noon
Just at sunset one evening I sighted a vessel of some sort far ahead of me -- a black mass looming uncertainly against the rich glow of crimson that filled the west -- and for some reason or another I took into my head the fancy that I was nearing open water and that this was not a wreck but a living ship on board of which I would find living men : and at the thought of meeting with live men again I fairly cried with joy . Then darkness fell and shut her out from me ; leaving me so eager that I could not sleep for thinking of her , and almost tempting me to press on through the night that I might be close up to her by dawn . But when in the first faint grey light of early morning I made her out again , and saw that she was in just the same position and at just the same distance ahead of me , I was almost as sorry as I would have been had she vanished ; for I knew that had she been a living ship in that long night-time she would have sailed away . And by noon , being then close upon her , I could see that she was floating bottom upwards : and so knew certainly that she was only a dead wreck drifting in slowly to take her place among the dead wrecks which I had left behind me ; and beyond her , instead of open water , I saw only the weed -- covered ocean stretching onward unbroken until it was lost in the golden haze . Even then , though , I had a foolish hope that there might be living men clinging to her , and I edged my boat off its course a little so that I might run close under her stern . But no one showed on her hull as I neared her , and only my own voice broke the heavy silence as I crazily hailed her again and again . And then I fell into a dull rage with her , so weary was I of my loneliness and so bitter was my disappointment at finding her deserted -- until suddenly a very different train of emotions was aroused in me as I made out slowly the weathered inverted lettering on her up-tilting stern , and so read her name there : _ Golden Hind _ !