The Ship — Moby-Dick

That night in bed, Ishmael and Queequeg plan for the next day. Queequeg has been talking to his small god Yojo. Yojo says Ishmael must pick the ship alone. Queequeg will stay in their room fasting and praying with Yojo while Ishmael goes to the harbor.

The next morning Ishmael walks the docks while Queequeg stays behind with his pipe and a little fire of wood shavings for his idol. Three whaling ships are hiring for three-year trips: the Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. Ishmael looks at the first two, then boards the Pequod and decides it is the right ship.

The Pequod is old and strange. Her sides are pinned with whale teeth. Her steering tiller is carved from a whale's jaw. She looks like a war canoe dressed in bones. Captain Peleg, one of the owners, sits in a whalebone tent on deck. He questions Ishmael hard. He mocks merchant sailors. He jokes that Ishmael might be a pirate. He tells him the real captain is Captain Ahab, who has only one leg because a whale bit the other off and swallowed it.

Peleg asks if Ishmael would jump into a live whale's mouth after his harpoon. Then he sends Ishmael to look over the bow. Ishmael sees only open water and a squall coming. Peleg says you can see the world right there without sailing around Cape Horn. Ishmael still wants the job.

Below deck, Captain Bildad sits reading the Bible. He is a stingy Quaker owner. Bildad first offers Ishmael the 777th share of the profits, which is almost nothing. Peleg yells and fights with him, quoting hellfire and widows and orphans. In the end Ishmael signs for the 300th lay, a small share but better than what he feared.

Ishmael asks to bring Queequeg tomorrow since he is an experienced harpooner. Peleg agrees. On his way out Ishmael asks to see Captain Ahab. Peleg says Ahab stays shut in his house, not quite sick, not quite well. Peleg calls Ahab grand and god-like but moody since losing his leg. Ishmael quotes the Bible about wicked King Ahab. Peleg looks alarmed and tells him never to say that on this ship. Ahab was named by his mother, Peleg insists, and he has a wife and child. Ishmael walks away having signed papers but not having met his captain. He feels sympathy, dread, and strange awe. He is sure the Pequod is the ship Yojo wanted all along.