midnight
`` I shall be gone four or five days , this time , and I must go home after some clean clothes . '' `` Very well ; I will get Ethan to keep his eye on the stateroom , '' replied Mr. Sherwood ; and Lawry ran up to the cottage . Ethan , who had ordered the fires to be banked in furnaces , and was letting off the superfluous steam , consented to watch the room containing the gold . Rounds , the deckhand , and the first fireman turned in , that they might be ready for duty at midnight , when the boat would start for Whitehall . Unfortunately for Ben Wilford , he had heard Mr. Sherwood inform Lawry of his intentions in regard to the purchase and transportation of the gold . Before the _ Woodville _ reached Burlington , the dissolute young man had resolved to obtain the money if possible , prompted partly by revenge , and partly by the desire to possess so large a sum , with which he could revel in luxury in some distant party of the country . It must be confessed that this resolve to commit a crime was not simply an impulse , for the young man who leads a life of indolence and dissipation is never at any great distance from crime .