{"id":"01KJNXJVAVXTDJX5S72R5QDRQ3","cid":"bafkreih4qfgrhlzvtlbqermketk75cg6l4segtuxcy7rvgll2hqrdyf2ai","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":1199020,"char_start":1191020,"chunk_index":168,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":2000,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked\r\nup by another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is\r\nthus continued with what is called double-banked oars. It was thus now.\r\nBut the added power of the boat did not equal the added power of the\r\nwhale, for he seemed to have treble-banked his every fin; swimming with\r\na velocity which plainly showed, that if now, under these\r\ncircumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely\r\nprolonged, if not a hopeless one; nor could any crew endure for so long\r\na period, such an unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing\r\nbarely tolerable only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself,\r\nthen, as it sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate\r\nmeans of overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her,\r\nand were soon swayed up to their cranes—the two parts of the wrecked\r\nboat having been previously secured by her—and then hoisting everything\r\nto her side, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways\r\noutstretching it with stun-sails, like the double-jointed wings of an\r\nalbatross; the Pequod bore down in the leeward wake of Moby-Dick. At\r\nthe well known, methodic intervals, the whale’s glittering spout was\r\nregularly announced from the manned mast-heads; and when he would be\r\nreported as just gone down, Ahab would take the time, and then pacing\r\nthe deck, binnacle-watch in hand, so soon as the last second of the\r\nallotted hour expired, his voice was heard.—“Whose is the doubloon now?\r\nD’ye see him?” and if the reply was, No, sir! straightway he commanded\r\nthem to lift him to his perch. In this way the day wore on; Ahab, now\r\naloft and motionless; anon, unrestingly pacing the planks.\r\n\r\nAs he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men\r\naloft, or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a\r\nstill greater breadth—thus to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat,\r\nat every turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which had been dropped\r\nupon the quarter-deck, and lay there reversed; broken bow to shattered\r\nstern. At last he paused before it; and as in an already over-clouded\r\nsky fresh troops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old\r\nman’s face there now stole some such added gloom as this.\r\n\r\nStubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though, to\r\nevince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place in\r\nhis Captain’s mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed—“The\r\nthistle the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir; ha! ha!”\r\n\r\n“What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did\r\nI not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could\r\nswear thou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard before a\r\nwreck.”\r\n\r\n“Aye, sir,” said Starbuck drawing near, “’tis a solemn sight; an omen,\r\nand an ill one.”\r\n\r\n“Omen? omen?—the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to\r\nman, they will honorably speak outright; not shake their heads, and\r\ngive an old wives’ darkling hint.—Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles\r\nof one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye\r\ntwo are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of the\r\npeopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, cold—I shiver!—How\r\nnow? Aloft there! D’ye see him? Sing out for every spout, though he\r\nspout ten times a second!”\r\n\r\nThe day was nearly done; only the hem of his golden robe was rustling.\r\nSoon, it was almost dark, but the look-out men still remained unset.\r\n\r\n“Can’t see the spout now, sir;—too dark”—cried a voice from the air.\r\n\r\n“How heading when last seen?”\r\n\r\n“As before, sir,—straight to leeward.”\r\n\r\n“Good! he will travel slower now ’tis night. Down royals and\r\ntop-gallant stun-sails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over him before\r\nmorning; he’s making a passage now, and may heave-to a while. Helm\r\nthere! keep her full before the wind!—Aloft! come down!—Mr. Stubb, send\r\na fresh hand to the fore-mast head, and see it manned till\r\nmorning.”—Then advancing towards the doubloon in the main-mast—“Men,\r\nthis gold is mine, for I earned it; but I shall let it abide here till\r\nthe White Whale is dead; and then, whosoever of ye first raises him,\r\nupon the day he shall be killed, this gold is that man’s; and if on\r\nthat day I shall again raise him, then, ten times its sum shall be\r\ndivided among all of ye! Away now!—the deck is thine, sir!”\r\n\r\nAnd so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and\r\nslouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals\r\nrousing himself to see how the night wore on.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 134. The Chase—Second Day.\r\n\r\nAt day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh.\r\n\r\n“D’ye see him?” cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light\r\nto spread.\r\n\r\n“See nothing, sir.”\r\n\r\n“Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought\r\nfor;—the top-gallant sails!—aye, they should have been kept on her all\r\nnight. But no matter—’tis but resting for the rush.”\r\n\r\nHere be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular\r\nwhale, continued through day into night, and through night into day, is\r\na thing by no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery. For such is\r\nthe wonderful skill, prescience of experience, and invincible\r\nconfidence acquired by some great natural geniuses among the Nantucket\r\ncommanders; that from the simple observation of a whale when last\r\ndescried, they will, under certain given circumstances, pretty\r\naccurately foretell both the direction in which he will continue to\r\nswim for a time, while out of sight, as well as his probable rate of\r\nprogression during that period. And, in these cases, somewhat as a\r\npilot, when about losing sight of a coast, whose general trending he\r\nwell knows, and which he desires shortly to return to again, but at\r\nsome further point; like as this pilot stands by his compass, and takes\r\nthe precise bearing of the cape at present visible, in order the more\r\ncertainly to hit aright the remote, unseen headland, eventually to be\r\nvisited: so does the fisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for\r\nafter being chased, and diligently marked, through several hours of\r\ndaylight, then, when night obscures the fish, the creature’s future\r\nwake through the darkness is almost as established to the sagacious\r\nmind of the hunter, as the pilot’s coast is to him. So that to this\r\nhunter’s wondrous skill, the proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in\r\nwater, a wake, is to all desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the\r\nsteadfast land. And as the mighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway\r\nis so familiarly known in its every pace, that, with watches in their\r\nhands, men time his rate as doctors that of a baby’s pulse; and lightly\r\nsay of it, the up train or the down train will reach such or such a\r\nspot, at such or such an hour; even so, almost, there are occasions\r\nwhen these Nantucketers time that other Leviathan of the deep,\r\naccording to the observed humor of his speed; and say to themselves, so\r\nmany hours hence this whale will have gone two hundred miles, will have\r\nabout reached this or that degree of latitude or longitude. But to\r\nrender this acuteness at all successful in the end, the wind and the\r\nsea must be the whaleman’s allies; for of what present avail to the\r\nbecalmed or windbound mariner is the skill that assures him he is\r\nexactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his port? Inferable\r\nfrom these statements, are many collateral subtile matters touching the\r\nchase of whales.\r\n\r\nThe ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a\r\ncannon-ball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level\r\nfield.\r\n\r\n“By salt and hemp!” cried Stubb, “but this swift motion of the deck\r\ncreeps up one’s legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and I are two\r\nbrave fellows!—Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me, spine-wise,\r\non the sea,—for by live-oaks! my spine’s a keel. Ha, ha!"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.195Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.195Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}