CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn (the New Bedford inn where Ishmael takes a bed).

Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling (to trail behind in disorder) entry with old-fashioned (of the old fashion) wainscots (wooden boards lining the lower part of a wall), reminding one of the bulwarks (a defending wall) of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large oilpainting (a picture made with colours mixed in oil) so thoroughly besmoked (to make black with smoke), and every way defaced (defaced: spoiled the surface of), that in the unequal crosslights (light coming from the side) by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags (an ugly old woman; a witch), had endeavored to delineate (to describe in detail) chaos bewitched (to charm as by magic). But by dint (a small dent) of much and earnest contemplation (quiet steady gazing; deep thought), and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however wild, might not be altogether unwarranted.

But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber (the wheeled front of a gun carriage), portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy (soft and wet underfoot), soggy (wet and soft), squitchy (soft and wet underfoot) picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained (only partly reached), unimaginable (too strange to picture in the mind) sublimity (lofty grandeur) about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.—It’s the Black Sea in a midnight gale.—It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.—It’s a blasted heath.—It’s a Hyperborean (of the far north) winter scene.—It’s the breaking-up (coming apart) of the icebound (shut in by ice) stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture’s midst. That once found out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?

In fact, the artist’s design seemed this: a final theory of my own, partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner (a ship or man that has rounded Cape Horn) in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering (to roll and toss about) there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated (worn out with anger) whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling (to drive a sharp point through) himself upon the three mast-heads.

The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish (not Christian; wild) array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted (tufted: in tufts) with knots of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped (curved like a sickle), with a vast handle sweeping round like the segment made in the new-mown (freshly cut) grass by a long-armed (having long arms) mower (one who cuts hay). You shuddered (a shiver of horror) as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal (one who eats human flesh) and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting (gathering in the dead) with such a hacking, horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan (a prophet of the Bible; also a man's name) Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon—so like a corkscrew now—was flung in Javan (of Java, a large island of southeast Asia) seas, and run away with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco (a Spanish word meaning white). The original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning (a short stay) in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded (imbedded: fixed deep inside) in the hump.

Crossing this dusky (dark; dark-skinned) entry, and on through yon (yonder; that over there) low-arched (with a low curved roof) way—cut through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with fireplaces all round—you enter the public room. A still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous (heavy and slow) beams above, and such old wrinkled (a crease line in the skin) planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod (worn down by treading) some old craft’s cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored (held fast at the corners) old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like (like a flat board fixed to a wall) table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wide world’s remotest (farthest away) nooks (a small sheltered corner). Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-looking (dark in look) den—the bar—a rude attempt at a right whale (the slow thick whale with long strainers in its mouth)’s head. Be that how it may, there stands the vast arched bone of the whale’s jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters (a glass bottle for wine), bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors deliriums (wild fever dreams) and death.

Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true cylinders without—within, the villanous (wicked) green goggling (staring with wide eyes) glasses deceitfully (in a lying way) tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads (a robber who works on foot)’ goblets (a drinking cup with a stem). Fill to this mark, and your charge is but a penny; to this a penny more; and so on to the full glass—the Cape Horn (the stormy southern tip of South America) measure, which you may gulp (one big swallow) down for a shilling (an old British coin; twenty made a pound).

Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of skrimshander (carved work made on whale bone or teeth). I sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a room, received for answer that his house was full—not a bed unoccupied. “But avast (stop),” he added, tapping his forehead, “you haint (is not) no objections to sharing a harpooneer’s blanket, have ye? I s’pose you are goin’ a-whalin’, so you’d better get used (use: habit; custom — the old sense here) to that sort of thing.”

I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I should ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with the half of any decent man’s blanket.

“I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?—you want supper? Supper’ll be ready directly.”

I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the Battery (a park at the southern tip of Manhattan, facing the sea). At one end a ruminating (to chew over in thought) tar was still further adorning (to decorate) it with his jack-knife (a folding pocket knife), stooping (to bend down) over and diligently (with steady care) working away at the space between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but he didn’t make much headway, I thought.

At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland—no fire at all—the landlord said he couldn (could — couldn't: could not)’t afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow (candle fat) candles, each in a winding sheet. We were fain (fain: gladly — the old sense here) to button up our monkey jackets, and hold to our lips cups of scalding (scalded: burned with hot liquid or steam) tea with our half frozen fingers. But the fare was of the most substantial kind—not only meat and potatoes, but dumplings (a small ball of boiled dough); good heavens! dumplings for supper! One young fellow in a green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful (dreadful) manner.

“My boy,” said the landlord, “you’ll have the nightmare to a dead sartainty (certainty, said in dialect).”

“Landlord,” I whispered, “that aint the harpooneer is it?”

