{"id":"01KJNXJR04APATE6CPTRVPH21Y","cid":"bafkreifl6xyyskmvsyorhe4w2vqqvfp2y3j2222qrexxputhw54xhistq4","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":591097,"char_start":583284,"chunk_index":82,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1954,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"between his jaws; and rearing high up with him, plunged headlong again,\r\nand went down.\r\n\r\n“Meantime, at the first tap of the boat’s bottom, the Lakeman had\r\nslackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool; calmly\r\nlooking on, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden, terrific,\r\ndownward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife to the line. He\r\ncut it; and the whale was free. But, at some distance, Moby Dick rose\r\nagain, with some tatters of Radney’s red woollen shirt, caught in the\r\nteeth that had destroyed him. All four boats gave chase again; but the\r\nwhale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared.\r\n\r\n“In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port—a savage, solitary\r\nplace—where no civilized creature resided. There, headed by the\r\nLakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen deliberately deserted\r\namong the palms; eventually, as it turned out, seizing a large double\r\nwar-canoe of the savages, and setting sail for some other harbor.\r\n\r\n“The ship’s company being reduced to but a handful, the captain called\r\nupon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business of heaving\r\ndown the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting vigilance over\r\ntheir dangerous allies was this small band of whites necessitated, both\r\nby night and by day, and so extreme was the hard work they underwent,\r\nthat upon the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a\r\nweakened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so\r\nheavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the\r\nship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon\r\nfrom the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop; and warning the\r\nIslanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with\r\nhim, and setting the sail of his best whale-boat, steered straight\r\nbefore the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a\r\nreinforcement to his crew.\r\n\r\n“On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which\r\nseemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from\r\nit; but the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of\r\nSteelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The\r\ncaptain presented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked\r\nwar-canoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the\r\npistol so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and\r\nfoam.\r\n\r\n“‘What do you want of me?’ cried the captain.\r\n\r\n“‘Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?’ demanded Steelkilt;\r\n‘no lies.’\r\n\r\n“‘I am bound to Tahiti for more men.’\r\n\r\n“‘Very good. Let me board you a moment—I come in peace.’ With that he\r\nleaped from the canoe, swam to the boat; and climbing the gunwale,\r\nstood face to face with the captain.\r\n\r\n“‘Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head. Now, repeat after me. As\r\nsoon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonder\r\nisland, and remain there six days. If I do not, may lightnings strike\r\nme!’\r\n\r\n“‘A pretty scholar,’ laughed the Lakeman. ‘Adios, Senor!’ and leaping\r\ninto the sea, he swam back to his comrades.\r\n\r\n“Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the\r\nroots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due\r\ntime arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There, luck\r\nbefriended him; two ships were about to sail for France, and were\r\nprovidentially in want of precisely that number of men which the sailor\r\nheaded. They embarked; and so for ever got the start of their former\r\ncaptain, had he been at all minded to work them legal retribution.\r\n\r\n“Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whale-boat arrived,\r\nand the captain was forced to enlist some of the more civilized\r\nTahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea. Chartering a small\r\nnative schooner, he returned with them to his vessel; and finding all\r\nright there, again resumed his cruisings.\r\n\r\n“Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the island of\r\nNantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses to\r\ngive up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful white whale that\r\ndestroyed him.  * * * *\r\n\r\n“‘Are you through?’ said Don Sebastian, quietly.\r\n\r\n“‘I am, Don.’\r\n\r\n“‘Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions,\r\nthis your story is in substance really true? It is so passing\r\nwonderful! Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me\r\nif I seem to press.’\r\n\r\n“‘Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we all join in Don\r\nSebastian’s suit,’ cried the company, with exceeding interest.\r\n\r\n“‘Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn,\r\ngentlemen?’\r\n\r\n“‘Nay,’ said Don Sebastian; ‘but I know a worthy priest near by, who\r\nwill quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised?\r\nthis may grow too serious.’\r\n\r\n“‘Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?’\r\n\r\n“‘Though there are no Auto-da-Fés in Lima now,’ said one of the company\r\nto another; ‘I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy.\r\nLet us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need of this.’\r\n\r\n“‘Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian; but may I also beg\r\nthat you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists\r\nyou can.’\r\n\r\n* * * * * *\r\n\r\n“‘This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,’ said Don\r\nSebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure.\r\n\r\n“‘Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light,\r\nand hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it.\r\n\r\n“‘So help me Heaven, and on my honor the story I have told ye,\r\ngentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be\r\ntrue; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I\r\nhave seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.’”\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales.\r\n\r\nI shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas,\r\nsomething like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the\r\neye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored\r\nalongside the whale-ship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there.\r\nIt may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those curious\r\nimaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day\r\nconfidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time to set the\r\nworld right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all\r\nwrong.\r\n\r\nIt may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will\r\nbe found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For\r\never since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble\r\npanellings of temples, the pedestals of statues, and on shields,\r\nmedallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of\r\nchain-armor like Saladin’s, and a helmeted head like St. George’s; ever\r\nsince then has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not\r\nonly in most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific\r\npresentations of him.\r\n\r\nNow, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting\r\nto be the whale’s, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of\r\nElephanta, in India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless\r\nsculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits,\r\nevery conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of\r\nthem actually came into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our\r\nnoble profession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The\r\nHindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall,\r\ndepicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly\r\nknown as the Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and\r\nhalf whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small\r\nsection of him is all wrong."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.780Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.780Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}