{"id":"01KF7FPMED7GRJE5KGSA7HTSM1","cid":"bafkreif7g5y2c73fjfryenjbcpligtxjwyf5l34bfcbivxvythakqvay2u","type":"chapter","properties":{"end_line":1744,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:15.047Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Nightgown","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":1675,"text":"\r\nAll these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and seeing\r\nhim now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business\r\noperations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high time,\r\nnow or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which\r\nI had so long been bound.\r\n\r\nBut the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one.\r\nTaking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for\r\nan instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the\r\nhandle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment\r\nthe light was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between\r\nhis teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it\r\nnow; and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me.\r\n\r\nStammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him\r\nagainst the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might\r\nbe, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his\r\nguttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my\r\nmeaning.\r\n\r\n“Who-e debel you?”—he at last said—“you no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e.”\r\nAnd so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the\r\ndark.\r\n\r\n“Landlord, for God’s sake, Peter Coffin!” shouted I. “Landlord! Watch!\r\nCoffin! Angels! save me!”\r\n\r\n“Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!” again growled the\r\ncannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the\r\nhot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire.\r\nBut thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light\r\nin hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.\r\n\r\n“Don’t be afraid now,” said he, grinning again, “Queequeg here wouldn’t\r\nharm a hair of your head.”\r\n\r\n“Stop your grinning,” shouted I, “and why didn’t you tell me that that\r\ninfernal harpooneer was a cannibal?”\r\n\r\n“I thought ye know’d it;—didn’t I tell ye, he was a peddlin’ heads\r\naround town?—but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look\r\nhere—you sabbee me, I sabbee—you this man sleepe you—you sabbee?”\r\n\r\n“Me sabbee plenty”—grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and\r\nsitting up in bed.\r\n\r\n“You gettee in,” he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and\r\nthrowing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a\r\ncivil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a\r\nmoment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely\r\nlooking cannibal. What’s all this fuss I have been making about,\r\nthought I to myself—the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just\r\nas much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep\r\nwith a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.\r\n\r\n“Landlord,” said I, “tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or\r\nwhatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will\r\nturn in with him. But I don’t fancy having a man smoking in bed with\r\nme. It’s dangerous. Besides, I ain’t insured.”\r\n\r\nThis being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely\r\nmotioned me to get into bed—rolling over to one side as much as to\r\nsay—“I won’t touch a leg of ye.”\r\n\r\n“Good night, landlord,” said I, “you may go.”\r\n\r\nI turned in, and never slept better in my life.\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Nightgown"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:15.785Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:15.785Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}