314 
MOBY DICK; OR 
Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous 
and — in this particular instance — almost fatal operation whereby the 
Sperm Whale’s great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped. 
CHAPTER LXXYII 
CISTERN AND BUCKETS 
Ximble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his 
erect posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-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 yardarm, 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 en- 
tirely disappears; then giving the word to the seamen at the whip, 
up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairymaid’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, 
