noon
She had long ago abandoned that almost insolent hauteur of manner that distinguished her at the outset of our acquaintance ; but if the weather was fine , the wind fair , the men upon their best behaviour -- as sometimes happened -- _ in _ short , _ if _ things were going well with me in other respects , she invariably kept me at arm 's - length by a certain indefinable , but none the less unmistakable , coolness , indifference , and distance of manner just sufficiently pronounced to suggest a desire to be left to herself . But in proportion as difficulties , anxieties , and vexations arose , so did her manner warm to me until there were times when it became almost caressingly tender ; so that , as my passion for her grew , I sometimes felt almost tempted to feign an anxiety or a distress that did not exist , for the mere delight of finding her manner warming to me . But I take credit to myself that I always resisted the temptation , fighting against it as a thing to yield to which would be mean and unmanly on my part . In this strange and contradictory condition of alternate peace , rendered insipid by Miss Onslow 's coolness , and anxiety converted into happiness unspeakable by the warmth and tenderness of her sympathy , I carried the brig toward the spot indicated in O'Gorman 's document ; and at noon on a certain day my observations showed that we had arrived within sixty miles of it . The weather was then brilliantly fine , with a gentle breeze out from about west-north-west , that wafted the brig along over the low , long mounds of the Pacific swell at a rate of about five knots ; consequently , if the island happened to be in the position assigned to it , we ought to reach it about midnight . O'Gorman 's desire to be made acquainted with our exact position daily had been growing ever since we had shifted our helm after rounding the Horn , beginning as a condition of languid curiosity , which had strengthened into a state of feverish restlessness and anxiety that , on the day in question , as soon as I had conveyed to him the customary information , found vent in an order that a man should go aloft and maintain a lookout from the topgallant yard until the island should be sighted , the remainder of the crew being set to work during the afternoon to rouse out and bend the cables , and to attend to the various other matters incidental to the approach of a vessel to a port . He also had the spare spars overhauled and suitable ones selected for the purpose of erecting tents in conjunction with the brig 's old sails , from all of which I inferred that our stay at the island -- should we happen to find it -- would be a somewhat protracted one .