“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.” (519) This quote is interesting because Melville once again uses words that are in direct contradiction to each other. One of the first times that this is noted is in the introduction of Ahab when he is described as being a “grand, ungodly, god like man.” Just as this description of Ahab reflect the complexity and contradictory nature of the character, so too does the use of contradiction imply a similar complexity to the state in which Queequeg finds himself in. Queequeg is at the brink of death and this expression of endless end implies the permanence of the soul after death. As Ishmael stresses in this sentence, Queequeg is pagan and the common Christian belief is that his pagan soul is damned to existence in hell. The language in this quote does not indicate any doomed judgment of his soul. Queequeg is described as a companion and bosom friend to Ishmael and the reader it makes no sense to imagine that Ishmael thinks or fears for his friend’s soul. Melville uses the word endless to refer to the soul but he has also used this word to refer to the ocean. Thus, as readers, we can make the argument that in dying Queequeg is leaving mortality to become an immortal being something akin to an ocean in it’s vastness. This gives him a spirit like quality that is at interesting odds with the god like yet ultimately mortal Ahab. It’s worth bringing it up because Ishmael is once again showing the reader that he does not blindly follow the doctrine in which he was raised but rather lets his own lived experiences inform his own opinions in regards of the condition of the soul after death.