about noon
Besides , I have really nobody else to place in charge . If you feel well enough , you had better run down on board in the course of a day or two , and see how matters are going on . Now come away into the other room and have some lunch . '' On the following morning , directly after breakfast , I started in Mr Finnie 's ketureen for Kingston , and , reaching the wharf about noon , chartered that fast-sailing clipper , the `` Fly-by-night , '' to convey me to Port Royal . The jabber of the black boatmen and the exhilarating sensation of being once more afloat had quite a tonic effect upon my spirits , which rose higher and higher as we tore down past the Palisades , the boat careening gunwale-to , with the hissing , sparkling foam seething past and trailing away in a long wake astern . When I got on board the `` Juanita , '' I found that they had just stepped the foremast , and a most beautiful spar it was , without a knot in it , and as straight as a ray of light . Fisher , the dockyard foreman , was on board , superintending operations , and from him I learned that it was intended to make some slight alterations in the armament of the craft ; for , whereas when captured she carried four long-sixes of a side , it was now proposed to alter the position of the ports , reducing their number to three , and bringing them more toward the middle or waist of the vessel , and mounting three long - nines on each side instead of the four sixes , thus removing the weight from the two ends , and adding three pounds to the weight of her broadside .