midnight
The day passed like the night , uneventfully . The breeze held steady , and we continued to blow along northward , Mrs Vansittart and her daughter taking spell and spell at the steering oar while I endeavoured to make up my arrears of sleep . Of course a sharp look-out was maintained , in the hope that either a sail or land might be sighted ; but although the air was crystal-clear the horizon remained bare throughout its entire circle . Toward nightfall the wind manifested a tendency to drop , and shortly after midnight it fell dead , so that when Julius aroused me at two o'clock in the morning I found the boat heaving gently upon an oil-smooth swell . This calm , if it should last for any length of time , would be nothing short of a disaster . It was of vital importance that we should find either a ship or a shore capable of providing us with sustenance within the next four or five days , or we should all be subjected to the horrors of starvation . I positively dreaded to think of what might be the effect of this upon the women ; therefore , that we might not lie there absolutely helpless , I started to scull the boat with the steering oar .