{"id":"01KFNR86VBD1MDSMVKBYT1G03T","cid":"bafkreiaovtji7rp6tjvaz7d5vbx4ivdqcrss76uqu3wi2f7uubqzj6hhia","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4350,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.919Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":4288,"text":"said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my\r\ncomrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner\r\nthat we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging us,\r\nbut with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This\r\ncircumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing,\r\nshrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments\r\nand half-apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain\r\nAhab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver\r\ncalabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship\r\nthe day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the\r\nvoyage we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy\r\nthings.\r\n\r\nI was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really\r\ndogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg,\r\nand on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on,\r\nwithout seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once more, and\r\nfinally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 20. All Astir.\r\n\r\nA day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod.\r\nNot only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on\r\nboard, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything\r\nbetokened that the ship’s preparations were hurrying to a close.\r\nCaptain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam\r\nkeeping a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing\r\nand providing at the stores; and the men employed in the hold and on\r\nthe rigging were working till long after night-fall.\r\n\r\nOn the day following Queequeg’s signing the articles, word was given at\r\nall the inns where the ship’s company were stopping, that their chests\r\nmust be on board before night, for there was no telling how soon the\r\nvessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps,\r\nresolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they\r\nalways give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail\r\nfor several days. But no wonder; there was a good deal to be done, and\r\nthere is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod\r\nwas fully equipped.\r\n\r\nEvery one knows what a multitude of things—beds, sauce-pans, knives and\r\nforks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, are\r\nindispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling,\r\nwhich necessitates a three-years’ housekeeping upon the wide ocean, far\r\nfrom all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. And\r\nthough this also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any means\r\nto the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great length of\r\nthe whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution\r\nof the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote\r\nharbors usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships,\r\nwhaling vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and\r\nespecially to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which\r\nthe success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare\r\nspars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but\r\na spare Captain and duplicate ship.\r\n\r\nAt the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the\r\nPequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef, bread, water,\r\nfuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time\r\nthere was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and\r\nends of things, both large and small.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84EDG6FN3ANMMKEHPKE3","peer_label":"20","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84EDG6FN3ANMMKEHPKE3","peer_label":"20","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86SRXERM1Z50SBXM80ZJ","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.523Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:15.016Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}