about midnight
`` That the Devil helpeth the heathen in this matter , I do myself know for a certainty , '' said Caleb Powell ; `` for when I was at Port Royal , many years ago , I did see with mine eyes the burning of an old negro wizard , who had done to death many of the whites , as well as his own people , by a charm which he brought with him from the Guinea , country . '' Mr. Hull , the minister of the place , who was a lodger in the house , said he had heard one Foxwell , a reputable planter at Saco , lately deceased , tell of a strange affair that did happen to himself , in a voyage to the eastward . Being in a small shallop , and overtaken by the night , he lay at anchor a little way off the shore , fearing to land on account of the Indians . Now , it did chance that they were waked about midnight by a loud voice from the land , crying out , Foxwell , come ashore ! three times over ; whereupon , looking to see from whence the voice did come , they beheld a great circle of fire on the beach , and men and women dancing about it in a ring . Presently they vanished , and the fire was quenched also . In the morning he landed , but found no Indians nor English , only brands ' ends cast up by the waves ; and he did believe , unto the day of his death , that it was a piece of Indian sorcery .