The next morning was Monday.
After selling Queequeg’s embalmed head to a barber for a small amount of money, I paid the bill for both of us at the inn, using Queequeg’s money.
The landlord and the other guests seemed extremely amused by how quickly Queequeg and I had become friends. They remembered how frightened I had been of him after hearing all of Peter Coffin’s ridiculous stories about cannibals.
Now the same man I had once feared was my closest companion.
We borrowed a wheelbarrow, loaded all our belongings into it—my poor old carpet bag, Queequeg’s canvas bag, his hammock, and the rest—and headed down to the wharf.
Our destination was the little Nantucket packet schooner called the Moss.
As we walked through the streets, people stared at us.
They were not especially interested in Queequeg. People in New Bedford were used to seeing strange sailors and even cannibals like him.
What surprised them was seeing a white man and a tattooed cannibal walking together like the closest of friends.
We paid no attention to the looks.
We took turns pushing the wheelbarrow while Queequeg occasionally stopped to check the protective cover over the sharp barbs of his harpoon.
I looked at the weapon and shook my head.
“Why do you carry that thing around with you on land?”
He explained that although whaling ships usually supplied their own harpoons, he preferred to use his own.
His harpoon had already been tested in many dangerous encounters with whales. He trusted it completely.
It was like farmers who brought their own scythes into the fields even though they were not required to.
Queequeg simply had his own reasons for wanting to carry his own weapon.
After a while, he took the wheelbarrow from me and began pushing it.
Then he told me a funny story about the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen.
It had happened in Sag Harbor.
The owners of his ship had lent him a wheelbarrow so that he could move his heavy sea chest to his boardinghouse.
Queequeg had never used one before.
He did not want anyone to realize that he had no idea how it worked.
So he put his chest on the wheelbarrow, tied it down securely, and then—rather than pushing the thing—lifted the handles onto his shoulder and carried the whole wheelbarrow down the wharf.
I laughed.
“Queequeg, surely you could have figured out that you were supposed to push it. Didn’t everyone laugh at you?”
He laughed too and told me another story.
Back on his island of Rokovoko, people had a special drink made from the fresh water inside young coconuts.
At wedding celebrations, they poured this drink into a large, beautifully decorated bowl. The bowl was placed in the center of the feast and was considered an important part of the ceremony.
One day, a large merchant ship visited the island.
The ship’s captain was invited to the wedding of Queequeg’s younger sister, a beautiful young princess who was only ten years old.
When all the guests had gathered at the bride’s bamboo house, the captain entered and was given an honored seat.
He sat beside Queequeg’s father, the king, and next to the High Priest.
Before the feast began, the people said a prayer.
“They have their own version of grace,” Queequeg explained to me.
“But they do it differently from us. We look down at our food when we pray. They look up toward the sky, like ducks, because they are thanking the great giver of all food.”
After the prayer, the High Priest began the traditional ceremony.
He dipped his fingers into the sacred bowl before anyone drank from it.
The captain watched carefully.
He apparently misunderstood what was happening.
Since he was the captain of a ship, he thought he was more important than a mere island king, even while visiting the king’s own home.
So, without hesitation, he reached into the bowl and washed his hands in the coconut drink.
He had mistaken the ceremonial bowl for a giant finger bowl.
Queequeg grinned.
“Now what you tink?” he asked. “Didn’t our people laugh?”
I could imagine it.
At last, we paid our passage, got our belongings safely aboard, and set off on the little schooner.
The sails went up, and the Moss began moving down the Acushnet River.
New Bedford stretched along one side of the river, its streets rising in terraces. The trees were covered with ice, sparkling brilliantly in the clear, freezing air.
The wharves were crowded with enormous stacks of barrels.
Whaling ships stood side by side, finally resting after their long voyages.
From some of the ships came the sounds of carpenters and coopers repairing them. Fires burned in workshops, and blacksmiths worked at their forges, melting pitch and preparing equipment.
Everything showed that new voyages were already being prepared.
One dangerous journey had ended, but another was about to begin.
Then another would follow that one.
And another after that.
It seemed that human beings were trapped in an endless cycle of work and struggle.
As we reached the open water, the wind became stronger.
The Moss rushed forward, throwing white foam from her bow like a young horse kicking up its heels.
I breathed in the cold, wild air with delight.
I was glad to leave the hard, crowded land behind and face the open sea.
The land keeps records of everything—roads, footprints, buildings, and human activity.
The sea keeps no such records.
