CHAPTER 110

  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 hoop, 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 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 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 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.

  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 bed 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 the 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 current 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! 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 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 his 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!"