{"id":"01KJNXJV90TV0EQ09ACBG3ZAEH","cid":"bafkreig2fqwqsfrs3ay2f2jd7gbvg3edlcrhvxm3veahihydm7m5xkbvni","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":1050232,"char_start":1042236,"chunk_index":147,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1999,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"beware 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 acted. It may have been a flash of honesty in him;\r\nor mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously\r\nforbade the slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient,\r\nin the important chief officer of his ship. However it was, his orders\r\nwere executed; and the Burtons were hoisted.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin.\r\n\r\nUpon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold\r\nwere perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off. So, it\r\nbeing calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper, disturbing the\r\nslumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from that black midnight\r\nsending those gigantic moles into the daylight above. So deep did they\r\ngo; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost\r\npuncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone\r\ncask containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted\r\nplacards, vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood.\r\nTierce after tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of\r\nstaves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the\r\npiled decks were hard to get about; and the hollow hull echoed under\r\nfoot, as if you were treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and\r\nrolled in the sea like an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the\r\nship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head. Well was\r\nit that the Typhoons did not visit them then.\r\n\r\nNow, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast\r\nbosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh\r\nto his endless end.\r\n\r\nBe it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown;\r\ndignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the\r\nhigher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as\r\nharpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but—as\r\nwe have elsewhere seen—mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and\r\nfinally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all\r\nday in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the\r\nclumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen,\r\nthe harpooneers are the holders, so called.\r\n\r\nPoor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should\r\nhave stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there; where,\r\nstripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about\r\namid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom\r\nof a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor\r\npagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he\r\ncaught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after\r\nsome days’ suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill\r\nof the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few\r\nlong-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his\r\nframe and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his\r\ncheek-bones grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller\r\nand fuller; they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but\r\ndeeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony\r\nto that immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And\r\nlike circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand; so his\r\neyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe\r\nthat cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of\r\nthis waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any\r\nbeheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly\r\nwondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And\r\nthe drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all\r\nwith a last revelation, which only an author from the dead could\r\nadequately tell. So that—let us say it again—no dying Chaldee or Greek\r\nhad higher and holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you\r\nsaw creeping over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his\r\nswaying hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his\r\nfinal rest, and the ocean’s invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and\r\nhigher towards his destined heaven.\r\n\r\nNot a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself,\r\nwhat he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favour he\r\nasked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when the day was\r\njust breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nantucket he had\r\nchanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich\r\nwar-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all\r\nwhalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes,\r\nand that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was\r\nnot unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead\r\nwarrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated\r\naway to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the\r\nstars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own\r\nmild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form\r\nthe white breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at the\r\nthought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual\r\nsea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring sharks.\r\nNo: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more congenial\r\nto him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes\r\nwere without a keel; though that involved but uncertain steering, and\r\nmuch lee-way adown the dim ages.\r\n\r\nNow, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter\r\nwas at once commanded to do Queequeg’s bidding, whatever it might\r\ninclude. There was some heathenish, coffin-coloured old lumber aboard,\r\nwhich, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal\r\ngroves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin\r\nwas recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of the\r\norder, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent\r\npromptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took\r\nQueequeg’s measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking Queequeg’s\r\nperson as he shifted the rule.\r\n\r\n“Ah! poor fellow! he’ll have to die now,” ejaculated the Long Island\r\nsailor.\r\n\r\nGoing to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake and general\r\nreference, now transferringly measured on it the exact length the\r\ncoffin was to be, and then made the transfer permanent by cutting two\r\nnotches at its extremities. This done, he marshalled the planks and his\r\ntools, and to work.\r\n\r\nWhen the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted, he\r\nlightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring\r\nwhether they were ready for it yet in that direction.\r\n\r\nOverhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which the people\r\non deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every one’s\r\nconsternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly brought to\r\nhim, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of all mortals, some\r\ndying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will\r\nshortly "},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKXNA6Q7NV244AJQKVXKZ","peer_label":"queequeg","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3Z6GAC3QZ1MZC1PX63","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKVYKWFDKYWNFAY5N9KE5","peer_label":"starbuck","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3DZQ5YTC2NQ9Q7VBWR","peer_label":"ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM423TTC0Y0A1Y0X78QFB","peer_label":"nantucket","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNJVV2S16S0PH3DWER92G","peer_label":"queequegs coffin","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"object","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQB7PZ205V8P2XJ294GBT","peer_label":"carpenter pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXR51Q6X5YKNYGP021R1VZ","peer_label":"chapter 110 queequeg in his coffin","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"document_chapter","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXRWJB5V67067E27SD5J49","peer_label":"fever queequegs illness","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"medical_condition","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQWD1WMBV862QK0FJKDKK","peer_label":"harpooneer occupation","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"occupation","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXS2RJFAQJJHNCAADFZ61Y","peer_label":"long island sailor","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXRYH3J2T2YC9RDV362615","peer_label":"queequegs native isle","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXS0S9G5T441AGT1XGQ2WM","peer_label":"burial canoe queequegs desired","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"object","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXTCRXRA67YNGWAF68BGGD","peer_label":"burton ship equipment","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ship_equipment","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXTBS4VJK1A3GD4SYT021H","peer_label":"lackaday islands","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXTHS5V7K3JFDYQ4Q29JCS","peer_label":"forecastle pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ship_location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXR4PDT46KYFRYK7T71SV9","peer_label":"whaling profession","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"industry","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXTCQ5327RBCKRMA6SJWP6","peer_label":"ships hold","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ship_location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:02.366Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.136Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:08:03.814Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}