noon
In her men 's clothes she looked tall , vigorous , and unrestrained , and on more than one occasion , as Wilbur passed close to her , he was made aware that her hair , her neck , her entire personality exhaled a fine , sweet , natural redolence that savored of the ocean and great winds . One day , as he saw her handling a huge water-barrel by the chines only , with a strength he knew to be greater than his own , her brows contracted with the effort , her hair curling about her thick neck , her large , round arms bare to the elbow , a sudden thrill of enthusiasm smote through him , and between his teeth he exclaimed to himself : `` By Jove , you 're a woman ! '' The `` Bertha Millner '' continued to the southward , gliding quietly over the oil-smoothness of the ocean under airs so light as hardly to ruffle the surface . Sometimes at high noon the shimmer of the ocean floor blended into the shimmer of the sky at the horizon , and then it was no longer water and blue heavens ; the little craft seemed to be poised in a vast crystalline sphere , where there was neither height nor depth -- poised motionless in warm , coruscating , opalescent space , alone with the sun . At length one morning the schooner , which for the preceding twenty-four hours had been heading eastward , raised the land , and by the middle of the afternoon had come up to within a mile of a low , sandy shore , quivering with heat , and had tied up to the kelp in Magdalena Bay . Charlie now took over entire charge of operations . For two days previous the Chinese hands had been getting out the deck-tubs , tackles , gaffs , spades , and the other shark-fishing gear that had been stowed forward .