seven o'clock
But on this occasion the cats-paws , instead of enduring for a few seconds and then being no more seen for hours at a time , lingered for as long , perhaps , as two or three minutes , then passing away only to be succeeded by others coming from the same quarter and enduring a little longer than their predecessors , so continuing until at length we not only got way upon the ship but were able to maintain it during the lessening intervals between one puff and another . Finally a moment arrived when the cats-paws began to merge one into another , while the whole surface of the sea down in the south-eastern quarter lost its hateful mirror - like appearance and donned a tint of faintest , most delicate blue that deepened , even as we watched , creeping steadily down toward us until it reached the ship and , with a last gentle rustle of canvas , she yielded to the impulse of the first breathing of the south-east Trades . When at length the true breeze reached us it came away out from about South-East by South , enabling us still to lay our course , on the starboard tack , with the braces the merest trifle checked . Once fairly set in , the wind rapidly freshened until , when we of the afterguard went down to supper at seven o'clock that evening , a fiery breeze was humming through our tautened rigging , and the hooker was reeling off her seven knots , with the royal stowed , and a rapidly rising sea foaming under her lee bow . It was a grand evening when , after supper , I went on deck for my usual `` constitutional '' . The salt , ozone-laden breeze was just cool enough to set one 's blood coursing freely through one 's veins and to fill one with the joy of living ; the ship was making good headway ; and the sky over our lee quarter was a gorgeous blaze of gold and colour where the sun was sinking in the midst of a galaxy of clouds of the most wonderful forms . It was like a yachting experience .