His father was a High Chief,
a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side
he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors.
There was excellent blood in his veins--royal stuff;
though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity
he nourished in his untutored youth.
A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg sought
a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full
complement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King
his father's influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow.
Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he
knew the ship must pass through when she quitted the island.
On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land,
covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water.
Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its
prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand;
and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out;
gained her side; with one backward dash of his foot capsized
and sank his canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing himself
at full length upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there,
and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.
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