I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having
a coronation; since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he
being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not yet;
and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had
unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan
Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return,--as soon as
he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however, he proposed to
sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a
harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now.

I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future
movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon
this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my
intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for
an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany
me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch,
the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap;
with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds.
To all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection I now felt
for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not
fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant
of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as
known to merchant seamen.

His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg embraced
me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we
rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were
sleeping.

CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow.

Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber,
for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill; using, however, my
comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed
amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between
me and Queequeg--especially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull stories
about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person
whom I now companied with.

We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own
poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock, away we went
down to "the Moss," the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the
wharf. As we were going along the