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Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of "The Trap!"

It was a negro church; and the preacher's text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there.

A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit.

It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet.* *Valley south of Jerusalem, symbolic of ****.

However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door.

But "The Crossed Harpoons," and "The Sword-Fish?" -- this, then, must needs be the sign of "The Trap".

Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah?* *With Sodom, a sinful city destroyed by God; see the Bible, Genesis 18-19. Yeah! It's the cover to an album by a band called Ahab; it's a funeral doom record, so it's very plodding...

It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an ashbox in the porch.

But presently I came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open.

At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved to be all but deserted.

Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb.

I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward, to for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns.

So on I went.

But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don't you hear? get away from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way.

Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the broad glass in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within.

Further on, from the bright red windows of the "Sword-Fish Inn," there came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement, -- rather weary for me, when I...

With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of "The Crossed Harpoons" -- but it looked too expensive and jolly there.

With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver, -- So, whenever you go, Ishmael, said I, to myself as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the south -- wherever...

I knew no one in the place.

It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless.