{"id":"01KFNR8BA9XKNHDB45ZZVZFZY4","cid":"bafkreihmyk4km5dt4g5eixrcd6m53dxgzdo4z3pfnyovwoswn6rghbndiu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":16949,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.393Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":16887,"text":"him in festoons of blue pilot-cloth; and one empty arm of this jacket\r\nstreamed behind him like the broidered arm of a hussar’s surcoat.\r\n\r\n“Hast seen the White Whale?”\r\n\r\n“See you this?” and withdrawing it from the folds that had hidden it,\r\nhe held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden\r\nhead like a mallet.\r\n\r\n“Man my boat!” cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near\r\nhim—“Stand by to lower!”\r\n\r\nIn less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his\r\ncrew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the\r\nstranger. But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the\r\nexcitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his\r\nleg he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his\r\nown, and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical\r\ncontrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and\r\nshipped in any other vessel at a moment’s warning. Now, it is no very\r\neasy matter for anybody—except those who are almost hourly used to it,\r\nlike whalemen—to clamber up a ship’s side from a boat on the open sea;\r\nfor the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks,\r\nand then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So,\r\ndeprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether\r\nunsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly\r\nreduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain\r\nchangeful height he could hardly hope to attain.\r\n\r\nIt has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward\r\ncircumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his\r\nluckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And\r\nin the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the\r\ntwo officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the\r\nperpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a\r\npair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem\r\nto bethink them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to\r\nuse their sea bannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute,\r\nbecause the strange captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood,\r\ncried out, “I see, I see!—avast heaving there! Jump, boys, and swing\r\nover the cutting-tackle.”\r\n\r\nAs good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two\r\nprevious, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive\r\ncurved blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end.\r\nThis was quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all,\r\nslid his solitary thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting\r\nin the fluke of an anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then\r\ngiving the word, held himself fast, and at the same time also helped to\r\nhoist his own weight, by pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running\r\nparts of the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high\r\nbulwarks, and gently landed upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm\r\nfrankly thrust forth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab,\r\nputting out his ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two\r\nsword-fish blades) cried out in his walrus way, “Aye, aye, hearty! let\r\nus shake bones together!—an arm and a leg!—an arm that never can\r\nshrink, d’ye see; and a leg that never can run. Where did’st thou see\r\nthe White Whale?—how long ago?”\r\n\r\n“The White Whale,” said the Englishman, pointing his ivory arm towards\r\nthe East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had been a\r\ntelescope; “there I saw him, on the Line, last season.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR849DMXDSPAZ50XP0A861","peer_label":"A Squeeze of the Hand","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR849DMXDSPAZ50XP0A861","peer_label":"A Squeeze of the Hand","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":"01KFNR8BAERKSGJPF8KFW9R0YY","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.987Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:20.061Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}