noon
But there was no help for the demolished bulwarks ; we had nothing to replace them ; and so , whenever it breezed again , our dauntless craft went along with her splintered prow dripping , but kicking up her fleet heels just as high as before . HOW far we sailed to the westward after leaving the Marquesas , or what might have been our latitude and longitude at any particular time , or how many leagues we voyaged on our passage to Tahiti , are matters about which , I am sorry to say , I can not with any accuracy enlighten the reader . Jermin , as navigator , kept our reckoning ; and , as hinted before , kept it all to himself . At noon , he brought out his quadrant , a rusty old thing , so odd-looking that it might have belonged to an astrologer . Sometimes , when rather flustered from his potations , he went staggering about deck , instrument to eye , looking all over for the sun -- a phenomenon which any sober observer might have seen right overhead . How upon earth he contrived , on some occasions , to settle his latitude , is more than I can tell . The longitude he must either have obtained by the Rule of Three , or else by special revelation .