Landlord I whispered as the man passed which one is the harpooner Oh none of these he said grinning The harpooner is a dark chap And he eats nothing but rare steak Groups of rowdy seamen came and went but the harpooner was never among them Finally I called to the landlord What sort of chap keeps such late hours as this harpooner He’s not normally so late the landlord said It must be that he couldn’t sell his head Do you mean to say that this harpooner is actually out peddling his head around town The landlord nodded I told him not to The market’s flooded At this I lost my temper I come to your house and want a bed You tell me you’ll give me half a bed but a harpooner fills the other half Now he’s out selling his head Do you think I would sleep with a madman Or give money to a trickster 6
Be easy the landlord said calmly The harpooner just returned from the South Seas He brought up a lot of shrunken heads from New Zealand Why had he not spoken plainly before The landlord chuckled The harpooner’s never been this late He must have found other lodgings Let me show you the bed I followed him to another freezing room with a huge bed The landlord placed his candle on the old sea chest that served as a table Then he bid me good night and left A tall harpoon leaned against one wall with a seaman’s bag close by I wasted no more time looking around and tumbled into bed I had drifted into a light doze when I heard heavy footfalls in the passage A glimmer of light came from under the door The harpooner I lay perfectly still The stranger came into the room with a candle in one hand and a shrunken head in the other 7
I had just begun to breathe again when the man pulled off his hat He was bald with only a small knot of hair twisted up on his forehead The skin of his bald head glowed purplish Finally he turned to face me in the glow of the candle I thought for a moment that the man had been badly beaten because his face was so marked Then I realized the marks were tattoos If he had not been standing between me and the door I would have run I considered climbing out the window as the harpooner undressed for bed Suddenly he lurched toward the bed with his tomahawk in hand Speak he demanded Are you a devil here to kill me in the night I’ll kill you first Help I shrieked Landlord Save me Who are you the harpooner demanded again waving the tomahawk around At that moment the landlord burst into the room I scrambled from the bed and ran to him 9
