{"id":"01KJNXJQVRDS3AY0ZZ4C6TQANX","cid":"bafkreifw3phxelpxipfuttpjeo6jgqgsfcvntbh5bzeh4wkricbp5rrhu4","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":228644,"char_start":220644,"chunk_index":31,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":2000,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"he got stove and went to Davy Jones.”\r\n\r\n“Peleg! Peleg!” said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, “thou thyself,\r\nas I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what\r\nit is to have the fear of death; how, then, can’st thou prate in this\r\nungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this\r\nsame Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on\r\nJapan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did’st\r\nthou not think of Death and the Judgment then?”\r\n\r\n“Hear him, hear him now,” cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and\r\nthrusting his hands far down into his pockets,—“hear him, all of ye.\r\nThink of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink! Death\r\nand the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making such an\r\neverlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking over\r\nus, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to\r\nthink about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking\r\nof; and how to save all hands—how to rig jury-masts—how to get into the\r\nnearest port; that was what I was thinking of.”\r\n\r\nBildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck, where\r\nwe followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some\r\nsailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then he\r\nstooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which\r\notherwise might have been wasted.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 19. The Prophet.\r\n\r\n“Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?”\r\n\r\nQueequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from\r\nthe water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the\r\nabove words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us,\r\nlevelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but\r\nshabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a\r\nblack handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all\r\ndirections flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated\r\nribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up.\r\n\r\n“Have ye shipped in her?” he repeated.\r\n\r\n“You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose,” said I, trying to gain a little\r\nmore time for an uninterrupted look at him.\r\n\r\n“Aye, the Pequod—that ship there,” he said, drawing back his whole arm,\r\nand then rapidly shoving it straight out from him, with the fixed\r\nbayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object.\r\n\r\n“Yes,” said I, “we have just signed the articles.”\r\n\r\n“Anything down there about your souls?”\r\n\r\n“About what?”\r\n\r\n“Oh, perhaps you hav’n’t got any,” he said quickly. “No matter though,\r\nI know many chaps that hav’n’t got any,—good luck to ’em; and they are\r\nall the better off for it. A soul’s a sort of a fifth wheel to a\r\nwagon.”\r\n\r\n“What are you jabbering about, shipmate?” said I.\r\n\r\n“_He’s_ got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that\r\nsort in other chaps,” abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous\r\nemphasis upon the word _he_.\r\n\r\n“Queequeg,” said I, “let’s go; this fellow has broken loose from\r\nsomewhere; he’s talking about something and somebody we don’t know.”\r\n\r\n“Stop!” cried the stranger. “Ye said true—ye hav’n’t seen Old Thunder\r\nyet, have ye?”\r\n\r\n“Who’s Old Thunder?” said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness\r\nof his manner.\r\n\r\n“Captain Ahab.”\r\n\r\n“What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?”\r\n\r\n“Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye\r\nhav’n’t seen him yet, have ye?”\r\n\r\n“No, we hav’n’t. He’s sick they say, but is getting better, and will be\r\nall right again before long.”\r\n\r\n“All right again before long!” laughed the stranger, with a solemnly\r\nderisive sort of laugh. “Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then\r\nthis left arm of mine will be all right; not before.”\r\n\r\n“What do you know about him?”\r\n\r\n“What did they _tell_ you about him? Say that!”\r\n\r\n“They didn’t tell much of anything about him; only I’ve heard that he’s\r\na good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew.”\r\n\r\n“That’s true, that’s true—yes, both true enough. But you must jump when\r\nhe gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go—that’s the word with\r\nCaptain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off\r\nCape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights;\r\nnothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar\r\nin Santa?—heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver\r\ncalabash he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last\r\nvoyage, according to the prophecy. Didn’t ye hear a word about them\r\nmatters and something more, eh? No, I don’t think ye did; how could ye?\r\nWho knows it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows’ever, mayhap, ye’ve\r\nheard tell about the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of\r\nthat, I dare say. Oh yes, _that_ every one knows a’most—I mean they\r\nknow he’s only one leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off.”\r\n\r\n“My friend,” said I, “what all this gibberish of yours is about, I\r\ndon’t know, and I don’t much care; for it seems to me that you must be\r\na little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab,\r\nof that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all\r\nabout the loss of his leg.”