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CHAPTER 61 . Stubb Kills a Whale . If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents , to Queequeg it was quite a different object . “ When you see him ’ quid , ” said the savage , honing his harpoon in the bow of his hoisted boat , “ then you quick see him ’ parm whale . ” The next day was exceedingly still and sultry , and with nothing special to engage them , the Pequod’s crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep induced by such a vacant sea . For this part of the Indian Ocean through which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground ; that is , it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises , dolphins , flying - fish , and other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters , than those off the Rio de la Plata , or the in - shore ground off Peru . It was my turn to stand at the foremast - head ; and with my shoulders leaning against the slackened royal shrouds , to and fro I idly swayed in what seemed an enchanted air . No resolution could withstand it ; in that dreamy mood losing all consciousness , at last my soul went out of my body ; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will , long after the power which first moved it is withdrawn . Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me , I had noticed that the seamen at the main and mizzen - mast - heads were already drowsy . So that at last all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars , and for every swing that we made there was a nod from below from the slumbering helmsman . The waves , too , nodded their indolent crests ; and across the wide trance of the sea , east nodded to west , and the sun over all . Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes ; like vices my hands grasped the shrouds ; some invisible , gracious agency preserved me ; with a shock I came back to life . And lo ! close under our lee , not forty fathoms off , a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the capsized hull of a frigate , his broad , glossy back , of an Ethiopian hue , glistening in the sun’s rays like a mirror . But lazily undulating in the trough of the sea , and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapory jet , the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon .
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