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- upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as an arm thrust
forth from the grass over a grave.
“Both! both!—it is both!”—cried Daggoo again with a joyful shout; and
soon after, Queequeg was seen boldly striking out with one hand, and
with the other clutching the long hair of the Indian. Drawn into the
waiting boat, they were quickly brought to the deck; but Tashtego was
long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very brisk.
Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after the
slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made side
lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then
dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards,
and so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first
thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that
was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;—he had
thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a
somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in
the good old way—head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was
doing as well as could be expected.
And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of
Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was
successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and
apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be
forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing
and boxing, riding and rowing.
I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header’s will be sure to
seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have
either seen or heard of some one’s falling into a cistern ashore; an
accident which not seldom happens, and with much less reason too than
the Indian’s, considering the exceeding slipperiness of the curb of the
Sperm Whale’s well.
But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this? We thought
the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and
most corky part about him; and yet thou makest it sink in an element of
a far greater specific gravity than itself. We have thee there. Not at
all, but I have ye; for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had
been nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the
dense tendinous wall of the well—a double welded, hammered substance,
as I have before said, much heavier than the sea water, and a lump of
which sinks in it like lead almost. But the tendency to rapid sinking
in this substance was in the present instance materially counteracted
by the other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it
sank very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair
chance for performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say.
Yes, it was a running delivery, so it was.
Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious
perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant
spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber
and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be
recalled—the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey
in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that
leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. How
many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato’s honey head, and
sweetly perished there?
CHAPTER 79. The Prairie.
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