Tashtego moved across the rigging as nimbly as a cat. Keeping his body perfectly upright, he stepped out onto the overhanging main yard arm, right above the whale’s hoisted oil-filled head.
He brought along a simple, lightweight rig called a whip. It was made of just two rope parts running through a single small pulley block.
He fixed the pulley firmly to the yard arm, letting it hang straight down. One end of the rope swung toward the deck, where a sailor quickly caught it and held it tight.
Then the Native American seaman gripped the other rope and lowered himself hand over hand through the open air. He landed neatly and lightly right on top of the whale’s massive head.
Perched high above the rest of the crew, he called down to them in a lively, loud voice. From where they stood, he looked just like a Muslim prayer caller standing atop a tower, summoning people to worship.
The crew sent up a short, sharp spade. Tashtego got straight to work, carefully prodding the whale’s head to find the perfect spot to break open the oil chamber.
He moved with extreme caution, just like a treasure hunter tapping along old stone walls to locate hidden gold buried inside.
Once he finished his careful search, the crew fastened a sturdy iron-bound bucket—identical to an old well bucket—to the end of the whip rope. The other end stretched across the deck, held steady by three alert sailors ready to haul.
They hoisted the bucket up until it was within Tashtego’s reach. Another crew member passed up a very long wooden pole.
Tashtego slid the pole through the bucket, then guided the whole tool down into the whale’s oil chamber until the bucket vanished completely from sight.
“Haul it up!” he shouted to the deck crew.
The sailors pulled the rope, and the bucket rose again, brimming full of fresh, frothy spermaceti, bubbling just like a pail of warm fresh milk from a dairy farm.
They lowered the heavy bucket carefully to the deck. A waiting sailor caught it and poured the precious, fragrant oil into a large wooden tub.
Again and again, the bucket rose and fell. The crew repeated the same routine, draining the whale’s deep oil reservoir bit by bit.
Toward the end, Tashtego had to push his long pole harder and deeper each time. Eventually, nearly twenty feet of the pole disappeared into the whale’s head.
The men of the Pequod had been baling oil this way for quite a while. Several tubs were already full of the sweet-smelling spermaceti. Then disaster struck, out of nowhere.
No one could say for sure what went wrong. Maybe the bold, reckless Tashtego let go of the heavy support ropes for a split second. Maybe the surface of the whale’s head was far slipperier and less stable than it looked. Or maybe it was just terrible, unforeseen luck.
But on the eightieth or ninetieth haul, as the bucket sucked upward with a gurgle, everything fell apart.
My God. Poor Tashtego.
Like the falling bucket in an old village well, he pitched forward headfirst straight down into the whale’s massive oil chamber. A sickening, oily gurgle echoed out, and he vanished without a trace.
“Man overboard!” Daggoo yelled. He was the first to snap out of the crew’s shocked panic.
“Swing the bucket over here!”
Daggoo planted one foot inside the bucket to grip the slippery whip rope more securely. Before Tashtego could even hit the bottom of the oil chamber, the hauling crew lifted Daggoo high up to the top of the whale’s head.
Chaos erupted across the ship. The crew leaned over the rail and stared down. The once still, lifeless whale head was thrashing and heaving just below the water’s surface.
It looked as if the giant mass had suddenly come alive with some desperate urge. In truth, it was just Tashtego’s unconscious struggles far below, revealing how deep he’d sunk.
Up on the whale’s head, Daggoo worked fast to untangle the whip rope, which had snagged on the heavy cutting tackle. Just then, a sharp, cracking sound cut through the noise.
Horror washed over every man on board. One of the two giant iron hooks holding the massive whale head had torn free.
The enormous weight swung violently to the side, shaking the entire ship so hard it reeled and staggered, as if it had slammed straight into an iceberg.
Only one hook remained to hold the tons-heavy head. It strained under the full weight, creaking with every movement, threatening to snap at any second.
“Get down! Come down now!” the sailors shouted frantically at Daggoo.
But Daggoo refused to move. He kept one hand locked tight on the heavy tackle ropes. If the whale head fell, he would still be hanging safely clear of the water.
After freeing the tangled line, he rammed the bucket straight down into the sunken oil chamber, hoping the trapped harpooneer would grab on and be pulled to safety.
“Good Lord, man!” Stubb roared. “What are you doing, ramming that thing down there like you’re loading a cannon? Stop! You’ll jam that iron bucket right on his head and crush him! Avast! Hold fast!”
