When no whales had even been raised for a week the ship’s head was again turned to the north for a last look before making to the eastward. We had taken but one whale. The morning after the change of course I heard Mr. Baker, who had that watch, come into the cabin and knock on the captain’s door. In response to the captain’s roar, he asked him to come on deck and see what we had with us. I heard Captain Nelson getting up—he was never very quiet about it, especially when he was in a {104} hurry—and I bolted out, and up the stairs at Mr. Baker’s heels, expecting to see something quite unusual, a whale of enormous size, perhaps, or a large shark at least, or perhaps an enormous squid. I think I was inclined to the squid, for I had always heard of it, but I had never come across anybody who had seen one, and I was anxious to see a great squid with my own eyes—and at a safe distance. As soon as I reached the deck I looked all around and saw nothing unusual—no squid, at any rate. The sun was not yet up, and the waters were heaving in slow swells, although the surface was calm and there was hardly enough wind for steerage way. Deep silence was upon the sea, so that I heard it breathing—or it was as real as that. The watch stood about, or paced to and fro without a sound. The whole aspect was inexpressibly melancholy and desolate, and the silence seemed filled with evil. All the while the breathing of the sea went on, as each great roller caught up with us, and raised the ship to the top of its gentle slope, passed on from under us, dropping her into the valley. I sighed, in spite of myself, and I looked about even more carefully. There was nothing to be seen on the water except a topsail schooner quite near, and drifting along with us. I looked up at Mr. Baker, forgetting, for the moment, the pressing matter that had brought me on deck. I could think of nothing but that gentle breathing, like the sigh of some huge, invisible monster. “Can you hear it, Mr. Baker?” I asked. Mr. Baker was an abrupt and rough-spoken man, though good-hearted and kind at bottom. He looked at me with a lively interest. “Hear it!” he said. “Hear what?” “Can you hear the sea breathing? I can sir.” He burst into a great roar of laughter, and I got as red as whale-meat. Mr. Baker had no imagination and I {105} ought to have known better than to ask him. I did, but I forgot. His laughter stopped as abruptly as it had begun. “No, boy,” he said. “Can’t say as I do. What does it sound like?” “I thought that it might be something, sir, that you called the captain to see—a big whale or a squid.” “The great squid, eh?” he asked, smiling. “And breathing, too. How big a squid did you hope to see? Big as a house?” “Something like that, sir.”