midday
And so he steered to a freshening breeze , while Captain Nicholl and I lay sprawled in the boat 's bottom and in our weakness dreamed dreams and glimpsed visions of the dear things of life far across the world from us . It was an ever-freshening breeze of wind that soon began to puff and gust . The cloud stuff flying across the sky foretold us of a gale . By midday Arnold Bentham fainted at the steering , and , ere the boat could broach in the tidy sea already running , Captain Nicholl and I were at the steering sweep with all the four of our weak hands upon it . We came to an agreement , and , just as Captain Nicholl had drawn the first lot by virtue of his office , so now he took the first spell at steering . Thereafter the three of us spelled one another every fifteen minutes . We were very weak and we could not spell longer at a time .