{"id":"01KG8AP5Z7SHFTFP32T7WGGAXN","cid":"bafkreifyq7ygfzl2ui5qeh2iemovqgkezdypufkairwulsx7avykhmen7e","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":19873,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.774Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":19791,"text":"CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line.\r\n\r\nWhile now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, the log\r\nand line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a confident reliance\r\nupon other means of determining the vessel’s place, some merchantmen,\r\nand many whalemen, especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave\r\nthe log; though at the same time, and frequently more for form’s sake\r\nthan anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the\r\ncourse steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of\r\nprogression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden\r\nreel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the\r\nrailing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and\r\nwind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that\r\nhung so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he\r\nhappened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet\r\nscene, and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled his\r\nfrantic oath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing\r\nplungingly; astern the billows rolled in riots.\r\n\r\n“Forward, there! Heave the log!”\r\n\r\nTwo seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman.\r\n“Take the reel, one of ye, I’ll heave.”\r\n\r\nThey went towards the extreme stern, on the ship’s lee side, where the\r\ndeck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into\r\nthe creamy, sidelong-rushing sea.\r\n\r\nThe Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting\r\nhandle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, so\r\nstood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced to\r\nhim.\r\n\r\nAhab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or forty\r\nturns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when the old\r\nManxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to\r\nspeak.\r\n\r\n“Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have\r\nspoiled it.”\r\n\r\n“’Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee?\r\nThou seem’st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it.”\r\n\r\n“I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these grey\r\nhairs of mine ’tis not worth while disputing, ’specially with a\r\nsuperior, who’ll ne’er confess.”\r\n\r\n“What’s that? There now’s a patched professor in Queen Nature’s\r\ngranite-founded College; but methinks he’s too subservient. Where wert\r\nthou born?”\r\n\r\n“In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir.”\r\n\r\n“Excellent! Thou’st hit the world by that.”\r\n\r\n“I know not, sir, but I was born there.”\r\n\r\n“In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it’s good. Here’s a man\r\nfrom Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man;\r\nwhich is sucked in—by what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall\r\nbutts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So.”\r\n\r\nThe log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long\r\ndragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In\r\nturn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing\r\nresistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely.\r\n\r\n“Hold hard!”\r\n\r\nSnap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the\r\ntugging log was gone.\r\n\r\n“I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad\r\nsea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian;\r\nreel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and\r\nmend thou the line. See to it.”\r\n\r\n“There he goes now; to him nothing’s happened; but to me, the skewer\r\nseems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in,\r\nTahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out: come in broken, and\r\ndragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AMC1GPC7C7G7V676VG20Y","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP5Z78QCZCW2CG9HKAA17","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:34.183Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:56.803Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}