and scrape to pay the butcher’s bill in Puddleby? And how are you going to get the sailor the new boat you spoke of–unless we have the money to buy it?”
“I was going to make him one,” said the Doctor.
“Oh, do be sensible!” cried Dab-Dab.
“Where would you get all the wood and the nails to make one with?–And besides, what are we going to live on? We shall be poorer than ever when we get back. Chee-Chee’s perfectly right: take the funny-looking thing along, do!”
“Well, perhaps there is something in what you say,” murmured the Doctor. “It certainly would make a nice new kind of pet. But does the er– what-do-you-call-it really want to go abroad?”
“Yes, I’ll go,” said the pushmi-pullyu who saw at once, from the Doctor’s face, that he was a man to be trusted. “You have been so kind to the animals here–and the monkeys tell me that I am the only one who will do. But you must promise me that if I do not like it in the Land of the White Men you will send me
back.”
“Why, certainly–of course, of course,” said the Doctor. “Excuse me, surely you are
related to the Deer Family, are you not?”
“Yes,” said the pushmi-pullyu–“to the Abyssinian Gazelles and the Asiatic Chamois –on my mother’s side. My father’s great- grandfather was the last of the Unicorns.”
“Most interesting!” murmured the Doctor; and he took a book out of the trunk which Dab- Dab was packing and began turning the pages. “Let us see if Buffon says anything–“
“I notice,” said the duck, “that you only talk with one of your mouths. Can’t the other head talk as well?”
“Oh, yes,” said the pushmi-pullyu. “But I keep the other mouth for eating–mostly. In that way I can talk while I am eating without being rude. Our people have always been very polite.”
When the packing was finished and everything was ready to start, the monkeys gave a
grand party for the Doctor, and all the animals of the jungle came. And they had pineapples and mangoes and honey and all sorts of good things to eat and drink.
After they had all finished eating, the Doctor got up and said,
“My friends: I am not clever at speaking long words after dinner, like some men; and I have just eaten many fruits and much honey. But I wish to tell you that I am very sad at leaving your beautiful country. Because I have things to do in the Land of the White Men, I must go. After I have gone, remember never to let the flies settle on your food before you eat it; and do not sleep on the ground when the rains are coming. I–er–er–I hope you will all live happily ever after.”
When the Doctor stopped speaking and sat down, all the monkeys clapped their hands a long time and said to one another, “Let it be remembered always among our people that he sat and ate with us, here, under the trees. For surely he is the Greatest of Men!”
And the Grand Gorilla, who had the strength of seven horses in his hairy arms, rolled a great rock up to the head of the table and said,
“This stone for all time shall mark the spot.”
And even to this day, in the heart of the Jungle, that stone still is there. And monkey- mothers, passing through the forest with their families, still point down at it from the branches and whisper to their children, “Sh! There it is– look–where the Good White Man sat and ate food with us in the Year of the Great Sickness!”
Then, when the party was over, the Doctor and his pets started out to go back to the seashore. And all the monkeys went with him as
far as the edge of their country, carrying his trunk and bags, to see him off.
THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER
THE BLACK PRINCE
BY the edge of the river they stopped and said farewell.
This took a long time, because all those thousands of monkeys wanted to shake John Dolittle by the hand.
Afterwards, when the Doctor and his pets were going on alone, Polynesia said,
“We must tread softly and talk low as we go through the land of the Jolliginki. If the King should hear us, he will send his soldiers to catch us again; for I am sure he is still very angry over the trick I played on him.”
“What I am wondering,” said the Doctor, “is where we are going to get another boat to go home in…. Oh well, perhaps we’ll find one lying about on the beach that nobody is using. `Never lift your foot till you come to the stile.'”
One day, while they were passing through a very thick part of the forest, Chee-Chee went ahead of them to look for cocoanuts. And while he was away, the Doctor and the rest of the animals, who did not know the jungle-paths so well, got lost in the deep woods. They wandered around and around but could not find
their way down to the seashore.
Chee-Chee, when he could not see them anywhere, was terribly upset. He climbed high trees and looked out from the top branches to try and see the Doctor’s high hat; he waved and shouted; he called to all the animals by name. But it was no use. They seemed to have
disappeared altogether.
Indeed they had lost their way very badly. They had strayed a long way off the path, and the jungle was so thick with bushes and
creepers and vines that sometimes they could hardly move at all, and the Doctor had to take out his pocket-knife and cut his way along. They stumbled into wet, boggy places; they got all tangled up in thick convolvulus-runners; they scratched themselves on thorns, and twice they nearly lost the medicine-bag in the under-brush. There seemed no end to their troubles; and nowhere could they come upon a path.
At last, after blundering about like this for many days, getting their clothes torn and their faces covered with mud, they walked right into the King’s back-garden by mistake. The King’s men came running up at once and caught them.
But Polynesia flew into a tree in the garden, without anybody seeing her, and hid herself. The Doctor and the rest were taken before the King.
“Ha, ha!” cried the King. “So you are caught again! This time you shall not escape. Take them all back to prison and put double locks on the door. This White Man shall scrub my kitchen-floor for the rest of his life!”
So the Doctor and his pets were led back to prison and locked up. And the Doctor was told that in the morning he must begin scrubbing the kitchen-floor.
They were all very unhappy.
“This is a great nuisance,” said the Doctor. “I really must get back to Puddleby. That poor sailor will think I’ve stolen his ship if I don’t get home soon…. I wonder if those hinges are loose.”
But the door was very strong and firmly locked. There seemed no chance of getting out. Then Gub-Gub began to cry again.
All this time Polynesia was still sitting in the tree in the palace-garden. She was saying nothing and blinking her eyes.
This was always a very bad sign with
Polynesia. Whenever she said nothing and blinked her eyes, it meant that somebody had been making trouble, and she was thinking out some way to put things right. People who made trouble for Polynesia or her friends were nearly always sorry for it afterwards.
Presently she spied Chee-Chee swinging through the trees still looking for the Doctor. When Chee-Chee saw her, he came into her tree and asked her what had become of him.
“The Doctor and all the animals have been caught by the King’s men and locked up again,” whispered Polynesia. “We lost our way in the jungle and blundered into the palace-garden by mistake.”
“But couldn’t you guide them?” asked Chee- Chee; and he began to scold the parrot for letting them get lost while he was away looking for the cocoanuts.
“It was all that stupid pig’s fault,” said Polynesia. “He would keep running off the path hunting for ginger-roots. And I was kept so busy catching him and bringing him back, that I turned to the left, instead of the right, when we reached the swamp.–Sh!–Look!
There’s Prince Bumpo coming into the garden! He must not see us.–Don’t move, whatever you do!”
And there, sure enough, was Prince Bumpo, the King’s son, opening the garden-gate. He carried a book of fairy-tales under his arm. He came strolling down the gravel-walk, humming a sad song, till he reached a stone seat right under the tree where the parrot and the monkey were hiding. Then he lay down on the seat and began reading the fairy-stories to himself.
Chee-Chee and Polynesia watched him,
keeping very quiet and still.
After a while the King’s son laid the book down and sighed a weary sigh.
“If I were only a WHITE prince!” said he, with a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes.
