CHAPTER ELEVEN

Queequeg Saves the Day Again!

Even though the sperm whale's head had been hanging for a long time, there was still very important work to be done—the work of removing a treasure.

That treasure is in an enormous sack within the forehead of the whale. It contains precious oil. It is very important not to make a hole in this sack, or some of the 500 gallons of oil would be lost.

Tashtego decided to do this job of removing the sack. He climbed a pole so that he was hanging over the swinging whale's head. Then he let himself down with a rope, hand over hand, until he landed on top of the whale's head. But he did not begin to cut at once. Instead, he carefully tapped the skin with the bottom of the knife so that he could tell where the walls of the sack were.

By the time he found the sack, an iron bucket had been attached to one end of the rope and lowered down to him. The other end was held by two men standing across the deck.

Tashtego cut a hole in the forehead and pushed the bucket into the whale's sack until it disappeared. Then, he told the two men to pull on the rope, and up came a bucket filled with oil. Then it was emptied into a large tub and returned to Tashtego. He had to do this about one hundred times. Finally, the bucket was about twenty feet down inside the whale's forehead.

Suddenly, Tashtego slipped and fell head first into the sack. With a horrible watery sound, he disappeared.

"Man in danger!" cried Daggoo. He put a foot into the bucket and called to be raised above the top of the whale's head.

Then, a loud cracking noise made everyone stop and look in horror. The head had torn loose from one of its hooks. It started to swing left and right, and it looked at any moment ready to fall.

With a thunder-boom, the enormous head fell into the sea. Daggoo was still hanging on the rope, but Tashtego was still inside the head and now was sinking to the bottom of the sea.

Then Queequeg stripped off his clothes and with a sword in hand, jumped into the sea to the rescue.

In a few moments, we saw an arm rising strangely out of the sea. It seemed like an arm reaching out from the grass that covers over a grave.

"Both, both—it's both of them!" cried Daggoo.

Soon we could see Queequeg swimming with one hand. He was holding the long hair of Tashtego with the other.

When Queequeg described the rescue later, it seemed to us an amazing one. He had swum down after the sinking whale head. When he found it, he cut some holes near the bottom with his sword.

Then he stuck his arm into the head and grabbed Tashtego's leg. But this wasn't good because he couldn't pull him out by his leg. So, he gave the leg a heavy push. This made the Indian's body turn over. He managed to find Tashtego's head and was able to swim, pulling him along with him in tow.

(end of section)