{"id":"01KFNR89RYB8R16906GNF60TEH","cid":"bafkreicjmvb2vbpvciexpoheezfp6gyo63e6g4rd6upkyla2ds2pmumtwe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11622,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.725Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":11556,"text":"CHAPTER 64. Stubb’s Supper.\r\n\r\nStubb’s whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a\r\ncalm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow\r\nbusiness of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen\r\nmen with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and\r\nfingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse\r\nin the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long\r\nintervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of\r\nthe mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever\r\nthey call it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will\r\ndraw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this\r\ngrand argosy we towed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-lead\r\nin bulk.\r\n\r\nDarkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod’s\r\nmain-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab\r\ndropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly\r\neyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for\r\nsecuring it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman,\r\nwent his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until\r\nmorning.\r\n\r\nThough, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had\r\nevinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the\r\ncreature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or\r\ndespair, seemed working in him; as if the sight of that dead body\r\nreminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand\r\nother whales were brought to his ship, all that would not one jot\r\nadvance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought\r\nfrom the sound on the Pequod’s decks, that all hands were preparing to\r\ncast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the\r\ndeck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking\r\nlinks, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by\r\nthe head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies\r\nwith its black hull close to the vessel’s and seen through the darkness\r\nof the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two—ship\r\nand whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one\r\nreclines while the other remains standing.*\r\n\r\n*A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most\r\nreliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside,\r\nis by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part is\r\nrelatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its\r\nflexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface;\r\nso that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to\r\nput the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a\r\nsmall, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end,\r\nand a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship.\r\nBy adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side\r\nof the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily\r\nmade to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last\r\nlocked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of\r\njunction with its broad flukes or lobes.\r\n\r\nIf moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known\r\non deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an\r\nunusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was\r\nhe in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned\r\nto him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping\r\ncause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely\r\nmanifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of\r\nthe whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.\r\n\r\n“A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut\r\nme one from his small!”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84CD3NQN7DPAPRQS03X8","peer_label":"64","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84CD3NQN7DPAPRQS03X8","peer_label":"64","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":"01KFNR89RPXFFVS6JJ034TR9H4","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:05.339Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.487Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}