“Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It’s an awful question. Now what’s your answer?”
“When dis old brack man dies,” said the negro slowly, changing his whole air and demeanor, “he hisself won’t go nowhere; but some bressed angel will come and fetch him.”
“Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch him where?”
“Up dere,” said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and keeping it there very solemnly.
“So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when you are dead? But don’t you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? Main-top, eh?”
“Didn’t say dat t’all,” said Fleece, again in the sulks.
“You said up there, didn’t you? and now look yourself, and see where your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber’s hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don’t get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It’s a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it’s no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t’other a’top of your heart, when I’m giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?—that’s your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!—that’s it—now you have it. Hold it there now, and pay attention.”
“All ’dention,” said the old black, with both hands placed as desired, vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at one and the same time.
“Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don’t you?