“Clear the tackle! Everyone stand clear!” another voice boomed, sharp and explosive.
In the very next second, a thunderous crash shook the sea. The giant whale head tore loose from the last hook and plummeted into the ocean, just like a massive rock slab crashing into a whirlpool.
Freed from the tremendous weight, the ship lurched sharply sideways, its polished copper hull glinting far above the sinking mass.
Every man on board gasped for breath. Through a thick cloud of spray, they could barely see Daggoo clinging to the swinging tackle ropes, hovering halfway between the deck and the waves.
And far below, poor Tashtego was trapped inside the sinking whale head, dropping steadily toward the dark ocean floor.
Before the spray even settled, a naked figure appeared for a split second at the ship’s rail, a sharp boarding sword gripped firmly in his hand.
The next instant, a huge splash echoed across the water. Queequeg had dove straight down to save Tashtego.
The entire crew rushed to the ship’s side. Every eye locked on the rippling surface, watching and waiting. But there was no sign of either the sinking whale head or the diving harpooneer.
Several sailors jumped into a small rowboat and pushed off from the ship to search the water.
“Ha! Ha!”
Daggoo’s sudden shout cut through the tense silence from his swinging perch high above. The crew followed his gaze out across the blue waves.
A single arm jutted straight up out of the water. It was an eerie sight, like a hand reaching up from beneath a grave.
“They’re both alive! Both of them!” Daggoo yelled again, filled with joy.
Moments later, they spotted Queequeg. He swam powerfully toward the boat with one arm, while his other hand gripped tight to Tashtego’s long hair, dragging the unconscious Indian to the surface.
The sailors pulled both men into the rowboat and hurried them back to the ship’s deck. Tashtego lay motionless for a long time, struggling to regain consciousness. Queequeg also looked exhausted and weak from the rescue.
The crew soon learned exactly how Queequeg had pulled off this incredible, impossible rescue.
He’d dove straight down after the slowly sinking whale head. Once he caught up to it, he used his sharp sword to slash open a large hole near the bottom of the oil chamber.
Dropping his sword in the water, he stretched his long arm deep inside the heavy head and pulled Tashtego free.
Queequeg told the crew that when he first reached inside, he’d grabbed hold of a leg. Knowing pulling a leg first would trap the man and make rescue impossible, he pushed the limb back inside.
With one quick, skillful twist and heave, he flipped Tashtego upside down inside the chamber. On his next try, he seized the man by the head and hauled him safely out.
As for the massive whale head itself, it continued sinking slowly downward, just as could be expected.
Through incredible bravery and quick, clever skill—almost like a skilled midwife delivering a baby—Queequeg saved Tashtego against all odds, turning a certain death into a miraculous rescue.
It was a lesson no sailor on the Pequod would ever forget. Truly, midwifery ought to be taught right alongside fencing, boxing, horse riding, and rowing—vital skills for any life-or-death crisis.
Many landlubbers would surely find this bizarre tale hard to believe. Still, most people have heard of someone falling into a dry well on shore, a common accident far less understandable than Tashtego’s fall.
After all, the curved rim of a sperm whale’s oil chamber is unbelievably slippery, making a fall all too easy.
Skeptics might raise a fair question here. Everyone knows a sperm whale’s head is full of light, spongy tissue, the least dense part of its whole body. How could such a buoyant mass sink in the far heavier seawater?
But the logic checks out. By the time Tashtego fell in, nearly all the light, liquid spermaceti had been drained out of the chamber.
All that remained was the thick, tough, fibrous wall of the oil well—a dense, tightly woven material far heavier than seawater. A chunk of this tissue sinks almost like lead.
Luckily, the rest of the whale’s head was still attached to the heavy chamber wall, slowing its fall drastically. It sank slowly and steadily, giving Queequeg just enough time to pull off his desperate, moving rescue.
It was, in every sense of the word, a rescue done on the run.
It would have been a strange, tragic end for Tashtego if he’d perished there. He would have suffocated inside the purest, sweetest-smelling spermaceti on the whole ship.
He would have been buried, sealed away, and entombed in the most sacred, hidden chamber of the giant whale.
There is only one comparable, eerily similar death in all memory. Once, a honey hunter in Ohio climbed into a hollow tree to gather honey. He found so much sweet honey that he leaned too far forward, slipped in, and was trapped and preserved inside the hive forever.
How many people, I wonder, have similarly fallen into life’s sweet, deceptive traps and perished in gentle, beautiful ruin?