{"id":"01KG8AP745XA59JJ4XYMVES389","cid":"bafkreidk4oqcaop5t7uk5l3trapgg3iuxdz5jx4tn46erl443k2wpep7aa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9841,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.768Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":9781,"text":"beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long\r\nfollowed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was\r\nhe quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods\r\nseaman, fresh from the latitudes of buck-horn handled Bowie-knives. Yet\r\nwas this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this\r\nLakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by\r\ninflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human\r\nrecognition which is the meanest slave’s right; thus treated, this\r\nSteelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he\r\nhad proved so thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and\r\nSteelkilt—but, gentlemen, you shall hear.\r\n\r\n“It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after pointing her\r\nprow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho’s leak seemed again\r\nincreasing, but only so as to require an hour or more at the pumps\r\nevery day. You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our\r\nAtlantic, for example, some skippers think little of pumping their\r\nwhole way across it; though of a still, sleepy night, should the\r\nofficer of the deck happen to forget his duty in that respect, the\r\nprobability would be that he and his shipmates would never again\r\nremember it, on account of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom.\r\nNor in the solitary and savage seas far from you to the westward,\r\ngentlemen, is it altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their\r\npump-handles in full chorus even for a voyage of considerable length;\r\nthat is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other\r\nreasonable retreat is afforded them. It is only when a leaky vessel is\r\nin some very out of the way part of those waters, some really landless\r\nlatitude, that her captain begins to feel a little anxious.\r\n\r\n“Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak was found\r\ngaining once more, there was in truth some small concern manifested by\r\nseveral of her company; especially by Radney the mate. He commanded the\r\nupper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way\r\nexpanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a\r\ncoward, and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness\r\ntouching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on land or\r\non sea that you can conveniently imagine, gentlemen. Therefore when he\r\nbetrayed this solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the\r\nseamen declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner\r\nin her. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was\r\non this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they\r\nstood with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear\r\nwater; clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen—that bubbling from the\r\npumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at\r\nthe lee scupper-holes.\r\n\r\n“Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional\r\nworld of ours—watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command\r\nover his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his\r\nsuperior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he\r\nconceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a\r\nchance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern’s tower, and make\r\na little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may,\r\ngentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a\r\nhead like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled\r\nhousings of your last viceroy’s snorting charger; and a brain, and a\r\nheart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt\r\nCharlemagne, had he been born son to Charlemagne’s father. But Radney,\r\nthe mate, was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious.\r\nHe did not love Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AM7XGZ4T4TFG8A5JFJAZX","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP74DPGWW5AVC784QSQWK","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP745P1VMMQ92DB90P26Z","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:35.365Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:47.271Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}