midnight
`` Let me be ; let me be ! '' `` Dying , nonsense , '' repeated Bob , pretending to joke about it ; though , truth to say , he felt in little joking mood then , being almost as weak as his companion . `` You are worth twenty dead men yet , as the old Captain would say ! '' But , in spite of all his encouraging words , Dick grew gradually weaker and weaker ; until , towards midnight , his breathing became so very faint that Bob could hardly feel it , though kneeling down close beside him and with his face touching that of poor Dick . `` I 'm a-dying -- Master Bob , '' he whispered , in such low accents that Bob had to bend down his ear close to his mouth to hear what he said . `` I bees -- a-dying -- Mas-ter -- Bob . I knows -- I -- be !