The Jungfrau Begs for Oil
Chapter 81 of Moby-Dick by opens with the Pequod encountering the German whaling ship Jungfrau ("The Virgin"), commanded by Captain Derick De Deer of Bremen. Derick rows over eagerly, but instead of bringing news of Moby Dick, he carries a lamp-feeder and oil-can, having come to beg for whale oil. His ship is "clean" — completely empty of oil — making the name Jungfrau doubly apt. Ahab demands whether Derick has seen the White Whale; the German knows nothing of it. After his necessities are supplied, Derick departs, but before he reaches his own ship, whales are spotted from the mastheads of both vessels.
The Competitive Chase
Eight whales surge before the wind in a tight formation, and trailing far behind them swims a huge, aged bull whale — yellowish with incrustations, missing his starboard fin, spouting in labored gasps. Both ships lower their boats, and Derick's German whalers have a significant head start. The three Pequod mates — Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask — drive their crews with furious exhortations, hurling insults at the "Yarman" who dares race them. All boats converge on the old bull, the largest and nearest whale. Derick mockingly shakes the very lamp-feeder the Pequod filled for him, provoking Starbuck's outrage at his ingratitude.
Victory, Pity, and a Pitiable Death
A lucky mishap decides the race: one of Derick's oarsmen catches a crab, stalling the German boat just long enough for the Pequod's three harpooneers — Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo — to spring to their feet and hurl their irons simultaneously into the whale, knocking Derick and his harpooneer into the water. The old whale's flight is described with deep pathos: blind, one-finned, he flaps in terror like a bird with clipped wings, yet has no voice to cry out his fear. After sounding and exhausting himself, he resurfaces, and the mates lance him. Flask cruelly pierces an ulcerous growth on his flank, goading the dying whale into a final blind charge that capsizes Flask's boat. The whale rolls over, exposes his white belly, and expires in a "most piteous" last spout. In his flesh the crew discovers a corroded iron harpoon and, remarkably, a stone lance-head that may have been thrown by a Native American "long before America was discovered."
The Sinking Carcass and the Futile German Chase
The whale begins to sink before his oil can be harvested. Despite Starbuck's efforts to secure the body with lines and fluke-chains, the immense downward pull nearly capsizes the Pequod herself, tilting the deck like a steep roof and tearing ivory inlays from the bulwarks. Only Queequeg's quick work with a carpenter's hatchet, cutting the chains free, saves the ship. The chapter closes with the Jungfrau's crew lowering boats after a Fin-Back whale — a species too swift to catch that only inexperienced whalers would pursue. Ishmael concludes with quiet irony: "Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend."