about noon
And full of peaceful charm were those little cruises through this Levantic world , which , truly , is rather like a light sketch in water-colours done by an angel than like the dun real earth ; and full of self-satisfaction and pious contentment would I return to Imbros , approved of my conscience , for that I had surmounted temptation , and lived tame and stainless . I had set up the southern of the two closed-lotus pillars , and the platform-top was already looking as lovely as heaven , with its alternate two-foot squares of pellucid gold and pellucid jet , when I noticed one morning that the _ Speranza 's _ bottom was really now too foul , and the whim took me then and there to leave all , and clean her as far as I could . I at once went on board , descended to the hold , took off my sudeyrie , and began to shift the ballast over to starboard , so as to tilt up her port bottom to the scraper . This was wearying labour , and about noon I was sitting on a bag , resting in the almost darkness , when something seemed to whisper to me these words : ' _ You dreamed last night that there is an old Chinaman alive in Pekin . _ ' Horridly I started : I _ had _ dreamed something of the sort , but , from the moment of waking , till then , had forgotten it : and I leapt livid to my feet . I cleaned no _ Speranza _ that day , nor for four days did I anything , but sat on the cabin-house and mused , my supporting palm among the hairy draperies of my chin : for the thought of such a thing , if it could by any possibility be true , was detestable as death to me , changing the colour of the sun , and the whole aspect of the world : and anon , at the outrage of that thing , my brow would flush with wrath , and my eyes blaze : till , on the fourth afternoon , I said to myself : ` That old Chinaman in Pekin is likely to get burned to death , I think , or blown to the clouds ! ' So , a second time , on the 4th March , the poor palace was left to build itself .