A confluent
smallpox had in all directions flowed over his face, and left it
like the complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing
waters have been dried up.
"Have ye shipped in her?" he repeated.
"You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose," said I, trying to gain
a little more time for an uninterrupted look at him.
"Aye, the Pequod--that ship there," he said, drawing back his whole
arm and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him-, with the fixed
bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object.
"Yes," said I, "we have just signed the articles."
"Anything down there about your souls?"
"About what?"
"Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly.
"No matter though, I know many chaps that hav'n't got any,--
good luck to 'em; and they are all the better off for it.
A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon."
"What are you jabbering about, shipmate?" said I.
"He's got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies
of that sort in other chaps," abruptly said the stranger,
placing a nervous emphasis upon the word he.
"Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow has broken loose
from somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody
we don't know.
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