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- 12659
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-18T02:42:20.364Z
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- 12613
- text
- feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about,
half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like
a tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured
in the Highland costume—a shirt and socks—in which to my eyes, at
least, he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better
chance to observe him, as will presently be seen.
Being the savage’s bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar
in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to
attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead
whale’s back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by
a long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg
down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a
monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his
waist.
It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we
proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both
ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow
leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time,
were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both
usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should
drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature
united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I
any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond
entailed.
So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then,
that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to
perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock
company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that
another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited
disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of
interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have
so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering—while I jerked
him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten
to jam him—still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of
mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in
most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a
plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your
apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True,
you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these
and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg’s
monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I
came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do
what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.*
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- Chunk 2