{"id":"01KJNXJVAVXGH3ECVGS91GZR1D","cid":"bafkreidxc5cdrcspcrzowmylwvpncy7by7wulrpuauklpmyy5galbc2uyq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":1184749,"char_start":1177211,"chunk_index":166,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1885,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian’s\r\nhead was almost on a level with Ahab’s heel. From this height the whale\r\nwas now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing\r\nhis high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into\r\nthe air. To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they\r\nhad so long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans.\r\n\r\n“And did none of ye see it before?” cried Ahab, hailing the perched men\r\nall around him.\r\n\r\n“I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I\r\ncried out,” said Tashtego.\r\n\r\n“Not the same instant; not the same—no, the doubloon is mine, Fate\r\nreserved the doubloon for me. _I_ only; none of ye could have raised\r\nthe White Whale first. There she blows!—there she blows!—there she\r\nblows! There again!—there again!” he cried, in long-drawn, lingering,\r\nmethodic tones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale’s\r\nvisible jets. “He’s going to sound! In stunsails! Down\r\ntop-gallant-sails! Stand by three boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay\r\non board, and keep the ship. Helm there! Luff, luff a point! So;\r\nsteady, man, steady! There go flukes! No, no; only black water! All\r\nready the boats there? Stand by, stand by! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck;\r\nlower, lower,—quick, quicker!” and he slid through the air to the deck.\r\n\r\n“He is heading straight to leeward, sir,” cried Stubb, “right away from\r\nus; cannot have seen the ship yet.”\r\n\r\n“Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm!—brace up!\r\nShiver her!—shiver her!—So; well that! Boats, boats!”\r\n\r\nSoon all the boats but Starbuck’s were dropped; all the boat-sails\r\nset—all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness, shooting to\r\nleeward; and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up\r\nFedallah’s sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth.\r\n\r\nLike noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea;\r\nbut only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew\r\nstill more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a\r\nnoon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter\r\ncame so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling\r\nhump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated\r\nthing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy,\r\ngreenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly\r\nprojecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged\r\nwaters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky\r\nforehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and\r\nbehind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving\r\nvalley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and\r\ndanced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of\r\nhundreds of gay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their\r\nfitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull\r\nof an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected\r\nfrom the white whale’s back; and at intervals one of the cloud of\r\nsoft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over\r\nthe fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail\r\nfeathers streaming like pennons.\r\n\r\nA gentle joyousness—a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested\r\nthe gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with\r\nravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering\r\neyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness,\r\nrippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that\r\ngreat majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so\r\ndivinely swam.\r\n\r\nOn each soft side—coincident with the parted swell, that but once\r\nleaving him, then flowed so wide away—on each bright side, the whale\r\nshed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who\r\nnamelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured\r\nto assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of\r\ntornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all\r\nwho for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way\r\nthou may’st have bejuggled and destroyed before.\r\n\r\nAnd thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea, among\r\nwaves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding rapture, Moby\r\nDick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his\r\nsubmerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw.\r\nBut soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an\r\ninstant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia’s\r\nNatural Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air,\r\nthe grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight.\r\nHoveringly halting, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls\r\nlongingly lingered over the agitated pool that he left.\r\n\r\nWith oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails adrift,\r\nthe three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick’s reappearance.\r\n\r\n“An hour,” said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat’s stern; and he gazed\r\nbeyond the whale’s place, towards the dim blue spaces and wide wooing\r\nvacancies to leeward. It was only an instant; for again his eyes seemed\r\nwhirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle. The breeze\r\nnow freshened; the sea began to swell.\r\n\r\n“The birds!—the birds!” cried Tashtego.\r\n\r\nIn long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds were now\r\nall flying towards Ahab’s boat; and when within a few yards began\r\nfluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous,\r\nexpectant cries. Their vision was keener than man’s; Ahab could\r\ndiscover no sign in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down\r\ninto its depths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a\r\nwhite weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it\r\nrose, till it turned, and then there were plainly revealed two long\r\ncrooked rows of white, glistening teeth, floating up from the\r\nundiscoverable bottom. It was Moby Dick’s open mouth and scrolled jaw;\r\nhis vast, shadowed bulk still half blending with the blue of the sea.\r\nThe glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble\r\ntomb; and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled\r\nthe craft aside from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon\r\nFedallah to change places with him, went forward to the bows, and\r\nseizing Perth’s harpoon, commanded his crew to grasp their oars and\r\nstand by to stern.\r\n\r\nNow, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis,\r\nits bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale’s head while yet\r\nunder water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby Dick, with that\r\nmalicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplanted\r\nhimself, as it were, in an instant, shooting his pleated head\r\nlengthwise beneath the boat.\r\n\r\nThrough and through; through every plank and each rib, it thrilled for\r\nan instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in the manner of a\r\nbiting shark, slowly and feelingly taking its bows full within his\r\nmouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw curled high up into\r\nthe open air, and one of the teeth caught in a row-lock. The bluish\r\npearl-white of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of Ahab’s\r\nhead, and reached higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale\r\nnow shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKV94RQAJGYF0Y1PBZWSW","peer_label":"tashtego","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3DZQ5YTC2NQ9Q7VBWR","peer_label":"ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKVYKWFDKYWNFAY5N9KE5","peer_label":"starbuck","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKZWNWH9124159G96R4Q9","peer_label":"indian ocean","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ocean","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM4ABQHDNRR9K67QJS45J","peer_label":"atlantic ocean","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ocean","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6EP73PJRV763QA81RVY","peer_label":"fedallah","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM6CV5BE5PG01N0MSHZ9Z","peer_label":"lance","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV7VCG1M1V2KKXZJD4A9","peer_label":"stubb","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ0RTYAGBB3EPQKERM9BC","peer_label":"perth","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ9MRBC1S4PXRCG58H8B3","peer_label":"ahabs boat","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaleboat","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQB87SPF5WRGGFR63QKSB","peer_label":"doubloon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"prize","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQTY4F4CD4C9Y7G48KPFJ","peer_label":"jupiter","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"mythological_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXR39B87PA53FNX8CMR25D","peer_label":"virginias natural bridge","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"natural_landmark","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ9RR1TQPMMYR3WCZBDE3","peer_label":"whaleboats","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"group_of_boats","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXRD5DT3HTZXR6H8H6TPTF","peer_label":"europa","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"mythological_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXRGFR2CTZN047K6CRTR9N","peer_label":"perths harpoon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"weapon","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQRCZFTCFPK9ZTGNGH89Y","peer_label":"moby dick","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"white_whale","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:07:16.233Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.195Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:07:53.372Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}