noon
What caused this disaster I never knew ; but , in five minutes we passed as near as possible over the spot , and not a trace of her was to be seen . I could not discover so much as a handspike floating , though I looked with intense anxiety , in the hope of picking up some fellow-creature clinging to a spar . As for stopping to examine , one who did not understand the language might as well hope to read the German character on a mile-stone , while flying past it in a rail-road car . At noon , precisely , away went our fore-top-sail out of the gaskets . One fastening snapped after another , until the whole sail was adrift . The tugs that this large sheet of canvass gave upon the spars , as it shook in the wind , threatened to jerk the foremast out of the ship . They lasted about three minutes , when , after a report almost as loud as that of a small piece of ordnance , the sail split in ribands .