{"id":"01KF7FPP10SW81X9JPK1B56FTM","cid":"bafkreigkbseswlhiuosypuz7lyao7d3tu6eopasoqsutmscr7vtxa5x33y","type":"chapter","properties":{"end_line":19351,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:16.575Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chapter 121","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":19291,"text":"the perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rod which at sea some\r\nships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. But\r\nas this conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may\r\navoid all contact with the hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly\r\ntowing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering\r\nnot a little with some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the\r\nvessel’s way in the water; because of all this, the lower parts of a\r\nship’s lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made\r\nin long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the\r\nchains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require.\r\n\r\n“The rods! the rods!” cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished\r\nto vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been darting\r\nflambeaux, to light Ahab to his post. “Are they overboard? drop them\r\nover, fore and aft. Quick!”\r\n\r\n“Avast!” cried Ahab; “let’s have fair play here, though we be the\r\nweaker side. Yet I’ll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and\r\nAndes, that all the world may be secured; but out on privileges! Let\r\nthem be, sir.”\r\n\r\n“Look aloft!” cried Starbuck. “The corpusants! the corpusants!”\r\n\r\nAll the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each\r\ntri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each of\r\nthe three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like\r\nthree gigantic wax tapers before an altar.\r\n\r\n“Blast the boat! let it go!” cried Stubb at this instant, as a swashing\r\nsea heaved up under his own little craft, so that its gunwale violently\r\njammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing. “Blast it!”—but slipping\r\nbackward on the deck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and\r\nimmediately shifting his tone he cried—“The corpusants have mercy on us\r\nall!”\r\n\r\nTo sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of\r\nthe calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses\r\nfrom the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething\r\nsea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when\r\nGod’s burning finger has been laid on the ship; when His “Mene, Mene,\r\nTekel Upharsin” has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage.\r\n\r\nWhile this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the\r\nenchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, all\r\ntheir eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far away\r\nconstellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the\r\ngigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and\r\nseemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted\r\nmouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely\r\ngleamed as if they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by\r\nthe preternatural light, Queequeg’s tattooing burned like Satanic blue\r\nflames on his body.\r\n\r\nThe tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more\r\nthe Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment\r\nor two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one.\r\nIt was Stubb. “What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not\r\nthe same in the song.”\r\n\r\n“No, no, it wasn’t; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all; and I\r\nhope they will, still. But do they only have mercy on long faces?—have\r","title":"Chapter 121"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:17.431Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:17.431Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}