Queequeg seemed to feel the same excitement.
His dark nostrils widened as he breathed in the wind, and his pointed teeth showed as he grinned.
We sailed faster and faster.
The Moss leaned into the wind, rising and plunging through the waves.
The ropes vibrated with the strain, and the tall masts bent under the force of the wind.
Queequeg and I stood near the bowsprit, completely caught up in the excitement.
For a while, we hardly noticed the mocking looks from some of the other passengers.
They seemed amazed that two men from such different backgrounds could be so friendly with each other.
They looked at us as though a white man were somehow more respectable than a black man simply because his skin was white.
Some of the passengers were especially foolish.
One young country boy watched Queequeg closely.
Then Queequeg caught him secretly imitating the way he moved.
I thought the boy was about to learn a very painful lesson.
Queequeg dropped his harpoon, grabbed the young man, and lifted him completely off the deck.
With incredible strength and skill, he threw the fellow high into the air.
Then, while the man was turning through the air, Queequeg gave him a light push in the right place.
The young man landed safely on his feet, gasping for breath.
Queequeg calmly turned away, lit his tomahawk pipe, and handed it to me.
The frightened young man ran toward the captain.
“Captain! Captain!” he shouted. “There’s the devil!”
The captain hurried over.
He was a thin, weather-beaten sailor who looked as though he had spent his entire life at sea.
“You!” he shouted at Queequeg. “What the devil do you think you’re doing? You could have killed that man!”
Queequeg looked at me calmly.
“What him say?”
“He says you almost killed that man.”
I pointed toward the young sailor, who was still trembling.
Queequeg looked at him with complete contempt.
“Kill-e?” he said. “Him very small fish. Queequeg no kill-e small fish. Queequeg kill-e big whale!”
The captain became even angrier.
“Listen to me, you cannibal. If you try anything like that again, I’ll kill you myself. So watch yourself!”
But at that very moment, the captain had a much more serious problem to worry about.
The strain on the mainsail had caused one of the ropes to break.
The enormous boom suddenly swung violently from one side of the deck to the other.
It swept across the entire rear section of the ship.
The young man Queequeg had thrown was knocked straight overboard.
Everyone panicked.
The boom was swinging so fast and with such force that trying to grab it would have been extremely dangerous.
It swept back and forth in seconds, looking as if it might break into pieces at any moment.
Nobody knew what to do.
The sailors rushed toward the bow and stared at the swinging boom as though it were the open jaws of an angry whale.
Then Queequeg acted.
He dropped to his knees and crawled underneath the path of the swinging boom.
He grabbed a rope and tied one end securely to the ship’s side.
Then he threw the other end around the boom like a lasso.
The next time the boom swung toward him, the rope caught it.
The enormous spar stopped moving wildly.
The danger was over.
The captain immediately turned the schooner into the wind.
The sailors began preparing the small boat for the rescue.
But Queequeg did not wait.
He stripped off his shirt and jumped overboard.
He flew through the freezing water in one long, powerful leap.
For several minutes, we watched him swimming like a dog.
His long arms reached forward again and again, while his powerful shoulders appeared and disappeared beneath the icy foam.
I looked around for the man who had fallen overboard.
But I could not see him anywhere.
He had already disappeared beneath the water.
Queequeg suddenly stopped swimming.
He rose vertically from the water and looked around for a moment.
Then he seemed to understand exactly where the man must be.
Without hesitation, he dived beneath the surface.
He disappeared.
A few minutes later, he came back up.
One arm was still swimming.
With the other, he was dragging a motionless body through the water.
The rescue boat quickly reached them and pulled both of them aboard.
The young man was alive.
Everyone on the ship immediately began praising Queequeg.
“You saved his life,” the sailors told him.
Even the captain admitted that he had been wrong.
“I’m sorry,” he told Queequeg.
From that moment on, I became completely devoted to Queequeg.
I stuck to him like a barnacle on a ship.
And I remained his friend for the rest of his life.
What amazed me most was that Queequeg seemed completely unaware that he had done anything extraordinary.
He did not expect a medal.
He did not ask for praise.
He did not even seem to understand why everyone was making such a fuss.
All he wanted was some fresh water.
He wanted to wash the salt from his body.
After that, he put on dry clothes, lit his pipe, leaned casually against the ship’s side, and looked around at everyone with complete calm.
He seemed to be thinking:
“It’s the same world everywhere. We all depend on one another. If these Christians need help, then we cannibals must help them.”