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 remounting 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 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.
Pages:
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560