noon
An end to it came at last , however ; the gale broke , the wind softened down somewhat , and at length the sea went down sufficiently to permit of the wheel being once more lashed ; when , leaving the brig in Miss Onslow 's charge , with strict injunctions that I was at once to be called in the event of a change for the worse in the weather , I went below , rolled into the mate 's bunk , and instantly lost all consciousness for the ensuing ten hours . It was somewhere about midnight when I awoke ; yet when I turned out I found Miss Onslow still up , and not only so but with a hot and thoroughly appetising meal ready for me . We sat down and partook of it together ; and when we had finished I went on deck , had a look round , found that the weather had greatly improved during my long sleep , and so turned in again until morning . When I next went on deck the weather had cleared , the wind had dwindled to a five-knot breeze -- hauling out from the eastward again at the same time -- and the sea had gone down to such an extent as to be scarcely perceptible ; I therefore shook out my reefs , and once more made sail upon the ship -- a task that kept me busy right up to noon . The weather being fine , I was able to secure a meridian altitude of the sun , and thus ascertain the latitude of the brig , with the resulting discovery that we were already to the southward of the Cape parallels . This was disconcerting in the extreme , the more so from the fact that the easterly wind was forcing us still farther to the southward ; but there was no help for it , we could do nothing but keep all on as we were and hope for a shift of wind . The fact of our being so far to the southward accounted , too , for the circumstance that we were not falling in with any other vessels .