nine o'clock
I have already mentioned Lemaitre 's habit of drinking himself into a state of intoxication every night . This habit , and the obscene language that the man seemed to revel in when in such a condition , was so disgusting to me that not the least-prized advantage afforded by my convalescence was the ability to remain on deck until the nightly saturnalia was at an end and Lemaitre and his companion had retired to their cabins . On the particular night , however , of which I am about to speak , a slight recurrent touch of fever caused me to slip quietly below and turn in before the orgy began ; not that I expected to get to sleep , but simply because I believed the warmth and dryness of my bunk would be better for me than the damp night air on deck . Punctually at nine o'clock Lemaitre and his chief mate came noisily clattering down the companion ladder , glasses and a bottle of rum were produced , and the carouse began . It had not progressed very far before it became apparent to me , as I lay there in my hot bunk , tossing restlessly , that Lemaitre was in an unusually excited and quarrelsome condition , and that Francois , the chief mate , was rapidly approaching a similar condition as he gulped down tumbler after tumbler of liquor . They were always argumentative and contradictory when drinking together , but to-night they were unusually so . At length Francois made some remark as to the extraordinary good fortune they had met with on this particular voyage , in having come so far without falling in with a British cruiser ; at which Lemaitre laughed scornfully declaring that there was not a British cruiser afloat that could catch _ La belle Jeannette _ ; and that , even if it were otherwise , he should have no fear of them this voyage .