noon
I furthermore argued that in any event , should occasion render it necessary , I could easily disembark my passengers with but little loss of time , and as easily and safely then as now . Such had been the nature of my thoughts whenever I had directed them upon the melancholy and gloomy state of our affairs . Yet had the most sinister forebodings which I had entertained at those times been fulfilled , our misfortunes could not have equalled those which in truth fell upon us , the history of which I have immediately to tell . Captain Leach 's trip in search of a new berth had been undertaken so early in the morning that it was not yet noon when he had returned . Some little time after that , I being in my own cabin at the time , there came of a sudden a sound that was , as it were , the first muttering of the storm that was so soon to fall upon us . It was the dull and heavy boom of a single cannon , sounding from a great way off , and which I instantly knew had been fired aboard of the pirate craft . I went straight upon the deck , where I found the weather still as dead a calm as it had been the two days before , with not so much as a breath of air stirring or a cat 's - paw upon the water .