Then the parrot, talking in a small, high voice like a little girl, said aloud,
“Bumpo, some one might turn thee into a white prince perchance.”
The King’s son started up off the seat and looked all around.
“What is this I hear?” he cried. “Methought the sweet music of a fairy’s silver voice rang from yonder bower! Strange!”
“Worthy Prince,” said Polynesia, keeping very still so Bumpo couldn’t see her, “thou sayest winged words of truth. For ’tis I, Tripsitinka, the Queen of the Fairies, that speak to
thee. I am hiding in a rose-bud.”
“Oh tell me, Fairy-Queen,” cried Bumpo, clasping his hands in joy, “who is it can turn me white?”
“In thy father’s prison,” said the parrot, “there lies a famous wizard, John Dolittle by name. Many things he knows of medicine and magic, and mighty deeds has he performed. Yet thy kingly father leaves him languishing long and lingering hours. Go to him, brave Bumpo, secretly, when the sun has set; and behold, thou shalt be made the whitest prince that ever won fair lady! I have said enough. I must now go back to Fairyland. Farewell!”
“Farewell!” cried the Prince. “A thousand thanks, good Tripsitinka!”
And he sat down on the seat again with a smile upon his face, waiting for the sun to set.
THE TWELFTH CHAPTER
MEDICINE AND MAGIC
VERY, very quietly, making sure that no one should see her, Polynesia then slipped out at the back of the tree and flew across to the prison.
She found Gub-Gub poking his nose through the bars of the window, trying to sniff the cooking-smells that came from the palace- kitchen. She told the pig to bring the Doctor to the window because she wanted to speak to him. So Gub-Gub went and woke the Doctor who was taking a nap.
“Listen,” whispered the parrot, when John Dolittle’s face appeared: “Prince Bumpo is coming here to-night to see you. And you’ve got to find some way to turn him white. But be sure to make him promise you first that he will open the prison-door and find a ship for you to cross the sea in.”
“This is all very well,” said the Doctor. “But it isn’t so easy to turn a black man white. You speak as though he were a dress to be re- dyed. It’s not so simple. `Shall the leopard change his spots, or the Ethiopian his skin,’ you know?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Polynesia impatiently. “But you MUST turn this man white. Think of a way–think hard.
You’ve got plenty of medicines left in the bag. He’ll do anything for you if you change his color. It is your only chance to get out of prison.”
“Well, I suppose it MIGHT be possible,” said the Doctor. “Let me see–,” and he went over to his medicine-bag, murmuring something about “liberated chlorine on animal-pigment– perhaps zinc-ointment, as a temporary measure, spread thick–“
Well, that night Prince Bumpo came secretly to the Doctor in prison and said to him,
“White Man, I am an unhappy prince.
Years ago I went in search of The Sleeping Beauty, whom I had read of in a book. And having traveled through the world many days, I at last found her and kissed the lady very gently to awaken her–as the book said I should. ‘Tis true indeed that she awoke. But when she saw my face she cried out, `Oh, he’s black!’ And she ran away and wouldn’t marry me–but went to sleep again somewhere else. So I came back, full of sadness, to my father’s kingdom. Now I hear that you are a wonderful magician and have many powerful potions. So I come to you for help. If you will turn me white, so that I may go back to The Sleeping Beauty, I will give you half my kingdom and anything besides you ask.”
“Prince Bumpo,” said the Doctor, looking thoughtfully at the bottles in his medicine-bag, “supposing I made your hair a nice blonde color–would not that do instead to make you happy?”
“No,” said Bumpo. “Nothing else will
satisfy me. I must be a white prince.”
“You know it is very hard to change the color of a prince,” said the Doctor–“one of the hardest things a magician can do. You only want
your face white, do you not?”
“Yes, that is all,” said Bumpo. “Because I shall wear shining armor and gauntlets of steel, like the other white princes, and ride on a horse.”
“Must your face be white all over?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes, all over,” said Bumpo–“and I would like my eyes blue too, but I suppose that would be very hard to do.”
“Yes, it would,” said the Doctor quickly. “Well, I will do what I can for you. You will have to be very patient though–you know with some medicines you can never be very sure. I might have to try two or three times. You have a strong skin–yes? Well that’s all right. Now come over here by the light–Oh, but before I do anything, you must first go down to the beach and get a ship ready, with food in it, to take me across the sea. Do not speak a word of this to any one. And when I have done as you ask, you must let me and all my animals out of prison. Promise–by the crown of Jolliginki!”
So the Prince promised and went away to get a ship ready at the seashore.
When he came back and said that it was done, the Doctor asked Dab-Dab to bring a basin. Then he mixed a lot of medicines in the basin and told Bumpo to dip his face in it.
The Prince leaned down and put his face in –right up to the ears.
He held it there a long time–so long that the Doctor seemed to get dreadfully anxious and fidgety, standing first on one leg and then on the other, looking at all the bottles he had used for the mixture, and reading the labels on them again and again. A strong smell filled the prison, like the smell of brown paper burning.
At last the Prince lifted his face up out of the basin, breathing very hard. And all the animals cried out in surprise.
For the Prince’s face had turned as white as snow, and his eyes, which had been mud-colored, were a manly gray!
When John Dolittle lent him a little looking- glass to see himself in, he sang for joy and began dancing around the prison. But the Doctor asked him not to make so much noise about it; and when he had closed his medicine-bag in a hurry he told him to open the prison-door.
Bumpo begged that he might keep the looking- glass, as it was the only one in the Kingdom of Jolliginki, and he wanted to look at himself all day long. But the Doctor said he needed it to shave with.
Then the Prince, taking a bunch of copper keys from his pocket, undid the great double locks. And the Doctor with all his animals ran as fast as they could down to the seashore; while Bumpo leaned against the wall of the empty dungeon, smiling after them happily, his big face shining like polished ivory in the light of the moon.
When they came to the beach they saw
Polynesia and Chee-Chee waiting for them on the rocks near the ship.
“I feel sorry about Bumpo,” said the Doctor.
“I am afraid that medicine I used will never last. Most likely he will be as black as ever when he wakes up in the morning–that’s one reason why I didn’t like to leave the mirror with him. But then again, he MIGHT stay white–I had never used that mixture before. To tell the truth, I was surprised, myself, that it worked so well. But I had to do something, didn’t I? –I couldn’t possibly scrub the King’s kitchen for the rest of my life. It was such a dirty kitchen!–I could see it from the prison- window.–Well, well!–Poor Bumpo!”
“Oh, of course he will know we were just joking with him,” said the parrot.
“They had no business to lock us up,” said Dab-Dab, waggling her tail angrily. “We never did them any harm. Serve him right, if he does turn black again! I hope it’s a dark black.”
“But HE didn’t have anything to do with it,” said the Doctor. “It was the King, his father, who had us locked up–it wasn’t Bumpo’s fault. …I wonder if I ought to go back and apologize– Oh, well–I’ll send him some candy
when I get to Puddleby. And who knows?– he may stay white after all.”
“The Sleeping Beauty would never have him, even if he did,” said Dab-Dab. “He looked better the way he was, I thought. But he’d never be anything but ugly, no matter what color he was made.”
