- end_line
- 1554
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-18T02:42:15.044Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1522
- text
- ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough,
with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four
harpooneers to sleep abreast.
“There,” said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest
that did double duty as a wash-stand 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, I stooped over the bed. Though none of
the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then
glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table,
could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf,
the four walls, and a papered fireboard 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 bone
fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place, and a tall harpoon
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 tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an
Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as
you see the same in South American ponchos. 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
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
- title
- The Chapel