midday
He found two boys in two tumbled heaps side by side on the main-hatch , so deeply asleep that he actually rolled them to their berths . It was the forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart , and sends you to breakfast ravening . They emptied a big tin dish of juicy fragments of fish -- the blood-ends the cook had collected overnight . They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess , who were out fishing , sliced pork for the midday meal , swabbed down the fo ` c ` sle , filled the lamps , drew coal and water for the cook , and investigated the fore-hold , where the boat 's stores were stacked . It was another perfect day -- soft , mild , and clear ; and Harvey breathed to the very bottom of his lungs . More schooners had crept up in the night , and the long blue seas were full of sails and dories . Far away on the horizon , the smoke of some liner , her hull invisible , smudged the blue , and to eastward a big ship 's topgallantsails , just lifting , made a square nick in it .