{"id":"01KF7FPTFATP41P3PTGX6WS56A","cid":"bafkreifvjgkazjo2bfkxqotuagvtlddixyj2x27ycircok5urjodnscveu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":21047,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.462Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":20979,"text":"billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to\r\noverleap its summit with their scud.\r\n\r\n*This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its\r\ndesignation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary\r\nup-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called\r\npitchpoling, previously described. By this motion the whale must best\r\nand most comprehensively view whatever objects may be encircling him.\r\n\r\nBut soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round\r\nand round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful\r\nwake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly\r\nassault. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the\r\nblood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus’s elephants in the\r\nbook of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the\r\nwhale’s insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim,—though he\r\ncould still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that;\r\nhelpless Ahab’s head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least\r\nchance shock might burst. From the boat’s fragmentary stern, Fedallah\r\nincuriously and mildly eyed him; the clinging crew, at the other\r\ndrifting end, could not succor him; more than enough was it for them to\r\nlook to themselves. For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale’s\r\naspect, and so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made,\r\nthat he seemed horizontally swooping upon them. And though the other\r\nboats, unharmed, still hovered hard by; still they dared not pull into\r\nthe eddy to strike, lest that should be the signal for the instant\r\ndestruction of the jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all; nor in that\r\ncase could they themselves hope to escape. With straining eyes, then,\r\nthey remained on the outer edge of the direful zone, whose centre had\r\nnow become the old man’s head.\r\n\r\nMeantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship’s\r\nmast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene;\r\nand was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her!—“Sail on\r\nthe”—but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and\r\nwhelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing\r\nto rise on a towering crest, he shouted,—“Sail on the whale!—Drive him\r\noff!”\r\n\r\nThe Pequod’s prows were pointed; and breaking up the charmed circle,\r\nshe effectually parted the white whale from his victim. As he sullenly\r\nswam off, the boats flew to the rescue.\r\n\r\nDragged into Stubb’s boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the white\r\nbrine caking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab’s bodily\r\nstrength did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body’s doom: for a\r\ntime, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb’s boat, like one trodden\r\nunder foot of herds of elephants. Far inland, nameless wails came from\r\nhim, as desolate sounds from out ravines.\r\n\r\nBut this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much the more\r\nabbreviate it. In an instant’s compass, great hearts sometimes condense\r\nto one deep pang, the sum total of those shallow pains kindly diffused\r\nthrough feebler men’s whole lives. And so, such hearts, though summary\r\nin each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it, in their life-time\r\naggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous\r\nintensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble natures\r\ncontain the entire circumferences of inferior souls.\r\n\r\n“The harpoon,” said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly leaning on\r\none bended arm—“is it safe?”\r\n\r\n“Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it,” said Stubb, showing it.\r\n\r\n“Lay it before me;—any missing men?”\r\n\r\n“One, two, three, four, five;—there were five oars, sir, and here are\r\nfive men.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPP1KY7X3H2X34N66JHE1","peer_label":"Chapter 133","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPP1KY7X3H2X34N66JHE1","peer_label":"Chapter 133","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":"01KF7FPTEV5N98TXMF37V9JPGM","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KF7FPTG77JT89QHEWDYEF9BF","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:22.020Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:28.910Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}