Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

by Herman Melville

  CHAPTER 18

  His Mark

  As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship,Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voiceloudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspectedmy friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he letno cannibals on board that craft, unless they previouslyproduced their papers.

  "What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?" said I, now jumpingon the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf.

  "I mean," he replied, "he must show his papers."

  "Yes," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head frombehind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. "He must show that he's converted.Son of darkness," he added, turning to Queequeg, "art thou at presentin communion with any Christian church?"

  "Why," said I, "he's a member of the first Congregational Church."Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucketships at last come to be converted into the churches.

  "First Congregational Church," cried Bildad, "what! that worshipsin Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house?" and so saying,taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellowbandana handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully,came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks,took a good long look at Queequeg.

  "How long hath he been a member?" he then said, turning to me;"not very long, I rather guess, young man."

  "No," said Peleg, "and he hasn't been baptized right either,or it would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face."

  "Do tell, now," cried Bildad, "is this Philistine a regular memberof Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting? I never saw him going there,and I pass it every Lord's day."

  "I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,"said I; "all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of theFirst Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is."

  "Young man," said Bildad sternly, "thou art skylarking with me--explain thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost theemean? answer me."

  Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied, "I mean, sir, the sameancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there,and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soulof us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of thiswhole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of uscherish some queer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief;in that we all join hands."

  "Splice, thou mean'st splice hands," cried Peleg, drawing nearer."Young man, you'd better ship for a missionary,instead of a fore-mast hand; I never heard a better sermon.Deacon Deuteronomy--why Father Mapple himself couldn't beat it,and he's reckoned something. Come aboard, come aboard:never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog there--what's that you call him? tell Quohog to step along.By the great anchor, what a harpoon he's got there! lookslike good stuff that; and he handles it about right.I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever standin the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?"

  Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped uponthe bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats hangingto the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his harpoon,cried out in some such way as this:--

  "Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well,spose him one whale eye, well, den!" and taking sharp aim at it,he darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, clean acrossthe ship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight.

  "Now," said Queequeg, quietly, hauling in the line, "spos-ee himwhale-e eye; why, dad whale dead."

  "Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the closevicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin gangway."Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's papers.We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats.Look ye, Quohog, we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that's morethan ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket."

  So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soonenrolled among the same ship's company to which I myself belonged.

  When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything readyfor signing, he turned to me and said, "I guess, Quohog there don'tknow how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou signthy name or make thy mark?

  But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before takenpart in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but takingthe offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place,an exact counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooedupon his arm; so that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistaketouching his appellative, it stood something like this:-- Quohog. his X mark.Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg,and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pocketsof his broadskirted drab coat took out a bundle of tracts,and selecting one entitled "The Latter Day Coming; or No Timeto Lose," placed it in Queequeg's hands, and then grasping themand the book with both his, looked earnestly into his eyes, and said,"Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee; I am part ownerof this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its crew;if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear,I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman.Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrathto come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steerclear of the fiery pit!"

  Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language,heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases.

  "Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer,cried Peleg. "Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers--it takes the shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a strawwho aint pretty sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine,once the bravest boat-header out of all Nantucket andthe Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never came to good.He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he shrinkedand sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in casehe got stove and went to Davy Jones."

  "Peleg! Peleg!" said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands,"thou thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time;thou knowest, Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death;how, then, can'st thou prate in this ungodly guise.Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this same Pequodhere had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan,that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab,did'st thou not think of Death and the Judgment then?"

  "Hear him, hear him now," cried Peleg, marching across the cabin,and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,--"hear him, all of ye.Think of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink!Death and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making suchan everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breakingover us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then?No! no time to think about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahaband I was thinking of; and how to save all hands how to rig jury-mastshow to get into the nearest port; that was what I was thinking of."

  Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck,where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlookingsome sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist.Now and then he stooped to pick up a patch, or save an endof tarred twine, which otherwise might have been wasted.