nine o'clock
Then I was a boy , bobbing for fish ; and now I am getting to be an old fellow , and here I be , groping for a dead body ! I tell you what , lads ; if I thought anything had really happened to Zenobia , I should feel kind o ' sorrowful . '' `` I wish , at least , you would hold your tongue , '' muttered I . The moon , that night , though past the full , was still large and oval , and having risen between eight and nine o'clock , now shone aslantwise over the river , throwing the high , opposite bank , with its woods , into deep shadow , but lighting up the hither shore pretty effectually . Not a ray appeared to fall on the river itself . It lapsed imperceptibly away , a broad , black , inscrutable depth , keeping its own secrets from the eye of man , as impenetrably as mid-ocean could . `` Well , Miles Coverdale , '' said Foster , `` you are the helmsman .