four o'clock
It must be , thought I , that other reason to which he so darkly alluded on the day he called me to his cabin ; and what could that be ? Never was ingenuity more tortured than mine by this ever-recurring question ; since it is needless to tell the reader I was not then , nor indeed for a very long time afterwards , acquainted with those particulars of his history I have already jotted down . This intense curiosity of mine would doubtless have worn itself out at last , but for a slight circumstance occurring to keep it still alive within me . The little state-room in which I used to write lay at one side of the cabin , from which it was entered , -- no other means of getting to it existing ; a heavy silk curtain supplied the place of a door between the two ; and this , when four o'clock came , and my day 's work was finished , was let down till the following morning , when it was drawn aside , that Sir Dudley , from time to time , might see , and , if needful , speak with me . Now , one day , when we had been about three weeks at sea , the weather being intensely hot and sultry , Sir Dudley had fallen asleep in his cabin while I sat writing away vigorously within . Suddenly , I heard a shout on deck : `` The whales ! a shoal of whales ahead ! ''