CHAPTER 13

  Wheelbarrow

  Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a

barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill; using,

however, my comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the

boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which

had sprung up between me and Queequeg- especially as Peter Coffin's

cock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed me

concerning the very person whom I now companied with.

  We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my

own poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock, away we

went down to "the Moss," the little Nantucket packet schooner moored

at the wharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at

Queequeg so much- for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in

their streets,- but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms.

But we heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns,

and Queequeg now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon

barbs. I asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him

ashore, and whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons.

To this, in substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was

true enough, yet he had a particular affection for his own harpoon,

because it was of assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat,

and deeply intimate with the hearts of whales. In short, like many

reapers and mowers, who go into the farmer's meadows armed with

their own scythes- though in no wise obliged to furnish them- even so,

Queequeg, for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon.

  Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story

about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor.

The owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to

carry his heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant

about the thing- though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the

precise way in which to manage the barrow- Queequeg puts his chest

upon it; lashes it fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches

up the wharf. "Why," said I, "Queequeg, you might have known better

than that, one would think. Didn't the people laugh?"

  Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of

Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water

of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and

this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the

braided mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship

once touched at Rokovoko, and its commander- from all accounts, a very

stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain- this

commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a

pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding

guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo cottage, this Captain

marches in, and being assigned the post of honor, placed himself

over against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his

majesty the King, Queequeg's father. Grace being said,- for those

people have their grace as well as we- though Queequeg told me that

unlike us, who at such times look downwards to our platters, they,

on the contrary, copying the ducks, glance upwards to the great

Giver of all feasts- Grace, I say, being said, the High Priest opens

the banquet by the immemorial ceremony of the island; that is, dipping

his consecrated and consecrating fingers into the bowl before the

blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest,

and noting the ceremony, and thinking himself- being Captain of a

ship- as having plain precedence over a mere island King, especially

in the King's own house- the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands

in the punch bowl;- taking it I suppose for a huge finger-glass.

"Now," said Queequeg, "what you tink now?- Didn't our people laugh?"

  At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the

schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one

side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees

all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of

casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the

world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last;

while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended

noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that

new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long

voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins

a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness,

yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.

  Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the

little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his

snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!- how I spurned that turnpike

earth!- that common highway all over dented with the marks of

slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of

the sea which will permit no records.

  At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with

me. His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and

pointed teeth. On, on we flew, and our offing gained, the Moss did

homage to the blast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the

Sultan. Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn

tingling like a wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in

land tornadoes. So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood

by the plunging bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the

jeering glances of the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who

marvelled that two fellow beings should be so companionable; as though

a white man were anything more dignified than a whitewashed negro. But

there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who, by their intense

greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of all verdure.

Queequeg caught one of these young saplings mimicking him behind his

back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come. Dropping his

harpoon, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost

miraculous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the

air; then slightly tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow

landed with bursting lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning

his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a

puff.

  "Capting! Capting! yelled the bumpkin, running toward that

officer; "Capting, Capting, here's the devil."

  "Hallo, you sir," cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea,

stalking up to Queequeg, "what in thunder do you mean by that? Don't

you know you might have killed that chap?"

  "What him say?" said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me.

  "He say," said I, "that you came near kill-e that man there,"

pointing to the still shivering greenhorn.

  "Kill-e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an

unearthly expression of disdain, "ah! him bevy small-e fish-e;

Queequeg no kill-e so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!"

  "Look you," roared the Captain, "I'll kill-e you, you cannibal, if

you try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye."

  But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the

Captain to mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the

main-sail had parted the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was

now flying from side to side, completely sweeping the entire after

part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so

roughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to

attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from

right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and

every instant seemed on the point of snapping into splinters.

Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of being done; those on

deck rushed toward the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were

the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this

consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling

under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to

the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it

round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the

spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into

the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat,

Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long

living arc of a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming

like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him, and by

turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I

looked at the grand and glorious but saw no one to be saved. The

greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the

water, Queequeg, now took an instant's glance around him, and

seeming to see just how matters were, dived down and disappeared. A

few minutes more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and

with the other dragging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up.

The poor bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump;

the captain begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like

a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive.

  Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that

he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous

Societies. He only asked for water- fresh water- something to wipe the

brine off; that done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and

leaning against the bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him,

seemed to be saying to himself- "It's a mutual, joint-stock world,

in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians."