midnight
The diseased visions that had distracted me before any real evil occurred , were changed , from their dreamy , shadowy character , to realities . The lengthened trains of images that were required to satisfy the cravings of hypochondria , fled ; and , in their place , there was one general , overwhelming fear , that seemed to engross all my thinking energies , and left no power to particularize the visions of danger that awaited me among the savages . There was only one presiding , prevailing idea that served as the rallying point of my terrors ; and that was the dead body of George , with the white sheet in which he was swathed , and the peculiarly-formed oaken table on which he was placed , and at which we used to dine upon all the dainties to be found on board an Indiaman . It was the steadfastness of this idea that excluded the images of the fearful deep recesses -- the Bacchanalian orgies of the savages -- their anthropophagous rites , their midnight revels ; but retained , as it were , hanging round it , the fear they had engendered , as a more complex feeling . After Crawley had left me , I had thrown myself down on a couch -- an act of which I retained no consciousness ; for afterwards , when daylight began to break in through the only window that was not closed up , I started to my feet , and did not know , for some time , that I was separated from the corpse ; the vision of which had , during the interval , been so vivid , that it combined the conditions of figure and locality as perfectly as if the object had been before me . On the deck I now heard the sound of several loud voices , and afterwards a scuffle , accompanied with the tramping of feet . There was then silence for a time ; but my ears were stung , on a sudden , by a scream , succeeded by a plash , as if some one had been precipitated into the sea .