He shut the lid and added, "Where, I wonder, does the human soul come from? The father cannot give his, or a portion of his, to the child, nor can the mother, for that might involve the forfeiture of their title to immortality. The great poet must be right; the soul which informs a child, which spiritualises it in the womb and at its birth, must come from God, who is its Home. What a wonderful thought! What a revelation it has been to me! What an assurance and promise!" He stood gazing steadfastly at Hardy, who, saying, a little uneasily, "These are matters quite beyond me, sir," again made for the door, through which he passed in silence, the captain standing motionless, his hands clasped before him, and his eyes seeming to see something beyond the bulkhead, upon which he had fastened them. At eight o'clock Hardy's watch came round. He went on deck in a very thoughtful state, and the deep dye of that tremendous void of black vapour was very well qualified to darken his mood into the hue of the crow--a bird deemed portentous in ancient seafaring. He stood in the spokes of lamp-sheen about the skylight and called to Mr. Candy, who came upon him suddenly out of some part of the deck like a man walking through a glass in a dark room. He exchanged a few sentences with this second mate, but they wholly concerned the business of the ship. Candy was not a person to take into one's confidence; his silver-white lash shaded a pale eye that marked one of those souls which, as you cannot make up your mind about them, you resolve to distrust; otherwise Hardy, in defiance of all law of discipline, and even of sea-breeding, would, in the humour of anxiety that then possessed him, have been glad to hear Mr. Candy's opinion of the commander. The second mate went below to bed after reporting that he had visited the forecastle, and found the Newfoundland awake and vigilant, also that two hands paced the forward-deck as lookouts. The air of wind was still northwest; it breathed with just weight enough to steady the topsails and the foresail. As the ship leaned with the languid heave of the sea, the sails hanging from the yards on the caps, and the festooned clews of the invisible mainsail, flapped in strokes of the pinions of mammoth birds winging betwixt the masts. The lap of the brine against the bows, which were slowly breaking the hidden waters, saddened the blindness of the night with a note of supernatural pain and grief. The ship was moving slowly, and, as before, nothing of her was distinguishable but the dim lustre smoking in hurrying streams and wreaths of vapour about the skylight and about the binnacle-stand.