Starbuck: I never thought I would waste away like this. I never thought my flesh would end up so thin, that I would end up so unhealthy, that my stomach would stir and stir in my gut, that I would be filled with food-stealing parasites head to foot. O this rain will simply wash away my flesh; I have nothing left. I wish this rain would wash me away, and carry every particle of my being out into the sea, and spread me universally out throughout the sea; and there would be nothing left of me at all, not a thought, not an emotion, no prayers, no blasphemies, no piety, no anguish, would that I could be nothing at all.

O it could be nothing, it could be nothing, but I think this fever is my death sickness. Yes, I’m dying and dying, I’m lying prone with malaria, and I don’t bother to swipe at the mosquitoes that bite me anymore, I’m pale and sweating cold sweat and filled with delirium. O it could be nothing, it could all be a dream, but I think this is my death sickness. I shall be dying forever, dying and dying and dying and dying, forever dying, never sweetly dead, forever failing, never extinguished.

Are these the fruits of a faithless life? Or are these simply the fruits of a chaotic universe, with no clear rules, with no ruler, with nothing in it like a law? There are no laws of nature, there is nothing that says, "If P then Q," there are no rules as to what happens in the grave, it is all turmoil and chaos. O these are the fruits of the wildness of nature, as wild as that stormy sea, and beyond the grave lies a wilderness that shall forever be untouched by humankind.