.. < chapter lxxviii 2  CISTERN AND BUCKETS >


     Nimble as a cat, Tashtego

mounts aloft; and without altering his erect posture, runs straight out upon

the overhanging main-yard-arm, to the part where it exactly projects over the


     hoisted Tun.  He has carried with him a light tackle called a whip,

consisting of only two parts, travelling through a single-sheaved block.

Securing this block, so that it hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one

end of the rope, till it is caught and firmly held by a hand on deck.  Then,

hand-over-hand, down the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till


     dexterously he lands on the summit of the head.  There --still high elevated

above the rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries --he seems some

Turkish Muezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower.  A

short-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches for

the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun.  In this business he proceeds


     very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house, sounding the

walls to find where the gold is masoned in.  By the time this cautious search

is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like a well-bucket, has been

attached to one end of the whip; while the other end, being stretched across

the deck, is there held by two or three alert hands.  These last now hoist

the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up

a very long pole.  Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward

guides the bucket into the Tun, till it entirely disappears; then giving the

word to the seamen at the whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like

a dairy-maid's pail of new milk.  Carefully lowered from its height, the

full-freighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied

into a large tub.  Then re-mounting aloft, it again goes through the same

round until the deep cistern will yield no more.  Towards the end, Tashtego

has to ram his long pole harder and

.. <p 340 >

harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the

pole have gone down.  Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time

in this way; several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all

at once a queer accident happened.  Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild

Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed

hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the place

where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil One himself

would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular reasons; how it

was exactly, there is no telling now; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth

or ninetieth bucket came suckingly up --my God!  poor Tashtego --like the twin

reciprocating bucket in a veritable well, dropped head-foremost down into

this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with a horrible oily gurgling, went

clean out of sight!  Man overboard!  cried Daggoo, who amid the general

consternation first came to his senses.  Swing the bucket this way!  and

putting one foot into it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold

on the whip itself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head,

almost before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom.  Meantime,

there was a terrible tumult.  Looking over the side, they saw the before

lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if

that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only the poor

Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous depth to which

he had sunk.  At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was

clearing the whip --which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles --a

sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all, one of

the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with a vast

vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship reeled and

shook as if smitten by an iceberg.  The one remaining hook, upon which the

entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be on the point of giving

way; an event still more likely from the violent motions of the head.  Come

down, come down!  yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but

.. <p 341 >

with one hand holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should

drop, he would still remain suspended; the negro having cleared the foul

line, rammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the

buried harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out.  In heaven's name,

man, cried Stubb, are you ramming home a cartridge there? --Avast!  How

will that help him; jamming that iron-bound bucket on top of his head?  Avast,


     will ye!  Stand clear of the tackle!  cried a voice like the bursting of a

rocket.  Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass

dropped into the sea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the

suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering copper;


     and all caught their breath, as half swinging --now over the sailors' heads,

and now over the water --Daggoo, through a thick mist of spray, was dimly

beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor, buried-alive

Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea!  But hardly had

the blinding vapor cleared away, when a naked figure with a boarding-sword in

its hand, was for one swift moment seen hovering over the bulwarks.  The

next, a loud splash announced that my brave Queequeg had dived to the

rescue.  One packed rush was made to the side, and every eye counted every

ripple, as moment followed moment, and no sign of either the sinker or the

diver could be seen.  Some hands now jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed

a little off from the ship.  Ha!  ha!  cried Daggoo, all at once, from his

now quiet, swinging perch overhead; and looking further off from the side,

we saw an arm thrust upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as

an arm thrust forth from the grass over a grave.  both!  both! --it is both!

--cried daggoo again with a joyful shout; and soon after, Queequeg was seen

boldly striking out with one hand, and with the other clutching the long hair

of the Indian.  Drawn into the waiting boat, they were quickly brought to

the deck; but Tashtego was long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very

brisk.

.. <p 342 >

Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished?  Why, diving after the

slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made side lunges

near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then dropping his

sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards, and so hauled out our


     poor Tash by the head.  He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a

leg was presented; but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and

might occasion great trouble; -- he had thrust back the leg, and by a

dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that

with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way --head foremost.  As

for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be expected.  And

thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the

deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished,

in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments;

which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten.  Midwifery should be taught in

the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing.  I know that this

queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will be sure to seem incredible to some

landsmen, though they themselves may have either seen or heard of some one's

falling into a cistern ashore; an accident which not seldom happens, and

with much less reason too than the Indian's, considering the exceeding

slipperiness of the curb of the Sperm Whale's well.  But, peradventure, it may

be sagaciously urged, how is this?  We thought the tissued, infiltrated head

of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and most corky part about him; and yet

thou makest it sink in an element of a far greater specific gravity than

itself.  We have thee there.  Not at all, but I have ye; for at the time

poor Tash fell in, the case had been nearly emptied of its lighter contents,

leaving little but the dense tendinous wall of the well --a double welded,

hammered substance, as I have before said, much heavier than the sea water,

and a lump of which sinks in it like lead almost.  But the tendency to rapid

sinking in this substance was in the present instance materially counteracted

by the other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank

very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair chance for

performing his agile

.. <p 343 >

obstetrics on the run, as you may say.  Yes, it was a running delivery, so

it was.  Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious

perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant

spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and

sanctum sanctorum of the whale.  Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled

--the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch

of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far

over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed.  How many, think ye,

have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished there?

.. <p 343 >

