The next day fell almost dead calm. The hale, lusty-lunged
nor'wester that had snorted them forth from the Golden Gate had
lapsed to a zephyr, the schooner rolled lazily southward with the
leisurely nonchalance of a grazing ox. At noon, just after
dinner, a few cat's-paws curdled the milky-blue whiteness of the
glassy surface, and the water once more began to talk beneath the
bow-sprit. It was very hot. The sun spun silently like a
spinning brass discus over the mainmast. On the fo'c'sle head the
Chinamen were asleep or smoking opium. It was Charlie's watch.
Kitchell dozed in his hammock in the shadow of the mainsheet.
Wilbur was below tinkering with his paint-pot about the cabin.
The stillness was profound. It was the stillness of the summer
sea at high noon.

The lookout in the crow's nest broke the quiet.

"Hy-yah, hy-yah!" he cried, leaning from the barrel and calling
through an arched palm. "Hy-yah, one two, plenty, many tortle,
topside, wattah; hy-yah, all-same tortle."

"Hello, hello!" cried the Captain, rolling from his hammock.
"Turtle? Where-away?"

"I tink-um 'bout quallah mile, mebbee, four-piecee tortle all-same
weatha bow."

"Turtle, hey? Down y'r wheel, Jim, haul y'r jib to win'ward," he
commanded the man at the wheel; then to the men forward: "Get the
dory overboard. Son, Charlie, and you, Wing, tumble in. Wake up