{"id":"01KFNR8B9VFHXE6WDTBDE2XT0E","cid":"bafkreigdj2tkghyb5uy42552mytf37cxufv2nwzojmw2jjh3q6gg4t72ny","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":21725,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.423Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":21661,"text":"intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a\r\nlittle sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the\r\nprofoundest silence, as the head-beat waves hammered and hammered\r\nagainst the opposing bow.\r\n\r\n“Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads\r\ndrive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and\r\nno hearse can be mine:—and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!”\r\n\r\nSuddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then\r\nquickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice,\r\nswiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a\r\nsubterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with\r\ntrailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise,\r\nbut obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist,\r\nit hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping\r\nback into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for\r\nan instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of\r\nflakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the\r\nmarble trunk of the whale.\r\n\r\n“Give way!” cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to\r\nthe attack; but maddened by yesterday’s fresh irons that corroded in\r\nhim, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell\r\nfrom heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad\r\nwhite forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together;\r\nas head on, he came churning his tail among the boats; and once more\r\nflailed them apart; spilling out the irons and lances from the two\r\nmates’ boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows,\r\nbut leaving Ahab’s almost without a scar.\r\n\r\nWhile Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the\r\nwhale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he\r\nshot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round\r\nand round to the fish’s back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in\r\nwhich, during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of\r\nthe lines around him, the half torn body of the Parsee was seen; his\r\nsable raiment frayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old\r\nAhab.\r\n\r\nThe harpoon dropped from his hand.\r\n\r\n“Befooled, befooled!”—drawing in a long lean breath—“Aye, Parsee! I see\r\nthee again.—Aye, and thou goest before; and this, _this_ then is the\r\nhearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of\r\nthy word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those\r\nboats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to me;\r\nif not, Ahab is enough to die—Down, men! the first thing that but\r\noffers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are\r\nnot other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me.—Where’s the\r\nwhale? gone down again?”\r\n\r\nBut he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the\r\ncorpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter\r\nhad been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again\r\nsteadily swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship,—which thus\r\nfar had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the\r\npresent her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his\r\nutmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight\r\npath in the sea.\r\n\r\n“Oh! Ahab,” cried Starbuck, “not too late is it, even now, the third\r\nday, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that\r\nmadly seekest him!”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR85GMZ5CEWAKR35G2W28B","peer_label":"135","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR85GMZ5CEWAKR35G2W28B","peer_label":"135","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":"01KFNR8B5NYVY20VSKN52PG6R1","peer_label":"Chunk 4","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR8B9NFHAGXAAMZQ8FFYH4","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:07.072Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:18.906Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}