\r\n\r\n“_All_ about it, eh—sure you do?—all?”\r\n\r\n“Pretty sure.”\r\n\r\nWith finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like\r\nstranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then starting a\r\nlittle, turned and said:—“Ye’ve shipped, have ye? Names down on the\r\npapers? Well, well, what’s signed, is signed; and what’s to be, will\r\nbe; and then again, perhaps it won’t be, after all. Anyhow, it’s all\r\nfixed and arranged a’ready; and some sailors or other must go with him,\r\nI suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity ’em! Morning to ye,\r\nshipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I’m sorry I stopped\r\nye.”\r\n\r\n“Look here, friend,” said I, “if you have anything important to tell\r\nus, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are\r\nmistaken in your game; that’s all I have to say.”\r\n\r\n“And it’s said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way;\r\nyou are just the man for him—the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates,\r\nmorning! Oh! when ye get there, tell ’em I’ve concluded not to make one\r\nof ’em.”\r\n\r\n“Ah, my dear fellow, you can’t fool us that way—you can’t fool us. It\r\nis the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a\r\ngreat secret in him.”\r\n\r\n“Morning to ye, shipmates, morning.”\r\n\r\n“Morning it is,” said I. “Come along, Queequeg, let’s leave this crazy\r\nman. But stop, tell me your name, will you?”\r\n\r\n“Elijah.”\r\n\r\nElijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each\r\nother’s fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was\r\nnothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone\r\nperhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and\r\nlooking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us,\r\nthough at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I\r\nsaid nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my\r\ncomrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner\r\nthat we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging us,\r\nbut with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This\r\ncircumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing,\r\nshrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments\r\nand half-apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain\r\nAhab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver\r\ncalabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship\r\nthe day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the\r\nvoyage we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy\r\nthings.\r\n\r\nI was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really\r\ndogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg,\r\nand on that side of it retraced "},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKZBGV5QSFPD19S2BQF68","peer_label":"captain ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM0K89EKJARB6VQBC23Q5","peer_label":"peleg","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3Z6GAC3QZ1MZC1PX63","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM0KAVM1XQ5P2RXRFTSHJ","peer_label":"bildad","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKXNA6Q7NV244AJQKVXKZ","peer_label":"queequeg","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZS3F241A0K454CA5ZZ8","peer_label":"elijah","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM0M39FKVWB5C5NA70GDV","peer_label":"nantucket","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"island","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6AAAB55EVE5TAXE6VR7","peer_label":"jury-mast","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"nautical_equipment","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6HMXXZ2934BFZ5MGJ9X","peer_label":"chapter 19 the prophet","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"document_section","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6QQA288EZZ0HEFXYJKB","peer_label":"cape horn","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"geographical_location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6QRE4DTGTRCR7G2T8TB","peer_label":"narrator ishmael","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6G028341DW6T44NQEYA","peer_label":"typhoon on japan","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"event","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7ADADXENEK57RAD4KGJ","peer_label":"life","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6GTXWD8N2P0SF1SJ0A4","peer_label":"old thunder","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"nickname","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6YWJFWB2YPDCD60KN2R","peer_label":"altar in santa","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7BV8TF0ECHYC9JAGWVR","peer_label":"prophecy of ahabs leg loss","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"prophecy","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7H1FXQE6PF53NV12WYC","peer_label":"spaniard","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM77FXHT55A2F4G04WB1N","peer_label":"silver calabash","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"object","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM83PSZV7SEDKG9PNWPM4","peer_label":"nearest port","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7NQSXBZ3ASENEQXFH0S","peer_label":"voyage","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7XRYP82EP8VTSG0825D","peer_label":"squaw tistig","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:24.188Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.640Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:02:28.231Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}