{"id":"01KFNR88DES0AE5VN9JRPRBTPV","cid":"bafkreidlx3ba4lxiutlopnbdq5a2mwjaxhwtu3v62n3i2i5sqtq6gyldpi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8914,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.432Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":8854,"text":"boys!)” in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again: “A sad\r\nbusiness, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind,\r\nMr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what\r\nwill. (Spring, my men, spring!) There’s hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr.\r\nStubb, and that’s what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm’s the\r\nplay! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand.”\r\n\r\n“Aye, aye, I thought as much,” soliloquized Stubb, when the boats\r\ndiverged, “as soon as I clapt eye on ’em, I thought so. Aye, and that’s\r\nwhat he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long\r\nsuspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale’s at the bottom\r\nof it. Well, well, so be it! Can’t be helped! All right! Give way, men!\r\nIt ain’t the White Whale to-day! Give way!”\r\n\r\nNow the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant\r\nas the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably\r\nawakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship’s\r\ncompany; but Archy’s fancied discovery having some time previous got\r\nabroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had in some\r\nsmall measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge\r\nof their wonder; and so what with all this and Stubb’s confident way of\r\naccounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from\r\nsuperstitious surmisings; though the affair still left abundant room\r\nfor all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab’s precise agency in\r\nthe matter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the\r\nmysterious shadows I had seen creeping on board the Pequod during the\r\ndim Nantucket dawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the\r\nunaccountable Elijah.\r\n\r\nMeantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the\r\nfurthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; a\r\ncircumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger\r\nyellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five\r\ntrip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which\r\nperiodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst\r\nboiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen\r\npulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and\r\ndisplayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the\r\ngunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery\r\nhorizon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a\r\nfencer’s, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance\r\nany tendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar\r\nas in a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All\r\nat once the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained\r\nfixed, while the boat’s five oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat\r\nand crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in\r\nthe rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily\r\ndown into the blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the\r\nmovement, though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it.\r\n\r\n“Every man look out along his oars!” cried Starbuck. “Thou, Queequeg,\r\nstand up!”\r\n\r\nNimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage\r\nstood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the\r\nspot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme\r\nstern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with\r\nthe gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing\r\nhimself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently\r\neyeing the vast blue eye of the sea.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84DWNMZE862AT9EMY2FD","peer_label":"48","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84DWNMZE862AT9EMY2FD","peer_label":"48","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":"01KFNR88A1TAX0W5CK40JFV8NP","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR88CFMHS2ETGY0DEZYRR7","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.881Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.558Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}