Replacing the Buoy
Starbuck is directed to replace the lost buoy, but no cask of sufficient lightness can be found. With all hands eager for the approaching crisis, they consider leaving the stern unprovided until Queequeg hints through strange signs at his coffin.
Queequeg’s Proposal
Starbuck exclaims at the suggestion of a “life-buoy of a coffin.” Stubb finds it queer, but Flask declares the carpenter can arrange it easily. After a melancholy pause, Starbuck orders the coffin brought up and rigged.
The Carpenter’s Objection
The carpenter grumbles about the indignity of “cobbling” work, preferring clean mathematical jobs. He questions whether to nail down the lid, caulk the seams, and pay with pitch—each question met with “Aye”—before being told to simply make a life-buoy of the coffin.
Rigging the Coffin
The carpenter resigns himself to the task, planning to add thirty separate Turk’s-headed life-lines, each three feet long, hanging all round the coffin so that thirty men might fight for one coffin if the ship goes down.
第一百二十七章 The Deck.
The chapter opens with the Carpenter at work on Queequeg’s coffin, positioned between the vice-bench and the open hatchway. He caulks its seams while unwinding oakum from a roll in his frock. Ahab emerges from the cabin-gangway, with Pip following behind him.
Carpenter Caulks Queequeg’s Coffin on Deck
The carpenter is actively caulking Queequeg’s coffin, which has been transformed from its original purpose into a life-buoy at Starbuck’s orders. The coffin rests on two line-tubs full of tow-lines, serving a dual function aboard the Pequod. The carpenter works methodically, the oakum unwinding slowly from its large roll.
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