Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

Instantly I felt a shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine.

 

[Old Thunder]

My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bedside.

 

[Old Thunder]

For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken.

 

[Old Thunder]

I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the mystery.

 

[Old Thunder]

Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myself with it.

 

[Old Thunder]

Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strangeness, to those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg's pagan arm thrown round me.

 

[Old Thunder]

But at length all the past night's events soberly recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to the comical predicament.

 

[Old Thunder]

For though I tried to move his arm -- unlock his bridegroom clasp -- yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, as though naught but death should part us twain.

 

[Old Thunder]

I now strove to rouse him -- "Queequeg!" -- but his only answer was a snore.

 

[Old Thunder]

I then rolled over, my neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a slight scratch.