{"id":"01KJNXJQYHMTAFXEG6GCRXXAA3","cid":"bafkreibgrepi4fow76l7gfbdidw6wpkwlvcupozxt4uiigtcbwjt5coy5q","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":506066,"char_start":498343,"chunk_index":70,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1931,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"fling 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\nAt any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous\r\nhabitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect\r\nposture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously\r\nperverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see him giddily\r\nperched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But the\r\nsight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more\r\ncurious; for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy,\r\nunthought of, barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the\r\nsea harmoniously rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired\r\nFlask seemed a snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider.\r\nThough truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now\r\nand then stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby\r\ngive to the negro’s lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity\r\nstamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her\r\ntides and her seasons for that.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing\r\nsolicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular soundings,\r\nnot a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the case,\r\nStubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the\r\nlanguishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband,\r\nwhere he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed\r\nhome the loading with his thumb-end; but hardly had he ignited his\r\nmatch across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego, his\r\nharpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to windward like two fixed\r\nstars, suddenly dropped like light from his erect attitude to his seat,\r\ncrying out in a quick phrensy of hurry, “Down, down all, and give\r\nway!—there they are!”\r\n\r\nTo a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been\r\nvisible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white\r\nwater, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it, and\r\nsuffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white\r\nrolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it\r\nwere, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this\r\natmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of\r\nwater, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other\r\nindications, the puffs of vapor they spouted, seemed their forerunning\r\ncouriers and detached flying outriders.\r\n\r\nAll four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled\r\nwater and air. But it bade fair to outstrip them; it flew on and on, as\r\na mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the\r\nhills.\r\n\r\n“Pull, pull, my good boys,” said Starbuck, in the lowest possible but\r\nintensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharp fixed glance\r\nfrom his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow, almost seemed as two\r\nvisible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses. He did not say much\r\nto his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything to him. Only the\r\nsilence of the boat was at intervals startlingly pierced by one of his\r\npeculiar whispers, now harsh with command, now soft with entreaty.\r\n\r\nHow different the loud little King-Post. “Sing out and say something,\r\nmy hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me on\r\ntheir black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I’ll sign over to you\r\nmy Martha’s Vineyard plantation, boys; including wife and children,\r\nboys. Lay me on—lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring\r\nmad! See! see that white water!” And so shouting, he pulled his hat\r\nfrom his head, and stamped up and down on it; then picking it up,\r\nflirted it far off upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and\r\nplunging in the boat’s stern like a crazed colt from the prairie.\r\n\r\n“Look at that chap now,” philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his\r\nunlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth, at a\r\nshort distance, followed after—“He’s got fits, that Flask has. Fits?\r\nyes, give him fits—that’s the very word—pitch fits into ’em. Merrily,\r\nmerrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know;—merry’s the word.\r\nPull, babes—pull, sucklings—pull, all. But what the devil are you\r\nhurrying about? Softly, softly, and steadily, my men. Only pull, and\r\nkeep pulling; nothing more. Crack all your backbones, and bite your\r\nknives in two—that’s all. Take it easy—why don’t ye take it easy, I\r\nsay, and burst all your livers and lungs!”\r\n\r\nBut what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow crew of\r\nhis—these were words best omitted here; for you live under the blessed\r\nlight of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharks in the audacious\r\nseas may give ear to such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of\r\nred murder, and foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific allusions of\r\nFlask to “that whale,” as he called the fictitious monster which he\r\ndeclared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat’s bow with its\r\ntail—these allusions of his were at times so vivid and life-like, that\r\nthey would cause some one or two of his men to snatch a fearful look\r\nover the shoulder. But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen must\r\nput out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks; usage\r\npronouncing that they must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but\r\narms, in these critical moments.\r\n\r\nIt was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the\r\nomnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled\r\nalong the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless\r\nbowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip\r\nfor an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost\r\nseemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the\r\nwatery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the\r\ntop of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other\r\nside;—all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and\r\nthe shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the\r\nivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like\r\na wild hen after her screaming brood;—all this was thrilling.\r\n\r\nNot the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever\r\nheat of his first battle; not the dead man’s ghost encountering the\r\nfirst unknown phantom in the other world;—neither of these can feel\r\nstranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first\r\ntime finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the\r\nhunted sperm whale.\r\n\r\nThe dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and\r\nmore visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows\r\nflung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longer blended, but tilted\r\neverywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes.\r\nThe boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales\r\nrunning dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still\r\nrising wind, we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through\r\nthe water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to\r\nescape being torn from the row-locks.\r\n\r\nSoon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither\r\nship nor boat to be seen.\r\n\r\n“Give way, men,” whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the\r\nsheet of his sail; “there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall\r\ncomes. There’s white water again!—close to!"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKV8861P977B7BE45JR4K","peer_label":"daggoo","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV94RQAJGYF0Y1PBZWSW","peer_label":"tashtego","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV7VCG1M1V2KKXZJD4A9","peer_label":"stubb","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV8JRX99BNK3FRHB4WAD","peer_label":"whaling boats","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_boat","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV9JR5QVCDKHMH41830J","peer_label":"flask","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKVAKMR99WN71501XSYVQ","peer_label":"whales","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"animal_group","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3DZQ5YTC2NQ9Q7VBWR","peer_label":"ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKVYT75W8QQABF21PSNQ1","peer_label":"king-post","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"nickname","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKVZ92MF7MT0QN2T04P79","peer_label":"marthas vineyard plantation","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"property","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKVYKWFDKYWNFAY5N9KE5","peer_label":"starbuck","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3Z6GAC3QZ1MZC1PX63","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW8ZMHF9GR0N2T6VN53V","peer_label":"sperm whale","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"animal_species","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.120Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.729Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:55.993Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}