{"id":"01KG8AP5VRXRJRVPSN0BY09SPF","cid":"bafkreieo5du5epxoxmk4bp4j63ju2smumxoexcrn534owqiav6dnvec36a","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8922,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.768Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":8852,"text":"accounting 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\nMeantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the\r\nfurthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; a\r\ncircumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger\r\nyellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five\r\ntrip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which\r\nperiodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst\r\nboiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen\r\npulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and\r\ndisplayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the\r\ngunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery\r\nhorizon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a\r\nfencer’s, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance\r\nany tendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar\r\nas in a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All\r\nat once the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained\r\nfixed, while the boat’s five oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat\r\nand crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in\r\nthe rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily\r\ndown into the blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the\r\nmovement, though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it.\r\n\r\n“Every man look out along his oars!” cried Starbuck. “Thou, Queequeg,\r\nstand up!”\r\n\r\nNimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage\r\nstood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the\r\nspot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme\r\nstern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with\r\nthe gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing\r\nhimself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently\r\neyeing the vast blue eye of the sea.\r\n\r\nNot very far distant Flask’s boat was also lying breathlessly still;\r\nits commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a\r\nstout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above\r\nthe level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the\r\nwhale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a man’s hand,\r\nand standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the\r\nmast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little\r\nKing-Post was small and short, and at the same time little King-Post\r\nwas full of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead\r\nstand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post.\r\n\r\n“I can’t see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me on to\r\nthat.”\r\n\r\nUpon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his way,\r\nswiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty\r\nshoulders for a pedestal.\r\n\r\n“Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?”\r\n\r\n“That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish you\r\nfifty feet taller.”\r\n\r\nWhereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the\r\nboat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to\r\nFlask’s foot, and then putting Flask’s hand on his hearse-plumed head\r\nand bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous\r\nfling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was\r\nFlask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a\r\nbreastband to lean against and steady himself by.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AM7BAHD6KHZQ7E983N9CC","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP5VR0NBDV6EXY8VPC4JQ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP6H4VD15J3TNR3AHMFDN","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:34.072Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:46.423Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}