The Story of Doctor Dolittle: Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts Never Before Printed (9 page)

Then the Doctor turned to the big shark, and
waving his hand he said,

"All right. Let them swim safely to the land."

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."

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.

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.