Moby Dick

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time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at
least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of evil
in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. They
declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they had
heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay.

The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see
to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as
in the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of
the voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly
connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be;
therefore, they were going to leave the ship's stern unprovided with a
buoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint
concerning his coffin.

"A life-buoy of a coffin!" cried Starbuck, starting.