two o'clock in the morning
`` Certainly , sir . '' `` That will be trifling with the lives of my men . '' `` And mine too , '' simply said the harpooner . Towards two o'clock in the morning , the burning light reappeared , not less intense , about five miles to windward of the Abraham Lincoln . Notwithstanding the distance , and the noise of the wind and sea , one heard distinctly the loud strokes of the animal 's tail , and even its panting breath . It seemed that , at the moment that the enormous narwhal had come to take breath at the surface of the water , the air was engulfed in its lungs , like the steam in the vast cylinders of a machine of two thousand horse-power . `` Hum ! ''