midnight
In both states he saw visions , now a wild dance of faces , now a single stark face , which tormented him and would not budge . Yet an irresistible impulse gathered in him to keep his mental eye open for the devilish play of supernatural powers . He had turned out the electric lights , and in the dark , when the eye is unoccupied , one is doubly sensitive to the messages of hearing and feeling . He caught every sound , felt every movement , of the mighty ship , steadily pursuing its course through the midnight . He heard the churning of the propeller , like the labouring of a great demon condemned to slave for mankind . He heard shouts and calls and the walking of men when the coal-passers threw overboard the cinders from the huge boiler furnaces . On the trip to New York those furnaces consumed over a thousand tons of coal , and the casting away of the slag and ashes was left for the nighttime .