two  o’clock  in  the
afternoon
We -- secured our prisoners , all blacks and mulattoes , the most villainous looking scoundrels I had ever seen , and shortly after it came on to thunder and lighten , as if heaven and earth had been falling together . A most vivid flash -- it almost blinded me . Presently the Firebrand burnt another blue light , whereby we saw that her maintopmast was gone close by the cap , with the topsail , and upper spars , and yards , and gear , all hanging down in a lumbering mass of confused wreck ; she had been struck by the levin brand , which had killed four men , and stunned several more . By this time the cold grey streaks of morning appeared in the eastern horizon , and soon after the day broke ; and by two o'clock in the afternoon , both corvette and schooner were at anchor at Conaives . The village , for town it could not be called , stands on a low hot plain , as if the washings of the mountains on the left hand side as we stood in had been carried out into the sea , and formed into a white plateau of sand ; all was hot and stunted , and scrubby . We brought up inside of the corvette , in three fathoms water . My superior officer had made the private signal to come on board and dine .