{"id":"01KF7FPTBR0AESEEW3E5RAQJYD","cid":"bafkreibcgjl52dsiocrfvnlvcpmghi67nnf2p2coy3su5nmd37syueucp4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":20050,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.454Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 8","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":19982,"text":"wail. But this only the more affected some of them, because most\r\nmariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not\r\nonly from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the\r\nhuman look of their round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen\r\npeeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain\r\ncircumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men.\r\n\r\nBut the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible\r\nconfirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At\r\nsun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore;\r\nand whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for\r\nsailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus\r\nwith the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had\r\nnot been long at his perch, when a cry was heard—a cry and a\r\nrushing—and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and\r\nlooking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the\r\nsea.\r\n\r\nThe life-buoy—a long slender cask—was dropped from the stern, where it\r\nalways hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it,\r\nand the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it\r\nslowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at its every pore; and\r\nthe studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to\r\nyield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one.\r\n\r\nAnd thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out\r\nfor the White Whale, on the White Whale’s own peculiar ground; that man\r\nwas swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the\r\ntime. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at\r\nleast as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of\r\nevil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged.\r\nThey declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they\r\nhad heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay.\r\n\r\nThe lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see\r\nto it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as in\r\nthe feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of the\r\nvoyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly\r\nconnected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be;\r\ntherefore, they were going to leave the ship’s stern unprovided with a\r\nbuoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a\r\nhint concerning his coffin.\r\n\r\n“A life-buoy of a coffin!” cried Starbuck, starting.\r\n\r\n“Rather queer, that, I should say,” said Stubb.\r\n\r\n“It will make a good enough one,” said Flask, “the carpenter here can\r\narrange it easily.”\r\n\r\n“Bring it up; there’s nothing else for it,” said Starbuck, after a\r\nmelancholy pause. “Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so—the coffin,\r\nI mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it.”\r\n\r\n“And shall I nail down the lid, sir?” moving his hand as with a hammer.\r\n\r\n“Aye.”\r\n\r\n“And shall I caulk the seams, sir?” moving his hand as with a\r\ncaulking-iron.\r\n\r\n“Aye.”\r\n\r\n“And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?” moving his hand\r\nas with a pitch-pot.\r\n\r\n“Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and\r\nno more.—Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 8"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPNZVQN0MWH12S4195JDT","peer_label":"Chapter 124","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPNZVQN0MWH12S4195JDT","peer_label":"Chapter 124","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"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"},{"peer":"01KF7FPTGGBFP2VZEE7GVMHQVW","peer_label":"Chunk 9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KF7FPTGVB755YNWD925HD5DD","peer_label":"Chunk 7","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.827Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:28.907Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}