Moby Dick

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that is none know but those who have tried it. For one, I cannot bawl
very heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same time. In this
straining, bawling state, then, with his back to the fish, all at once
the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting cry--"Stand up, and give it
to him!" He now has to drop and secure his oar, turn round on his
centre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch, and with what little
strength may remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the whale. No
wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out of fifty
fair chances for a dart, not five are successful; no wonder that so many
hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some
of them actually burst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that
some sperm whalemen are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder
that to many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the
harpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his
body how can you expect to find it there when most wanted!

Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant,