Noon
Breakfast-time came , and I made shift to swallow some hot tea . Then I must stagger below to take the time , reading the chronometer with dizzy eyes , and marvelling the while what value there could be in observations taken in a ship launched -LRB- as ours then was -RRB- like a missile among flying seas . The forenoon dragged on in a grinding monotony of peril ; every spoke of the wheel a rash but an obliged experiment -- rash as a forlorn hope , needful as the leap that lands a fireman from a burning staircase . Noon was made ; the captain dined on his day 's work , and I on watching him ; and our place was entered on the chart with a meticulous precision which seemed to me half pitiful and half absurd , since the next eye to behold that sheet of paper might be the eye of an exploring fish . One o'clock came , then two ; the captain gloomed and chafed , as he held to the coaming of the house , and if ever I saw dormant murder in man 's eye , it was in his . God help the man that should have disobeyed him . Of a sudden he turned towards the mate , who was doing his trick at the wheel .