{"id":"01KFNR8B6DGV96Y4SETNN8S40C","cid":"bafkreic36kicezba7szserdp6vrbz3hkzoom4p4ey7ydkvqo7xzgr5pvq4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":18419,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.404Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":18360,"text":"dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the\r\nhigher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as\r\nharpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but—as\r\nwe have elsewhere seen—mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and\r\nfinally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all\r\nday in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the\r\nclumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen,\r\nthe harpooneers are the holders, so called.\r\n\r\nPoor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should\r\nhave stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there; where,\r\nstripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about\r\namid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom\r\nof a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor\r\npagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he\r\ncaught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after\r\nsome days’ suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill\r\nof the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few\r\nlong-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his\r\nframe and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his\r\ncheek-bones grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller\r\nand fuller; they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but\r\ndeeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony\r\nto that immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And\r\nlike circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand; so his\r\neyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe\r\nthat cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of\r\nthis waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any\r\nbeheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly\r\nwondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And\r\nthe drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all\r\nwith a last revelation, which only an author from the dead could\r\nadequately tell. So that—let us say it again—no dying Chaldee or Greek\r\nhad higher and holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you\r\nsaw creeping over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his\r\nswaying hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his\r\nfinal rest, and the ocean’s invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and\r\nhigher towards his destined heaven.\r\n\r\nNot a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself,\r\nwhat he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favour he\r\nasked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when the day was\r\njust breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nantucket he had\r\nchanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich\r\nwar-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all\r\nwhalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes,\r\nand that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was\r\nnot unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead\r\nwarrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated\r\naway to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the\r\nstars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own\r\nmild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form\r\nthe white breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at the\r\nthought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual\r\nsea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring sharks.\r\nNo: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more congenial\r\nto him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes\r\nwere without a keel; though that involved but uncertain steering, and\r\nmuch lee-way adown the dim ages.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84DCH4FMYAB9ZZVZZ3WW","peer_label":"Ahab’s Leg","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84DCH4FMYAB9ZZVZZ3WW","peer_label":"Ahab’s Leg","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":"01KFNR8B9J7KNW7X7VC6YMNGV5","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.741Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.639Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}