- end_line
- 3627
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:18.535Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3577
- text
- out on a pile of old sails, in the fore-top; lazily dozing to the
craft’s light roll.
Frequently, I descended to the cabin: for the fiftieth time, exploring
the lockers and state-rooms for some new object of curiosity. And
often, with a glimmering light, I went into the midnight hold, as into
old vaults and catacombs; and creeping between damp ranges of casks,
penetrated into its farthest recesses.
Sometimes, in these under-ground burrowings, I lighted upon sundry
out-of-the-way hiding places of Annatoo’s; where were snugly secreted
divers articles, with which she had been smitten. In truth, no small
portion of the hull seemed a mine of stolen goods, stolen out of its
own bowels. I found a jaunty shore-cap of the captain’s, hidden away in
the hollow heart of a coil of rigging; covered over in a manner most
touchingly natural, with a heap of old ropes; and near by, in a
breaker, discovered several entire pieces of calico, heroically tied
together with cords almost strong enough to sustain the mainmast.
Near the stray light, which, when the hatch was removed, gleamed down
into this part of the hold, was a huge ground-tier butt, headless as
Charles the First. And herein was a mat nicely spread for repose; a
discovery which accounted for what had often proved an enigma. Not
seldom Annatoo had been among the missing; and though, from stem to
stern, loudly invoked to come forth and relieve the poignant distress
of her anxious friends, the dame remained perdu; silent and invisible
as a spirit. But in her own good time, she would mysteriously emerge;
or be suddenly espied lounging quietly in the forecastle, as if she had
been there from all eternity.
Useless to inquire, “Where hast thou been, sweet Annatoo?” For no sweet
rejoinder would she give.
But now the problem was solved. Here, in this silent cask in the hold,
Annatoo was wont to coil herself away, like a garter-snake under a
stone.
Whether-she-thus stood sentry over her goods secreted round about:
whether she here performed penance like a nun in her cell; or was moved
to this unaccountable freak by the powers of the air; no one could
tell. Can you?
Verily, her ways were as the ways of the inscrutable penguins in
building their inscrutable nests, which baffle all science, and make a
fool of a sage.
Marvelous Annatoo! who shall expound thee?
- title
- Chunk 2