Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me that he must indeed be a heathen.

 

[Old Thunder]

Going to his heavy grego,* or wrapall, or dreadnaught, 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 on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days' old Congo baby.

*Jacket.

 

[Old Thunder]

Remember the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar manner.

 

[Old Thunder]

But seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be.

 

[Old Thunder]

For now the savage goes up to the empty fireplace, and removing the papered fireboard, sets up this little hunchbacked image, like a tenpin, between the andirons.

 

[Old Thunder]

The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I thought this fireplace made a very appropriate little shrine or chapel for his Congo idol.

 

[Old Thunder]

I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but ill at ease meantime -- to see what was next to follow.

 

[Old Thunder]

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 blaze.

 

[Old Thunder]

Presently, after many hasty snatches into the fire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be scorching 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.

 

[Old Thunder]

But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all; he never moved his lips.