“Still, he had a good heart,” said the Doctor –“romantic, of course–but a good heart. After all, `handsome is as handsome does.'”
“I don’t believe the poor booby found The Sleeping Beauty at all,” said Jip, the dog. “Most likely he kissed some farmer’s fat wife who was taking a snooze under an apple-tree. Can’t blame her for getting scared! I wonder who he’ll go and kiss this time. Silly business!”
Then the pushmi-pullyu, the white mouse, Gub-Gub, Dab-Dab, Jip and the owl, Too-Too, went on to the ship with the Doctor. But Chee- Chee, Polynesia and the crocodile stayed behind, because Africa was their proper home, the land where they were born.
And when the Doctor stood upon the boat, he looked over the side across the water. And then he remembered that they had no one with them to guide them back to Puddleby.
The wide, wide sea looked terribly big and lonesome in the moonlight; and he began to wonder if they would lose their way when they passed out of sight of land.
But even while he was wondering, they heard a strange whispering noise, high in the air, coming through the night. And the animals all stopped saying Good-by and listened.
The noise grew louder and bigger. It seemed to be coming nearer to them–a sound like the Autumn wind blowing through the leaves of a poplar-tree, or a great, great rain beating down upon a roof.
And Jip, with his nose pointing and his tail quite straight, said,
“Birds!–millions of them–flying fast–that’s it!”
And then they all looked up. And there, streaming across the face of the moon, like a huge swarm of tiny ants, they could see thousands and thousands of little birds. Soon the
whole sky seemed full of them, and still more kept coming–more and more. There were so many that for a little they covered the whole moon so it could not shine, and the sea grew dark and black–like when a storm-cloud passes over the sun.
And presently all these birds came down close, skimming over the water and the land; and the night-sky was left clear above, and the moon shone as before. Still never a call nor a cry nor a song they made–no sound but this great rustling of feathers which grew greater now than ever. When they began to settle on the sands, along the ropes of the ship–anywhere and everywhere except the trees–the Doctor could see that they had blue wings and white breasts and very short, feathered legs. As soon as they had all found a place to sit, suddenly, there was no noise left anywhere–all was quiet; all was still.
And in the silent moonlight John Dolittle spoke:
“I had no idea that we had been in Africa so long. It will be nearly Summer when we get home. For these are the swallows going back. Swallows, I thank you for waiting for us. It is very thoughtful of you. Now we need not be afraid that we will lose our way upon the sea…. Pull up the anchor and set the sail!”
When the ship moved out upon the water, those who stayed behind, Chee-Chee, Polynesia and the crocodile, grew terribly sad. For never in their lives had they known any one they liked so well as Doctor John Dolittle of Puddleby-on- the-Marsh.
And after they had called Good-by to him again and again and again, they still stood there upon the rocks, crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out of sight.
THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER
RED SAILS AND BLUE WINGS
SAILING homeward, the Doctor’s ship had to pass the coast of Barbary. This coast is the seashore of the Great Desert. It is a wild, lonely place–all sand and stones. And it was here that the Barbary pirates lived.
These pirates, a bad lot of men, used to wait for sailors to be shipwrecked on their shores. And often, if they saw a boat passing, they would come out in their fast sailing-ships and chase it. When they caught a boat like this at sea, they would steal everything on it; and after they had taken the people off they would sink the ship and sail back to Barbary singing songs and feeling proud of the mischief they had done. Then they used to make the people they had caught write home to their friends for money. And if the friends sent no money, the pirates often threw the people into the sea.
Now one sunshiny day the Doctor and Dab- Dab were walking up and down on the ship for exercise; a nice fresh wind was blowing the boat along, and everybody was happy. Presently Dab-Dab saw the sail of another ship a
long way behind them on the edge of the sea. It was a red sail.
“I don’t like the look of that sail,” said Dab- Dab. “I have a feeling it isn’t a friendly ship. I am afraid there is more trouble coming to us.”
Jip, who was lying near taking a nap in the sun, began to growl and talk in his sleep.
“I smell roast beef cooking,” he mumbled– “underdone roast beef–with brown gravy over it.”
“Good gracious!” cried the Doctor. “What’s the matter with the dog? Is he SMELLING in his sleep–as well as talking?”
“I suppose he is,” said Dab-Dab. “All dogs can smell in their sleep.”
“But what is he smelling?” asked the Doctor.
“There is no roast beef cooking on our ship.” “No,” said Dab-Dab. “The roast beef must be on that other ship over there.”
“But that’s ten miles away,” said the Doctor. “He couldn’t smell that far surely!”
“Oh, yes, he could,” said Dab-Dab. “You ask him.”
Then Jip, still fast asleep, began to growl again and his lip curled up angrily, showing his clean, white teeth.
“I smell bad men,” he growled–“the worst men I ever smelt. I smell trouble. I smell a fight–six bad scoundrels fighting against one brave man. I want to help him. Woof–oo–WOOF!” Then he barked, loud, and woke himself up with a surprised look on his face.
“See!” cried Dab-Dab. “That boat is nearer now. You can count its three big sails–all red. Whoever it is, they are coming after us…. I wonder who they are.”
“They are bad sailors,” said Jip; “and their ship is very swift. They are surely the pirates of Barbary.”
“Well, we must put up more sails on our boat,” said the Doctor, “so we can go faster and get away from them. Run downstairs, Jip, and fetch me all the sails you see.”
The dog hurried downstairs and dragged up every sail he could find.
But even when all these were put up on the masts to catch the wind, the boat did not go nearly as fast as the pirates’–which kept coming on behind, closer and closer.
“This is a poor ship the Prince gave us,” said Gub-Gub, the pig–“the slowest he could find, I should think. Might as well try to win a race in a soup-tureen as hope to get away from them in this old barge. Look how near they are now! –You can see the mustaches on the faces of the men–six of them. What are we going to do?”
Then the Doctor asked Dab-Dab to fly up and tell the swallows that pirates were coming after them in a swift ship, and what should he do about it.
When the swallows heard this, they all came down on to the Doctor’s ship; and they told him to unravel some pieces of long rope and make them into a lot of thin strings as quickly as he could. Then the ends of these strings were tied on to the front of the ship; and the swallows took hold of the strings with their feet and flew off, pulling the boat along.
And although swallows are not very strong when only one or two are by themselves, it is different when there are a great lot of them together. And there, tied to the Doctor’s ship, were a thousand strings; and two thousand swallows were pulling on each string–all terribly swift fliers.
And in a moment the Doctor found himself traveling so fast he had to hold his hat on with both hands; for he felt as though the ship itself were flying through waves that frothed and boiled with speed.
And all the animals on the ship began to laugh and dance about in the rushing air, for when they looked back at the pirates’ ship, they could see that it was growing smaller now, instead of bigger. The red sails were being left far, far behind.
THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER
THE RATS’ WARNING
DRAGGING a ship through the sea is hard work. And after two or three hours the swallows began to get tired in the wings and short of breath. Then they sent a message down to the Doctor to say that they would have to take a rest soon; and that they would pull the boat over to an island not far off, and hide it in a deep bay till they had got breath enough to go on.
