第 十八 章 · His Mark.

As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg

carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us

from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal,

and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that

craft, unless they previously produced their papers.

“What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?” said I, now jumping on 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 from

behind Peleg’s, out of the wigwam. “He must show that he’s converted.

Son of darkness,” he added, turning to Queequeg, “art thou at present

in 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 Nantucket ships at

last come to be converted into the churches.

“First Congregational Church,” cried Bildad, “what! that worships in

Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman’s meeting-house?” and so saying, taking out

his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana

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 member of

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 the First

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 thee mean? answer me.”

Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. “I mean, sir, the same

ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there,

and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother’s son and soul of us

belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole

worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish 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! looks like good stuff that; and

he handles it about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did

you ever stand in the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a

fish?”

Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon

the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats

hanging to 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 across the

ship’s decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight.

“Now,” said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, “spos-ee him whale-e

eye; why, dad whale dead.”

“Quick, Bildad,” said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close

vicinity 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 more than ever was

given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket.”

So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon

enrolled among the same ship’s company to which I myself belonged.

When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for

signing, he turned to me and said, “I guess, Quohog there don’t know

how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name

or make thy mark?”

But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken

part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the

offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact

counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so

that through Captain Peleg’s obstinate mistake touching 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 pockets of his

broad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting one

entitled “The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose,” placed it in

Queequeg’s hands, and then grasping them and 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 owner of 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

wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer

clear 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 straw who aint pretty

sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out

of all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never

came to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he

shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case

he 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 Pequod here 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 such an

everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking over

us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to

think about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking

of; and how to save all hands—how to rig jury-masts—how 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 overlooking some

sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then he

stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which

otherwise might have been wasted.