{"id":"01KJNXJR041DHRME3ATGQW45ZN","cid":"bafkreibwgl4pt6vsdwjkh7mmhjclnsmojv6ksfggxemqa3hrudhsmrcvki","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":562615,"char_start":554838,"chunk_index":78,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1945,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"looking-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. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney\r\nto meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know\r\nnot; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate\r\ncommanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a\r\nshovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a\r\npig to run at large.\r\n\r\n“Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship’s deck at sea is a piece of household\r\nwork which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every\r\nevening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually\r\nfoundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of\r\nsea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom\r\nwould not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all\r\nvessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys,\r\nif boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the\r\nTown-Ho that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps;\r\nand being the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been\r\nregularly assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should\r\nhave been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly\r\nnautical duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all\r\nthese particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair\r\nstood between the two men.\r\n\r\n“But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was almost as\r\nplainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spat\r\nin his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship will\r\nunderstand this; and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman\r\nfully comprehended when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat\r\nstill for a moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate’s\r\nmalignant eye and perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him\r\nand the slow-match silently burning along towards them; as he\r\ninstinctively saw all this, that strange forbearance and unwillingness\r\nto stir up the deeper passionateness in any already ireful being—a\r\nrepugnance most felt, when felt at all, by really valiant men even when\r\naggrieved—this nameless phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over\r\nSteelkilt.\r\n\r\n“Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily\r\nexhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping\r\nthe deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then,\r\nwithout at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads as the\r\ncustomary sweepers; who, not being billeted at the pumps, had done\r\nlittle or nothing all day. To this, Radney replied with an oath, in a\r\nmost domineering and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his\r\ncommand; meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an\r\nuplifted cooper’s club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near\r\nby.\r\n\r\n“Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for\r\nall his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt\r\ncould but ill brook this bearing in the mate; but somehow still\r\nsmothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained\r\ndoggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the incensed Radney shook the\r\nhammer within a few inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do\r\nhis bidding.\r\n\r\n“Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass, steadily\r\nfollowed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberately repeated\r\nhis intention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his forbearance had\r\nnot the slightest effect, by an awful and unspeakable intimation with\r\nhis twisted hand he warned off the foolish and infatuated man; but it\r\nwas to no purpose. And in this way the two went once slowly round the\r\nwindlass; when, resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him\r\nthat he had now forborne as much as comported with his humor, the\r\nLakeman paused on the hatches and thus spoke to the officer:\r\n\r\n“‘Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or look to\r\nyourself.’ But the predestinated mate coming still closer to him, where\r\nthe Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer within an inch of\r\nhis teeth; meanwhile repeating a string of insufferable maledictions.\r\nRetreating not the thousandth part of an inch; stabbing him in the eye\r\nwith the unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching his\r\nright hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his\r\npersecutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would\r\nmurder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter\r\nby the gods. Immediately the hammer touched the cheek; the next instant\r\nthe lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch\r\nspouting blood like a whale.\r\n\r\n“Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the backstays\r\nleading far aloft to where two of his comrades were standing their\r\nmastheads. They were both Canallers.\r\n\r\n“‘Canallers!’ cried Don Pedro. ‘We have seen many whale-ships in our\r\nharbours, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and what are\r\nthey?’\r\n\r\n“‘Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie Canal.\r\nYou must have heard of it.’\r\n\r\n“‘Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary\r\nland, we know but little of your vigorous North.’\r\n\r\n“‘Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha’s very fine; and ere\r\nproceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are; for such\r\ninformation may throw side-light upon my story.’\r\n\r\n“For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire\r\nbreadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous cities and\r\nmost thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and\r\naffluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room\r\nand bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman\r\narches over Indian rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or\r\nbroken; through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk\r\ncounties; and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires\r\nstand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly\r\ncorrupt and often lawless life. There’s your true Ashantee, gentlemen;\r\nthere howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you;\r\nunder the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches.\r\nFor by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan\r\nfreebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so\r\nsinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities.\r\n\r\n“‘Is that a friar passing?’ said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the\r\ncrowded plazza, with humorous concern.\r\n\r\n“‘Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella’s Inquisition wanes in\r\nLima,’ laughed Don Sebastian. ‘Proceed, Senor.’\r\n\r\n“‘A moment! Pardon!’ cried another of the company. ‘In the name of all\r\nus Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by\r\nno means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima for\r\ndistant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh!"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXM8JGECTDAAV8GKGH5V7N","peer_label":"steelkilt","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7QCXH6BBGBC1DF6A35A","peer_label":"radney","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMT8WGN5WTPGQ84Z7NGC3","peer_label":"don pedro","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMW30TNENGMNZGSNFP14H","peer_label":"lima","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"city","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXN935RBTZ5TF2NVSGSC9B","peer_label":"venice","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"city","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMCR48C7MQ7NF5Q3VG8W6","peer_label":"town-ho","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMXGHTTG48ATXQ4BKVNK8","peer_label":"don sebastian","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMGRWVJG5R59YNNHCHQX5","peer_label":"windlass","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ship_equipment","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMV3QBHM8AQGDMD6MMQQM","peer_label":"erie canal","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"waterway","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMT9TF6DD2355X5VKEEJZ","peer_label":"shovel","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"tool","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMW37BYW66RDKKGD1DTRH","peer_label":"new york state","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"geographical_region","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMWDBWE3Z7A44ZR8QGAPN","peer_label":"dame isabellas inquisition","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"historical_event_concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXN8KYN9X9R6NXMCC1KV7D","peer_label":"backstays","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ship_equipment","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMW3412KJSZDJ13A40ZHB","peer_label":"canallers","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group_of_people","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXN934PGTZY4MKPNB16HZR","peer_label":"hatches","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ship_equipment","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMTFDFYW2SSSQJYFFKTW4","peer_label":"pump","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ship_equipment","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMTF7V4D9MWJ4KECSNSC0","peer_label":"coopers club hammer","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon_tool","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXN7VK059YHBM11MP97D0Y","peer_label":"sea-usages","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:47.289Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.780Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:07:53.325Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}