noon
Yet , when , for want of something better to do , Jack Keene and I got a shark hook and , baiting it with a highly flavoured piece of pork out of the harness cask , sought to inveigle one of the monsters into swallowing it , they disdained to even so much as look at it , merely glancing upward at us , when we deftly dropped the bait upon one of their broad , shovel noses , as though to say : `` No , no , my hearties ! No rancid pork for us , thank you , when , by exercising a little patience , we may , with luck , get a chance to learn what one of you jokers tastes like . '' The enervating effect of the heat seemed to be as strongly revealed in them as it was in ourselves . The sun still flamed in the heavens when , shortly before noon , Jack and I brought our sextants on deck with the object of measuring his meridian altitude above the horizon ; but we were only able to obtain a very approximate and wholly useless result , for , when we came to try , we found that the sun appeared in our instruments merely as a shapeless glare of light , while the horizon was wholly indistinguishable . Then , by imperceptible degrees , the sun , like the horizon , became obliterated , and the atmosphere stealthily darkened , as though a continuous succession of curtains of grey gauze were being interposed between us and the sky . Meanwhile the barometer was still persistently declining , although not quite so rapidly as during the early hours of the morning . It was about six bells in the afternoon watch when , with a sudden darkening of the sky , that came upon us like the gloom of night , it began to rain -- a regular tropical deluge , sluicing down upon us in sheets , as though the bottom of a cloud had dropped out ; and within less than a minute our decks were more than ankle-deep in warm fresh water , and our scuppers were running full .