{"id":"01KG8AP4MTAR5WZMQ9DJSKY1HS","cid":"bafkreifiunadwazixsuza3gscfoyaw5c5mrhro6akljw2gsa3cdslbh2xi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":18375,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.774Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":18313,"text":"CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin.\r\n\r\nUpon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold\r\nwere perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off. So, it\r\nbeing calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper, disturbing the\r\nslumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from that black midnight\r\nsending those gigantic moles into the daylight above. So deep did they\r\ngo; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost\r\npuncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone\r\ncask containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted\r\nplacards, vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood.\r\nTierce after tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of\r\nstaves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the\r\npiled decks were hard to get about; and the hollow hull echoed under\r\nfoot, as if you were treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and\r\nrolled in the sea like an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the\r\nship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head. Well was\r\nit that the Typhoons did not visit them then.\r\n\r\nNow, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast\r\nbosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh\r\nto his endless end.\r\n\r\nBe it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown;\r\ndignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the\r\nhigher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as\r\nharpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but—as\r\nwe have elsewhere seen—mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and\r\nfinally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all\r\nday in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the\r\nclumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen,\r\nthe harpooneers are the holders, so called.\r\n\r\nPoor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should\r\nhave stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there; where,\r\nstripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about\r\namid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom\r\nof a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor\r\npagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he\r\ncaught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after\r\nsome days’ suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill\r\nof the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few\r\nlong-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his\r\nframe and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his\r\ncheek-bones grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller\r\nand fuller; they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but\r\ndeeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony\r\nto that immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And\r\nlike circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand; so his\r\neyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe\r\nthat cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of\r\nthis waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any\r\nbeheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly\r\nwondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And\r\nthe drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all\r\nwith a last revelation, which only an author from the dead could\r\nadequately tell. So that—let us say it again—no dying Chaldee or Greek\r\nhad higher and holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you\r\nsaw creeping over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his\r\nswaying hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his\r\nfinal rest, and the ocean’s invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and\r\nhigher towards his destined heaven.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AMATFHPB7J72VNAZCYW91","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP4MT7ZH92G3HN2979JWH","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:32.826Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:55.490Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}