{"id":"01KFNR8BDNE0QM7GCYCWX0KZY1","cid":"bafkreidmn7543vds7qy4ikxbmlri5wtjaj72z5mkucxo6sl3buibfuwb2q","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":20165,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.413Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":20089,"text":"CHAPTER 127. The Deck.\r\n\r\n_The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench and the\r\nopen hatchway; the Carpenter caulking its seams; the string of twisted\r\noakum slowly unwinding from a large roll of it placed in the bosom of\r\nhis frock.—Ahab comes slowly from the cabin-gangway, and hears Pip\r\nfollowing him._\r\n\r\n“Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand\r\ncomplies with my humor more genially than that boy.—Middle aisle of a\r\nchurch! What’s here?”\r\n\r\n“Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck’s orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the\r\nhatchway!”\r\n\r\n“Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault.”\r\n\r\n“Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does.”\r\n\r\n“Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy\r\nshop?”\r\n\r\n“I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?”\r\n\r\n“Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?”\r\n\r\n“Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but\r\nthey’ve set me now to turning it into something else.”\r\n\r\n“Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling,\r\nmonopolising, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the\r\nnext day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those\r\nsame coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a\r\njack-of-all-trades.”\r\n\r\n“But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do.”\r\n\r\n“The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a\r\ncoffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the\r\ncraters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in\r\nhand. Dost thou never?”\r\n\r\n“Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I’m indifferent enough, sir, for that; but\r\nthe reason why the grave-digger made music must have been because there\r\nwas none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet is full of it. Hark\r\nto it.”\r\n\r\n“Aye, and that’s because the lid there’s a sounding-board; and what in\r\nall things makes the sounding-board is this—there’s naught beneath. And\r\nyet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter.\r\nHast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against\r\nthe churchyard gate, going in?\r\n\r\n“Faith, sir, I’ve——”\r\n\r\n“Faith? What’s that?”\r\n\r\n“Why, faith, sir, it’s only a sort of exclamation-like—that’s all,\r\nsir.”\r\n\r\n“Um, um; go on.”\r\n\r\n“I was about to say, sir, that——”\r\n\r\n“Art thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself?\r\nLook at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of sight.”\r\n\r\n“He goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in hot\r\nlatitudes. I’ve heard that the Isle of Albemarle, one of the\r\nGallipagos, is cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me some\r\nsort of Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle. He’s always\r\nunder the Line—fiery hot, I tell ye! He’s looking this way—come, oakum;\r\nquick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I’m the\r\nprofessor of musical glasses—tap, tap!”\r\n\r\n(_Ahab to himself_.)\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR85HZYKP1EAQHCYEQX7TV","peer_label":"127","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR85HZYKP1EAQHCYEQX7TV","peer_label":"127","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":"01KFNR8BDHSNGR8PB4N9PASQPA","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:07.117Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:18.934Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}