Caught and twisted—corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose harpoons and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab's boat.
We were to buy the tea, select the silk, and then clamber up the iron corkscrew stairs that led into what was once a loft, though now a fashion show-room.
You see, a honeybee's stinger is barbed and doesn't exactly stab, but screws into your flesh like a corkscrew, driving their whole stinger into your skin and injecting a venom called apitoxin.
When the bee tries to pull away after corkscrew stabbing you, its stinger gets caught in our skin, and it's ripped right out of the bee's abdomen as it tries to fly away.