His Mark — Moby-Dick

Ishmael and Queequeg walk to the Pequod with Queequeg's harpoon. Captain Peleg shouts from his tent on deck. He did not know Queequeg was a cannibal. No cannibals on this ship without papers, he says.

Captain Bildad sticks his head out and asks if Queequeg belongs to a Christian church. Ishmael says yes. He says Queequeg is a deacon of the First Congregational Church. Bildad asks about Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting house. Ishmael gets stuck.

Then Ishmael gives a big speech. He says we all belong to one great church of the whole world. We all join hands on the big belief, even if we have different odd ideas.

Peleg laughs. He says sailors splice hands, not shake them. He tells Ishmael to forget the papers and come aboard. He asks Queequeg if he ever stood in the front of a whale boat and struck a whale.

Queequeg says nothing. He jumps into a hanging boat. He points at a tiny tar drop on the water and throws his harpoon. The iron flies over Bildad's hat brim and hits the tar spot. If that were a whale's eye, he says, the whale would be dead.

Peleg is shaken. He tells Bildad to get the ship papers. He offers Queequeg the ninetieth lay, a bigger share than any harpooner in Nantucket ever got.

In the cabin Queequeg signs the contract. He cannot write, so he copies the round tattoo on his arm. Peleg keeps calling him Quohog by mistake. The paper reads Quohog, his X mark.

Bildad gives Queequeg a religious tract about the end of the world. He warns him about idols and hell. Peleg tells him to stop. Pious harpooners are no good, he says. He tells how brave Nat Swaine joined a church and then got too scared of his soul to chase whales.

Bildad asks if Peleg thought about death and judgment during a typhoon in Japan when he was mate with Captain Ahab. Peleg says no. When the masts were crashing and waves were breaking over the ship, he only thought about saving lives and rigging jury masts.

Bildad stops talking. He goes on deck and quietly picks up bits of tarred twine while sailors mend a sail.