noon
Hitherto I had been so fully employed that I had found no time to search for the ship 's papers , or do more than ascertain the bare fact that she was of American nationality , that she was named the _ Governor Smeaton _ , and that she hailed from Portland , Maine ; but now that the weather had come fine once more , I determined to devote a few hours to the work of overhauling the vessel and discovering what I could about her . So I went to work and instituted a thoroughly systematic search , beginning in the skipper 's cabin -- having of course first obtained Miss Onslow 's permission -- and there , stowed carefully away in a lock-up desk -- which , after some hesitation , I decided to break open -- I found the ship 's papers intact , enclosed in a small tin case . And from these I learned , first , that her late master was named Josiah Hobson , and second , that she was bound on a trading voyage to the Pacific , with a cargo of `` notions . '' Then , in another drawer , also in the skipper 's cabin , carefully stowed away under some clothes , I found the log-book , and a chart of the Atlantic Ocean , with the brig 's course , up to a certain point , pricked off upon it ; and from these two documents I learned that the brig had sailed , on such and such a date , from New York , with what , in the way of weather , progress , and so on , had befallen her , up to a date some five weeks later , whereon entries had been made in the log-book up to noon . The remarks respecting the weather at that hour gave no indication of any warning of the catastrophe that must have occurred only a few hours later . This last entry in the log-book enabled me to determine that the brig had been drifting about derelict for nearly three weeks when we two ocean waifs fell in with and took possession of her . The `` notions '' of which her cargo consisted seemed , according to the manifest , to comprise more or less of nearly everything that could possibly captivate a savage 's fancy ; but in addition to these multitudinous articles there were -- somewhere in the ship -- a few bales of goods -- mostly linen , fine muslins , silks , and ready-made clothing -- consigned to a firm in Valparaiso , which I believed would be of the utmost value to Miss Onslow and myself , if I could but find them , and which , under the circumstances , I felt I could unhesitatingly appropriate to our use .