the noon sun
The sun seemed much hotter in this congestion than in the open sea . Behind him came his two men in a queer snakelike procession of plopping buoys and wriggling bodies . Ahead of them the seaweed stretched , apparently all the way to the schooner . As they worked their way through the scum of many seas , the noon sun broiled their backs into thin water blisters , and stewed saline odors out of the clammy life about them . Once Madden 's hand struck a yellowish line of algae and a score or two of little jelly-like insects writhed into the grass below . One of these things touched the swimmer 's arm and gave the boy a stinging sensation . He knocked it off desperately and pushed on .