six p.m.
Let me manage , sir ; and for God 's sake , say nothing to anybody . Our lives may hang upon a word . '' Vickers promised , and kept his promise so far as to chat cheerily with Blunt and Frere at dinner , only writing a brief note to his wife to tell her that , whatever she heard , she was not to stir from her cabin until he came to her ; he knew that , with all his wife 's folly , she would obey unhesitatingly , when he couched an order in such terms . According to the usual custom on board convict ships , the guards relieved each other every two hours , and at six p.m. the poop guard was removed to the quarter-deck , and the arms which , in the daytime , were disposed on the top of the arm-chest , were placed in an arm-rack constructed on the quarter-deck for that purpose . Trusting nothing to Frere -- who , indeed , by Pine 's advice , was , as we have seen , kept in ignorance of the whole matter -- Vickers ordered all the men , save those who had been on guard during the day , to be under arms in the barrack , forbade communication with the upper deck , and placed as sentry at the barrack door his own servant , an old soldier , on whose fidelity he could thoroughly rely . He then doubled the guards , took the keys of the prison himself from the non-commissioned officer whose duty it was to keep them , and saw that the howitzer on the lower deck was loaded with grape . It was a quarter to seven when Pine and he took their station at the main hatchway , determined to watch until morning .