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1Steering now south-eastward by Ahab's levelled steel, and her progress solely determined by Ahab's level log and line;
2the Pequod held on her path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no
3ships, and ere long, sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all these seemed the
4strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene. At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it
5were, of the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of
6rocky islets; the watch--then headed by Flask--was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly--like
7half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered Innocents--that one and all, they started from their
8reveries, and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixedly listening, like the carved Roman
9slave, while that wild cry remained within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the crew said it was mermaids,
10and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman--the oldest mariner of all--declared
11that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men in the sea. Below in his hammock,
12Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when he came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not
13unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus explained the wonder. Those rocky islands the
14ship had passed were the resort of great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams
15that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human
16sort of wail. But this only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a very superstitious feeling
17about seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their round
18heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain
19circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men. But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a
20most plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At sun-rise this man went from his hammock
21to his mast-head at the fore; and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go
22aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had
23not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard--a cry and a rushing--and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the
24air; and looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the sea. The life-buoy--a long slender
25cask--was dropped from the stern, where it always hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it, and
26the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it slowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at
27its every pore; and the studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to yield him his pillow, though
28in sooth but a hard one. And thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out for the White Whale, on
29the White Whale's own peculiar ground; that man was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the
30time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a
31foreshadowing of evil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. They declared that now they knew
32the reason of those wild shrieks they had heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay. The lost life-buoy
33was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and
34as in the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of the voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil
35but what was directly connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be; therefore, they were going to leave
36the ship's stern unprovided with a buoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint concerning
37his coffin. "A life-buoy of a coffin!" cried Starbuck, starting. "Rather queer, that, I should say," said Stubb. "It
38will make a good enough one," said Flask, "the carpenter here can arrange it easily." "Bring it up; there's nothing else
39for it," said Starbuck, after a melancholy pause. "Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so--the coffin, I mean. Dost
40thou hear me? Rig it." "And shall I nail down the lid, sir?" moving his hand as with a hammer. "Aye." "And shall I caulk
41the seams, sir?" moving his hand as with a caulking-iron. "Aye." "And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?"
42moving his hand as with a pitch-pot. "Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and no
43more.--Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me." "He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he
44baulks. Now I don't like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he wears it like a gentleman; but I make a bandbox for
45Queequeg, and he won't put his head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with that coffin? And now I'm ordered to
46make a life-buoy of it. It's like turning an old coat; going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I don't like this
47cobbling sort of business--I don't like it at all; it's undignified; it's not my place. Let tinkers' brats do
48tinkerings; we are their betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin, fair-and-square mathematical jobs,
49something that regularly begins at the beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at the
50conclusion; not a cobbler's job, that's at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at the end. It's the old woman's
51tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord! what an affection all old women have for tinkers. I know an old woman of
52sixty-five who ran away with a bald-headed young tinker once. And that's the reason I never would work for lonely widow
53old women ashore, when I kept my job-shop in the Vineyard; they might have taken it into their lonely old heads to run
54off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at sea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay
55over the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over the ship's stern. Were ever such
56things done before with a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, ere they
57would do the job. But I'm made of knotty Aroostook hemlock; I don't budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing about with a
58grave-yard tray! But never mind. We workers in woods make bridal-bedsteads and card-tables, as well as coffins and
59hearses. We work by the month, or by the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask the why and wherefore of our work,
60unless it be too confounded cobbling, and then we stash it if we can. Hem! I'll do the job, now, tenderly. I'll have
61me--let's see--how many in the ship's company, all told? But I've forgotten. Any way, I'll have me thirty separate,
62Turk's-headed life-lines, each three feet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then, if the hull go down, there'll be
63thirty lively fellows all fighting for one coffin, a sight not seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer,
64caulking-iron, pitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let's to it."
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