noon
It must blow a gale , and that over a considerable extent of open sea , to produce much commotion among the fields and bergs , though that heaving and setting , which has been likened to the respiration of some monster , and which seamen call the `` ground-swell , '' is never entirely wanting among the waters of an ocean . On the present occasion , our adventurers were favoured in this respect , their craft gliding forward unimpeded by anything like opposing billows . At the end of four hours , the schooner , tacking and waring when necessary , had worked her way to the southward and westward , according to her master 's reckoning , some five-and-twenty miles . It was then noon , and the atmosphere being unusually clear , though never without fog , Gardiner went aloft , to take a look for himself at the condition of things around him . To the northward , and along the very passage by which the vessel had sailed , the ice was closing , and it was far easier to go on than to return . To the eastward , and towards the south-east in particular , however , did Roswell Gardiner turn his longing eyes . Somewhere in that quarter of the ocean , and distant now less than ten leagues , did he expect to find the islands of which he was in quest , if , indeed , they had any existence at all .