"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 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.
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