{"id":"01KJNXJV90F5NYWETESR8BFKST","cid":"bafkreif4ysp624knzmjr4egys3qluimhy66y567hgzqtb2pwlpdtj2oxuq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":1043018,"char_start":1035179,"chunk_index":146,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1960,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be\r\nnow so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the\r\nfiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah!\r\n\r\nGood Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over\r\nagain; I think I didn’t carry a small figure, sir.\r\n\r\nLook ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.—How long before the\r\nleg is done?\r\n\r\nPerhaps an hour, sir.\r\n\r\nBungle away at it then, and bring it to me (_turns to go_). Oh, Life!\r\nHere I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this\r\nblockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal\r\ninter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free\r\nas air; and I’m down in the whole world’s books. I am so rich, I could\r\nhave given bid for bid with the wealthiest Prætorians at the auction of\r\nthe Roman empire (which was the world’s); and yet I owe for the flesh\r\nin the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I’ll get a crucible, and into\r\nit, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra. So.\r\n\r\nCARPENTER (_resuming his work_).\r\n\r\nWell, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says\r\nhe’s queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer;\r\nhe’s queer, says Stubb; he’s queer—queer, queer; and keeps dinning it\r\ninto Mr. Starbuck all the time—queer—sir—queer, queer, very queer. And\r\nhere’s his leg! Yes, now that I think of it, here’s his bedfellow! has\r\na stick of whale’s jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he’ll\r\nstand on this. What was that now about one leg standing in three\r\nplaces, and all three places standing in one hell—how was that? Oh! I\r\ndon’t wonder he looked so scornful at me! I’m a sort of\r\nstrange-thoughted sometimes, they say; but that’s only haphazard-like.\r\nThen, a short, little old body like me, should never undertake to wade\r\nout into deep waters with tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks\r\nyou under the chin pretty quick, and there’s a great cry for\r\nlife-boats. And here’s the heron’s leg! long and slim, sure enough!\r\nNow, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be\r\nbecause they use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old lady uses her\r\nroly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab; oh he’s a hard driver. Look,\r\ndriven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears\r\nout bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there\r\nwith those screws, and let’s finish it before the resurrection fellow\r\ncomes a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as\r\nbrewery-men go round collecting old beer barrels, to fill ’em up again.\r\nWhat a leg this is! It looks like a real live leg, filed down to\r\nnothing but the core; he’ll be standing on this to-morrow; he’ll be\r\ntaking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the little oval slate,\r\nsmoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So, so; chisel, file,\r\nand sand-paper, now!\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin.\r\n\r\nAccording to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and lo! no\r\ninconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below must have\r\nsprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck went down into\r\nthe cabin to report this unfavourable affair.*\r\n\r\n*In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it\r\nis a regular semi-weekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and\r\ndrench the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying\r\nintervals, is removed by the ship’s pumps. Hereby the casks are sought\r\nto be kept damply tight; while by the changed character of the\r\nwithdrawn water, the mariners readily detect any serious leakage in the\r\nprecious cargo.\r\n\r\nNow, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and\r\nthe Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from\r\nthe China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab with a\r\ngeneral chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; and\r\nanother separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the\r\nJapanese islands—Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new\r\nivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long\r\npruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man, with\r\nhis back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and tracing his\r\nold courses again.\r\n\r\n“Who’s there?” hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round\r\nto it. “On deck! Begone!”\r\n\r\n“Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir.\r\nWe must up Burtons and break out.”\r\n\r\n“Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to here\r\nfor a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?”\r\n\r\n“Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make\r\ngood in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth\r\nsaving, sir.”\r\n\r\n“So it is, so it is; if we get it.”\r\n\r\n“I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir.”\r\n\r\n“And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it\r\nleak! I’m all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky\r\ncasks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that’s a far\r\nworse plight than the Pequod’s, man. Yet I don’t stop to plug my leak;\r\nfor who can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it,\r\neven if found, in this life’s howling gale? Starbuck! I’ll not have the\r\nBurtons hoisted.”\r\n\r\n“What will the owners say, sir?”\r\n\r\n“Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What\r\ncares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck,\r\nabout those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But\r\nlook ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye,\r\nmy conscience is in this ship’s keel.—On deck!”\r\n\r\n“Captain Ahab,” said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin,\r\nwith a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost\r\nseemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward\r\nmanifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than half\r\ndistrustful of itself; “A better man than I might well pass over in\r\nthee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man; aye, and in\r\na happier, Captain Ahab.”\r\n\r\n“Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?—On\r\ndeck!”\r\n\r\n“Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir—to be forbearing!\r\nShall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?”\r\n\r\nAhab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most\r\nSouth-Sea-men’s cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck,\r\nexclaimed: “There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one\r\nCaptain that is lord over the Pequod.—On deck!”\r\n\r\nFor an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery cheeks,\r\nyou would have almost thought that he had really received the blaze of\r\nthe levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose, and\r\nas he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: “Thou hast\r\noutraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware\r\nof Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab;\r\nbeware of thyself, old man.”\r\n\r\n“He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most careful bravery that!”\r\nmurmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. “What’s that he said—Ahab\r\nbeware of Ahab—there’s something there!” Then unconsciously using the\r\nmusket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little\r\ncabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and\r\nreturning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck.\r\n\r\n“Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck,” he said lowly to the mate;\r\nthen raising his voice to the crew: “Furl the t’gallant-sails, and\r\nclose-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard; up Burton,\r\nand break out in the main-hold.”\r\n\r\nIt were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as respecting\r\nStarbuck, Ahab thus 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