midnight
It was , without doubt , a real bell , which if it might not summon pious folk to prayer , yet fulfilled almost as sacred a duty , warning , as it did , poor mariners of impending peril and so answering the petition oft put up `` for those travelling by sea . '' This ball belonged to the lighthouse-tower erected on the highest peak of the Casquettes , a terrible group of rocks jutting out into the Channel , just off the French coast hard by Alderney , some six miles to the north-west of which island they lie . Rocks that are cruel and relentless as the surges that sweep over them in stormy weather , and which are so quaintly named from their helmet , or `` casque '' - like resemblance -- rocks , concerning which the poet Swinburne has sung in his eloquent verse , that breathes the very spirit of the sea in depicting the strife of the elements : `` From the depths of the waters that lighten and darken , With change everlasting of life and of death , Where hardly by morn if the lulled ear hearken It hears the sea 's as a tired child 's breath , Where hardly by night , if an eye dare scan it , The storm lets shipwreck be seen or heard , As the reefs to the waves and the foam to the granite Respond one merciless word . `` Sheer seen and far , in the sea 's life heaven , A sea-mew 's flight from the wild sweet land , White plumed with foam , if the wind wake , seven Black helms , as of warriors that stir , not stand , From the depths that abide and the waves that environ Seven rocks rear heads that the midnight masks ; And the strokes of the swords of the storm are as iron On the steel of the wave-worn casques . `` Be night 's dark word as the word of a wizard , Be the word of dawn as a god 's glad word , Like heads of the spirits of darkness visored That see not for ever , nor ever have heard , These basnets , plumed as for fight or plumeless , Crowned by the storm and by storm discrowned , Keep word of the lists where the dead lie tombless And the tale of them is not found ! '' Hither the boat had drifted in the course of the three days that had elapsed since she had been first becalmed off Spithead , or rather between the Nab and Warner lights ; for , it was then that the wind had dropped , leaving her at the mercy of the stream , going whither the current willed . She had pursued a most erratic course , however , to reach this point .