{"id":"01KFNR88ES2497DADQK68RF8GS","cid":"bafkreifn2dndidt4fgvxj27as4s3y5fapyrxbn57akfenza5l3avej4m64","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9209,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.434Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":9143,"text":"CHAPTER 49. The Hyena.\r\n\r\nThere are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed\r\naffair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast\r\npractical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more\r\nthan suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.\r\nHowever, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He\r\nbolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all\r\nhard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich\r\nof potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for\r\nsmall difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril\r\nof life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly,\r\ngood-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen\r\nand unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am\r\nspeaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation;\r\nit comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before\r\nmight have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part\r\nof the general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to\r\nbreed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with\r\nit I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White\r\nWhale its object.\r\n\r\n“Queequeg,” said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the\r\ndeck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the\r\nwater; “Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often\r\nhappen?” Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he\r\ngave me to understand that such things did often happen.\r\n\r\n“Mr. Stubb,” said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his\r\noil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; “Mr. Stubb, I\r\nthink I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief\r\nmate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. I suppose\r\nthen, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy\r\nsquall is the height of a whaleman’s discretion?”\r\n\r\n“Certain. I’ve lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off\r\nCape Horn.”\r\n\r\n“Mr. Flask,” said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing\r\nclose by; “you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you\r\ntell me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask,\r\nfor an oarsman to break his own back pulling himself back-foremost into\r\ndeath’s jaws?”\r\n\r\n“Can’t you twist that smaller?” said Flask. “Yes, that’s the law. I\r\nshould like to see a boat’s crew backing water up to a whale face\r\nforemost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind\r\nthat!”\r\n\r\nHere then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement\r\nof the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsizings\r\nin the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters of\r\ncommon occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the\r\nsuperlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign\r\nmy life into the hands of him who steered the boat—oftentimes a fellow\r\nwho at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of\r\nscuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that\r\nthe particular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be\r\nimputed to Starbuck’s driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a\r\nsquall, and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for\r\nhis great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged to\r\nthis uncommonly prudent Starbuck’s boat; and finally considering in\r\nwhat a devil’s chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale: taking\r\nall things together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make\r\na rough draft of my will. “Queequeg,” said I, “come along, you shall be\r\nmy lawyer, executor, and legatee.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84DQM82QJFT277CR89S3","peer_label":"49","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84DQM82QJFT277CR89S3","peer_label":"49","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":"01KFNR88DPCD6GTWSWWFR33HHD","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.108Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.786Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}