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CHAPTER 41 . Moby Dick . I , Ishmael , was one of that crew ; my shouts had gone up with the rest ; my oath had been welded with theirs ; and stronger I shouted , and more did I hammer and clinch my oath , because of the dread in my soul . A wild , mystical , sympathetical feeling was in me ; Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine . With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of violence and revenge . For some time past , though at intervals only , the unaccompanied , secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen . But not all of them knew of his existence ; only a few of them , comparatively , had knowingly seen him ; while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given battle to him , was small indeed . For , owing to the large number of whale - cruisers ; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery circumference , many of them adventurously pushing their quest along solitary latitudes , so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth or more on a stretch , to encounter a single news - telling sail of any sort ; the inordinate length of each separate voyage ; the irregularity of the times of sailing from home ; all these , with other circumstances , direct and indirect , long obstructed the spread through the whole world - wide whaling - fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning Moby Dick . It was hardly to be doubted , that several vessels reported to have encountered , at such or such a time , or on such or such a meridian , a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity , which whale , after doing great mischief to his assailants , had completely escaped them ; to some minds it was not an unfair presumption , I say , that the whale in question must have been no other than Moby Dick . Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent instances of great ferocity , cunning , and malice in the monster attacked ; therefore it was , that those who by accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby Dick ; such hunters , perhaps , for the most part , were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred , more , as it were , to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large , than to the individual cause . In that way , mostly , the disastrous encounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been popularly regarded .
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