noon
And if the men were to turn restive in the presence of an enemy -- which was , to my mind , not unlikely , though I never anticipated anything worse -- what would be the result ? The whole aspect of affairs looked unsatisfactory in the extreme , and when I turned into my hammock that night it was to indulge in sundry very gloomy forebodings before I finally dropped off to sleep ; though Heaven knows how far I was from guessing at the scenes of horror of which the frigate was to be the theatre before another twenty-four hours had passed over my head . During the night a little air of wind sprang up from the eastward which carried us out clear of the Mona Passage , and when day dawned we found ourselves with a clear horizon all round the ship . At noon we wore round to retrace our steps , and by sunset we were within a dozen miles of the spot we had occupied at the same hour on the previous evening . The day , for a wonder , had passed almost pleasantly ; there had been no flogging ; Captain Pigot had scarcely showed himself on deck , except for a few minutes after breakfast and again at noon ; and the officers of the watches , glad to be freed from his obnoxious presence , had been careful not to unnecessarily hurry and badger the men whilst carrying on the duty of the ship . The only circumstance which , to my mind , seemed disquieting , was the unusual demeanour of the men , who performed their work , steadily enough indeed , but in a moody , unnatural silence , wearing , meantime , a gloomy , preoccupied air , whilst they at the same time -- at least so it appeared to me -- seemed to be , one and all , in a restless , anxious , watchful frame of mind , as though they were in momentary expectation of something happening . I could not at all understand this state of things , which was something quite new , for , notwithstanding the skipper 's intolerable tyranny , there were a few of the men -- and those among the best and smartest hands we had in the ship -- who had hitherto contrived to maintain a fairly cheerful demeanour , and who seldom let slip such an opportunity as that afforded by the captain 's absence from the deck to indulge in the exchange of a quiet bit of nautical humour or a harmless practical joke with their next neighbour .