{"id":"01KJNXJQZAQS8K3H6M28778HTF","cid":"bafkreifnerajhwrea4e4fnbfjdtn7ykcv6mydc3zeruroztq33iohrfyba","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":555584,"char_start":547721,"chunk_index":77,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1966,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass.\r\n\r\n“On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but—I crave your\r\ncourtesy—may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now,\r\ngentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well-nigh as\r\nlarge and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far\r\nManilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet\r\nbeen nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly\r\nconnected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate,\r\nthose grand fresh-water seas of ours,—Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and\r\nSuperior, and Michigan,—possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many\r\nof the ocean’s noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of\r\nraces and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic\r\nisles, even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by\r\ntwo great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long\r\nmaritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East,\r\ndotted all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by\r\nbatteries, and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they\r\nhave heard the fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they\r\nyield their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash\r\nfrom out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by\r\nancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried\r\nlines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild\r\nAfric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give\r\nrobes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and\r\nCleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the\r\nfull-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer,\r\nand the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as\r\ndireful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks\r\nare, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full\r\nmany a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen,\r\nthough an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean\r\nnurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney,\r\nthough in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket\r\nbeach, 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\n“Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the\r\nrest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with\r\nhis gay banterings.\r\n\r\n“‘Aye, aye, my merry lads, it’s a lively leak this; hold a cannikin,\r\none of ye, and let’s have a taste. By the Lord, it’s worth bottling! I\r\ntell ye what, men, old Rad’s investment must go for it! he had best cut\r\naway his part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that\r\nsword-fish only began the job; he’s come back again with a gang of\r\nship-carpenters, saw-fish, and file-fish, and what not; and the whole\r\nposse of ’em are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom;\r\nmaking improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I’d tell him\r\nto jump overboard and scatter ’em. They’re playing the devil with his\r\nestate, I can tell him. But he’s a simple old soul,—Rad, and a beauty\r\ntoo. Boys, they say the rest of his property is invested in\r\nlooking-glasses. I wonder if he’d give a poor devil like me the model\r\nof his nose.’\r\n\r\n“‘Damn your eyes! what’s that pump stopping for?’ roared Radney,\r\npretending not to have heard the sailors’ talk. ‘Thunder away at it!’\r\n\r\n“‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. ‘Lively, boys,\r\nlively, now!’ And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-engines;\r\nthe men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping\r\nof the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life’s\r\nutmost energies.\r\n\r\n“Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went\r\nforward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face\r\nfiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his\r\nbrow."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.754Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.754Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}