THE WHITE WHALE 441 
whose mysterious shades you saw creeping over the face of poor Quee- 
queg, as he quietly lay in his swaying hammock, and the rolling sea 
seemed gently rocking him to his final rest, and the ocean’s invisible 
floodtide lifted him higher and higher towards his destined heaven. 
Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg him- 
self, what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious fa- 
vour he asked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when 
the day was just breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nan- 
tucket he had chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like 
the rich war-wood of his native isle ; and upon inquiry, he had learned 
that all whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark 
canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; 
for it was not unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming 
a dead warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be 
floated away to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe 
that the stars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their 
own mild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so 
form the white breakers of the milky way — after saying this, he added, 
that he shuddered at the thought of being buried in his hammock, ac- 
cording to the usual sea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death- 
devouring sharks. No: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, 
all the more congenial to him, being a whaleman, that like a whale 
boat these coffin-canoes were without a keel ; though that involved but 
uncertain steering, and much leeway adown the dim ages. 
Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the car- 
penter was at once commanded to do Queequeg’ s bidding, whatever it 
might include. There was some heathenish, coffin-coloured old lumber 
aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the 
aboriginal groves of the Lackaday Islands, and from these dark planks 
the coffin was recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter 
apprised of the order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the 
indifferent promptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle 
and took Queequeg’ s measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking 
Queequeg’ s person as he shifted the rule. 
“Ah! poor fellow! he’ll have to die now,” ejaculated the Long Is- 
land sailor. 
Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake and 