“Oh, no,” said he, looking a sort of diabolically (like a devil) funny, “the harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he don’t—he eats nothing but steaks, and he likes ’em rare.”

“The devil he does,” says I. “Where is that harpooneer? Is he here?”

“He’ll be here afore (before — dialect) long,” was the answer.

I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this “dark complexioned” harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into bed before I did.

Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room (a room where drink is sold), when, knowing not what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the evening as a looker on.

Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord cried, “That’s the Grampus (a kind of small whale; also the name of a ship)’s crew. I seed her reported in the offing this morning; a three years’ voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah (a cheer), boys; now we’ll have the latest news from the Feegees (the Fiji islands).”

A tramping (stamping heavily) of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their shaggy (covered with rough hair) watch coats, and with their heads muffled (softened; wrapped so as to quiet) in woollen comforters, all bedarned (bedarned: mended with stitches) and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles (a hanging spike of ice), they seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador (a cold northern coast of Canada). They had just landed from their boat, and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they made a straight wake for the whale’s mouth—the bar—when the wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating (acting in a set office at a rite), soon poured them out brimmers (a cup filled to the top) all round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like (like thick black tar) potion of gin and molasses (molasses: a thick dark sweet syrup), which he swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs (heavy colds in the nose and throat) whatsoever, never mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the weather side of an ice-island (a floating mountain of ice).

The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even with the arrantest (thorough; downright) topers (one who drinks strong drink often) newly landed from sea, and they began capering about most obstreperously (with loud and unruly noise).

I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof (apart; at a distance), and though he seemed desirous (wishing) not to spoil the hilarity (loud laughing fun) of his shipmates (a fellow sailor) by his own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise as the rest. This man interested (interest: the spectacle that draws a crowd — the old sense here) me at once; and since the sea-gods (gods of the sea in old tales) had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a sleeping-partner (one who shares a bed) one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I will here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam (a water tight case built to keep water out). I have seldom seen such brawn (pressed meat; muscle) in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences (a remembered story of the past) that did not seem to give him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner (a man from the southern states of America), and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall mountaineers (mountaineers: people of the mountains) from the Alleghanian (of the Allegheny mountains in the eastern United States) Ridge (a long raised line along the top) in Virginia. When the revelry (noisy merrymaking) of his companions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away unobserved (without being seen), and I saw no more of him till he became my comrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his shipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favourite with them, they raised a cry of “Bulkington (a tall silent sailor Ishmael meets at the inn)! Bulkington! where’s Bulkington?” and darted out of the house in pursuit of him.

It was now about nine o’clock, and the room seeming almost supernaturally (beyond nature's course) quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance of the seamen.

No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I don’t know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they all sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin.

The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated (to hate) the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest (neatest), certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards (toward bed). Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight—how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming?

“Landlord! I’ve changed my mind about that harpooneer.—I shan’t sleep with him. I’ll try the bench here.”

“Just as you please; I’m sorry I can’t spare ye a tablecloth for a mattress, and it’s a plaguy (bothersome) rough board here”—feeling of the knots and notches. “But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I’ve got a carpenter’s plane there in the bar—wait, I say, and I’ll make ye snug (warm and comfortable) enough.” So saying he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief (a cloth for the nose or eyes) first dusting the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the plane-iron (the blade in a tool for smoothing wood) came bump against an indestructible (impossible to destroy) knot. The landlord was near spraining (a wrenched joint) his wrist, and I told him for heaven’s sake to quit—the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could make eider (a sea duck with very soft feathers) down of a pine plank. So gathering up the shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a brown study.

I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher than the planed one—so there was no yoking (a harness; subjection) them. I then placed the first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I soon found that there came such a draught (at one draught: in one swallow) of cold air over me from under the sill (silly; foolish) of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety (shaky and about to fall) door met the one from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night.

The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn’t I steal a march on him—bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be wakened (to wake) by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea; but upon second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down!

Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending a sufferable (able to be borne) night unless in some other person’s bed, I began to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable (not to be justified) prejudices against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I’ll wait awhile; he must be dropping in before long. I’ll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows (bed-fellow: one who shares a bed) after all—there’s no telling.

But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.

“Landlord!” said I, “what sort of a chap is he—does he always keep such late hours?” It was now hard upon twelve o’clock.

The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be mightily (greatly) tickled at something beyond my comprehension. “No,” he answered, “generally he’s an early bird—airley (early, said in dialect) to bed and airley to rise—yes, he’s the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out a peddling (small and petty), you see, and I don’t see what on airth (earth, said in dialect) keeps him so late, unless, may be, he can’t sell his head.”

“Can’t sell his head?—What sort of a bamboozingly (in a way meant to fool) story is this you are telling me?” getting into a towering rage. “Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town?”

