Part 5

“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!”

[Illustration: “Crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out of sight”]

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.

[Illustration: “‘They are surely the pirates of Barbary’”]

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 disgraceful. But you can’t blame us, can you? After all, who _would_ stay on a sinking ship, if he could get off it?”

[Illustration: “‘And you have heard that rats always leave a sinking ship?’”]

“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 sugar-cane.

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.”

[Illustration: “‘Look here, Ben Ali—’”]

“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 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 will 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 a 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.”