stillness of air and ocean seemed to
become accentuated rather than broken by the measured roll of the oars
in the rowlocks, and the tinkling lap of the water under the bows and
along the bends of the boat. We pulled four oars only instead of six,
in order that we might have two relays, or watches, who relieved each
other every four hours. The men pulled a long, steady, easy stroke, of
a sort that enabled them to keep on throughout the watch without undue
fatigue, by taking a five minutes' spell of rest about once an hour; but
it was weary work for the poor fellows, after all, and our progress soon
became provokingly slow.

About three bells in the middle watch that night, as I half sat, half
reclined in the stern-sheets, drowsily steering by a star, and
occasionally glancing over my shoulder at the ruddy, glowing sickle of
the rising moon, then in her last quarter, we were all suddenly startled
by the sound of a loud, deep-drawn sigh that came to us from somewhere
off the larboard bow, apparently at no great distance from the boat; and
while we sat wondering and listening, with poised oars, the sound was
repeated close aboard of us, but this time on our starboard quarter,
accompanied by a soft washing of water; and turning sharply, I beheld,
right in the shimmering, golden wake of the moon, a huge, black,
shapeless, gleaming bulk noiselessly upheave itself out of the black
water and slowly glide up abreast of us until it was alongside and all
but within reach of our oars.

"A whale!" whispered one of the men, in tones that were a trifle
unsteady from the startling surprise of the creature's sudden
appearance.

"Ay," replied the man next him, "and that was another that we heard just
now; bull and cow, most likely. I only hopes they haven't got a calf
with 'em, because if they have, the bull may take it into his head to
attack us; they're mighty short-tempered sometimes when they have young
uns cruisin' in company! I minds one time when I was aboard the old
_Walrus_--a whaler sailin' out of Dundee--that was afore I was pressed."

Another long sigh-like expiration abruptly interrupted the yarn, and
close under our bows there rose another leviathan, so closely indeed
that, unless it was a trick of the imagination, I felt a slight tremor
thrill through the boat, as though he had touched us! Involuntarily I
glanced over the side; and it was perhaps well that I did so, for there,
right underneath the boat, far down i