After the five shadows were revealed, a new kind of talk began among the crew.
It was the sense that this voyage might not be for whale oil alone.
A Name Passed in Low Voices
At night the crew gathered in a corner of the deck and talked in low voices. At the center of their talk was always the same name.
Moby Dick.
At first Ishmael had no idea what it meant. Only after several days did he learn it was the name of one particular sperm whale.
Unlike Any Other Whale
The old sailors agreed that this whale was unlike an ordinary sperm whale. He was larger than any whale they knew, and a snow-white pattern covered his brow and hump.
Stories followed of harpoons he had survived again and again, of boats he had stove in and men he had dragged under. One sailor even claimed the whale had been seen in more than one ocean at the same time.
Ishmael did not believe all of it. Still, hearing the same story from so many different people felt strange to him.
Grown by Fear, or Truly Dangerous
“he piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down.” (Chapter 41)
Hearing this line, Ishmael understood something. What people attached to this whale was not simple fear.
The man who lived it, the man who heard it, and the man who passed it on again. The story grew a little larger with every hand it crossed.
Whether the whale was truly this dangerous, or the story had simply grown with fear, he could not finally tell.
Today, the Real Purpose of This Voyage
Only now did Ishmael begin to understand why Peleg had called Ahab a grand, ungodly, god-like man.
This voyage might never have been only about whale oil. He carried that thought with him to sleep.
A name once passed only in low voices was now growing inside him too.