nine o'clock
We gave them a full quarter of an hour to get well out of our way , and then the oars dipped into the water once more , and we resumed our voyage . At daybreak the atmosphere was still as stagnant as it had been all through the night , the surface of the ocean being unbroken by the faintest ripple , save where , about a mile away , broad on our starboard bow , the fin of a solitary shark lazily swimming athwart our course turned up a thin , blue , wedge-shaped ripple as he swam . There was , however , a faint , scarcely perceptible mistiness in the atmosphere that led me to hope we might get a small breeze from somewhere -- I little cared where -- before the day grew many hours older . At nine o'clock I secured an excellent set of sights for my longitude , -- having taken the precaution to set my watch by the ship 's chronometer before parting company with the launch , -- and it was depressing to find , after I had worked out my calculations , how little progress we had made during the twenty-one hours since the previous noon . As the morning wore on the mistiness that I had observed in the atmosphere at daybreak passed away , but the sky lost its rich depth of blue , while the sun hung aloft , a dazzling but rayless globe of palpitating fire . A change of some sort was brewing , I felt certain , and I was somewhat surprised that , with such a sky above us , the atmosphere should remain so absolutely stagnant . As the day wore on , the thin , scarcely perceptible veil of vapour that had dimmed the richness of the sky tints in the early morning gradually thickened and seemed to be assuming somewhat of a distinctness of shape .