midnight
One of their traps came very near catching us . They artfully caused an old brass fieldpiece to be left on a wharf near the scene of our late operations . Nothing in the world but the lack of money to buy powder saved us from falling into the clutches of the two watchmen who lay secreted for a week in a neighboring sail-loft . It was many a day before the midnight bombardment ceased to be the town-talk . The trick was so audacious and on so grand a scale that nobody thought for an instant of connecting us lads with it . Suspicion at length grew weary of lighting on the wrong person , and as conjecture -- like the physicians in the epitaph -- was in vain , the Rivermouthians gave up the idea of finding out who had astonished them . They never did find out , and never will , unless they read this veracious history .