315 
THE WHITE WHALE 
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 haling 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 mo- 
ment his one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the 
head; or whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and 
cozy; or whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, 
without stating his particular reason; 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 recipro- 
cating 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 clear- 
ing 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 
