in to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly dropped
all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command, "Stick to the boat,
Pip, or by the Lord, I won't pick you up if you jump; mind that. We
can't afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for
thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and
don't jump any more." Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that
though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which
propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was
under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this time
he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started to
run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller's trunk.
Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful, bounteous,
blue day; the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away,
all round, to the horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to the
extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed
like a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly
astern. Stubb's inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was
winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between
Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his
crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though
the loftiest and the brightest.

Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the
practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful
lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the
middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, how
when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea--mark how closely they
hug their ship and only coast along her sides.

But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No; he
did not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake,
and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip very
quickly, and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations towards
oarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always manifested
by the hunters in all similar instances; and such instances not
unfrequently occur; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so
called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to
military navies and armies.