Noll mechanically took up the game; but Faith, watching, saw that his eyes were furtively alert for half an hour thereafter.
On the twenty-fifth day after the death of Mr. Ham, at about ten o'clock on a warm and lazy morning, the man at the foremast head gave tongue to the long hail of the whale-fisheries....
"Blo-o-o-o-w! Ah-h-h-h-h blo-o-o-o-o-o-w!"
The droning cry swept down through the singing rigging, swept the decks of the Sally, penetrated into the fo'c's'le, dropped into the cabin and brought Dan'l Tobey and Noll Wing from sleep there to the deck. Faith was already there, sewing in her rocking chair aft by the wheel. When Dan'l reached the deck, he saw her standing with her sewing gathered in her hands, the gold thimble gleaming on her middle finger, watching Brander. Brander was half way up the main rigging, glass leveled to the southward.
Noll Wing bellowed to the masthead man: "Where away?..." And the man swept a hand to point. Noll climbed up toward Brander, shouting to Mr. Tobey to bring the Sally around toward where the whale had been sighted. The men from the mastheads and the fo'c's'le and all about the deck jumped to their places at the boats to wait the command to lower. Brander took the glass from his eye as Noll's weight pulled at the rigging below him, and looked down at the captain, and started to speak; then he changed his mind and waited, glass in hand, while Noll scrutinized the far horizon....
Noll saw a black speck there, and focused his glass, and stared.... He watched for a spout, watched for minutes on end. None came.... The black speck seemed to rise a little, sluggishly, with the swell.... He looked up to Brander.
"D'you make a spout?" he asked.
Brander shook his head. "No, sir."
Noll looked again, and Brander leveled his glass once more. The Sally was making that way, now; the speck was almost dead ahead of them, far on the sea. Tiny bits of white were stirring over the black thing, like bits of paper in the wind.... Noll asked at last: "What do you make of it, Mr. Brander? A boat.... Or a derelict...."