midnight
`` Yes , '' said Whitaker , sleepily . `` And now , without ingratitude , may I ask you to lead me to a bath and my bunk . I have just about fifteen minutes of semi-consciousness to go on . '' Nor was this exaggeration ; it was hard upon midnight , and he had been awake since before dawn of a day whose course had been marked by a succession of increasingly exhaustive emotional crises , following a night of interrupted and abbreviated rest ; add to this the inevitable reaction from high nervous tension . His reserve vitality seemed barely sufficient to enable him to keep his eyes open through the rite of the hot salt-water bath . After that he gave himself blindly into Ember 's guidance , and with a mumbled , vague good night , tumbled into the berth assigned him . And so strong was his need of sleep that it was not until ten o'clock the following morning , when the yacht lay at her mooring in the East River , that Ember succeeded in rousing him by main strength and good-will .