.. < chapter cx 4  QUEEQUEG IN HIS COFFIN >


     Upon searching, it was found

that the casks last struck into the hold were perfectly sound, and that the

leak must be further off.  So, it being calm weather, they broke out deeper

and deeper, disturbing the slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from

that black midnight sending those gigantic moles into the daylight above.  So

deep did they go; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the

lowermost puncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone

cask containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted placards,

vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood.  Tierce after tierce,

too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of staves, and iron bundles of

hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the piled decks were hard to get

about; and the hollow hull echoed under foot, as if you were treading over

empty catacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea like an air-freighted

demijohn.  Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle

in his head.  Well was it that the Typhoons did not visit them then.  Now, at

this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast bosom-friend,

Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh to his endless end.


     Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown;

dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the higher

you rise the harder you toil.  So with poor Queequeg, who, as harpooneer,

must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but --as we have

elsewhere seen -- mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and finally descend

into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all day in that

.. <p 473 >

subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the clumsiest casks and see

to their stowage.  To be short, among whalemen, the harpooneers are the

holders, so called.  Poor Queequeg!  when the ship was about half

disembowelled, you should have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down

upon him there; where, stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage

was crawling about amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard

at the bottom of a well.  And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to

him, poor pagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings,

he caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after some


     days' suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill of the door

of death.  How he wasted and wasted away in those few long-lingering days,

till there seemed but little left of him but his frame and tattooing.  But as

all else in him thinned, and his cheek-bones grew sharper, his eyes,

nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller; they became of a strange

softness of lustre; and mildly but deeply looked out at you there from his

sickness, a wondrous testimony to that immortal health in him which could not

die, or be weakened.  And like circles on the water, which, as they grow

fainter, expand; so his eyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of

Eternity.  An awe that cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the

side of this waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any

beheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died.  For whatever is truly

wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.  And the

drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all with a

last revelation, which only an author from the dead could adequately tell.  So


     that --let us say it again --no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and holier

thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping over the face

of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying hammock, and the rolling

sea seemed gently rocking him to his final rest, and the ocean's invisible

flood-tide lifted him higher and higher towards his destined heaven.  Not a

man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself, what he

thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favor he asked.  He called

one to him in the grey

.. <p 474 >

morning watch, when the day was just breaking, and taking his hand, said

that while in Nantucket he had chanced to see certain little canoes of dark

wood, like the rich war-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had

learned that all whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same

dark canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for

it was not unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead

warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated away

to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars are

isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild,

uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form the white

breakers of the milky way.  He added, that he shuddered at the thought of

being buried in his hammock, according to the usual sea-custom, tossed like

something vile to the death-devouring sharks.  No: he desired a canoe like

those of Nantucket, all the more congenial to him, being a whaleman, that

like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes were without a keel; though that

involved but uncertain steering, and much lee-way adown the dim ages.  Now,

when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter was at once

commanded to do Queequeg's bidding, whatever it might include.  There was some

heathenish, coffin-colored old lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous

voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands, and

from these dark planks the coffin was recommended to be made.  No sooner was

the carpenter apprised of the order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with

all the indifferent promptitude of his character, proceeded into the

forecastle and took Queequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly

chalking Queequeg's person as he shifted the rule.  Ah!  poor fellow!  he'll

have to die now, ejaculated the Long Island sailor.  Going to his

vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience' sake and general reference, now

transferringly measured on it the exact length the coffin was to be, and then

made the transfer permanent by cutting two notches at its extremities.  This

done, he marshalled the planks and his tools, and to work.

.. <p 475 >

When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted, he

lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring whether they

were ready for it yet in that direction.  Overhearing the indignant but

half-humorous cries with which the people on deck began to drive the coffin

away, Queequeg, to every one's consternation, commanded that the thing should


     be instantly brought to him, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of

all mortals, some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they

will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be

indulged.  Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin

with an attentive eye.  He then called for his harpoon, had the wooden stock

drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin along with one

of the paddles of his boat.  All by his own request, also, biscuits were

then ranged round the sides within: a flask of fresh water was placed at the

head, and a small bag of woody earth scraped up in the hold at the foot; and

a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for a pillow, Queequeg now entreated to

be lifted into his final bed, that he might make trial of its comforts, if

any it had.  He lay without moving a few minutes, then told one to go to his

bag and bring out his little god, Yojo.  Then crossing his arms on his breast

with Yojo between, he called for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be

placed over him.  The head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there

lay Queequeg in his coffin with little but his composed countenance in view.


     Rarmai (it will do; it is easy), he murmured at last, and signed to be

replaced in his hammock.  But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily

hovering near by all this while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with

soft sobbings, took him by the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine.


     Poor rover!  will ye never have done with all this weary roving?  Where go ye

now?  But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where the beaches

are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little errand for me?  Seek

out one Pip, who's now been missing long: I think he's in those far

Antilles.  If ye find him, then comfort him; for he must be very sad; for

look!

.. <p 476 >

he's left his tambourine behind; --I found it.  Rig-a-dig, dig, dig!  Now,

Queequeg, die; and I'll beat ye your dying march.  I have heard, murmured

Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, that in violent fevers, men, all

ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues; and that when the mystery is

probed, it turns out always that in their wholly forgotten childhood those

ancient tongues had been really spoken in their hearing by some lofty

scholars.  So, to my fond faith, poor Pip, in this strange sweetness of his

lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all our heavenly homes.  Where learned he

that, but there? --Hark!  he speaks again: but more wildly now.  Form two

and two!  Let's make a General of him!  Ho, where's his harpoon?  Lay it

across here. --Rig-a-dig, dig, dig!  huzza!  Oh for a game cock now to sit upon

his head and crow!  queequeg dies game! --mind ye that; queequeg dies game! --

take ye good heed of that; Queequeg dies game!  I say; game, game, game!

but base little Pip, he died a coward; died all a'shiver; --out upon Pip!

Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the Antilles he's a runaway; a coward, a

coward, a coward!  Tell them he jumped from a whale-boat!  I'd never beat my

tambourine over base Pip, and hail him General, if he were once more dying

here.  No, no!  shame upon all cowards --shame upon them!  Let 'em go drown

like Pip, that jumped from a whale-boat.  Shame!  shame!  During all this,

Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream.  Pip was led away, and the

sick man was replaced in his hammock.  But now that he had apparently made

every preparation for death; now that his coffin was proved a good fit,

Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon there seemed no need of the carpenter's box:


     and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, in

substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was this; --at a

critical moment, he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was

leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not

die yet, he averred.  They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a

matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure.  He answered, certainly.  In a

word, it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man

.. <p 477 >

made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a

whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of

that sort.  Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and

civilized; that while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing,

generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day.  So, in

good time my Queequeg gained strength; and at length after sitting on the

windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a vigorous appetite) he

suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out arms and legs, gave himself a good

stretching, yawned a little bit, and then springing into the head of his

hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, pronounced himself fit for a fight.

With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest; and emptying

into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there.  Many spare hours

he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of grotesque figures and

drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was striving, in his rude way, to copy

parts of the twisted tattooing on his body.  And this tattooing, had been the

work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic

marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the

earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that

Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in

one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own

live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in

the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed,


     and so be unsolved to the last.  And this thought it must have been which

suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when one morning turning away

from surveying poor Queequeg -- Oh, devilish tantalization of the gods!

.. <p 478 >