{"id":"01KJNXJV6Z4SS46C01F79QVA62","cid":"bafkreichlai32zbasnppf4l4tjru2tsbbkfjszhjibos6qsiyn5xpllf4e","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":796208,"char_start":788649,"chunk_index":111,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1890,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"immense. We all know what an astonishing atmospheric weight we\r\nourselves stand up under; even here, above-ground, in the air; how\r\nvast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on his back a column of two\r\nhundred fathoms of ocean! It must at least equal the weight of fifty\r\natmospheres. One whaleman has estimated it at the weight of twenty\r\nline-of-battle ships, with all their guns, and stores, and men on\r\nboard.\r\n\r\nAs the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down\r\ninto its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any\r\nsort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths;\r\nwhat landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and\r\nplacidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in\r\nagony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows.\r\nSeems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan\r\nwas suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and\r\nto what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was\r\nonce so triumphantly said—“Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons?\r\nor his head with fish-spears? The sword of him that layeth at him\r\ncannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron\r\nas straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble;\r\nhe laugheth at the shaking of a spear!” This the creature? this he? Oh!\r\nthat unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength of\r\na thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the\r\nmountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod’s fish-spears!\r\n\r\nIn that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats\r\nsent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad\r\nenough to shade half Xerxes’ army. Who can tell how appalling to the\r\nwounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head!\r\n\r\n“Stand by, men; he stirs,” cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly\r\nvibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by\r\nmagnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every\r\noarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment, relieved in great part\r\nfrom the downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce\r\nupwards, as a small icefield will, when a dense herd of white bears are\r\nscared from it into the sea.\r\n\r\n“Haul in! Haul in!” cried Starbuck again; “he’s rising.”\r\n\r\nThe lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand’s breadth\r\ncould have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all\r\ndripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water within two\r\nship’s lengths of the hunters.\r\n\r\nHis motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land\r\nanimals there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins,\r\nwhereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly\r\nshut off in certain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose\r\npeculiarities it is to have an entire non-valvular structure of the\r\nblood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a\r\nharpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial\r\nsystem; and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure of\r\nwater at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said to\r\npour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of\r\nblood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that\r\nhe will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period; even\r\nas in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well-springs\r\nof far-off and undiscernible hills. Even now, when the boats pulled\r\nupon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying flukes, and the\r\nlances were darted into him, they were followed by steady jets from the\r\nnew made wound, which kept continually playing, while the natural\r\nspout-hole in his head was only at intervals, however rapid, sending\r\nits affrighted moisture into the air. From this last vent no blood yet\r\ncame, because no vital part of him had thus far been struck. His life,\r\nas they significantly call it, was untouched.\r\n\r\nAs the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of\r\nhis form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly\r\nrevealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were\r\nbeheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the\r\nnoblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale’s eyes\r\nhad once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see.\r\nBut pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his\r\nblind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light\r\nthe gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate\r\nthe solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to\r\nall. Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a\r\nstrangely discoloured bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low\r\ndown on the flank.\r\n\r\n“A nice spot,” cried Flask; “just let me prick him there once.”\r\n\r\n“Avast!” cried Starbuck, “there’s no need of that!”\r\n\r\nBut humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart an\r\nulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more\r\nthan sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift\r\nfury blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying\r\ncrews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask’s boat and marring\r\nthe bows. It was his death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he\r\nby loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had\r\nmade; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin,\r\nthen over and over slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up the\r\nwhite secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most\r\npiteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water is\r\ngradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled\r\nmelancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the\r\nground—so the last long dying spout of the whale.\r\n\r\nSoon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the body\r\nshowed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled.\r\nImmediately, by Starbuck’s orders, lines were secured to it at\r\ndifferent points, so that ere long every boat was a buoy; the sunken\r\nwhale being suspended a few inches beneath them by the cords. By very\r\nheedful management, when the ship drew nigh, the whale was transferred\r\nto her side, and was strongly secured there by the stiffest\r\nfluke-chains, for it was plain that unless artificially upheld, the\r\nbody would at once sink to the bottom.\r\n\r\nIt so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with the spade,\r\nthe entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his\r\nflesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the\r\nstumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured\r\nwhales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence\r\nof any kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have\r\nbeen some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for\r\nthe ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a\r\nlance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron,\r\nthe flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And\r\nwhen? It might have been darted by some Nor’ West Indian long before\r\nAmerica was discovered.\r\n\r\nWhat other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous\r\ncabinet there is no telling."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKVYKWFDKYWNFAY5N9KE5","peer_label":"starbuck","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKXH2GMRN3K01DR56AKFQ","peer_label":"harpoon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV9JR5QVCDKHMH41830J","peer_label":"flask","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3Z6GAC3QZ1MZC1PX63","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM5AVK8ESBJRYHE60R6R4","peer_label":"lance","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM55H7HC1QH4HGD5NBAH1","peer_label":"whaling lines","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"tool","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM5151Q2BCGH4FJPX6WDV","peer_label":"ocean","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"natural_environment","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM5YV0H7NQ0J3Y867B7K9","peer_label":"fluke-chains","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"tool","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM53N7B3071YDJGSJMBGF","peer_label":"leviathan biblical reference","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"mythological_creature","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM5TH48EBWNBXTPWMQVSP","peer_label":"blind bulbs whales eyes","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"anatomical_feature","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM5BB7XB30ZG81RBDSMGN","peer_label":"wounded whale","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whale","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM57V6NDEP064ZPZHNNB4","peer_label":"pequods fish-spears","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6D8DNP14VYHBD1PMR2Z","peer_label":"ulcerous jet","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"phenomenon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6G8WB09XMMK75RX4VQM","peer_label":"america","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM5AJTCP8F4Z2VQJQPAAF","peer_label":"whaling boats","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"vessel","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6EGT8AC6V8RM6WZHYR7","peer_label":"nor west indian","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group_of_people","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6EGE7JYQ5EGCPANE9BJ","peer_label":"stone lance-head","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"artifact","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6CGPZ3689RZM646CPCF","peer_label":"flasks boat","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"vessel","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:08.245Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.071Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:02:09.501Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}