six o'clock
`` Well , then , go down to the boat , and go to bed there . You need n't clean your fish yet . '' Paul decided to adopt this suggestion , and in a few moments he was snoring with his brother in the little cabin of the boat . It was six o'clock when the first officer of the Fawn began to show signs of life , and it was fully quarter past six before he realized , in the fullest sense , that he was still in the land of the living . An unpleasant dream that the gallant craft had been dashed in pieces on Rock Island reef , and that he , the before mentioned first officer of the schooner Fawn , had been thrown upon the rocks , where an enormous green lobster , about the size of a full-grown elephant , had seized him in one of his huge claws , and borne him down among the rock weed and devil 's aprons for his breakfast , happily proved to be a mere fantasy of his slumbering faculties . John sat upon his berth and congratulated himself upon his escape from the claw of the lobster . Then the occurrences of the night , the run off the lee shore , and the white-capped billows that had growled so in the gloom , began to come to his recollection , and he realized that they had had a tough time of it .