{"id":"01KJNXJQVRNBCFEG91C0199J07","cid":"bafkreiafgz7rjtzsnxf2dgiuia5arxokwxrl6iyjb7vvd2uzcycry5hfdq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":221403,"char_start":213439,"chunk_index":30,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1991,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered\r\nfrom his own point of view; and, in the second place, he did not more\r\nthan one third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would; and,\r\nfinally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true\r\nreligion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending\r\nconcern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such\r\na sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan\r\npiety.\r\n\r\nAt last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty\r\nbreakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not\r\nmake much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the\r\nPequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 18. His Mark.\r\n\r\nAs we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg\r\ncarrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us\r\nfrom his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal,\r\nand furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that\r\ncraft, unless they previously produced their papers.\r\n\r\n“What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?” said I, now jumping on the\r\nbulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf.\r\n\r\n“I mean,” he replied, “he must show his papers.”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from\r\nbehind Peleg’s, out of the wigwam. “He must show that he’s converted.\r\nSon of darkness,” he added, turning to Queequeg, “art thou at present\r\nin communion with any Christian church?”\r\n\r\n“Why,” said I, “he’s a member of the first Congregational Church.” Here\r\nbe it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at\r\nlast come to be converted into the churches.\r\n\r\n“First Congregational Church,” cried Bildad, “what! that worships in\r\nDeacon Deuteronomy Coleman’s meeting-house?” and so saying, taking out\r\nhis spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana\r\nhandkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the\r\nwigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at\r\nQueequeg.\r\n\r\n“How long hath he been a member?” he then said, turning to me; “not\r\nvery long, I rather guess, young man.”\r\n\r\n“No,” said Peleg, “and he hasn’t been baptized right either, or it\r\nwould have washed some of that devil’s blue off his face.”\r\n\r\n“Do tell, now,” cried Bildad, “is this Philistine a regular member of\r\nDeacon Deuteronomy’s meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass\r\nit every Lord’s day.”\r\n\r\n“I don’t know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,” said\r\nI; “all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First\r\nCongregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is.”\r\n\r\n“Young man,” said Bildad sternly, “thou art skylarking with me—explain\r\nthyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me.”\r\n\r\nFinding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. “I mean, sir, the same\r\nancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there,\r\nand Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother’s son and soul of us\r\nbelong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole\r\nworshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some\r\nqueer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in _that_ we all\r\njoin hands.”\r\n\r\n“Splice, thou mean’st _splice_ hands,” cried Peleg, drawing nearer.\r\n“Young man, you’d better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast\r\nhand; I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy—why Father\r\nMapple himself couldn’t beat it, and he’s reckoned something. Come\r\naboard, come aboard; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog\r\nthere—what’s that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great\r\nanchor, what a harpoon he’s got there! looks like good stuff that; and\r\nhe handles it about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did\r\nyou ever stand in the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a\r\nfish?”\r\n\r\nWithout saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon\r\nthe bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats\r\nhanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his\r\nharpoon, cried out in some such way as this:—\r\n\r\n“Cap’ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well,\r\nspose him one whale eye, well, den!” and taking sharp aim at it, he\r\ndarted the iron right over old Bildad’s broad brim, clean across the\r\nship’s decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight.\r\n\r\n“Now,” said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, “spos-ee him whale-e\r\neye; why, dad whale dead.”\r\n\r\n“Quick, Bildad,” said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close\r\nvicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin\r\ngangway. “Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship’s papers. We must\r\nhave Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye,\r\nQuohog, we’ll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that’s more than ever was\r\ngiven a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket.”\r\n\r\nSo down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon\r\nenrolled among the same ship’s company to which I myself belonged.\r\n\r\nWhen all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for\r\nsigning, he turned to me and said, “I guess, Quohog there don’t know\r\nhow to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name\r\nor make thy mark?”\r\n\r\nBut at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken\r\npart in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the\r\noffered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact\r\ncounterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so\r\nthat through Captain Peleg’s obstinate mistake touching his\r\nappellative, it stood something like this:—\r\n\r\nQuohog. his X mark.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg,\r\nand at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his\r\nbroad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting one\r\nentitled “The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose,” placed it in\r\nQueequeg’s hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his,\r\nlooked earnestly into his eyes, and said, “Son of darkness, I must do\r\nmy duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for\r\nthe souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways,\r\nwhich I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial\r\nbondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the\r\nwrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer\r\nclear of the fiery pit!”\r\n\r\nSomething of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad’s language,\r\nheterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases.\r\n\r\n“Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer,”\r\ncried Peleg. “Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers—it takes the\r\nshark out of ’em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty\r\nsharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out\r\nof all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never\r\ncame to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he\r\nshrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case\r\nhe got stove and went to Davy Jones.”\r\n\r\n“Peleg! Peleg!” said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, “thou thyself,\r\nas I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what\r\nit is to have the fear of death; how, then, can’st thou prate in this\r\nungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this\r\nsame Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on\r\nJapan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did’st\r\nthou not think of Death and the Judgment then?”\r\n\r\n“Hear him, hear him now,” cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and\r\nthrusting his hands far down into his pockets,—“hear him, all of ye.\r\nThink of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink! Death\r\nand the Judgment then? What?"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKXNA6Q7NV244AJQKVXKZ","peer_label":"queequeg","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3Z6GAC3QZ1MZC1PX63","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKSZYY4PZZGTPZ89W34AF","peer_label":"narrator","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMDQG9WEV31NH20Y2EVZX","peer_label":"captain bildad","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMCV8J37JHVK8J8PY15EG","peer_label":"captain peleg","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKXH2GMRN3K01DR56AKFQ","peer_label":"harpoon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMWX50RJF85NXFXQPE3J4","peer_label":"father mapple","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMD0WAHBX440ZSHY78PHZ","peer_label":"the vineyard","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZBGV5QSFPD19S2BQF68","peer_label":"captain ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM423TTC0Y0A1Y0X78QFB","peer_label":"nantucket","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6G028341DW6T44NQEYA","peer_label":"typhoon on japan","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"event","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXRGF6FJPHW0K64FPJTY4Q","peer_label":"chapter 18 his mark","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"document_section","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXTDMSEF8RYE5B5CM4JJ8Z","peer_label":"deacon deuteronomy colemans meeting-house","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"building","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXTNX42XJAS3R6N9DDRAQ9","peer_label":"whale-boat","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"boat","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXVC7JAA23XZ3XH183DDY5","peer_label":"ninetieth lay","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"financial_term","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXWQ3EAMW5YDSQMEJR36QF","peer_label":"the latter day coming or no time to lose","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"document","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXYWXCA01ZENTCJCD4RXKF","peer_label":"death and the judgment","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"religious_concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXZ2FPGVVG9RKW6AWQ6JFV","peer_label":"deacon deuteronomy coleman","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXZ40JN5ZT99EKAJQBZPSY","peer_label":"first congregational church narrators concept","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"religious_concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXW4HGWGM662GME1FBFDNR","peer_label":"nat swaine","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXZ8KVWS7ZT1T5CW6E4PB0","peer_label":"first congregation","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXZ9HXCSCHXE4NZVEX4JD4","peer_label":"queer round figure queequegs mark","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"symbol","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:20.178Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.640Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:08:21.504Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}