Ace of Swords

Meaning: Success, decisions, and beginnings (The Ultimate Tarot); clarity, focus, vision (Labyrinthos)

Depiction: Queequeg embarks on his whaling career by climbing aboard a ship and not letting go. He clings to the ring bolt on the deck while the captain brandishes a whaling lance over him.

Text: Chapter 12 - Biographical
Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.

In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and Queequeg budged not.

And also:  They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now.

Comments: Yes, I said the captain holds a lance when it's clear from the text it was actually a cutlass: a little poetic license on my part to make sure the lance makes it into this card. The Ace of Swords seems appropriate for Queequeg- the crown symbolizing his royalty, and the weapon as his scepter.