{"id":"01KFNR89MAKMNZC9EHW87XG6D3","cid":"bafkreiftss64oo2a3himfgote6ppwcoufi3nwbalw7qgost37m7onvniim","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":16091,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.769Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":16033,"text":"thing, these ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising\r\nthe boats’ crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy,\r\nor timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a\r\nship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by\r\nnick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before;\r\nye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so\r\ngloomy-jolly.\r\n\r\nIn outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and\r\na white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar colour, driven\r\nin one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull\r\nand torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at\r\nbottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness\r\npeculiar to his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and\r\nfestivities with finer, freer relish than any other race. For blacks,\r\nthe year’s calendar should show naught but three hundred and sixty-five\r\nFourth of Julys and New Year’s Days. Nor smile so, while I write that\r\nthis little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy;\r\nbehold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king’s cabinets. But Pip loved\r\nlife, and all life’s peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking\r\nbusiness in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had\r\nmost sadly blurred his brightness; though, as ere long will be seen,\r\nwhat was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was destined to be\r\nluridly illumined by strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him\r\noff to ten times the natural lustre with which in his native Tolland\r\nCounty in Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler’s frolic on\r\nthe green; and at melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned\r\nthe round horizon into one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the\r\nclear air of day, suspended against a blue-veined neck, the\r\npure-watered diamond drop will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning\r\njeweller would show you the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he\r\nlays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun,\r\nbut by some unnatural gases. Then come out those fiery effulgences,\r\ninfernally superb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest\r\nsymbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel stolen from\r\nthe King of Hell. But let us to the story.\r\n\r\nIt came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb’s after-oarsman\r\nchanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed;\r\nand, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.\r\n\r\nThe first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness;\r\nbut happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and\r\ntherefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing\r\nhim, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his courageousness\r\nto the utmost, for he might often find it needful.\r\n\r\nNow upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as\r\nthe fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which\r\nhappened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip’s seat. The\r\ninvoluntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in\r\nhand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale\r\nline coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as\r\nto become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water. That\r\ninstant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly\r\nstraightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks of\r\nthe boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken\r\nseveral turns around his chest and neck.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84F9V753K1RB4Z4DYEA9","peer_label":"Ambergris","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84F9V753K1RB4Z4DYEA9","peer_label":"Ambergris","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":"01KFNR89QZRXAWBA0FVPET64E4","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR89PA4H33580EXXA56YMQ","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.307Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.707Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}