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.