{"id":"01KG8AKZ9HHQ1Z8YDPKZCRKM2R","cid":"bafkreid62fwacgvce7rzczts56aconncfe5vtptgysdraotufllhveiobu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11484,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.843Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":11429,"text":"winds and fine weather. Trunks were opened for Bibles; and at last,\r\neven prayer-meetings were held over the very table across which the\r\nloud jest had been so often heard.\r\n\r\nStrange, though almost universal, that the seemingly nearer prospect of\r\nthat death which any body at any time may die, should produce these\r\nspasmodic devotions, when an everlasting Asiatic Cholera is forever\r\nthinning our ranks; and die by death we all must at last.\r\n\r\nOn the second day, seven died, one of whom was the little tailor; on\r\nthe third, four; on the fourth, six, of whom one was the Greenland\r\nsailor, and another, a woman in the cabin, whose death, however, was\r\nafterward supposed to have been purely induced by her fears. These last\r\ndeaths brought the panic to its height; and sailors, officers,\r\ncabin-passengers, and emigrants—all looked upon each other like lepers.\r\nAll but the only true leper among us—the mariner Jackson, who seemed\r\nelated with the thought, that for _him—_already in the deadly clutches\r\nof another disease—no danger was to be apprehended from a fever which\r\nonly swept off the comparatively healthy. Thus, in the midst of the\r\ndespair of the healthful, this incurable invalid was not cast down;\r\nnot, at least, by the same considerations that appalled the rest.\r\n\r\nAnd still, beneath a gray, gloomy sky, the doomed craft beat on; now on\r\nthis tack, now on that; battling against hostile blasts, and drenched\r\nin rain and spray; scarcely making an inch of progress toward her port.\r\n\r\nOn the sixth morning, the weather merged into a gale, to which we\r\nstripped our ship to a storm-stay-sail. In ten hours’ time, the waves\r\nran in mountains; and the Highlander rose and fell like some vast buoy\r\non the water. Shrieks and lamentations were driven to leeward, and\r\ndrowned in the roar of the wind among the cordage; while we gave to the\r\ngale the blackened bodies of five more of the dead.\r\n\r\nBut as the dying departed, the places of two of them were filled in the\r\nrolls of humanity, by the birth of two infants, whom the plague, panic,\r\nand gale had hurried into the world before their time. The first cry of\r\none of these infants, was almost simultaneous with the splash of its\r\nfather’s body in the sea. Thus we come and we go. But, surrounded by\r\ndeath, both mothers and babes survived.\r\n\r\nAt midnight, the wind went down; leaving a long, rolling sea; and, for\r\nthe first time in a week, a clear, starry sky.\r\n\r\nIn the first morning-watch, I sat with Harry on the windlass, watching\r\nthe billows; which, seen in the night, seemed real hills, upon which\r\nfortresses might have been built; and real valleys, in which villages,\r\nand groves, and gardens, might have nestled. It was like a landscape in\r\nSwitzerland; for down into those dark, purple glens, often tumbled the\r\nwhite foam of the wave-crests, like avalanches; while the seething and\r\nboiling that ensued, seemed the swallowing up of human beings.\r\n\r\nBy the afternoon of the next day this heavy sea subsided; and we bore\r\ndown on the waves, with all our canvas set; stun’-sails alow and aloft;\r\nand our best steersman at the helm; the captain himself at his\r\nelbow;—bowling along, with a fair, cheering breeze over the taffrail.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJT5SAHKG6V354KE5GRJR","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKZ9RENXCC5CQ7YQHCTYG","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKZ9RWKVSM68ED4NEKCPR","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:21.809Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:34.930Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}