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Updated: April 30, 2025
Let them, however, imagine a small and dirty cabin, into which no one is admitted save by the companion-door and a small sky-light that cannot be opened in rough weather let them imagine, if they can, the "villanous compound of smells," produced by confined air, the flavour of bilge water, agitated in the hold of the ship, and diffused through every creaking crevice, and pitch, and effluvia of rancid salt meat and broth, and the products of universal sea-sickness, altogether inevitable in such circumstances let them figure such a confined hole filled with human beings, crammed into smaller holes all around, called beds, or laid on shakedowns upon the floor, or stretched upon the lockers, in that state of despondency which overwhelming sickness induces; and they have a picture of the Good Intent's cabin and state-room during the voyage to which I refer.
Besides, if it were so that any mere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask's official capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample vengeance, was to go aft at dinner-time, and get a peep at Flask through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before awful Ahab.
They were in the very act of shoving off when the sound of a sudden commotion in the cabin reached me, quickly followed by cries for help from Sanderson; and, before I had time to reach the sky-light to see what was amiss, up through the companion dashed poor O'Flaherty closely followed by the doctor, the former naked as when he was born, his hair bristling, his eyes aflame with fever, his teeth clenched, and the blood streaming from the disarranged bandages about his right shoulder.
It was a grey windy morning, and as she stood there, alone in that large house save for the cook far away in the kitchen, with a loose slate rattling in the gusts, and a glimpse of clouds driving over the sky-light, she began all at once to feel uncomfortable.
As if to corroborate her words, a piece of rock nearly half a ton in weight fell on the sky-light at that moment, crashed completely through it, through the table below, and even sank into the cabin floor. Fortunately, no one was hurt, though Slag had a narrow escape, but that worthy was not easily intimidated.
The room was melancholy to the last degree, being lit only from a sky-light; relics of the last night's dissipation, in the shape of empty glasses and ends of cigars, were still upon the small round tables; while a two-days-old newspaper was the only literature of which the apartment could boast. "This place and hour would be dull enough, Sir, without your society," observed Richard, genially.
There appeared to be no way but to go up aloft higher, crawl along some stay, and then lower myself down, and to creep through the sky-light. "And be dragged back long before I could get down, even if I could get down at all," I said to myself bitterly. That would not do; there must be some other way.
He had never told me not to look at him, had never seemed to object to the presence of my eyes on anything he did, and as a matter of course I sat observing him, partly because I had never seen any portion of that cabinet open. He turned towards the sky-light near him, and held up between him and it a small something, of which I could just see that it was red, and shone in the light.
It now turned out that he had never visited the island, had never indeed sighted it from the westward before; hence his difficulty in identifying it; but whilst we were all three discussing the matter down below Manuel came to the open sky-light in great trepidation to report shoal water all round the ship.
They were all breathing heavily, and at first going down out of the bright sunshine the faces all looked alike; but after getting a little more accustomed to the gloom, I saw a hand just where the faint rays came down through a little sky-light, and on one of the fingers there was a silver ring.
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