{"id":"01KJNXJR1RW5E93THMFGD3RFDQ","cid":"bafkreigdqqkppz3bhsbu5zk2womdozvzrtrdyo7b27fdxfgo3ka7hkzn3q","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":711666,"char_start":703801,"chunk_index":99,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1967,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some\r\nyear or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the\r\nmast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ardour to encounter him;\r\nand the captain himself being not unwilling to let him have the\r\nopportunity, despite all the archangel’s denunciations and\r\nforewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his boat.\r\nWith them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling, and many\r\nperilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting one iron\r\nfast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was\r\ntossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of\r\nspeedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. Now, while\r\nMacey, the mate, was standing up in his boat’s bow, and with all the\r\nreckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations upon the\r\nwhale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo! a\r\nbroad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion,\r\ntemporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen. Next\r\ninstant, the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily\r\ninto the air, and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea\r\nat the distance of about fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was\r\nharmed, nor a hair of any oarsman’s head; but the mate for ever sank.\r\n\r\nIt is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the\r\nSperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any.\r\nSometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated;\r\noftener the boat’s bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the\r\nheadsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But\r\nstrangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one,\r\nwhen the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is\r\ndiscernible; the man being stark dead.\r\n\r\nThe whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly\r\ndescried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek—“The vial! the vial!”\r\nGabriel called off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of\r\nthe whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added\r\ninfluence; because his credulous disciples believed that he had\r\nspecifically fore-announced it, instead of only making a general\r\nprophecy, which any one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one\r\nof many marks in the wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror\r\nto the ship.\r\n\r\nMayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to him,\r\nthat the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he\r\nintended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which\r\nAhab answered—“Aye.” Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to\r\nhis feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with\r\ndownward pointed finger—“Think, think of the blasphemer—dead, and down\r\nthere!—beware of the blasphemer’s end!”\r\n\r\nAhab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, “Captain, I have just\r\nbethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy\r\nofficers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag.”\r\n\r\nEvery whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various\r\nships, whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed,\r\ndepends upon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans.\r\nThus, most letters never reach their mark; and many are only received\r\nafter attaining an age of two or three years or more.\r\n\r\nSoon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely\r\ntumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in\r\nconsequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a\r\nletter, Death himself might well have been the post-boy.\r\n\r\n“Can’st not read it?” cried Ahab. “Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it’s but\r\na dim scrawl;—what’s this?” As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a\r\nlong cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to\r\ninsert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without\r\nits coming any closer to the ship.\r\n\r\nMeantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, “Mr. Har—yes, Mr. Harry—(a\r\nwoman’s pinny hand,—the man’s wife, I’ll wager)—Aye—Mr. Harry Macey,\r\nShip Jeroboam;—why it’s Macey, and he’s dead!”\r\n\r\n“Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife,” sighed Mayhew; “but let\r\nme have it.”\r\n\r\n“Nay, keep it thyself,” cried Gabriel to Ahab; “thou art soon going\r\nthat way.”\r\n\r\n“Curses throttle thee!” yelled Ahab. “Captain Mayhew, stand by now to\r\nreceive it”; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck’s hands, he\r\ncaught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the\r\nboat. But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing;\r\nthe boat drifted a little towards the ship’s stern; so that, as if by\r\nmagic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel’s eager hand. He\r\nclutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the\r\nletter on it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab’s\r\nfeet. Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their\r\noars, and in that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the\r\nPequod.\r\n\r\nAs, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket\r\nof the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild\r\naffair.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope.\r\n\r\nIn the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale,\r\nthere is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands\r\nare wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no\r\nstaying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has\r\nto be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the\r\ndescription of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was\r\nmentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale’s back, the\r\nblubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the\r\nspades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that\r\nsame hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my\r\nparticular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to\r\ndescend upon the monster’s back for the special purpose referred to.\r\nBut in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall\r\nremain on the whale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is\r\nconcluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged,\r\nexcepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten\r\nfeet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about,\r\nhalf on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like\r\na tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured\r\nin the Highland costume—a shirt and socks—in which to my eyes, at\r\nleast, he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better\r\nchance to observe him, as will presently be seen.\r\n\r\nBeing the savage’s bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar\r\nin his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to\r\nattend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead\r\nwhale’s back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by\r\na long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg\r\ndown there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a\r\nmonkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his\r\nwaist.\r\n\r\nIt was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we\r\nproceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both\r\nends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow\r\nleather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time,\r\nwere wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both\r\nusage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should\r\ndrag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature\r\nunited us."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3DZQ5YTC2NQ9Q7VBWR","peer_label":"ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:07.368Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM529XJRPQXV0DC58V32N","peer_label":"moby 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