“And without another word he walked down into the cabin. This was decided enough, so I remained standing by the mizzen-rigging, endeavoring to forget my presentiments of evil by watching the motions of Muscat Tom, who had been cruising in the cove all day. By this time, though the sun was behind the mountains, it wanted still an hour and more of dark, when the second mate called my attention to the large flocks of birds flying confusedly in from the offing and disappearing among the rocks. A dirty, yellowish cloud suddenly obscured the air, making it still more oppressive, if possible, and causing you to wonder if the day was not nearer its end than you had deemed. The atmosphere was insufferably hot and oppressive, the little air astir coming from the land, like the breath of a furnace; you could see through the stifling gloom that the thin strips of haze were melting away from the peaks and small watch-towers in sight from our present berth: a swell, too, was getting up with the tide, and, presently, we could hear from seaward a low, indistinct, appalling sound—which every seaman knows full well—rising, stealthily, as it were, over the hum of living voices in the harbor. It was the moan of the Arabian Sea awakening from its long sleep, and the swell was the forerunner of the heavy surf which it sometimes sends in on the rocky coast, before a severe squall. All at once, as we were noting these ominous signs, the whale, with a flap of his flukes that was loudly reverberated by the rocks, threw half his length clear, and then setting his stem-propeller and side-paddles in play, commenced making an offing, slowly at first, but gradually increasing his speed, until, before he was out of sight, the water was all in a foam behind him. A moment after the gloom suddenly deepened, till Parker’s face at my elbow seemed dusky as an Indian’s—a few large drops fell upon the awning, and looking aloft we saw again, over our heads and to the north, the glaring, vivid blue sky with nothing between, as if the demon of the storm had flapped his wings at our mast-head, and then sailed swiftly away, to wreak his wrath on more defenseless heads. The land-wind, more like the breath of a flame than a current of air, coming as it did from the sandy plains of the interior, was less strong than usual; while the swell continued to rise with the tide, the water lapping with a dull splash against the whaleman’s bends, and the low, aweing, ominous sound still falling upon the ear at regular intervals.