should have made her course so as to run away from all three of my pursuers as soon as I made them out . It is six o'clock now , and I should have got far enough into the darkness to give them all the slip , and gone into Wilmington on a new track . '' `` Her captain appears to trust entirely to his heels , and to look with contempt upon anything like manoeuvring , '' replied the first lieutenant . `` But we must finish him up before the darkness enables him to give us the slip . I have no doubt we could knock her all to pieces with the midship gun in the next fifteen minutes ; but if she can make eighteen knots an hour , which we seem to be all agreed that she can do , she will not be a useless addition to the United States Navy , and it would be a pity to smash her up , for she is a good-looking craft .