{"id":"01KF7FPRAVDQ1DAQQR59K9GXKX","cid":"bafkreih6ufntdvudqfrgro5x7jltcmgk5vx4vzvtnk2vfzaz3oqjus4gf4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9534,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:19.365Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":9472,"text":"CHAPTER 52. The Albatross.\r\n\r\nSouth-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising\r\nground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross)\r\nby name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the\r\nfore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro\r\nin the far ocean fisheries—a whaler at sea, and long absent from home.\r\n\r\nAs if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the\r\nskeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral\r\nappearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all\r\nher spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred\r\nover with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it\r\nwas to see her long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They\r\nseemed clad in the skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment\r\nthat had survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops\r\nnailed to the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea; and\r\nthough, when the ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men\r\nin the air came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped\r\nfrom the mast-heads of one ship to those of the other; yet, those\r\nforlorn-looking fishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not\r\none word to our own look-outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being\r\nheard from below.\r\n\r\n“Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?”\r\n\r\nBut as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in\r\nthe act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his\r\nhand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to\r\nmake himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing\r\nthe distance between. While in various silent ways the seamen of the\r\nPequod were evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the\r\nfirst mere mention of the White Whale’s name to another ship, Ahab for\r\na moment paused; it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a\r\nboat to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But\r\ntaking advantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet,\r\nand knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer\r\nand shortly bound home, he loudly hailed—“Ahoy there! This is the\r\nPequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters\r\nto the Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home,\r\ntell them to address them to ——”\r\n\r\nAt that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, then,\r\nin accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish,\r\nthat for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side,\r\ndarted away with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves\r\nfore and aft with the stranger’s flanks. Though in the course of his\r\ncontinual voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar\r\nsight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously\r\ncarry meanings.\r\n\r\n“Swim away from me, do ye?” murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water.\r\nThere seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of\r\ndeep helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced.\r\nBut turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in\r\nthe wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion\r\nvoice,—“Up helm! Keep her off round the world!”\r\n\r\nRound the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings;\r\nbut whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through\r\nnumberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that\r\nwe left behind secure, were all the time before us.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPMHVRD1914Z5ZGKF4JNS","peer_label":"Chapter 52","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPMHVRD1914Z5ZGKF4JNS","peer_label":"Chapter 52","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KF7FPRE4MYJ5FEQTJBKS3175","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:19.759Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:27.856Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}