{"id":"01KFNR86ZCBN321ZB56DPNJPQA","cid":"bafkreifo4d7gnwgvx5c42o4qpq7bhsiulephtwfw5ja5ouz3x6nsfjotkm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1721,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.897Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 9","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":1650,"text":"a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing\r\nbut a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage\r\ngoes up to the empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board,\r\nsets up this little hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the\r\nandirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty,\r\nso that I thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine\r\nor chapel for his Congo idol.\r\n\r\nI now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but\r\nill at ease meantime—to see what was next to follow. First he takes\r\nabout a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places\r\nthem carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship biscuit on\r\ntop and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into\r\na sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the\r\nfire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed\r\nto be scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the\r\nbiscuit; then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite\r\noffer of it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to\r\nfancy such dry sort of fare at all; he never moved his lips. All these\r\nstrange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from\r\nthe devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing\r\nsome pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in\r\nthe most unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the\r\nidol up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket\r\nas carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock.\r\n\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","title":"Chunk 9"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR849MRV3B92141XN8VT71","peer_label":"Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR849MRV3B92141XN8VT71","peer_label":"Chapter 3. The Spouter-Inn","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86W2RJYYP9J6Q69M62RC","peer_label":"Chunk 10","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR86ZH7JYXAGQ7WRG7D0MH","peer_label":"Chunk 8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.591Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:15.066Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}