Hold on hard!
Jimmini, what a squall! But those chaps there are worse yet--
they are your white squalls, they. White squalls? white whale,
shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all their chat just now,
and the white whale--shirr! shirr!--but spoken of once! and only
this evening--it makes me jingle all over like my tambourine--
that anaconda of an old man swore 'em in to hunt him!
Oh! thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness,
have mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him
from all men that have no bowels to feel fear!
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.
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