about
noon
This looked good for it meant that we were , or should be , in the path of ships . The only thing that worried me was that mighty few coasting vessels carry wireless , and I was surprised when we got an answer from what I knew later was the Southern Cross . `` It was just as Melville was getting your answer that I noticed the bag . The air had grown hot as an oven as the sun rose higher and about noon I looked up just to see if there was n't a cloud in the sky that might mean a storm , and perhaps a change of wind that maybe would blow us back over land again . What I saw scared me . The bag was blown out as tight as the skin of a sausage , and it did n't look to me as if it could swell much more without busting . `` I pointed it out to Melville and he went up in the air -- worried to death . ''