midnight
The thunder was re-echoed among the rocks with a grand sonorousness . The colonists ' emotion was great . A thousand strange and extraordinary ideas crossed their brains , and they expected some grand and superhuman apparition , which alone could come up to the notion they had formed of the mysterious genius of the island . At midnight , Harding , carrying the lantern , descended to the beach to reconnoitre . The engineer was not mistaken . The beginning of an immense excavation could be seen under the water . There the wire , bending at a right angle , entered the yawning gulf .