one in the morning
`` My idea was , '' explained Roddy , `` that we would row to the fortress . After we get the General on board , the more it sounds like a machine gun the better . '' Since their return in the launch , and during dinner , which had been served in the tiny _ patio _ under the stars , the White Mice had been discussing ways and means . A hundred plans had been proposed , criticised , rejected ; but by one in the morning , when the candles were guttering in the harbor breeze and the Scotch whiskey had shrunk several inches , the conspirators found themselves agreed . They had decided they could do nothing until they knew in which cell the General was imprisoned , and especially the position of his window in that cell that looked out upon the harbor ; that , with the aid of the launch , the rescue must be made from the water , and that the rescuers must work from the outside . To get at Rojas from the inside it would be necessary to take into their confidence some one of the prison officials , and there was no one they dared to trust . Had it been a question of money , Roddy pointed out , the friends of Rojas would already have set him free .