midnight
* * * * * And now as he sits in the doorway of his thatched house , and gazes dreamily out upon the long curve of creamy beach and wind-swayed line of palms that fringe the leeward side of his island home , Brantley passes a brown hand slowly up and down his sun-bronzed cheek , and thinks of the past . He was so full of life -- of the very joy of living -- that time six years ago when he sailed from Auckland on that fateful voyage in the DORIS . It was his first voyage as captain , and the ship was his own , and even now he remembers with a curious time-dulled pang the last words of his only sister -- the Doris after whom he had called his new ship -- as she had kissed him farewell -- `` I am so glad , Fred , to hear them call you ` Captain Brantley . ' '' And the voyage -- the wild feverish desire to make a record passage to ` Frisco and back ; the earnest words of poor old white-headed Lutton , the mate , `` not to carry on so at night going through the Paumotu Group '' ; that awful midnight crash when the DORIS ran hopelessly into the wild boil of roaring surf on Tuanake Reef ; the white , despairing faces of five of his men , who , with curses in their eyes upon his folly , were swept out of sight into the awful blackness of the night . And then the days in the boat with the six survivors ! Ah ! the memory of that will chill his blood to his dying day .