midnight
His imagination had woven many a chain of incident , and set him in many a strange place ; but never had it presented a picture of himself in command of as mixed a crew as was ever thrown together , navigating unknown waters without chart or compass , a fugitive from the chains of an Eastern despot . His quick fancy was busy even now . He felt that it was not for nothing he had been brought into his present plight ; and at the back of his mind was the belief , founded on his strong wish and hope , that the magnetism of Clive 's personality , which he had felt so strongly at Market Drayton , was still influencing his career . At midnight Fuzl Khan relieved him at the wheel , and he turned in . His sleep was troubled . It was a warm night -- unusually warm for the time of year . There were swarms of cockroaches and rats on board ; the cockroaches huge beasts , three times the size of those that overran the kitchen at home ; the rats seeming as large as the rabbits he had been wont to shoot on the farm .