You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal
and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking,
horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances
and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons.
With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did
Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset.
And that harpoon--so like a corkscrew now--was flung in Javan seas,
and run away with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape
of Blanco. The original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless
needle sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet,
and at last was found imbedded in the hump.
Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way--
cut through what in old times must have been a great central
chimney with fireplaces all round--you enter the public room.
A still duskier place is this, with such low ponderous
beams above, and such old wrinkled planks beneath, that you
would almost fancy you trod some old craft's cockpits,
especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored
old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low,
shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with
dusty rarities gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks.
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