“That’s precisely it,” said the landlord, “and I told him he couldn’t sell it here, the market’s overstocked (to fill with more than is needed).”

“With what?” shouted I.

“With heads to be sure; ain’t there too many heads in the world?”

“I tell you what it is, landlord,” said I quite calmly, “you’d better stop spinning that yarn to me—I’m not green.”

“May be not,” taking out a stick and whittling (whittling: shaving wood with a knife) a toothpick, “but I rayther (Yorkshire for rather) guess you’ll be done brown if that ere (before — an old word) harpooneer hears you a slanderin (speaking evil of)’ his head.”

“I’ll break it for him,” said I, now flying into a passion again at this unaccountable farrago (a confused mixture) of the landlord’s.

“It’s broke a’ready,” said he.

“Broke,” said I—“broke, do you mean?”

“Sartain, and that’s the very reason he can’t sell it, I guess.”

“Landlord,” said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla (a burning mountain in Iceland) in a snow-storm—“landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying (making hard to understand) and exasperating (maddening) stories tending to beget (begotten: born of) in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you design for my bedfellow—a sort of connexion (connection), landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay (to take back what was said) that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I’ve no idea of sleeping with a madman; and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render yourself liable to a criminal prosecution.”

“Wall,” said the landlord, fetching a long breath, “that’s a purty (pretty, said in dialect) long sarmon (sermon, said in dialect) for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin’ you of has just arrived from the south seas (the Pacific ocean), where he bought up a lot of ’balmed (balmed: soothed as with sweet oil) New Zealand (a country of two islands in the south Pacific) heads (great curios (a small rare object kept for its interest), you know), and he’s sold all on ’em but one, and that one he’s trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow’s Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin (selling)’ human heads about the streets when folks is goin’ to churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin’ out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the airth like a string of inions (the bump at the back of the skull).”

This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me—but at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal (one who eats human flesh) business as selling the heads of dead idolators (a person who prays to an image)?

“Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man.”

“He pays reg’lar (a household god of the old Romans),” was the rejoinder (a sharp answer back). “But come, it’s getting dreadful late, you had better be turning flukes (a lucky chance)—it’s a nice bed; Sal (a woman's name, used for a sailor's wife) and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced (to join two ropes by weaving the ends). There’s plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed; it’s an almighty big bed that. Why, afore (before — dialect) we give it up, Sal used (use: habit; custom — the old sense here) to put our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling (spread out loosely) about one night, and somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm. Arter (after, said in dialect) that, Sal said it wouldn (would — wouldn't: would not)’t do. Come along here, I’ll give ye a glim (a light or lantern) in a jiffy (a moment);” and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute (unable to decide); when looking at a clock in the corner, he exclaimed (to cry out) “I vum (to swear, said in dialect) it’s Sunday—you won’t see that harpooneer to-night; he’s come to anchor somewhere—come along then; do come; won’t ye come?”

I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went, and I was ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough, with a prodigious (enormous) bed, almost big enough indeed for any four harpooneers to sleep abreast (side by side).

“There,” said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest that did double duty as a wash-stand (a stand holding a basin) and centre table; “there, make yourself comfortable now, and good night to ye.” I turned round from eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared.

Folding back the counterpane (a bed cover), I stooped (to bend down) over the bed. Though none of the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably (fairly; reasonably) well. I then glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead (the frame of a bed) and centre table, could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four walls, and a papered fireboard (a board set before a fireplace) representing a man striking a whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a large seaman’s bag, containing the harpooneer’s wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish (strange and foreign) bone fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place, and a tall harpoon (a spear on a rope, thrown to catch a whale) standing at the head of the bed.

But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little tinkling (to ring lightly) tags something like the stained porcupine (the spiny animal) quills (a feather pen) round an Indian moccasin (moccasins: soft hide shoes). There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see the same in South American ponchos (cloaks made of one piece with a hole for the head). But could it be possible that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I put it on, to try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy (covered with rough hair) and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit of glass stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life. I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck.

I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this head-peddling (going about selling heads) harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time on the bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then stood in the middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought a little more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now, half undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about the harpooneer’s not coming home at all that night, it being so very late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons (loose trousers) and boots, and then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself to the care of heaven.

Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery (dishes and cups), there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze (nineteen to the dozen: without stopping), and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy footfall (the sound of a step) in the passage (passage: a sea-journey — the old sense here), and saw a glimmer (to shine faintly) of light come into the room from under the door.

Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal (hellish; devilish) head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on the floor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted cords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted (to turn away; ward off) for some time while employed in unlacing (to undo the cords of) the bag’s mouth. This accomplished, however, he turned round—when, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was of a dark, purplish (somewhat purple), yellow colour, here and there stuck over with large blackish looking squares. Yes, it’s just as I thought, he’s a terrible bedfellow; he’s been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be sticking-plasters (strips that stick over cuts) at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this; but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of a white man—a whaleman (a man who hunts whales) too—who, falling among the cannibals, had been tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And what is it, thought I, after all! It’s only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly (not of this earth) complexion, that part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely independent of the squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of tropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun’s tanning a white man into a purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in the South Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk (a light axe of the American peoples), and a seal-skin (the skin of a sea beast used for clothing) wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in the middle of the room, he then took the New Zealand head—a ghastly (horrible; deathly pale) thing enough—and crammed (to stuff full) it down into the bag. He now took off his hat—a new beaver hat—when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise. There was no hair on his head—none to speak of at least—nothing but a small scalp-knot (the lock of hair on the top of the head) twisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed (the mould that grows on damp things) skull. Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, I would have bolted out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner.

Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of this head-peddling purple rascal (a dishonest rogue) altogether passed my comprehension. Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed (to leave at a loss what to say) and confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer concerning what seemed inexplicable (impossible to explain) in him.

Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were checkered with the same squares as his face; his back, too, was all over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years’ War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still more, his very legs were marked, as if a parcel of dark green frogs were running up the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that he must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to think of it. A peddler of heads too—perhaps the heads of his own brothers. He might take a fancy to mine—heavens! look at that tomahawk!

But there was no time for shuddering (a shiver of horror), for now the savage went about something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego (a short thick hooded coat), or wrapall (a garment that wraps right round), or dreadnaught (a thick coat that keeps out cold and wet), which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with a hunch (humped) on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days’ old Congo (a great river and region of Africa) baby. Remembering the embalmed (treated so the dead body will keep) head, at first I almost thought that this black manikin (a very small man) was a real baby preserved in some similar manner. But seeing that it was not at all limber (the wheeled front of a gun carriage), and that it glistened (to shine wetly) a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board (a board set before a fireplace), sets up this little hunch-backed (with a rounded back) image, like a tenpin (a shaped piece of wood knocked down in a game), between the andirons (an iron bar that holds logs in a fire). The chimney jambs (the upright sides of a doorway) and all the bricks inside were very sooty (black with soot), so that I thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine or chapel for his Congo idol.

I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but ill at ease meantime—to see what was next to follow. First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places them carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into a sacrificial (offered up to a god) blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the fire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be scorching (burned at the surface) them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit; then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all; he never moved his lips. All these strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural (from deep in the throat) noises from the devotee (an ardent follower), who seemed to be praying in a sing-song (in a rising and falling chant) or else singing some pagan psalmody (psalm-singing) or other, during which his face twitched about in the most unnatural manner. At last extinguishing (put out) the fire, he took the idol up very unceremoniously (without ceremony), and bagged it again in his grego pocket as carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock.

All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness (the state of being ill at ease), and seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high time, now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which I had so long been bound.

But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one. Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for an instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment the light was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between his teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now; and giving a sudden grunt (a village on the Austrian campaign road) of astonishment (great surprise) he began feeling me.

Stammering (to speak with halting breaks) out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him against the wall, and then conjured (to beg solemnly) him, whoever or whatever he might be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my meaning.

“Who-e (who, said in broken English) debel (devil, said in dialect) you?”—he at last said—“you no speak-e (speak, said in broken English), dam-me (damn me, an oath), I kill-e (kill, said in broken English).” And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the dark.

“Landlord, for God’s sake, Peter Coffin (the landlord of the Spouter Inn at New Bedford)!” shouted I. “Landlord! Watch! Coffin (the box a dead body is laid in; also a common family name on Nantucket)! Angels! save me!”

“Speak-e! tell-ee (tell, said in broken English) me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!” again growled the cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire. But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.

“Don’t be afraid now,” said he, grinning again, “Queequeg (the tattooed harpooneer from a Pacific island, Ishmael's friend) here wouldn (would — wouldn't: would not)’t harm a hair of your head.”

“Stop your grinning,” shouted I, “and why didn’t you tell me that that infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?”

“I thought ye know’d it;—didn’t I tell ye, he was a peddlin (peddling)’ heads around town?—but turn flukes (a lucky chance) again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look here—you sabbee (understand, said in broken English) me, I sabbee—you this man sleepe (sleeper: one who sleeps) you—you sabbee?”

“Me sabbee plenty”—grunted (made a short low sound) Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and sitting up in bed.

“You gettee (get, said in broken English) in,” he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely (pleasing to look at) looking cannibal. What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself—the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

“Landlord,” said I, “tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will turn in with him. But I don’t fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. It’s dangerous. Besides, I ain’t insured.”

This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely motioned me to get into bed—rolling over to one side as much as to say—“I won’t touch a leg of ye.”

“Good night, landlord,” said I, “you may go.”

I turned in, and never slept better in my life.