eleven o’clock in the evening
It was to her that Dain Waris had gone at once at the first intelligence of danger , for you must know that Jim was the only one in Patusan who possessed a store of gunpowder . Stein , with whom he had kept up intimate relations by letters , had obtained from the Dutch Government a special authorisation to export five hundred kegs of it to Patusan . The powder-magazine was a small hut of rough logs covered entirely with earth , and in Jim 's absence the girl had the key . In the council , held at eleven o'clock in the evening in Jim 's dining-room , she backed up Waris 's advice for immediate and vigorous action . I am told that she stood up by the side of Jim 's empty chair at the head of the long table and made a warlike impassioned speech , which for the moment extorted murmurs of approbation from the assembled headmen . Old Doramin , who had not showed himself outside his own gate for more than a year , had been brought across with great difficulty . He was , of course , the chief man there .