midday
As night approached , the wild waste of waters looked terribly stern and forbidding . Occasionally a distant breaking of some white capped wave would send his heart into his mouth , only to sink again despairingly . Just at sunset the great luminary peered gloriously forth . Torturing as was its power at midday , now it seemed to Ralph as if a friend were bidding him farewell . When the last of its golden surface had vanished , he felt as if that friend had departed , never to return , at least to him . For hours he sat after that , while a gloom as of death settled over the ocean , broken only by the plash of waves and the constant creaking of the yawl as it rolled and pitched in the trough of the sea . Once a shower of rain , accompanied by a slight flurry of wind , set him to trembling , as he remembered the fury of the squalls in those latitudes .