about noon
All through the hot and breathless night we toiled , in an unspeakable agony of thirst , and when morning once more dawned out of a brilliant and cloudless sky , my companions presented so wild and haggard an appearance , with their cheeks sunken with famine and their eyes ablaze with the fever of thirst and starvation , that they were scarcely recognisable . Half an hour after sunrise we partook of our loathsome breakfast of putrid meat and nauseous water , and then composed ourselves to sleep -- if we could -- through the long hours of the blazing day , maintaining , however , a one - man hourly watch , in order that we might be duly warned of any change in the weather . And , late that afternoon , a change came -- a change of so welcome a character that I believe I may , without exaggeration , say it saved our lives . For , about noon , when I was aroused by the man on watch to get the meridian altitude of the sun for the determination of the latitude , I observed a bank of purple-grey clouds gathering in the south-western quarter , their rounded edges as sharply denned as though they had been cut out of paper . There was no mistaking their character ; they portended a thunderstorm . And a thunderstorm we had about four o'clock that afternoon , of truly tropical violence . There was not a breath of wind with it , but it brought us a perfect deluge of rain , -- thrice - welcome and blessed rain , -- pouring from the overcharged clouds in sheets of warm water , soft and sweet as nectar .