It was the private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secresy, but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well withhold the rest.
Crepitus. A crackling or crunching sound heard when the ends of a fractured piece of bone rub against each other. Mentioned in: Gangrene, Nasal Trauma.
2 a sound or feel that resembles the crackling noise heard when rubbing hair between the fingers or throwing salt on an open fire. Crepitus is associated with gas gangrene, rubbing of bone fragments, air in superficial tissues, or crackles of a consolidated area of the lung in pneumonia.