It was past eight bells when the boats came aboard—eight bells being, in this case, noon—and all hands had dinner. I hurried through my work of helping the steward, and ran on deck. There was no sign of Mr. Baker or of anything else on that limitless sea. The whale had run to leeward, contrary to the custom of whales, which usually run to windward when they can. The ship was rolling along in her leisurely way, almost before the wind, and making a pleasant and soothing noise under her forefoot and on either side as she rolled. Ordinarily I should have enjoyed her leisurely progress, and should have found some place which was out of sight from aft, perhaps on the heel of the bowsprit, on the principle that out of sight was out of mind. There I should have squatted, and gazed out ahead and fallen to dreaming, probably, until recalled to myself by a shout of “Tim! Where’s that boy?” But I was getting anxious about Mr. Baker’s boat, and I could not understand the indifferent attitude of everybody on board. Nobody seemed to care whether he was ever found or not, although I could not see, when I came to think it over, what more could be done than was being done. The ship was going as fast as she could—nearly as fast. They could have got a little more sail on her. And the mastheads were manned.

I went up forward, and stood between the knightheads for a while, but I was ashamed to ask anybody, and I gave it up, and went below to work on my journal. I could not keep my mind on it, however, and after half an hour or so I went on deck again. Mr. Wallet and Mr. Brown were walking to and fro, and Captain Nelson was standing by the starboard rail, not leaning, but swaying to the roll of the ship. I went and stood beside him, saying nothing.

He paid no attention to me for a long time, and I edged closer. He glanced around then, with an expression of annoyance.

“Well,” he said, “what’s the matter with you, Tim?”

“Nothing, sir,” I stammered hesitatingly. “I was wondering about Mr. Baker.”

“Huh!” he said. “So was I. He’s all right, I guess. We’re edging down that way now. Worried?”

“Well—no, sir, not if you’re not.”

“Huh!” he said again, under his breath. “Always worried, more or less, when a boat’s lost. But Mr. Baker’s pretty well able to take care of himself. Nothing to worry about.”

“No, sir, I suppose not, but I thought we’d sight him before this. That whale must have taken him a long way.”

The captain only grunted in reply. I did not like to press the matter, and I had turned away, when he called me back.

“Tim,” he said, “you can take your glass to the foremasthead, if you want to, and see if you can see any sign of him.”

There was a little crinkle of amusement about his eyes as he spoke. Evidently he thought that would be the last thing I wanted. It was. As I turned and looked up, I saw that the foremasthead meant the hoops. One man was already there, the tall, silent black man, that we called Tony. I had but just got so that I could climb in and out of the maintop without having my heart in my throat; but I was not going to let anybody know how scared I was, if I could help it, and I was not going to funk anything that the captain—the old man, as I had come to call him to myself and to others of the crew—suggested for me to do, even if he did not order it.

I turned back. “Yes, sir,” I said in a small voice; and I started.

I was an active boy, and fairly strong for my age; and I did it somehow. I think I held my breath for the last stretch, and I know I was thoroughly scared until I got there, and Black Tony lent me a hand into the hoops.

The ship was rolling more than I had thought. On deck the roll was scarcely noticeable, but at the foremasthead it was a different matter. I found that I was being carried through an arc of fifteen or twenty feet, and at first I could do nothing but hold on to the hoop. Tony did not laugh or speak. He did not even grin, but watched me and waited, thereby earning my enduring gratitude. After a few minutes I found that I did not mind the motion so much, and I put my arms over the hoop, and took up my glass, but did not put it to my eyes.

It was beautiful weather, the sun shining brightly and pleasantly warm, and a brisk breeze, under which the sea to leeward, as far as I could see, was deep indigo, with white caps here and there which flashed dazzlingly white in the sun. It seemed to me, I remember, that I could see almost around the world, although there was a curious saucer-like effect of the water near the ship. She seemed to be moving in the centre of a slight depression, a mile or so in diameter, and over that rim the sea curved away as it should. I was so taken up with the beauty and the breadth of view that I forgot what I had come there for, and I got to like the swing to and fro. It was as soothing as a hammock, the gulls screamed about my head, and I got to dreaming. I have never got over my liking for a wide prospect, and with such a prospect unrolled before me, I am, even now, as apt to get to dreaming as I ever was. I was too apt to do it then.

Something far off upon those bobbing waves must have attracted the attention of my unseeing eyes, for I came out of my dreaming abruptly; but the thing had gone. Again I thought I saw it, but it was of the color of a sea in shadow. I put my glass to my eyes, and searched the sea. It must have been six or seven miles off, or more, and I could not find it, but I saw only a panorama of curiously bobbing waves going straight up and down. Then I happened upon it again for an instant, as it crossed the field of my glass, what looked like the bow of a boat just rising over a sea. I was still searching for it when I felt a thump on the bottom of the ship, and a strange shivering of the mast. It was over in a second, but I had dropped my glass. If it had not been tied around my neck it would have dropped to the deck below, and it might have killed a man. That old glass was almost heavy enough to go through the deck, dropped from the masthead. I found myself staring at Black Tony, while he stared at me. Then he looked directly down into the sea below him.