And presently the Doctor saw the island they had spoken of. It had a very beautiful, high, green mountain in the middle of it.
When the ship had sailed safely into the bay where it could not be seen from the open sea, the Doctor said he would get off on to the island to look for water–because there was none left to drink on his ship. And he told all the animals to get out too and romp on the grass to
stretch their legs.
Now as they were getting off, the Doctor noticed that a whole lot of rats were coming up from downstairs and leaving the ship as well. Jip started to run after them, because chasing rats had always been his favorite game. But the Doctor told him to stop.
And one big black rat, who seemed to want to say something to the Doctor, now crept forward timidly along the rail, watching the dog out of the corner of his eye. And after he had coughed nervously two or three times, and cleaned his whiskers and wiped his mouth, he said,
“Ahem–er–you know of course that all ships have rats in them, Doctor, do you not?”
And the Doctor said, “Yes.”
“And you have heard that rats always leave a sinking ship?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor–“so I’ve been told.”
“People,” said the rat, “always speak of it with a sneer–as though it were something dis- graceful. But you can’t blame us, can you? After all, who WOULD stay on a sinking ship, if he could get off it?”
“It’s very natural,” said the Doctor–“very natural. I quite understand…. Was there– Was there anything else you wished to say?”
“Yes,” said the rat. “I’ve come to tell you that we are leaving this one. But we wanted to warn you before we go. This is a bad ship you have here. It isn’t safe. The sides aren’t strong enough. Its boards are rotten. Before to-morrow night it will sink to the bottom of the sea.”
“But how do you know?” asked the Doctor.
“We always know,” answered the rat. “The tips of our tails get that tingly feeling–like when your foot’s asleep. This morning, at six o’clock, while I was getting breakfast, my tail suddenly began to tingle. At first I thought it was my rheumatism coming back. So I went and asked my aunt how she felt–you remember her?–the long, piebald rat, rather skinny, who came to see you in Puddleby last Spring with jaundice? Well–and she said HER tail was tingling like everything! Then we knew, for sure, that this boat was going to sink in less than two days; and we all made up our minds to leave it as soon as we got near enough to any land. It’s a bad ship, Doctor. Don’t sail in it any more, or you’ll be surely drowned…. Good-by! We are now going to look for a good place to live on this island.”
“Good-by!” said the Doctor. “And thank you very much for coming to tell me. Very considerate of you–very! Give my regards to your aunt. I remember her perfectly….
Leave that rat alone, Jip! Come here! Lie down!”
So then the Doctor and all his animals went off, carrying pails and saucepans, to look for water on the island, while the swallows took their rest.
“I wonder what is the name of this island,” said the Doctor, as he was climbing up the mountainside. “It seems a pleasant place. What a lot of birds there are!”
“Why, these are the Canary Islands,” said Dab-Dab. “Don’t you hear the canaries singing?”
The Doctor stopped and listened.
“Why, to be sure–of course!” he said. “How stupid of me! I wonder if they can tell us where to find water.”
And presently the canaries, who had heard all about Doctor Dolittle from birds of passage, came and led him to a beautiful spring of cool, clear water where the canaries used to take their bath; and they showed him lovely meadows where the bird-seed grew and all the other sights of their island.
And the pushmi-pullyu was glad they had come; because he liked the green grass so much better than the dried apples he had been eating on the ship. And Gub-Gub squeaked for joy when he found a whole valley full of wild sugarcane.
A little later, when they had all had plenty to eat and drink, and were lying on their backs while the canaries sang for them, two of the swallows came hurrying up, very flustered and excited.
“Doctor!” they cried, “the pirates have come into the bay; and they’ve all got on to your ship. They are downstairs looking for things to steal. They have left their own ship with nobody on it. If you hurry and come down to the shore, you can get on to their ship–which is very fast –and escape. But you’ll have to hurry.”
“That’s a good idea,” said the Doctor–“splendid!”
And he called his animals together at once, said Good-by to the canaries and ran down to the beach.
When they reached the shore they saw the pirate-ship, with the three red sails, standing in the water; and–just as the swallows had said –there was nobody on it; all the pirates were downstairs in the Doctor’s ship, looking for things to steal.
So John Dolittle told his animals to walk very softly and they all crept on to the pirate-ship.
THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER
THE BARBARY DRAGON
EVERYTHING would have gone all right if the pig had not caught a cold in his head while eating the damp sugar-cane on the island. This is what happened:
After they had pulled up the anchor without a sound, and were moving the ship very, very carefully out of the bay, Gub-Gub suddenly sneezed so loud that the pirates on the other ship came rushing upstairs to see what the noise was.
As soon as they saw that the Doctor was escaping, they sailed the other boat right across the entrance to the bay so that the Doctor could not get out into the open sea.
Then the leader of these bad men (who called himself “Ben Ali, The Dragon”) shook his fist at the Doctor and shouted across the water,
“Ha! Ha! You are caught, my fine friend! You were going to run off in my ship, eh? But you are not a good enough sailor to beat Ben Ali, the Barbary Dragon. I want that duck you’ve got–and the pig too. We’ll have pork- chops and roast duck for supper to-night. And before I let you go home, you must make your friends send me a trunk-full of gold.”
Poor Gub-Gub began to weep; and Dab-Dab made ready to fly to save her life. But the owl, Too-Too, whispered to the Doctor,
“Keep him talking, Doctor. Be pleasant to him. Our old ship is bound to sink soon–the rats said it would be at the bottom of the sea before to-morrow night–and the rats are never wrong. Be pleasant, till the ship sinks under him. Keep him talking.”
“What, until to-morrow night!” said the Doctor. “Well, I’ll do my best…. Let me see–
What shall I talk about?”
“Oh, let them come on,” said Jip. “We can fight the dirty rascals. There are only six of them. Let them come on. I’d love to tell that collie next door, when we get home, that I had bitten a real pirate. Let ’em come. We can fight them.”
“But they have pistols and swords,” said the Doctor. “No, that would never do. I must talk to him…. Look here, Ben Ali–“
But before the Doctor could say any more, the pirates began to sail the ship nearer, laughing with glee, and saying one to another, “Who shall be the first to catch the pig?”
Poor Gub-Gub was dreadfully frightened; and the pushmi-pullyu began to sharpen his horns for a fight by rubbing them on the mast of the ship; while Jip kept springing into the air and barking and calling Ben Ali bad names in dog-language.
But presently something seemed to go wrong with the pirates; they stopped laughing and cracking jokes; they looked puzzled; something was making them uneasy.
Then Ben Ali, staring down at his feet, suddenly bellowed out,
“Thunder and Lightning!–Men, THE BOAT’S LEAKING!”
And then the other pirates peered over the side and they saw that the boat was indeed getting lower and lower in the water. And one
of them said to Ben Ali,
“But surely if this old boat were sinking we should see the rats leaving it.”
And Jip shouted across from the other ship,
“You great duffers, there are no rats there to leave! They left two hours ago! `Ha, ha,’ to you, `my fine friends!'”
