about ten o'clock
But our sufferings were not yet over ; for now that the hellish torments of thirst were assuaged , the pangs of hunger assailed us with redoubled fury , hourly growing in intensity , until sometime during the night -- while Lindsay and I were asleep , and the boat was in charge of one of the men -- they became so utterly unendurable that , in a fit of madness , the famished crew fell upon the slender remainder of our stock of eatables , devouring the whole at one fell swoop , except Lindsay 's and my own portion , which , despite their famished condition , they loyally set aside for us ! Another day of breathless calm ; another twelve hours of scorching heat under the rays of the pitiless sun ; and then , with nightfall , the men once more threw out their oars and resumed the heart-breaking task of shortening by a few miles the still formidable stretch of ocean that lay between us and safety . But nothing that we could say would induce a single one of them to accept ever so small a share of the provisions that they had apportioned as the share belonging to Lindsay and myself ; they declared that their last meal had so far satisfied and reinvigorated them , that they were no longer hungry , while one or two of them spoke hopefully of the possibility that they might catch a fish or two on the morrow . It was somewhere about ten o'clock that night that we detected the first symptoms of another change in the weather , the first subtle indication that the long period of calm which had so nearly destroyed us was about to end . And , best of all , the indication was of such a character as permitted us to indulge the hope that , although the calm was about to give way to a breeze , we were likely to be favoured with weather fine enough to permit of our pursuing our voyage under the most favourable conditions . This symptom of approaching change merely consisted in the gathering in the heavens of a thin veil of mottled , fine-weather cloud , just dense enough to obscure most of the lesser stars and render the night rather dark , while a few of the brighter stars peeped through the openings between the clouds at tolerably frequent intervals , permitting us to steer our course without having recourse to the lantern or compass . The prospect of a coming breeze seemed to cheer the men and endow them with renewed vigour , for they gave way with something like a will , while they occasionally went so far as to exchange a muttered ejaculation of encouragement one with another .