She was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with pendants of polished ivory.

She was a thing of trophies.

A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies.

All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to.

Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory.