noon
His father _ commanded a negro regiment in a fight once against my father _ ; think of it ! `` Hurrah ! we 're off . '' It was a tropical holiday -- that sail down to Cuba -- a strange , huge pleasure-trip of steamships , sailing in a lordly column of three ; at night , sailing always , it seemed , in a harbour of brilliant lights under multitudinous stars and over thickly sown beds of tiny phosphorescent stars that were blown about like flowers in a wind-storm by the frothing wake of the ships ; by day , through a brilliant sunlit sea , a cool breeze -- so cool that only at noon was the heat tropical -- and over smooth water , blue as sapphire . Music night and morning , on each ship , and music coming across the little waves at any hour from the ships about . Porpoises frisking at the bows and chasing each other in a circle around bow and stern as though the transports sat motionless ; schools of flying-fish with filmy , rainbow wings rising from one wave and shimmering through the sunlight to the foamy crest of another -- sometimes hundreds of yards away . Beautiful clear sunsets of rose , gold-green , and crimson , with one big , pure radiant star ever like a censor over them ; every night the stars more deeply and thickly sown and growing ever softer and more brilliant as the boats neared the tropics ; every day dawn rich with beauty and richer for the dewy memories of the dawns that were left behind .