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Updated: June 8, 2025
And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt? .. Hark! "HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco? It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt.
The Middle-watch, of which James had been one, were turning out after a brief three-hours' spell of sleep. Officers from the bathroom, girt in towels, wardroom servants who had been laying the table for breakfast, one or two Warrant-officers in sea boots and monkey jackets the Watch-below, in short appeared and vanished from his field of vision like figures on a screen.
There was, it is true, an outward gloss and polish for the world to look at; but all was dark within; and I felt that a keener eye than that of mortality was searching my soul, where deception was worse than useless. At twelve o'clock, before I had once closed my eyes, I was called to relieve the deck; having what is called the middle-watch, i.e. from midnight till four in the morning.
Indeed, I did n't know till this evening there were so many watches in the world, at all. But this is just what I want, and just what I'm resolved to have. Tier shall command one watch and I'll command the other. Jack's shall be the `dog-watch, as they call it, and mine shall be the `middle-watch, and last till morning. You shall be in Jack's watch, Rose, and Biddy shall be in mine.
During the night, which was dark, the moon being in her first quarter, the officer of the middle-watch lost sight of their protegee; but this was to be expected, as she did not carry a light. Before morning the wind fell, and when the sun arose it was a perfect calm.
And in port on Sundays, and sometimes at sea when I couldn't sleep on the middle-watch, I'd jot down little thumb-nail sketches, you might call them, of the things I saw. 'Cameos of the Sea, I'd put on the top. The whole thing wasn't as long as some of the chapters in Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall, and, to tell you the truth, I had no great opinion of them.
After a pause the door opened again, and on the same uncomely face, when, without thought, our author gave a loud, deep groan. The door slammed on the time-stricken form, and he was again alone with the storm-demons who now soon grew drowsy and went to sleep, and he himself went to bed, and, wrote he, "slept like a postillion in a cock-loft, or a midshipman in the middle-watch."
I whispered. "Indians. I'm on guard. G'way!" he whispered back. "Is this the fort?" I searched for a foothold. "Yep. This is the middle-watch. What'd you butt in for?" I scrambled up and looked. Just below me, lying on a soft bed of mouldering tinder wood and leaves, was Benvenuto Cellini Carville, simulating profound slumber. As I clung there, a somewhat undignified figure, he opened one eye.
Sir Jarvy turned out with the sun, thof he didn't turn in 'till the middle-watch was half gone or two bells, as they calls 'em aboard this house four bells, as we should say in the old Planter and chickens, I hears, has riz, a shillin' a head, since our first boat landed." "It's a melancholy business, Mrs. Dutton; I fear there can be little hope."
She was now, true to the instinct of her sex, mostly occupied in making such a return for an attachment so devoted as became her tenderness and the habits of her mind. As Mrs. Budd chose what she was pleased to term the `middle-watch, giving to Jack Tier and Rose her `dog-watch, the two last were first on duty.
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