{"id":"01KG8AP5VR0NBDV6EXY8VPC4JQ","cid":"bafkreigbooqm5svwz73sf6p6zyntvscifyz6hccyolbjtmilo577gw3pvm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8859,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.768Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":8792,"text":"can’t ye? pull, won’t ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes\r\ndon’t ye pull?—pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out!\r\nHere!” whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; “every mother’s\r\nson of ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth.\r\nThat’s it—that’s it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my\r\nsteel-bits. Start her—start her, my silver-spoons! Start her,\r\nmarling-spikes!”\r\n\r\nStubb’s exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had\r\nrather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in\r\ninculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not suppose from this\r\nspecimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions\r\nwith his congregation. Not at all; and therein consisted his chief\r\npeculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a\r\ntone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so\r\ncalculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear\r\nsuch queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling\r\nfor the mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy\r\nand indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so\r\nbroadly gaped—open-mouthed at times—that the mere sight of such a\r\nyawning commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon\r\nthe crew. Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists,\r\nwhose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all\r\ninferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them.\r\n\r\nIn obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely\r\nacross Stubb’s bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were\r\npretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate.\r\n\r\n“Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye\r\nplease!”\r\n\r\n“Halloa!” returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he\r\nspoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his face set\r\nlike a flint from Stubb’s.\r\n\r\n“What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!”\r\n\r\n“Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong, strong,\r\nboys!)” in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again: “A sad\r\nbusiness, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind,\r\nMr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what\r\nwill. (Spring, my men, spring!) There’s hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr.\r\nStubb, and that’s what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm’s the\r\nplay! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand.”\r\n\r\n“Aye, aye, I thought as much,” soliloquized Stubb, when the boats\r\ndiverged, “as soon as I clapt eye on ’em, I thought so. Aye, and that’s\r\nwhat he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long\r\nsuspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale’s at the bottom\r\nof it. Well, well, so be it! Can’t be helped! All right! Give way, men!\r\nIt ain’t the White Whale to-day! Give way!”\r\n\r\nNow the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant\r\nas the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably\r\nawakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship’s\r\ncompany; but Archy’s fancied discovery having some time previous got\r\nabroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had in some\r\nsmall measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge\r\nof their wonder; and so what with all this and Stubb’s confident way of\r\naccounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from\r\nsuperstitious surmisings; though the affair still left abundant room\r\nfor all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab’s precise agency in\r\nthe matter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the\r\nmysterious shadows I had seen creeping on board the Pequod during the\r\ndim Nantucket dawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the\r\nunaccountable Elijah.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AM7BAHD6KHZQ7E983N9CC","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP5VQH1G4TDKEAFQT7CYV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP5VRXRJRVPSN0BY09SPF","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:34.072Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:46.323Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}