{"id":"01KG8AKW9ZNTVE1D43QVQ35N0X","cid":"bafkreige5f3sx4ot66upeymgtehrdnmfas2hv2odhevs3xw74juujnamqq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":399,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.534Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","start_line":328,"text":"you ashore is now out of the question. I make no port till this ship is\r\nfull to the combings of her hatchways. However, you may leave her if\r\nyou can.” And so saying he entered his cabin, like Julius Caesar into\r\nhis tent.\r\n\r\nHe may have meant little by it, but that last sentence rung in my ear\r\nlike a bravado. It savored of the turnkey’s compliments to the prisoner\r\nin Newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him.\r\n\r\n“Leave the ship if I can!” Leave the ship when neither sail nor shore\r\nwas in sight! Ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done. For\r\non board that very craft, the old Arcturion, were four tall fellows,\r\nwhom two years previous our skipper himself had picked up in an open\r\nboat, far from the farthest shoal. To be sure, they spun a long yarn\r\nabout being the only survivors of an Indiaman burnt down to the water’s\r\nedge. But who credited their tale? Like many others, they were keepers\r\nof a secret: had doubtless contracted a disgust for some ugly craft\r\nstill afloat and hearty, and stolen away from her, off soundings. Among\r\nseamen in the Pacific such adventures not seldom occur. Nor are they\r\naccounted great wonders. They are but incidents, not events, in the\r\ncareer of the brethren of the order of South Sea rovers. For what\r\nmatters it, though hundreds of miles from land, if a good whale-boat be\r\nunder foot, the Trades behind, and mild, warm seas before? And herein\r\nlies the difference between the Atlantic and Pacific:—that once within\r\nthe Tropics, the bold sailor who has a mind to quit his ship round Cape\r\nHorn, waits not for port. He regards that ocean as one mighty harbor.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and I resolved\r\nto weigh well the chances. It’s worth noticing, this way we all have of\r\npondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for others, we hold a\r\nbagatelle.\r\n\r\nMy first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the right or\r\nwrong of abstracting it, under the circumstances. But to split no hairs\r\non this point, let me say, that were I placed in the same situation\r\nagain, I would repeat the thing I did then. The captain well knew that\r\nhe was going to detain me unlawfully: against our agreement; and it was\r\nhe himself who threw out the very hint, which I merely adopted, with\r\nmany thanks to him.\r\n\r\nIn some such willful mood as this, I went aloft one day, to stand my\r\nallotted two hours at the mast-head. It was toward the close of a day,\r\nserene and beautiful. There I stood, high upon the mast, and away,\r\naway, illimitably rolled the ocean beneath. Where we then were was\r\nperhaps the most unfrequented and least known portion of these seas.\r\nWestward, however, lay numerous groups of islands, loosely laid down\r\nupon the charts, and invested with all the charms of dream-land. But\r\nsoon these regions would be past; the mild equatorial breeze exchanged\r\nfor cold, fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern voyaging.\r\n\r\nI cast my eyes downward to the brown planks of the dull, plodding ship,\r\nsilent from stem to stern; then abroad.\r\n\r\nIn the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon\r\nhigh piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and\r\nminarets; as if the yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast\r\nAlhambra. Vistas seemed leading to worlds beyond. To and fro, and all\r\nover the towers of this Nineveh in the sky, flew troops of birds.\r\nWatching them long, one crossed my sight, flew through a low arch, and\r\nwas lost to view. My spirit must have sailed in with it; for directly,\r\nas in a trance, came upon me the cadence of mild billows laving a beach\r\nof shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of maidens, and the\r\nlulled beatings of my own dissolved heart, all blended together.\r\n\r\nNow, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has up\r\naloft. But coming upon me at this time, it wrought upon me so, that\r\nthenceforth my desire to quit the Arcturion became little short of a\r\nfrenzy.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJP4C9JM2SWKWNSK1T0D6","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1HYC04JWXEK48P07WPK","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKWA0ZQVT6MYB8Z38X0K1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:18.751Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:25.579Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}