midnight
When the hands were sent down and the watch set at Eight Bells , to my inexperienced eyes the hurricane appeared to be at its height ; the howling of the wind and angry roar of the clashing waves being absolutely awful to listen to , drowning as they did every other sound on board the ship on deck . Nor was it any the better below , the groaning of the timbers there , as of a lost soul crying out in its last agony , with the rattling of crockery and other mess gear , adding to the tumult without , made a perfect pandemonium of the gunroom . A fellow could not hear what another said , though it were shouted in his ear as loudly as the speaker could bawl ; albeit some of my messmates certainly had powerful lungs of their own -- lungs which they were not chary of testing when occasion offered ! I turned in early ; but , not being able to sleep for the racket that was going on , I returned to the deck , remaining there in the most sheltered corner I could find with Tom Mills , the two of us watching with spellbound attention until close on midnight the wonderful struggle between the spirits of the air and the demons of the deep -- the pale-faced moon shining out occasionally from the dark vault of the heavens overhead , lighting up the stormy sea that served as the battle-ground of the storm fiends with her sickly gleams and making it seem like a field of snow , its vast expanse being covered with yeasty foam as far as the eye could reach . The gale lasted all that night and the following day ; when , late in the evening , the weather commenced to moderate , the wind calming down finally towards the close of the middle watch next morning . It had then been blowing for thirty-six hours , during the whole of which time neither Captain Farmer nor the commander had left the deck ; while most of the officers and men also had remained up on duty , it being a case almost of `` all hands '' from the beginning of the tempest to its end ! When I went up on deck that morning I could hardly believe my eyes , on seeing that the storm and all its wild surroundings had miraculously disappeared ; for , the sun was shining brightly on a blue sea that seemed to ripple with laughter and the good old ship was speeding along under all plain sail , looking none the worse for the buffeting she had experienced only a few hours before !