{"id":"01KG8AMFZDVVZP4Y0WB4NJA9CD","cid":"bafkreianyaf4jgen5nd7you7z4nczcl364qhfvlrlygnnze7zb7rb6bfam","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":15059,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":14990,"text":"CHAPTER XCII.\r\nTHE LAST OF THE JACKET.\r\n\r\n\r\nAlready has White-Jacket chronicled the mishaps and inconveniences,\r\ntroubles and tribulations of all sorts brought upon him by that\r\nunfortunate but indispensable garment of his. But now it befalls him to\r\nrecord how this jacket, for the second and last time, came near proving\r\nhis shroud.\r\n\r\nOf a pleasant midnight, our good frigate, now somewhere off the Capes\r\nof Virginia, was running on bravely, when the breeze, gradually dying,\r\nleft us slowly gliding toward our still invisible port.\r\n\r\nHeaded by Jack Chase, the quarter-watch were reclining in the top,\r\ntalking about the shore delights into which they intended to plunge,\r\nwhile our captain often broke in with allusions to similar\r\nconversations when he was on board the English line-of-battle ship, the\r\nAsia, drawing nigh to Portsmouth, in England, after the battle of\r\nNavarino.\r\n\r\nSuddenly an order was given to set the main-top-gallant-stun’-sail, and\r\nthe halyards not being rove, Jack Chase assigned to me that duty. Now\r\nthis reeving of the halyards of a main-top-gallant-stun’-sail is a\r\nbusiness that eminently demands sharpsightedness, skill, and celerity.\r\n\r\nConsider that the end of a line, some two hundred feet long, is to be\r\ncarried aloft, in your teeth, if you please, and dragged far out on the\r\ngiddiest of yards, and after being wormed and twisted about through all\r\nsorts of intricacies—turning abrupt corners at the abruptest of\r\nangles—is to be dropped, clear of all obstructions, in a straight\r\nplumb-line right down to the deck. In the course of this business,\r\nthere is a multitude of sheeve-holes and blocks, through which you must\r\npass it; often the rope is a very tight fit, so as to make it like\r\nthreading a fine cambric needle with rather coarse thread. Indeed, it\r\nis a thing only deftly to be done, even by day. Judge, then, what it\r\nmust be to be threading cambric needles by night, and at sea, upward of\r\na hundred feet aloft in the air.\r\n\r\nWith the end of the line in one hand, I was mounting the top-mast\r\nshrouds, when our Captain of the Top told me that I had better off\r\njacket; but though it was not a very cold night, I had been reclining\r\nso long in the top, that I had become somewhat chilly, so I thought\r\nbest not to comply with the hint.\r\n\r\nHaving reeved the line through all the inferior blocks, I went out with\r\nit to the end of the weather-top-gallant-yard-arm, and was in the act\r\nof leaning over and passing it through the suspended jewel-block there,\r\nwhen the ship gave a plunge in the sudden swells of the calm sea, and\r\npitching me still further over the yard, threw the heavy skirts of my\r\njacket right over my head, completely muffling me. Somehow I thought it\r\nwas the sail that had flapped, and, under that impression, threw up my\r\nhands to drag it from my head, relying upon the sail itself to support\r\nme meanwhile. Just then the ship gave another sudden jerk, and,\r\nhead-foremost, I pitched from the yard. I knew where I was, from the\r\nrush of the air by my ears, but all else was a nightmare. A bloody film\r\nwas before my eyes, through which, ghost-like, passed and repassed my\r\nfather, mother, and sisters. An utterable nausea oppressed me; I was\r\nconscious of gasping; there seemed no breath in my body. It was over\r\none hundred feet that I fell—down, down, with lungs collapsed as in\r\ndeath. Ten thousand pounds of shot seemed tied to my head, as the\r\nirresistible law of gravitation dragged me, head foremost and straight\r\nas a die, toward the infallible centre of this terraqueous globe. All I\r\nhad seen, and read, and heard, and all I had thought and felt in my\r\nlife, seemed intensified in one fixed idea in my soul. But dense as\r\nthis idea was, it was made up of atoms. Having fallen from the\r\nprojecting yard-arm end, I was conscious of a collected satisfaction in\r\nfeeling, that I should not be dashed on the deck, but would sink into\r\nthe speechless profound of the sea.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJWFZWKXG90KP5ZBWF6NJ","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMGGH2RJ59822SRF373MX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:38.893Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:56.699Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}