{"id":"01KJNXJV6PQE95HVTH6V7HZ691","cid":"bafkreicjknkh6bgkc4iw5le3h7sxyodxryhydr4nm65oriw6q3icmon3fa","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":732929,"char_start":725255,"chunk_index":102,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1919,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"sharp—ain’t you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let’s get\r\nthe whale alongside.”\r\n\r\n“I think I remember some such story as you were telling,” said Flask,\r\nwhen at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden\r\ntowards the ship, “but I can’t remember where.”\r\n\r\n“Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloody-minded soldadoes?\r\nDid ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?”\r\n\r\n“No: never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me,\r\nStubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was\r\nthe same you say is now on board the Pequod?”\r\n\r\n“Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn’t the devil live\r\nfor ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any\r\nparson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a\r\nlatch-key to get into the admiral’s cabin, don’t you suppose he can\r\ncrawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr. Flask?”\r\n\r\n“How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?”\r\n\r\n“Do you see that mainmast there?” pointing to the ship; “well, that’s\r\nthe figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod’s hold, and string\r\nalong in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that\r\nwouldn’t begin to be Fedallah’s age. Nor all the coopers in creation\r\ncouldn’t show hoops enough to make oughts enough.”\r\n\r\n“But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now, that you\r\nmeant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance. Now, if\r\nhe’s so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is going to\r\nlive for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard—tell me\r\nthat?\r\n\r\n“Give him a good ducking, anyhow.”\r\n\r\n“But he’d crawl back.”\r\n\r\n“Duck him again; and keep ducking him.”\r\n\r\n“Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though—yes, and\r\ndrown you—what then?”\r\n\r\n“I should like to see him try it; I’d give him such a pair of black\r\neyes that he wouldn’t dare to show his face in the admiral’s cabin\r\nagain for a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he\r\nlives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn\r\nthe devil, Flask; so you suppose I’m afraid of the devil? Who’s afraid\r\nof him, except the old governor who daresn’t catch him and put him in\r\ndouble-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping\r\npeople; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil\r\nkidnapped, he’d roast for him? There’s a governor!”\r\n\r\n“Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?”\r\n\r\n“Do I suppose it? You’ll know it before long, Flask. But I am going now\r\nto keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything very suspicious\r\ngoing on, I’ll just take him by the nape of his neck, and say—Look\r\nhere, Beelzebub, you don’t do it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord\r\nI’ll make a grab into his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan,\r\nand give him such a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come\r\nshort off at the stump—do you see; and then, I rather guess when he\r\nfinds himself docked in that queer fashion, he’ll sneak off without the\r\npoor satisfaction of feeling his tail between his legs.”\r\n\r\n“And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?”\r\n\r\n“Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;—what else?”\r\n\r\n“Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along, Stubb?”\r\n\r\n“Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship.”\r\n\r\nThe boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard side,\r\nwhere fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for\r\nsecuring him.\r\n\r\n“Didn’t I tell you so?” said Flask; “yes, you’ll soon see this right\r\nwhale’s head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti’s.”\r\n\r\nIn good time, Flask’s saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply\r\nleaned over towards the sperm whale’s head, now, by the counterpoise of\r\nboth heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may\r\nwell believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go\r\nover that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you come\r\nback again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep\r\ntrimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard,\r\nand then you will float light and right.\r\n\r\nIn disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the\r\nship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the\r\ncase of a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut\r\noff whole, but in the former the lips and tongue are separately removed\r\nand hoisted on deck, with all the well known black bone attached to\r\nwhat is called the crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present\r\ncase, had been done. The carcases of both whales had dropped astern;\r\nand the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair\r\nof overburdening panniers.\r\n\r\nMeantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale’s head, and ever\r\nand anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own\r\nhand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee occupied his\r\nshadow; while, if the Parsee’s shadow was there at all it seemed only\r\nto blend with, and lengthen Ahab’s. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish\r\nspeculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing\r\nthings.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View.\r\n\r\nHere, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us\r\njoin them, and lay together our own.\r\n\r\nOf the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right\r\nWhale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales\r\nregularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two\r\nextremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external\r\ndifference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a\r\nhead of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod’s side; and as we\r\nmay freely go from one to the other, by merely stepping across the\r\ndeck:—where, I should like to know, will you obtain a better chance to\r\nstudy practical cetology than here?\r\n\r\nIn the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between\r\nthese heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there is a\r\ncertain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale’s which the Right\r\nWhale’s sadly lacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale’s head.\r\nAs you behold it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to\r\nhim, in point of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this\r\ndignity is heightened by the pepper and salt colour of his head at the\r\nsummit, giving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he\r\nis what the fishermen technically call a “grey-headed whale.”\r\n\r\nLet us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads—namely, the two\r\nmost important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of the\r\nhead, and low down, near the angle of either whale’s jaw, if you\r\nnarrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would\r\nfancy to be a young colt’s eye; so out of all proportion is it to the\r\nmagnitude of the head.\r\n\r\nNow, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale’s eyes, it is\r\nplain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more\r\nthan he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale’s\r\neyes corresponds to that of a man’s ears; and you may fancy, for\r\nyourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects\r\nthrough your ears. You would find that you could only command some\r\nthirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight;\r\nand about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking\r\nstraight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not\r\nbe able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you from\r\nbehind."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXM2MWSD9JK6ZKV9HEMKJR","peer_label":"right whale","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whale_species","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV9JR5QVCDKHMH41830J","peer_label":"flask","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV7VCG1M1V2KKXZJD4A9","peer_label":"stubb","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYGCZNXREK07X11VQXHV","peer_label":"sperm whale","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whale_species","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6RPFRGJN0T1FFWMC580","peer_label":"folio leviathans","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"classification","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6EP73PJRV763QA81RVY","peer_label":"fedallah","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7G9J9TSVFE2ZTZG4BXH","peer_label":"laplandish speculations","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6ZNE768KDBD3ZG20EMD","peer_label":"devil concept","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"mythical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6RYP76KB2W1YY5K795Z","peer_label":"chapter 74 the sperm whales headcontrasted view","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"document_chapter","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7J54KF1Y4EW6HGRSK67","peer_label":"crown-piece","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whale_anatomy","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7NBMZAF1XWBV73KWQAT","peer_label":"whale_species","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6NRXXNS54VTE7EW6ZGG","peer_label":"cetology","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"field_of_study","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM85J9NE5WZ4J7Y07D2C5","peer_label":"grey-headed whale","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"term","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM868VB9KGFD25J4HDQB3","peer_label":"governor allegorical figure","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"allegorical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM8BZ3Q6SNJ9X8SJ5KARS","peer_label":"captain ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM8BRHAD4DFVBY7CY30VY","peer_label":"whale_varieties","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM8J9PBC6VMBDEW3RTAHZ","peer_label":"man","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM93HAP8W80DEA4891Q2T","peer_label":"nantucketer","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"demonym","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM72E0T2NRJD84SPR9G6F","peer_label":"three spaniards story","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"story","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM9FN9D3YSCP9TPV20WJ8","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:27.131Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.062Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:02:40.796Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}