And now to tell how, tempted by devil or good angel, and a thousand
miles from land, we embarked upon this western voyage.

It was midnight, mark you, when our watch began; and my turn at the
helm now coming on was of course to be avoided. On some plausible
pretense, I induced our solitary watchmate to assume it; thus leaving
myself untrammeled, and at the same time satisfactorily disposing of
him. For being a rather fat fellow, an enormous consumer of "duff,"
and with good reason supposed to be the son of a farmer, I made no
doubt, he would pursue his old course and fall to nodding over the
wheel. As for the leader of the watch--our harpooner--he fell heir to
the nest of old jackets, under the lee of the mizzen-mast, left nice
and warm by his predecessor.

The night was even blacker than we had anticipated; there was no
trace of a moon; and the dark purple haze, sometimes encountered at
night near the Line, half shrouded the stars from view.

Waiting about twenty minutes after the last man of the previous watch
had gone below, I motioned to Jarl, and we slipped our shoes from our
feet. He then descended into the forecastle, and I sauntered aft
toward the quarter-deck. All was still. Thrice did I pass my hand
full before the face of the slumbering lubber at the helm, and right
between him and the light of the binnacle.

Mark, the harpooneer, was not so easily sounded. I feared to
approach him. He lay quietly, though; but asleep or awake, no more
delay. Risks must be run, when time presses. And our ears were a