about midnight
Poor old chap ! I wish we could send him a case of grog ashore to cheer him up . But a thirty miles ' pull dead to windward and against such a current is rather too much of a job even for a boat 's crew of natives . '' But about midnight the breeze freshened from the eastward , and by daylight the smooth , shapely cone of the green little island stood up clear and sharply defined from its surrounding narrow belt of palm-covered shore in a sunlit sea of sparkling blue , and Denison told the captain to get the boat ready . `` Ten miles or so is n't much -- we can sail there and back in the boat . '' Tucopia was a long way out of the _ Indiana 's _ , usual cruising ground ; but a year or so before a French barque had gone ashore there , and Denison had bought the wreck from her captain on behalf of Mr. Tom De Wolf . And as he had no white man on board to spare , he had handed his purchase over to the care of Oxley , the one European on the island .