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.. < 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 >