Page 29 - SAMPLE Following Frankenstein
P. 29

                and a beard of a fiery hue that extended beyond his belly; and a tattooed harpooner called Queequeg the Second whose father – or so Tommy Tucker claimed – had been the king of an island called Rokovoko, though how such a man had ended up on a whaling ship he did not know.
And then there was Ishmael – the captain. A man of indeterminable age, but an ancient soul according to all who knew him. Count Florenzo told my father that Ishmael had voyaged the furthest seas in pursuit of the greatest whale ever known to man, that he knew of the dark obsession that can capture a man’s soul.
And that he too had seen Frankenstein’s monster.
Ishmael was perhaps the only other person alive who had seen the creature. All the men who had accompanied my father on that first fateful voyage had perished long ago – as if the sight had brought a curse upon them. Some had drowned, some taken by the plague, others by drink or other foul means. All gone. Only my father was left as witness to what happened that day. Now here was another who had seen the monster; knew it to be real.
“I ’eard that Captain Ishmael was on the Pequod – the ship that went after the Great White Whale,” said Jenny Stocking.
23





























































































   27   28   29   30   31