midnight
`` Breakers on the starboard bow ! '' I sprang to the rail and looked ahead . Merciful Heaven ! it was true , right athwart our path , as far as the eye could penetrate the gloom on either bow , there stretched a barrier of wildly-leaping breakers and spouting foam , gleaming spectrally against the midnight blackness of the murky heavens ; and even as I gazed , spell-bound , at the dreadful spectacle I saw the black bulk of the strange ship outlined against the ghostly whiteness , and in another instant she had swung broadside-on ; and as a perfect mountain of white foam leaped upon her , enfolding her in its snowy embrace , her masts fell , and methought that , mingled with the sudden , deafening roar of the trampling breakers , I caught the sound of a despairing wail borne toward us against the wind . Oh ! the horror of that moment ! I shall never forget it .