{"id":"01KJNXJV6ZZ9NSN5ZG37407Y1G","cid":"bafkreifbzsfbi2bvf37oyzg4arud3fgu4ncankegqixzxl2d7xcrhapx2m","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":789428,"char_start":781493,"chunk_index":110,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1984,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"\r\n“The ungracious and ungrateful dog!” cried Starbuck; “he mocks and\r\ndares me with the very poor-box I filled for him not five minutes\r\nago!”—then in his old intense whisper—“Give way, greyhounds! Dog to\r\nit!”\r\n\r\n“I tell ye what it is, men”—cried Stubb to his crew—“it’s against my\r\nreligion to get mad; but I’d like to eat that villainous\r\nYarman—Pull—won’t ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye? Do ye\r\nlove brandy? A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man. Come, why\r\ndon’t some of ye burst a blood-vessel? Who’s that been dropping an\r\nanchor overboard—we don’t budge an inch—we’re becalmed. Halloo, here’s\r\ngrass growing in the boat’s bottom—and by the Lord, the mast there’s\r\nbudding. This won’t do, boys. Look at that Yarman! The short and long\r\nof it is, men, will ye spit fire or not?”\r\n\r\n“Oh! see the suds he makes!” cried Flask, dancing up and down—“What a\r\nhump—Oh, _do_ pile on the beef—lays like a log! Oh! my lads, _do_\r\nspring—slap-jacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my lads—baked clams\r\nand muffins—oh, _do_, _do_, spring,—he’s a hundred barreller—don’t lose\r\nhim now—don’t oh, _don’t!_—see that Yarman—Oh, won’t ye pull for your\r\nduff, my lads—such a sog! such a sogger! Don’t ye love sperm? There\r\ngoes three thousand dollars, men!—a bank!—a whole bank! The bank of\r\nEngland!—Oh, _do_, _do_, _do!_—What’s that Yarman about now?”\r\n\r\nAt this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-feeder at the\r\nadvancing boats, and also his oil-can; perhaps with the double view of\r\nretarding his rivals’ way, and at the same time economically\r\naccelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the backward toss.\r\n\r\n“The unmannerly Dutch dogger!” cried Stubb. “Pull now, men, like fifty\r\nthousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils. What d’ye say,\r\nTashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in two-and-twenty pieces\r\nfor the honor of old Gayhead? What d’ye say?”\r\n\r\n“I say, pull like god-dam,”—cried the Indian.\r\n\r\nFiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the Pequod’s\r\nthree boats now began ranging almost abreast; and, so disposed,\r\nmomentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude of the\r\nheadsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up\r\nproudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating\r\ncry of, “There she slides, now! Hurrah for the white-ash breeze! Down\r\nwith the Yarman! Sail over him!”\r\n\r\nBut so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of all\r\ntheir gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race, had not\r\na righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught the\r\nblade of his midship oarsman. While this clumsy lubber was striving to\r\nfree his white-ash, and while, in consequence, Derick’s boat was nigh\r\nto capsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty rage;—that\r\nwas a good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. With a shout, they took\r\na mortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German’s\r\nquarter. An instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the\r\nwhale’s immediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was\r\nthe foaming swell that he made.\r\n\r\nIt was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was\r\nnow going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual\r\ntormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of\r\nfright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering\r\nflight, and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank\r\nin the sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So\r\nhave I seen a bird with clipped wing making affrighted broken circles\r\nin the air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird\r\nhas a voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the\r\nfear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted\r\nin him; he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his\r\nspiracle, and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while\r\nstill, in his amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there\r\nwas enough to appal the stoutest man who so pitied.\r\n\r\nSeeing now that but a very few moments more would give the Pequod’s\r\nboats the advantage, and rather than be thus foiled of his game, Derick\r\nchose to hazard what to him must have seemed a most unusually long\r\ndart, ere the last chance would for ever escape.\r\n\r\nBut no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all\r\nthree tigers—Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo—instinctively sprang to their\r\nfeet, and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their\r\nbarbs; and darted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three\r\nNantucket irons entered the whale. Blinding vapors of foam and\r\nwhite-fire! The three boats, in the first fury of the whale’s headlong\r\nrush, bumped the German’s aside with such force, that both Derick and\r\nhis baffled harpooneer were spilled out, and sailed over by the three\r\nflying keels.\r\n\r\n“Don’t be afraid, my butter-boxes,” cried Stubb, casting a passing\r\nglance upon them as he shot by; “ye’ll be picked up presently—all\r\nright—I saw some sharks astern—St. Bernard’s dogs, you know—relieve\r\ndistressed travellers. Hurrah! this is the way to sail now. Every keel\r\na sunbeam! Hurrah!—Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a\r\nmad cougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a\r\ntilbury on a plain—makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten to\r\nhim that way; and there’s danger of being pitched out too, when you\r\nstrike a hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he’s going\r\nto Davy Jones—all a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this\r\nwhale carries the everlasting mail!”\r\n\r\nBut the monster’s run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he\r\ntumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round\r\nthe loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them;\r\nwhile so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would\r\nsoon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they\r\ncaught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at\r\nlast—owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of\r\nthe boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue—the\r\ngunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three\r\nsterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound, for\r\nsome time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more\r\nline, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have\r\nbeen taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this “holding on,” as\r\nit is called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from\r\nthe back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising\r\nagain to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the\r\nperil of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always\r\nthe best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the\r\nstricken whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because,\r\nowing to the enormous surface of him—in a full grown sperm whale\r\nsomething less than 2000 square feet—the pressure of the water is\r\nimmense. 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!"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.071Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.071Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}