What he saw there I did not know, but he gave a cry, and I felt rather than heard a sort of scraping along the keel, and the Clearchus almost stopped, and she began to careen. She careened more and more, and up there at the masthead it seemed as if she must capsize. I did not stop to think, but a panic seized me, and I slid and scrambled down the starboard rigging until I was in the foretop. There I stood and collected my scattered wits, and realized that, in my panic, I had come down, without a thought, over rigging that I had been very much afraid of. Although the topgallant shrouds have ratlines on them on all whalers and most merchantmen, they are pretty high up and seem none too secure to a boy on them for the first time. If it had not been for my momentary scare I might be up there yet.

I was about to come down from the foretop with much dignity and a swelling of the chest, when I saw that all hands, including the officers, were looking intently into the water astern, and naturally my gaze followed theirs. The ship had recovered her equilibrium by this time, and was going serenely about her business; but, about half a cable’s length in her wake, some huge, smooth body was slowly rising to the surface. At first I thought it was a whale which we had run into and over; but as it continued to rise, I saw that it was too big for a whale. It broke the surface, exposing a smooth shape like a vessel’s bilge, dark-colored and covered with weed, and continued to rise very slowly until the whole length was revealed, and I could even catch glimpses of the keel. It remained on the surface for half a minute, perhaps, then a sea heaved up the stem, and the hulk began to sink as slowly and majestically as it had risen. It was the hull of some vessel, waterlogged and water-soaked so that it floated some feet below the surface of the sea, rising and falling, or perhaps remaining stationary below the influence of the waves. It must have been afloat for years to be so covered with weed. I wondered where it had been when it met disaster; possibly on the coast of Africa, or in the Bay of Biscay, or even in some more remote seas; and how much longer would it be a plaything of ocean currents?

Captain Nelson was standing under the after house, still gazing astern, when I went to report to him. Half a dozen men, including the sailmaker who performed the duties of carpenter, and the cooper, had been sent below to see whether the Clearchus had been damaged by the collision, but the old man did not seem worried. I asked him about it, no doubt a piece of impertinence on my part.

He shook his head. “Did n’t you see where we had run over her? Did n’t even scrape off the whole of the weed. Glancing blow.”

“What sort of a vessel was it, sir? Do you think it was a whaler?”

He shook his head again. “Not a whaler. No copper on her bottom.” Then he smiled suddenly, for he had seen the whole of my performance. “See anything up there?”

I told him that I thought I had seen a boat, but I could not be sure, there was so much mirage or something.

“Looked like a boat, did it?”

“Yes, sir. Like the bow of a boat. I could n’t see it very well. It was the color of the water, and it looked as if it was cut off, but I don’t suppose it was. There was something that looked like a flag or something.”

Captain Nelson smiled more broadly. “May have been a flag or something. How far off?”

“Eight miles, perhaps. I don’t know.”

“Well, the lookout has n’t reported it, and I’m afraid you did n’t see anything. I did n’t know but you had seen a ghost, you came down so fast.”

“No, sir—” I began. Then I felt myself growing red, my face and my neck, even to my body and the roots of my hair, and I stammered and stopped.

“Never mind. You got down quicker than you will again for a long time, and I was afraid you might have trouble. There was some excuse for you. I’ve been scared, myself.”

“Then, Captain Nelson, may I go up again?”

“Now? What do you want to go up again now for? Nothing to see up there. See if the steward does n’t want you.”

We stood on to leeward for the rest of the day without sighting the boat. I was getting really worried about it. At sunset we shortened sail, as we did always on cruising grounds. The light sails were taken in, the topsail close-reefed, and the ship was brought close to the wind, lying to during the night, so as to stay as nearly as possible in one place. If we took any chances of overrunning the boat, there was some danger that it might be lost in earnest, while, if we kept to windward of it, there was little chance of that. I stayed on deck after supper as long as I could keep my eyes open, in the hope of seeing the flare which Wright had mentioned, but I saw none. By two bells—nine o’clock—I was so sleepy that I fell asleep halfway up the main rigging, and just caught myself as I was falling, my arm hooked around the shrouds. Men sometimes fall sound asleep on a yard, toward the end of a long watch, hanging on unconsciously by their shoulders and their legs, with an arm hooked around a stay. No officer will arouse a man in this condition, for there is great danger that he will fall overboard in his instinctive start at a command. I did not know of this at the time, but I was a little frightened at my narrow escape from a fall, and I went below and turned in at once.

I fell asleep as soon as I touched my bunk, and slept until morning. I remembered very vaguely that there was some unusual noise over my head at some time during the night, and that afterward I heard a noise in the cabin, but I did not rouse enough to wonder at it. It was only in the morning that it seemed to have any significance, and as soon as I was really awake I got into my clothes hurriedly and went on deck. There was Mr. Baker’s boat on the davits, where she belonged, and there was Peter Bottom smiling at me, and there, alongside to starboard, was our first whale, floating on his side, with his flukes toward the bow, the water about him filled with sharks.