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.
But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip,
suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned,
and gave chase; and Stubb's boat was now so far away,
and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip's
ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably.
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