midnight
`` And what has been your purpose ? '' `` To wait until a favorable moment when I could denounce you , and hand you over to justice . '' Our readers have already discerned the truth ; but we will make plain the incident which led up to the scene we are about describing . Upon the very night Vance sailed on the yacht , Garcia , with a gang of men , appeared after midnight at the cottage of Tom Pearce . The old fisherman was murdered and Renie was drugged and carried away ; but the girl had been a witness of the murder before she was found insensible lying beside her bed . When the girl recovered from the drug which had been administered to her , she found herself in a magnificently furnished apartment , and the man Garcia was at her side . The villain had told the girl a cunning tale .