{"id":"01KF7FPTERGDVGGJR3X36S9MVW","cid":"bafkreiafkkr5jyi33ppsg3exgkjrialapxjsfscckx62sc4ls2ohgphxzm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":18307,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.446Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":18230,"text":"CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin.\r\n\r\nAccording to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and lo! no\r\ninconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below must have\r\nsprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck went down into\r\nthe cabin to report this unfavourable affair.*\r\n\r\n*In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it\r\nis a regular semi-weekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and\r\ndrench the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying\r\nintervals, is removed by the ship’s pumps. Hereby the casks are sought\r\nto be kept damply tight; while by the changed character of the\r\nwithdrawn water, the mariners readily detect any serious leakage in the\r\nprecious cargo.\r\n\r\nNow, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and\r\nthe Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from\r\nthe China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab with a\r\ngeneral chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; and\r\nanother separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the\r\nJapanese islands—Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new\r\nivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long\r\npruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man, with\r\nhis back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and tracing his\r\nold courses again.\r\n\r\n“Who’s there?” hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round\r\nto it. “On deck! Begone!”\r\n\r\n“Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir.\r\nWe must up Burtons and break out.”\r\n\r\n“Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to here\r\nfor a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?”\r\n\r\n“Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make\r\ngood in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth\r\nsaving, sir.”\r\n\r\n“So it is, so it is; if we get it.”\r\n\r\n“I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir.”\r\n\r\n“And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it\r\nleak! I’m all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky\r\ncasks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that’s a far\r\nworse plight than the Pequod’s, man. Yet I don’t stop to plug my leak;\r\nfor who can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it,\r\neven if found, in this life’s howling gale? Starbuck! I’ll not have the\r\nBurtons hoisted.”\r\n\r\n“What will the owners say, sir?”\r\n\r\n“Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What\r\ncares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck,\r\nabout those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But\r\nlook ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye,\r\nmy conscience is in this ship’s keel.—On deck!”\r\n\r\n“Captain Ahab,” said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin,\r\nwith a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost\r\nseemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward\r\nmanifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than half\r\ndistrustful of itself; “A better man than I might well pass over in\r\nthee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man; aye, and in\r\na happier, Captain Ahab.”\r\n\r\n“Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?—On\r\ndeck!”\r\n\r\n“Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir—to be forbearing!\r\nShall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?”\r\n\r\nAhab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most\r\nSouth-Sea-men’s cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck,\r\nexclaimed: “There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one\r\nCaptain that is lord over the Pequod.—On deck!”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPP05WY2PSFPFRW3JW66P","peer_label":"Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPP05WY2PSFPFRW3JW66P","peer_label":"Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin","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":"01KF7FPTFM9AWS5V00J6CAMXEE","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.950Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:28.818Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}