noon
Yet at the time I must argue with her -- with her ! When all my courage should have gone to love-making , I was plucking it up to sail as near as I might to plain remonstrance ! I little dreamt how the ghost of every petty word was presently to return and torture me . So it is that I can see her and hear her now on a hundred separate occasions beneath the awning beneath the stars on deck below at noon or night but plainest of all in the evening of the day we signalled the Island of Ascension , at the close of that last concert on the quarter-deck . The watch are taking down the extra awning ; they are removing the bunting and the foot-lights . The lanterns are trailed forward before they are put out ; from the break of the poop we watch the vivid shifting patch of deck that each lights up on its way . The stars are very sharp in the vast violet dome above our masts ; they shimmer on the sea ; and our trucks describe minute orbits among the stars , for the trades have yet to fail us , and every inch of canvas has its fill of the gentle steady wind .