But of course the men did not understand him. Soon the front end of the ship began to go down and down, faster and faster–till the boat looked almost as though it were standing on its head; and the pirates had to cling to the rails and the masts and the ropes and anything to keep from sliding off. Then the sea rushed roaring in and through all the windows and the doors. And at last the ship plunged right down to the bottom of the sea, making a dreadful gurgling sound; and the six bad men were left bobbing about in the deep water of the bay.
Some of them started to swim for the shores of the island; while others came and tried to get on to the boat where the Doctor was. But Jip kept snapping at their noses, so they were afraid to climb up the side of the ship.
Then suddenly they all cried out in great fear,
“THE SHARKS! The sharks are coming! Let us get on to the ship before they eat us! Help, help!–The sharks! The sharks!”
And now the Doctor could see, all over the bay, the backs of big fishes swimming swiftly through the water.
And one great shark came near to the ship, and poking his nose out of the water he said to the Doctor,
“Are you John Dolittle, the famous animal- doctor?”
“Yes,” said Doctor Dolittle. “That is my name.”
“Well,” said the shark, “we know these pirates to be a bad lot–especially Ben Ali. If they are annoying you, we will gladly eat them up for you–and then you won’t be troubled any more.”
“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “This is really most attentive. But I don’t think it will be necessary to eat them. Don’t let any of them reach the shore until I tell you–just keep them swimming about, will you? And please make Ben Ali swim over here that I may talk to him.”
So the shark went off and chased Ben Ali over to the Doctor.
“Listen, Ben Ali,” said John Dolittle, leaning over the side. “You have been a very bad man; and I understand that you have killed many people. These good sharks here have just offered to eat you up for me–and ‘twould indeed be a good thing if the seas were rid of you. But if you will promise to do as I tell you, I well let you go in safety.”
“What must I do?” asked the pirate, looking down sideways at the big shark who was smelling his leg under the water.
“You must kill no more people,” said the Doctor; “you must stop stealing; you must never sink another ship; you must give up being a pirate altogether.”
“But what shall I do then?” asked Ben Ali. “How shall I live?”
“You and all your men must go on to this island and be bird-seed-farmers,” the Doctor answered. “You must grow bird-seed for the canaries.”
The Barbary Dragon turned pale with anger. “GROW BIRD-SEED!” he groaned in disgust. “Can’t I be a sailor?”
“No,” said the Doctor, “you cannot. You have been a sailor long enough–and sent many stout ships and good men to the bottom of the sea. For the rest of your life you must be la peaceful farmer. The shark is waiting. Do not waste any more of his time. Make up your mind.”
“Thunder and Lightning!” Ben Ali
muttered–“BIRD-SEED!” Then he looked down into the water again and saw the great fish smelling his other leg.
“Very well,” he said sadly. “We’ll be farmers.”
“And remember,” said the Doctor, “that if you do not keep your promise–if you start killing and stealing again, I shall hear of it, because the canaries will come and tell me. And be very sure that I will find a way to punish you. For though I may not be able to sail a ship as well as you, so long as the birds and the beasts and the fishes are my friends, I do not have to be afraid of a pirate chief–even though he call himself `The Dragon of Barbary.’ Now go and be a good farmer and live in peace.”
Then the Doctor turned to the big shark, and waving his hand he said,
“All right. Let them swim safely to the land.”
THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER
TOO-TOO, THE LISTENER
HAVING thanked the sharks again for their kindness, the Doctor and his pets set off once more on their journey home in the swift ship with the three red sails.
As they moved out into the open sea, the animals all went downstairs to see what their new boat was like inside; while the Doctor leant on the rail at the back of the ship with a pipe in his mouth, watching the Canary Islands fade away in the blue dusk of the evening.
While he was standing there, wondering how the monkeys were getting on–and what his garden would look like when he got back to Puddleby, Dab-Dab came tumbling up the
stairs, all smiles and full of news.
“Doctor!” she cried. “This ship of the pi- rates is simply beautiful–absolutely. The beds downstairs are made of primrose silk–with hundreds of big pillows and cushions; there are thick, soft carpets on the floors; the dishes are made of silver; and there are all sorts of good things to eat and drink–special things; the larder–well, it’s just like a shop, that’s all. You never saw anything like it in your life– Just think–they kept five different kinds of sardines, those men! Come and look…. Oh, and we found a little room down there with the door locked; and we are all crazy to get in and see what’s inside. Jip says it must be where the pirates kept their treasure. But we can’t open the door. Come down and see if you can let us in.”
So the Doctor went downstairs and he saw that it was indeed a beautiful ship. He found the animals gathered round a little door, all talking at once, trying to guess what was inside. The Doctor turned the handle but it wouldn’t open. Then they all started to hunt for the key. They looked under the mat; they looked under all the carpets; they looked in all the cupboards and drawers and lockers–in the big chests in the ship’s dining-room; they looked everywhere.
While they were doing this they discovered a lot of new and wonderful things that the pirates must have stolen from other ships: Kashmir shawls as thin as a cobweb, embroidered
with flowers of gold; jars of fine tobacco from Jamaica; carved ivory boxes full of Russian tea; an old violin with a string broken and a picture on the back; a set of big chess-men, carved out of coral and amber; a walking-stick which had a sword inside it when you pulled the handle; six wine-glasses with turquoise and silver round the rims; and a lovely great sugar-bowl, made of mother o’ pearl. But nowhere in the whole boat could they find a key to fit that lock.
So they all came back to the door, and Jip peered through the key-hole. But something had been stood against the wall on the inside and he could see nothing.
While they were standing around, wondering what they should do, the owl, Too-Too,
suddenly said,
“Sh!–Listen!–I do believe there’s some one in there!”
They all kept still a moment. Then the Doctor said,
“You must be mistaken, Too-Too. I don’t hear anything.”
“I’m sure of it,” said the owl. “Sh!–There it is again–Don’t you hear that?”
“No, I do not,” said the Doctor. “What kind of a sound is it?”
“I hear the noise of some one putting his hand in his pocket,” said the owl.
“But that makes hardly any sound at all,” said the Doctor. “You couldn’t hear that out here.”
“Pardon me, but I can,” said Too-Too. “I tell you there is some one on the other side of that door putting his hand in his pocket. Almost everything makes SOME noise–if your ears are only sharp enough to catch it. Bats can hear a mole walking in his tunnel under the earth –and they think they’re good hearers. But we owls can tell you, using only one ear, the color of a kitten from the way it winks in the dark.”
“Well, well!” said the Doctor. “You
surprise me. That’s very interesting…. Listen again and tell me what he’s doing now.”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Too-Too, “if it’s a man at all. Maybe it’s a woman. Lift me up and let me listen at the key-hole and I’ll soon tell you.”
So the Doctor lifted the owl up and held him close to the lock of the door.
After a moment Too-Too said,
“Now he’s rubbing his face with his left hand. It is a small hand and a small face. It MIGHT be a woman–No. Now he pushes his hair back off his forehead–It’s a man all right.”
“Women sometimes do that,” said the Doctor.
“True,” said the owl. “But when they do, their long hair makes quite a different sound. … Sh! Make that fidgety pig keep still. Now all hold your breath a moment so I can listen well. This is very difficult, what I’m doing now–and the pesky door is so thick! Sh! Everybody quite still–shut your eyes and don’t breathe.”
