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For three minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog , throwing his long arms straight out before him , and by turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam . I looked at the grand and glorious fellow , but saw no one to be saved . The greenhorn had gone down . Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water , Queequeg , now took an instant’s glance around him , and seeming to see just how matters were , dived down and disappeared . A few minutes more , and he rose again , one arm still striking out , and with the other dragging a lifeless form . The boat soon picked them up . The poor bumpkin was restored . All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump ; the captain begged his pardon . From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle ; yea , till poor Queequeg took his last long dive . Was there ever such unconsciousness ? He did not seem to think that he at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies . He only asked for water — fresh water — something to wipe the brine off ; that done , he put on dry clothes , lighted his pipe , and leaning against the bulwarks , and mildly eyeing those around him , seemed to be saying to himself — “ It’s a mutual , joint - stock world , in all meridians . We cannibals must help these Christians . ” CHAPTER 14 . Nantucket . Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning ; so , after a fine run , we safely arrived in Nantucket . Nantucket ! Take out your map and look at it . See what a real corner of the world it occupies ; how it stands there , away off shore , more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse . Look at it — a mere hillock , and elbow of sand ; all beach , without a background . There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper . Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there , they don’t grow naturally ; that they import Canada thistles ; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask ; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome ; that people there plant toadstools before their houses , to get under the shade in summer time ; that one blade of grass makes an oasis , three blades in a day’s walk a prairie ; that they wear quicksand shoes , something like Laplander snow - shoes ; that they are so shut up , belted about , every way inclosed , surrounded , and made an utter island of by the ocean , that to their very chairs and tables small clams will sometimes be found adhering , as to the backs of sea turtles . But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois . Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was settled by the red - men . Thus goes the legend . In olden times an eagle swooped down upon the New England coast , and carried off an infant Indian in his talons . With loud lament the parents saw their child borne out of sight over the wide waters . They resolved to follow in the same direction . Setting out in their canoes , after a perilous passage they discovered the island , and there they found an empty ivory casket , — the poor little Indian’s skeleton .
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