{"id":"01KFNR8BBKDB1EY8SN0544G9G3","cid":"bafkreifttmdides6ixbsgbewoaj6az637kxizjcki26ct3nhbpklxinugi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":20015,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.412Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":19949,"text":"CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy.\r\n\r\nSteering now south-eastward by Ahab’s levelled steel, and her progress\r\nsolely determined by Ahab’s level log and line; the Pequod held on her\r\npath towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such\r\nunfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways\r\nimpelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all\r\nthese seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and\r\ndesperate scene.\r\n\r\nAt last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the\r\nEquatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before\r\nthe dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch—then\r\nheaded by Flask—was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and\r\nunearthly—like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod’s\r\nmurdered Innocents—that one and all, they started from their reveries,\r\nand for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all\r\ntransfixedly listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild\r\ncry remained within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the\r\ncrew said it was mermaids, and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers\r\nremained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman—the oldest mariner of\r\nall—declared that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the\r\nvoices of newly drowned men in the sea.\r\n\r\nBelow in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when he\r\ncame to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not\r\nunaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus\r\nexplained the wonder.\r\n\r\nThose rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great\r\nnumbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or\r\nsome dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and\r\nkept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of\r\nwail. But this only the more affected some of them, because most\r\nmariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not\r\nonly from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the\r\nhuman look of their round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen\r\npeeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain\r\ncircumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men.\r\n\r\nBut the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible\r\nconfirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At\r\nsun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore;\r\nand whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for\r\nsailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus\r\nwith the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had\r\nnot been long at his perch, when a cry was heard—a cry and a\r\nrushing—and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and\r\nlooking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the\r\nsea.\r\n\r\nThe life-buoy—a long slender cask—was dropped from the stern, where it\r\nalways hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it,\r\nand the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it\r\nslowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at its every pore; and\r\nthe studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to\r\nyield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one.\r\n\r\nAnd thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out\r\nfor the White Whale, on the White Whale’s own peculiar ground; that man\r\nwas swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the\r\ntime. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at\r\nleast as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of\r\nevil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged.\r\nThey declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they\r\nhad heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR85GH93A0CQQ5YJQ7H16H","peer_label":"126","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR85GH93A0CQQ5YJQ7H16H","peer_label":"126","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":"01KFNR8BCV2REDKG4S48Z2D47W","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:07.070Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:18.871Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}