Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors.

 

[Old Thunder]

There was excellent blood in his veins - royal stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth.

 

[Old Thunder]

A Sag Harbor* ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg sought a passage to Christian lands.

*Important whaling port on Long Island, New York.

 

[Old Thunder]

But the ship, having her full complement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father's influence could prevail.

 

[Old Thunder]

But Queequeg vowed a vow.

 

[Old Thunder]

Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when she quitted the island.

 

[Old Thunder]

On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water.

 

[Old Thunder]

Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with one backward dash of his foot capsised and sank his canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing himself full length upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.

 

[Old Thunder]

In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and Queequeg budged not.

 

[Old Thunder]

Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told him he might make himself at home.