Too-Too leaned down and listened again very hard and long.
At last he looked up into the Doctor’s face and said,
“The man in there is unhappy. He weeps. He has taken care not to blubber or sniffle, lest we should find out that he is crying. But I heard–quite distinctly–the sound of a tear falling on his sleeve.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a drop of water falling off the ceiling on him?” asked Gub-Gub. “Pshaw!–Such ignorance!” sniffed Too-
Too. “A drop of water falling off the ceiling would have made ten times as much noise!”
“Well,” said the Doctor, “if the poor fellow’s unhappy, we’ve got to get in and see what’s the matter with him. Find me an axe, and I’ll chop the door down.”
THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER
THE OCEAN GOSSIPS
RIGHT away an axe was found. And the Doctor soon chopped a hole in the door big enough to clamber through.
At first he could see nothing at all, it was so dark inside. So he struck a match.
The room was quite small; no window; the ceiling, low. For furniture there was only one little stool. All round the room big barrels stood against the walls, fastened at the bottom so they wouldn’t tumble with the rolling of the ship; and above the barrels, pewter jugs of all sizes hung from wooden pegs. There was a strong, winey smell. And in the middle of the floor sat a little boy, about eight years old, crying bitterly.
“I declare, it is the pirates’ rum-room!” said Jip in a whisper.
“Yes. Very rum!” said Gub-Gub.
“The smell makes me giddy.”
The little boy seemed rather frightened to find a man standing there before him and all those animals staring in through the hole in the broken door. But as soon as he saw John
Dolittle’s face by the light of the match, he stopped crying and got up.
“You aren’t one of the pirates, are you?” he asked.
And when the Doctor threw back his head and laughed long and loud, the little boy smiled too and came and took his hand.
“You laugh like a friend,” he said–“not like a pirate. Could you tell me where my uncle is?”
“I am afraid I can’t,” said the Doctor. “When did you see him last?”
“It was the day before yesterday,” said the boy. “I and my uncle were out fishing in our little boat, when the pirates came and caught us. They sunk our fishing-boat and brought us both on to this ship. They told my uncle that they wanted him to be a pirate like them–for he was clever at sailing a ship in all weathers. But he said he didn’t want to be a pirate, because killing people and stealing was no work for a good fisherman to do. Then the leader, Ben Ali, got very angry and gnashed his teeth, and said they would throw my uncle into the sea if he didn’t do as they said. They sent me downstairs; and I heard the noise of a fight going on above. And when they let me come up again next day, my uncle was nowhere to be seen. I asked the pirates where he was; but they wouldn’t tell me. I am very much afraid they threw him into the sea and drowned him.”
And the little boy began to cry again.
“Well now–wait a minute,” said the Doctor. “Don’t cry. Let’s go and have tea in the dining- room, and we’ll talk it over. Maybe your uncle is quite safe all the time. You don’t KNOW that he was drowned, do you? And that’s
something. Perhaps we can find him for you. First we’ll go and have tea–with strawberry-jam; and then we will see what can be done.”
All the animals had been standing around listening with great curiosity. And when they had gone into the ship’s dining-room and were having tea, Dab-Dab came up behind the
Doctor’s chair and whispered.
“Ask the porpoises if the boy’s uncle was drowned–they’ll know.”
“All right,” said the Doctor, taking a second piece of bread-and-jam.
“What are those funny, clicking noises you are making with your tongue?” asked the boy.
“Oh, I just said a couple of words in duck- language,” the Doctor answered. “This is Dab-Dab, one of my pets.”
“I didn’t even know that ducks had a
language,” said the boy. “Are all these other animals your pets, too? What is that strange- looking thing with two heads?”
“Sh!” the Doctor whispered. “That is the pushmi-pullyu. Don’t let him see we’re talking about him–he gets so dreadfully embarrassed…. Tell me, how did you come to be
locked up in that little room?”
“The pirates shut me in there when they were going off to steal things from another ship. When I heard some one chopping on the door, I didn’t know who it could be. I was very glad to find it was you. Do you think you will be able to find my uncle for me?”
“Well, we are going to try very hard,” said the Doctor. “Now what was your uncle like to look at?”
“He had red hair,” the boy answered–“very red hair, and the picture of an anchor tattooed on his arm. He was a strong man, a kind uncle and the best sailor in the South Atlantic. His fishing-boat was called The Saucy Sally–a cutter-rigged sloop.”
“What’s `cutterigsloop’?” whispered Gub- Gub, turning to Jip.
“Sh!–That’s the kind of a ship the man had,” said Jip. “Keep still, can’t you?”
“Oh,” said the pig, “is that all? I thought it was something to drink.”
So the Doctor left the boy to play with the animals in the dining-room, and went upstairs to look for passing porpoises.
And soon a whole school came dancing and jumping through the water, on their way to Brazil.
When they saw the Doctor leaning on the rail of his ship, they came over to see how he was getting on.
And the Doctor asked them if they had seen anything of a man with red hair and an anchor tattooed on his arm.
“Do you mean the master of The Saucy Sally?” asked the porpoises.
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “That’s the man. Has he been drowned?”
“His fishing-sloop was sunk,” said the porpoises–“for we saw it lying on the bottom of the sea. But there was nobody inside it, because we went and looked.”
“His little nephew is on the ship with me here,” said the Doctor. “And he is terribly afraid that the pirates threw his uncle into the sea. Would you be so good as to find out for me, for sure, whether he has been drowned or not?”
“Oh, he isn’t drowned,” said the porpoises. “If he were, we would be sure to have heard of it from the deep-sea Decapods. We hear all the salt-water news. The shell-fish call us `The Ocean Gossips.’ No–tell the little boy we are sorry we do not know where his uncle is; but we are quite certain he hasn’t been drowned in the sea.”
So the Doctor ran downstairs with the news and told the nephew, who clapped his hands with happiness. And the pushmi-pullyu took the little boy on his back and gave him a ride round the dining-room table; while all the other animals followed behind, beating the dish-covers with spoons, pretending it was a parade.
THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
SMELLS
YOUR uncle must now be FOUND,” said the Doctor–“that is the next thing–now that we know he wasn’t thrown into the sea.”
Then Dab-Dab came up to him again and whispered,
“Ask the eagles to look for the man. No living creature can see better than an eagle. When they are miles high in the air they can count the ants crawling on the ground. Ask the eagles.”
So the Doctor sent one of the swallows off to get some eagles.
And in about an hour the little bird came back with six different kinds of eagles: a Black Eagle, a Bald Eagle, a Fish Eagle, a Golden Eagle, an Eagle-Vulture, and a White-tailed Sea Eagle. Twice as high as the boy they were, each one of them. And they stood on the rail of the ship, like round-shouldered soldiers all in a row, stern and still and stiff; while their great, gleaming, black eyes shot darting glances here and there and everywhere.
Gub-Gub was scared of them and got
behind a barrel. He said he felt as though those terrible eyes were looking right inside of him to see what he had stolen for lunch.
And the Doctor said to the eagles,
“A man has been lost–a fisherman with red hair and an anchor marked on his arm. Would you be so kind as to see if you can find him for us? This boy is the man’s nephew.”
