nine o'clock
When I again went on deck , the ship was going beautifully , tearing through the water like a racehorse and parting the waves on either side of her bows as if she were veritably ploughing the deep , the crests of the sea rising in foam over the fore-yard and floating in the air in the shape of spindrift and spray far astern . The sky , too , had somewhat lost its leaden hue , clearing towards the zenith , where one or two odd stars could be seen occasionally peeping down at us through the storm rack that flew overhead like scraps of fleecy wool . This cheery prospect told us to be of good courage , leading us to hope that if we only waited patiently we might expect fine weather bye and bye . At nine o'clock , the greater portion of the heavens was quite unobscured , the moon shining out , although looking pale and watery and with a big burr round her that showed the still unsettled condition of the atmosphere ; the wind , strange to say , continuing to blow with almost as great force from the north-west as when it began , nearly forty-eight hours before . `` I 'm afraid we 're going to have a nasty night of it , '' said Captain Miles , who had just then come up from below with his sextant . `` Still , I 'm glad to see our old friend the moon again , however greasy she may look . I have n't been able to take an observation since Monday ; so we 'll see what a lunar may do in the way of fixing our position . ''