{"id":"01KJNXJVA8YK4CS23B6TNY8HHG","cid":"bafkreie3ekbshr5awgw7gndgeuqxu4wnzryedfu6ju5dpde5nh2axdxjd4","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":1128166,"char_start":1120200,"chunk_index":158,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1992,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"and rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more\r\nfatal; all its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before\r\nmagnetic steel was of no more use than an old wife’s knitting needle.\r\nBut in either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the\r\noriginal virtue thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be\r\naffected, the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship;\r\neven were the lowermost one inserted into the kelson.\r\n\r\nDeliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed\r\ncompasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took\r\nthe precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were\r\nexactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship’s course to be\r\nchanged accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod\r\nthrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair\r\none had only been juggling her.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said\r\nnothing, but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and\r\nFlask—who in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his\r\nfeelings—likewise unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some\r\nof them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear\r\nof Fate. But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost\r\nwholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain\r\nmagnetism shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab’s.\r\n\r\nFor a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But\r\nchancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper\r\nsight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck.\r\n\r\n“Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun’s pilot! yesterday I wrecked\r\nthee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But\r\nAhab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck—a lance without\r\na pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker’s needles.\r\nQuick!”\r\n\r\nAccessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about\r\nto do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to\r\nrevive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a\r\nmatter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old\r\nman well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily\r\npracticable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious\r\nsailors, without some shudderings and evil portents.\r\n\r\n“Men,” said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him\r\nthe things he had demanded, “my men, the thunder turned old Ahab’s\r\nneedles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own,\r\nthat will point as true as any.”\r\n\r\nAbashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as\r\nthis was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic\r\nmight follow. But Starbuck looked away.\r\n\r\nWith a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the\r\nlance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade\r\nhim hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the\r\nmaul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he\r\nplaced the blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly\r\nhammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before.\r\nThen going through some small strange motions with it—whether\r\nindispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to\r\naugment the awe of the crew, is uncertain—he called for linen thread;\r\nand moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there,\r\nand horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of\r\nthe compass-cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering\r\nand vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, when\r\nAhab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly\r\nback from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it,\r\nexclaimed,—“Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level\r\nloadstone! The sun is East, and that compass swears it!”\r\n\r\nOne after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could\r\npersuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk\r\naway.\r\n\r\nIn his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his\r\nfatal pride.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 125. The Log and Line.\r\n\r\nWhile now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, the log\r\nand line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a confident reliance\r\nupon other means of determining the vessel’s place, some merchantmen,\r\nand many whalemen, especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave\r\nthe log; though at the same time, and frequently more for form’s sake\r\nthan anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the\r\ncourse steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of\r\nprogression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden\r\nreel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the\r\nrailing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and\r\nwind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that\r\nhung so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he\r\nhappened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet\r\nscene, and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled his\r\nfrantic oath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing\r\nplungingly; astern the billows rolled in riots.\r\n\r\n“Forward, there! Heave the log!”\r\n\r\nTwo seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman.\r\n“Take the reel, one of ye, I’ll heave.”\r\n\r\nThey went towards the extreme stern, on the ship’s lee side, where the\r\ndeck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into\r\nthe creamy, sidelong-rushing sea.\r\n\r\nThe Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting\r\nhandle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, so\r\nstood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced to\r\nhim.\r\n\r\nAhab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or forty\r\nturns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when the old\r\nManxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to\r\nspeak.\r\n\r\n“Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have\r\nspoiled it.”\r\n\r\n“’Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee?\r\nThou seem’st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it.”\r\n\r\n“I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these grey\r\nhairs of mine ’tis not worth while disputing, ’specially with a\r\nsuperior, who’ll ne’er confess.”\r\n\r\n“What’s that? There now’s a patched professor in Queen Nature’s\r\ngranite-founded College; but methinks he’s too subservient. Where wert\r\nthou born?”\r\n\r\n“In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir.”\r\n\r\n“Excellent! Thou’st hit the world by that.”\r\n\r\n“I know not, sir, but I was born there.”\r\n\r\n“In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it’s good. Here’s a man\r\nfrom Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man;\r\nwhich is sucked in—by what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall\r\nbutts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So.”\r\n\r\nThe log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long\r\ndragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In\r\nturn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing\r\nresistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely.\r\n\r\n“Hold hard!”\r\n\r\nSnap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the\r\ntugging log was gone.\r\n\r\n“I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad\r\nsea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian;\r\nreel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and\r\nmend thou the line. See to it.”\r\n\r\n“There he goes now; to him nothing’s happened; but to me, the skewer\r\nseems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in,\r\nTahitian!"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKV7VCG1M1V2KKXZJD4A9","peer_label":"stubb","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3Z6GAC3QZ1MZC1PX63","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV9JR5QVCDKHMH41830J","peer_label":"flask","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKVYKWFDKYWNFAY5N9KE5","peer_label":"starbuck","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3DZQ5YTC2NQ9Q7VBWR","peer_label":"ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6CV5BE5PG01N0MSHZ9Z","peer_label":"lance","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM3PTGFAW1Y6JD6W7ZKXC","peer_label":"manxman","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQB7X133M4J25BHTNRADA","peer_label":"top-maul","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"tool","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXPZ1GD40M1RSRP76Y3MHQ","peer_label":"compasses","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"navigational_instrument","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ6ZQTX1ETVFKXZ3DG4RH","peer_label":"magnetization of the steel","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"event","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ2F39S9W9KHCS938Y6ME","peer_label":"quadrant","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"navigational_instrument","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ6S153XG3MZX2CK9P1TA","peer_label":"sail-makers needles","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"tool","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQNYY7QFME9S9S81DQX99","peer_label":"chapter 125 the log and line","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"document_structure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQEEJKX134E9M7SS6YZ82","peer_label":"log and line","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"navigational_instrument","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQPFN14NV1ZFA820QNMBB","peer_label":"log-line parting","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"event","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXTGPP0M7ZN49W4HVYZ9E0","peer_label":"isle of man","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXRJ1N3VPHJZCHN942G3TY","peer_label":"heaving the log","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"event","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXRGFMFW7HTJYK5YK9AJ49","peer_label":"tahitian","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:57.613Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.176Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:08:00.162Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}