Life had always seemed a peculiarly sacred thing, but here it counted for nothing, was a cipher in the arithmetic of commerce.

I must say, however, that the sailors themselves were sympathetic, as instance the case of Johnson; but the masters (the hunters and the captain) were heartlessly indifferent.
Even the protest of Standish arose out of the fact that he did not wish to lose his boat-puller.

Had it been some other hunter's boat-puller, he, like them, would have been no more than amused.
But to return to Harrison.

It took Johansen, insulting and reviling the poor wretch, fully ten minutes to get him started again.

A little later he made the end of the gaff, where, astride the spar itself, he had a better chance for holding on.