Eagles do not talk very much. And all they answered in their husky voices was,
“You may be sure that we will do our best –for John Dolittle.”
Then they flew off–and Gub-Gub came out from behind his barrel to see them go. Up and up and up they went–higher and higher and higher still. Then, when the Doctor could only just see them, they parted company and started going off all different ways–North, East, South and West, looking like tiny grains of black sand creeping across the wide, blue sky.
“My gracious!” said Gub-Gub in a hushed voice. “What a height! I wonder they don’t scorch their feathers–so near the sun!”
They were gone a long time. And when
they came back it was almost night.
And the eagles said to the Doctor,
“We have searched all the seas and all the countries and all the islands and all the cities and all the villages in this half of the world. But we have failed. In the main street of Gibraltar we saw three red hairs lying on a wheel- barrow before a baker’s door. But they were not the hairs of a man–they were the hairs out of a fur-coat. Nowhere, on land or water, could we see any sign of this boy’s uncle. And if WE could not see him, then he is not to be seen…. For John Dolittle–we have done our best.”
Then the six great birds flapped their big wings and flew back to their homes in the mountains and the rocks.
“Well,” said Dab-Dab, after they had gone, “what are we going to do now? The boy’s
uncle MUST be found–there’s no two ways about that. The lad isn’t old enough to be knocking around the world by himself. Boys aren’t like ducklings–they have to be taken care of till they’re quite old…. I wish Chee-Chee were here. He would soon find the man. Good old Chee-Chee! I wonder how he’s getting on!”
“If we only had Polynesia with us,” said the white mouse. “SHE would soon think of some way. Do you remember how she got us all
out of prison–the second time? My, but she was a clever one!”
“I don’t think so much of those eagle- fellows,”said Jip. “They’re just conceited. They may have very good eyesight and all that; but when you ask them to find a man for you, they can’t do it–and they have the cheek to come back and say that nobody else could do it. They’re just conceited–like that collie in Puddleby. And I don’t think a whole lot of those gossipy old porpoises either. All they could tell us was that the man isn’t in the sea. We don’t want to know where he ISN’T–we want to know where he IS.”
“Oh, don’t talk so much,” said Gub-Gub. “It’s easy to talk; but it isn’t so easy to find a man when you have got the whole world to hunt him in. Maybe the fisherman’s hair has turned white, worrying about the boy; and that was why the eagles didn’t find him. You don’t know everything. You’re just talking. You are not doing anything to help. You couldn’t find the boy’s uncle any more than the eagles could–you couldn’t do as well.”
“Couldn’t I?” said the dog. “That’s all you know, you stupid piece of warm bacon! I haven’t begun to try yet, have I? You wait and see!”
Then Jip went to the Doctor and said,
“Ask the boy if he has anything in his pockets that belonged to his uncle, will you, please?”
So the Doctor asked him. And the boy
showed them a gold ring which he wore on a piece of string around his neck because it was too big for his finger. He said his uncle gave it to him when they saw the pirates coming.
Jip smelt the ring and said,
“That’s no good. Ask him if he has
anything else that belonged to his uncle.”
Then the boy took from his pocket a great, big red handkerchief and said, “This was my uncle’s too.”
As soon as the boy pulled it out, Jip shouted,
“SNUFF, by Jingo!–Black Rappee snuff. Don’t you smell it? His uncle took snuff– Ask him, Doctor.”
The Doctor questioned the boy again;
and he said, “Yes. My uncle took a lot of snuff.”
“Fine!” said Jip. “The man’s as good as found. ‘Twill be as easy as stealing milk from a kitten. Tell the boy I’ll find his uncle for him in less than a week. Let us go upstairs and see which way the wind is blowing.”
“But it is dark now,” said the Doctor. “You can’t find him in the dark!”
“I don’t need any light to look for a man who smells of Black Rappee snuff,” said Jip as he climbed the stairs. “If the man had a hard smell, like string, now–or hot water, it would be different. But SNUFF!–Tut, tut!”
“Does hot water have a smell?” asked the Doctor.
“Certainly it has,” said Jip. “Hot water smells quite different from cold water. It is warm water–or ice–that has the really difficult smell. Why, I once followed a man for
ten miles on a dark night by the smell of the hot water he had used to shave with–for the poor fellow had no soap…. Now then, let us see which way the wind is blowing. Wind is very important in long-distance smelling. It mustn’t be too fierce a wind–and of course it must blow the right way. A nice, steady, damp breeze is the best of all…. Ha!–This wind is from the North.”
Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he started muttering to himself,
“Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed–No, my mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes– hundreds of ’em–cubs; and–“
“Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?” asked the Doctor.
“Why, of course!” said Jip. “And those are only a few of the easy smells–the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in the head. Wait now, and I’ll tell you some of the harder scents that are coming on this wind –a few of the dainty ones.”
Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.
For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.
“Bricks,” he whispered, very low–“old yellow bricks, crumbling with age in a garden- wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove- cote–or perhaps a granary–with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau- drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses’ drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting through the rotting leaves; and–and–and–“
“Any parsnips?” asked Gub-Gub.
“No,” said Jip. “You always think of things to eat. No parsnips whatever. And no snuff– plenty of pipes and cigarettes, and a few cigars. But no snuff. We must wait till the wind changes to the South.”
“Yes, it’s a poor wind, that,” said Gub-Gub. “I think you’re a fake, Jip. Who ever heard of finding a man in the middle of the ocean just by smell! I told you you couldn’t do it.”
“Look here,” said Jip, getting really angry. “You’re going to get a bite on the nose in a min- ute! You needn’t think that just because the Doctor won’t let us give you what you deserve, that you can be as cheeky as you like!”
“Stop quarreling!” said the Doctor–“Stop it! Life’s too short. Tell me, Jip, where do you think those smells are coming from?”
“From Devon and Wales–most of them,” said Jip–“The wind is coming that way.”
“Well, well!” said the Doctor. “You know that’s really quite remarkable–quite. I must make a note of that for my new book. I wonder if you could train me to smell as well as that…. But no–perhaps I’m better off the way I am. `Enough is as good as a feast,’ they say. Let’s go down to supper. I’m quite hungry.”
“So am I,” said Gub-Gub.
THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER
THE ROCK
UP they got, early next morning, out of the silken beds; and they saw that the sun was shining brightly and that the wind was blowing from the South.
Jip smelt the South wind for half an hour. Then he came to the Doctor, shaking his head.
“I smell no snuff as yet,” he said. “We must wait till the wind changes to the East.”
But even when the East wind came, at three o’clock that afternoon, the dog could not catch the smell of snuff.
The little boy was terribly disappointed and began to cry again, saying that no one seemed to be able to find his uncle for him. But all Jip said to the Doctor was,
“Tell him that when the wind changes to the West, I’ll find his uncle even though he be in China–so long as he is still taking Black Rappee snuff.”
Three days they had to wait before the West wind came. This was on a Friday morning, early–just as it was getting light. A fine rainy mist lay on the sea like a thin fog. And the wind was soft and warm and wet.
As soon as Jip awoke he ran upstairs and poked his nose in the air. Then he got most frightfully excited and rushed down again to wake the Doctor up.
“Doctor!” he cried. “I’ve got it! Doctor! Doctor! Wake up! Listen! I’ve got it!
The wind’s from the West and it smells of nothing but snuff. Come upstairs and start the ship–quick!”
So the Doctor tumbled out of bed and went to the rudder to steer the ship.
“Now I’ll go up to the front,” said Jip; “and you watch my nose–whichever way I point it, you turn the ship the same way. The man cannot be far off–with the smell as strong as
this. And the wind’s all lovely and wet. Now watch me!”
So all that morning Jip stood in the front part of the ship, sniffing the wind and pointing the way for the Doctor to steer; while all the animals and the little boy stood round with their eyes wide open, watching the dog in wonder.
About lunch-time Jip asked Dab-Dab to tell the Doctor that he was getting worried and wanted to speak to him. So Dab-Dab went and fetched the Doctor from the other end of the ship and Jip said to him,
“The boy’s uncle is starving. We must make the ship go as fast as we can.”
“How do you know he is starving?” asked the Doctor.
“Because there is no other smell in the West wind but snuff,” said Jip. “If the man were cooking or eating food of any kind, I would be bound to smell it too. But he hasn’t even fresh water to drink. All he is taking is snuff –in large pinches. We are getting nearer to him all the time, because the smell grows stronger every minute. But make the ship go as fast as you can, for I am certain that the man is starving.”
“All right,” said the Doctor; and he sent Dab-Dab to ask the swallows to pull the ship, the same as they had done when the pirates were chasing them.
So the stout little birds came down and once more harnessed themselves to the ship.
And now the boat went bounding through the waves at a terrible speed. It went so fast that the fishes in the sea had to jump for their lives to get out of the way and not be run over.
And all the animals got tremendously excited; and they gave up looking at Jip and turned to watch the sea in front, to spy out any land or islands where the starving man might be.
But hour after hour went by and still the ship went rushing on, over the same flat, flat sea; and no land anywhere came in sight.
And now the animals gave up chattering and sat around silent, anxious and miserable. The little boy again grew sad. And on Jip’s face there was a worried look.
At last, late in the afternoon, just as the sun was going down, the owl, Too-Too, who
was perched on the tip of the mast, suddenly startled them all by crying out at the top of his voice,
“Jip! Jip! I see a great, great rock in front of us–look–way out there where the sky and the water meet. See the sun shine on it–like gold! Is the smell coming from there?”
And Jip called back,
“Yes. That’s it. That is where the man is. –At last, at last!”
And when they got nearer they could see that the rock was very large–as large as a big field. No trees grew on it, no grass–nothing. The great rock was as smooth and as bare as the back of a tortoise.
Then the Doctor sailed the ship right round the rock. But nowhere on it could a man be seen. All the animals screwed up their eyes and looked as hard as they could; and John Dolittle got a telescope from downstairs.
But not one living thing could they spy– not even a gull, nor a star-fish, nor a shred of sea-weed.
They all stood still and listened, straining their ears for any sound. But the only noise they heard was the gentle lapping of the little waves against the sides of their ship.
Then they all started calling, “Hulloa, there! –HULLOA!” till their voices were hoarse. But only the echo came back from the rock.
And the little boy burst into tears and said,
“I am afraid I shall never see my uncle any more! What shall I tell them when I get home!”
But Jip called to the Doctor,
“He must be there–he must–HE MUST!
The smell goes on no further. He must be there, I tell you! Sail the ship close to the rock and let me jump out on it.”
So the Doctor brought the ship as close as he could and let down the anchor. Then he and Jip got out of the ship on to the rock.
Jip at once put his nose down close to the ground and began to run all over the place. Up and down he went, back and forth–zig-zagging, twisting, doubling and turning. And
everywhere he went, the Doctor ran behind him, close at his heels–till he was terribly out of breath.
At last Jip let out a great bark and sat down. And when the Doctor came running up to him, he found the dog staring into a big, deep hole in the middle of the rock.
“The boy’s uncle is down there,” said Jip quietly. “No wonder those silly eagles couldn’t see him!–It takes a dog to find a man.”
So the Doctor got down into the hole, which seemed to be a kind of cave, or tunnel, running a long way under the ground. Then he struck a match and started to make his way along the dark passage with Jip following behind.
The Doctor’s match soon went out; and he had to strike another and another and another.
At last the passage came to an end; and the Doctor found himself in a kind of tiny room with walls of rock.
And there, in the middle of the room, his head resting on his arms, lay a man with very red hair–fast asleep!
Jip went up and sniffed at something lying on the ground beside him. The Doctor stooped and picked it up. It was an enormous snuff- box. And it was full of Black Rappee!
THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER
THE FISHERMAN’S TOWN
GENTLY then–very gently, the Doctor woke the man up.
But just at that moment the match went out again. And the man thought it was Ben Ali coming back, and he began to punch the Doctor in the dark.
But when John Dolittle told him who it was, and that he had his little nephew safe on his ship, the man was tremendously glad, and said he was sorry he had fought the Doctor. He had not hurt him much though–because it was too dark to punch properly. Then he gave the Doctor a pinch of snuff.
And the man told how the Barbary Dragon had put him on to this rock and left him there, when he wouldn’t promise to become a pirate; and how he used to sleep down in this hole because there was no house on the rock to keep him warm.
And then he said,
“For four days I have had nothing to eat or drink. I have lived on snuff.”
“There you are!” said Jip. “What did I tell you?”
So they struck some more matches and made their way out through the passage into the daylight; and the Doctor hurried the man down to
the boat to get some soup.
When the animals and the little boy saw the Doctor and Jip coming back to the ship with a red-headed man, they began to cheer and yell and dance about the boat. And the swallows up above started whistling at the top of their voices–thousands and millions of them–to show that they too were glad that the boy’s brave uncle had been found. The noise they made was so great that sailors far out at sea thought that a terrible storm was coming. “Hark to that gale howling in the East!” they said.
And Jip was awfully proud of himself– though he tried hard not to look conceited. When Dab-Dab came to him and said, “Jip, I had no idea you were so clever!” he just tossed his head and answered,
“Oh, that’s nothing special. But it takes a dog to find a man, you know. Birds are no good for a game like that.”
Then the Doctor asked the red-haired fisherman where his home was. And when he had
told him, the Doctor asked the swallows to guide the ship there first.
And when they had come to the land which the man had spoken of, they saw a little fishing- town at the foot of a rocky mountain; and the man pointed out the house where he lived.
And while they were letting down the anchor, the little boy’s mother (who was also the man’s sister) came running down to the shore to meet them, laughing and crying at the same time. She had been sitting on a hill for twenty days, watching the sea and waiting for them to return.
And she kissed the Doctor many times, so that he giggled and blushed like a school-girl. And she tried to kiss Jip too; but he ran away and hid inside the ship.
“It’s a silly business, this kissing,” he said. “I don’t hold by it. Let her go and kiss Gub- Gub–if she MUST kiss something.”
The fisherman and his sister didn’t want the Doctor to go away again in a hurry. They begged him to spend a few days with them. So John Dolittle and his animals had to stay at their house a whole Saturday and Sunday and