ok him
by the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine.

"Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving? where
go ye now? But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where
the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little
errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who's now been missing long: I think
he's in those far Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him; for he
must be very sad; for look! he's left his tambourine behind;--I found
it. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die; and I'll beat ye your dying
march."

"I have heard," murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, "that in
violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues;
and that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always that in their
wholly forgotten childhood those ancient tongues had been really spoken
in their hearing by some lofty scholars. So, to my fond faith, poor Pip,
in this strange sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all
our heavenly homes. Where learned he that, but there?--Hark! he speaks
again: but more wildly now."

"Form two and two! Let's make a General of him! Ho, where's his harpoon?
Lay it across here.--Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a game cock
now to sit upon his head and crow! Queequeg dies game!--mind ye that;
Queequeg dies game!--take ye good heed of that; Queequeg dies game! I
say; game, game, game! but base little Pip, he died a coward; died all
a'shiver;--out upon Pip! Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the Antilles
he's a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward! Tell them he jumped from
a whale-boat! I'd never beat my tambourine over base Pip, and hail
him General, if he were once more dying here. No, no! shame upon all
cowards--shame upon them! Let 'em go drown like Pip, that jumped from a
whale-boat. Shame! shame!"

During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. Pip
was led away, and the sick man was replaced in his hammock.

But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now
that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon
there seemed no need of the carpenter's box: and thereupon, when some
expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the
cause of his sudden convalescence was this;--at a critical moment, he
had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone;
and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet,
he averred. They asked