{"id":"01KJNXJR0YKNQHED9PBZY2E26C","cid":"bafkreify5nikl4bldbuwbo7rc3kgyfrvdjtjjahb2li2wqbpyrsqidqffe","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":655110,"char_start":647114,"chunk_index":91,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1999,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"first to last; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and no\r\nrowing whatever should be expected of him, except under circumstances\r\nobvious to any fisherman. I know that this would sometimes involve a\r\nslight loss of speed in the chase; but long experience in various\r\nwhalemen of more than one nation has convinced me that in the vast\r\nmajority of failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so\r\nmuch the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of the\r\nharpooneer that has caused them.\r\n\r\nTo insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this\r\nworld must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out\r\nof toil.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 63. The Crotch.\r\n\r\nOut of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in\r\nproductive subjects, grow the chapters.\r\n\r\nThe crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention.\r\nIt is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length,\r\nwhich is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the\r\nbow, for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of\r\nthe harpoon, whose other naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the\r\nprow. Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who\r\nsnatches it up as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his\r\nrifle from the wall. It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in\r\nthe crotch, respectively called the first and second irons.\r\n\r\nBut these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with\r\nthe line; the object being this: to dart them both, if possible, one\r\ninstantly after the other into the same whale; so that if, in the\r\ncoming drag, one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold. It\r\nis a doubling of the chances. But it very often happens that owing to\r\nthe instantaneous, violent, convulsive running of the whale upon\r\nreceiving the first iron, it becomes impossible for the harpooneer,\r\nhowever lightning-like in his movements, to pitch the second iron into\r\nhim. Nevertheless, as the second iron is already connected with the\r\nline, and the line is running, hence that weapon must, at all events,\r\nbe anticipatingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere; else\r\nthe most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled into the\r\nwater, it accordingly is in such cases; the spare coils of box line\r\n(mentioned in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances,\r\nprudently practicable. But this critical act is not always unattended\r\nwith the saddest and most fatal casualties.\r\n\r\nFurthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown\r\noverboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror,\r\nskittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines,\r\nor cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.\r\nNor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is\r\nfairly captured and a corpse.\r\n\r\nConsider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging\r\none unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to these\r\nqualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of\r\nsuch an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be\r\nsimultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is\r\nsupplied with several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first\r\none be ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are\r\nfaithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several\r\nmost important, however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be\r\npainted.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 64. Stubb’s Supper.\r\n\r\nStubb’s whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a\r\ncalm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow\r\nbusiness of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen\r\nmen with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and\r\nfingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse\r\nin the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long\r\nintervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of\r\nthe mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever\r\nthey call it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will\r\ndraw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this\r\ngrand argosy we towed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-lead\r\nin bulk.\r\n\r\nDarkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod’s\r\nmain-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab\r\ndropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly\r\neyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for\r\nsecuring it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman,\r\nwent his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until\r\nmorning.\r\n\r\nThough, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had\r\nevinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the\r\ncreature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or\r\ndespair, seemed working in him; as if the sight of that dead body\r\nreminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand\r\nother whales were brought to his ship, all that would not one jot\r\nadvance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought\r\nfrom the sound on the Pequod’s decks, that all hands were preparing to\r\ncast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the\r\ndeck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking\r\nlinks, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by\r\nthe head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies\r\nwith its black hull close to the vessel’s and seen through the darkness\r\nof the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two—ship\r\nand whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one\r\nreclines while the other remains standing.*\r\n\r\n*A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most\r\nreliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside,\r\nis by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part is\r\nrelatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its\r\nflexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface;\r\nso that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to\r\nput the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a\r\nsmall, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end,\r\nand a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship.\r\nBy adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side\r\nof the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily\r\nmade to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last\r\nlocked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of\r\njunction with its broad flukes or lobes.\r\n\r\nIf moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known\r\non deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an\r\nunusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was\r\nhe in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned\r\nto him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping\r\ncause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely\r\nmanifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of\r\nthe whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.\r\n\r\n“A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut\r\nme one from his small!”\r\n\r\nHere be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a general\r\nthing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray\r\nthe current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceeds\r\nof the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers\r\nwho have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale\r\ndesignated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body.\r\n\r\nAbout midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two\r\nlanterns of 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