So, it being calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper,
disturbing the slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts;
and from that black midnight sending those gigantic moles
into the daylight above. So deep did they go; and so ancient,
and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost puncheons,
that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone cask
containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted placards,
vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood.
Tierce after tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef,
and shooks of staves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out,
till at last the piled decks were hard to get about; and the hollow
hull echoed under foot, as if you were treading over empty catacombs,
and reeled and rolled in the sea like an air-freighted demijohn.
Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle
in his head. Well was it that the Typhoons did not visit them then.
Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion,
and fast bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever,
which brought him nigh to his endless end.
Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown;
dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain,
the higher you rise the harder you toil.
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