The Story of Doctor Dolittle

by Hugh Lofting

  “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 whowas taking a snooze under an apple-tree. Can’t blame her for gettingscared! I wonder who he’ll go and kiss this time. Silly business!”

  Then the pushmi-pullyu, the white mouse, Gub-Gub, Dab-Dab, Jip andthe owl, Too-Too, went on to the ship with the Doctor. But Chee-Chee,Polynesia and the crocodile stayed behind, because Africa was theirproper home, the land where they were born.

  And when the Doctor stood upon the boat, he looked over the sideacross the water. And then he remembered that they had no one with themto 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 passedout 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 stoppedsaying Good-by and listened.

  The noise grew louder and bigger. It seemed to be coming nearer tothem—a sound like the Autumn wind blowing through the leaves of apoplar-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 ofthe moon, like a huge swarm of tiny ants, they could see thousands andthousands of little birds. Soon the whole sky seemed full of them, andstill more kept coming—more and more. There were so many that for alittle they covered the whole moon so it could not shine, and the seagrew dark and black—like when a storm-cloud passes over the sun.

  And presently all these birds came down close, skimming over the waterand the land; and the night-sky was left clear above, and the moonshone as before. Still never a call nor a cry nor a song they made—nosound but this great rustling of feathers which grew greater now thanever. When they began to settle on the sands, along the ropes of theship—anywhere and everywhere except the trees—the Doctor could see thatthey 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 nonoise 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 nearlySummer 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!”

  “Crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out ofsight”]

  When the ship moved out upon the water, those who stayed behind,Chee-Chee, Polynesia and the crocodile, grew terribly sad. For never intheir lives had they known any one they liked so well as Doctor JohnDolittle 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 tillthe 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, lonelyplace—all sand and stones. And it was here that the Barbary pirateslived.

  These pirates, a bad lot of men, used to wait for sailors to beshipwrecked on their shores. And often, if they saw a boat passing,they would come out in their fast sailing-ships and chase it. When theycaught a boat like this at sea, they would steal everything on it; andafter they had taken the people off they would sink the ship and sailback to Barbary singing songs and feeling proud of the mischief theyhad done. Then they used to make the people they had caught write hometo their friends for money. And if the friends sent no money, thepirates often threw the people into the sea.

  Now one sunshiny day the Doctor and Dab-Dab were walking up and down onthe ship for exercise; a nice fresh wind was blowing the boat along,and everybody was happy. Presently Dab-Dab saw the sail of another shipa 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 feelingit isn’t a friendly ship. I am afraid there is more trouble coming tous.”

  Jip, who was lying near taking a nap in the sun, began to growl andtalk in his sleep.

  “I smell roast beef cooking,” he mumbled—“underdone roast beef—withbrown gravy over it.”

  “Good gracious!” cried the Doctor. “What’s the matter with the dog? Ishe _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 beefcooking on our ship.”

  “No,” said Dab-Dab. “The roast beef must be on that other ship overthere.”

  “But that’s ten miles away,” said the Doctor. “He couldn’t smell thatfar surely!”

  “Oh, yes, he could,” said Dab-Dab. “You ask him.”

  Then Jip, still fast asleep, began to growl again and his lip curled upangrily, showing his clean, white teeth.

  “I smell bad men,” he growled—“the worst men I ever smelt. I smelltrouble. I smell a fight—six bad scoundrels fighting against one braveman. I want to help him. Woof—oo—WOOF!” Then he barked, loud, and wokehimself up with a surprised look on his face.

  “See!” cried Dab-Dab. “That boat is nearer now. You can count its threebig sails—all red. Whoever it is, they are coming after us.... I wonderwho they are.”

  “They are bad sailors,” said Jip; “and their ship is very swift. Theyare surely the pirates of Barbary.”

  “Well, we must put up more sails on our boat,” said the Doctor, “so wecan go faster and get away from them. Run downstairs, Jip, and fetch meall the sails you see.”

  The dog hurried downstairs and dragged up every sail he could find.

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

  But even when all these were put up on the masts to catch the wind, theboat did not go nearly as fast as the pirates’—which kept coming onbehind, closer and closer.

  “This is a poor ship the Prince gave us,” said Gub-Gub, the pig—“theslowest he could find, I should think. Might as well try to win a racein a soup-tureen as hope to get away from them in this old barge. Lookhow near they are now!—You can see the mustaches on the faces of themen—six of them. What are we going to do?”

  Then the Doctor asked Dab-Dab to fly up and tell the swallows thatpirates were coming after them in a swift ship, and what should he doabout it.

  When the swallows heard this, they all came down on to the Doctor’sship; and they told him to unravel some pieces of long rope and makethem into a lot of thin strings as quickly as he could. Then theends of these strings were tied on to the front of the ship; and theswallows took hold of the strings with their feet and flew off, pullingthe boat along.

  And although swallows are not very strong when only one or two areby themselves, it is different when there are a great lot of themtogether. And there, tied to the Doctor’s ship, were a thousandstrings; and two thousand swallows were pulling on each string—allterribly swift fliers.

  And in a moment the Doctor found himself traveling so fast he had tohold his hat on with both hands; for he felt as though the ship itselfwere flying through waves that frothed and boiled with speed.

  And all the animals on the ship began to laugh and dance about in therushing air, for when they looked back at the pirates’ ship, they couldsee that it was growing smaller now, instead of bigger. The red sailswere being left far, far behind.

  _THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER_

  THE RATS’ WARNING

  DRAGGING a ship through the sea is hard work. And after two or threehours the swallows began to get tired in the wings and short of breath.Then they sent a message down to the Docto
r to say that they wouldhave to take a rest soon; and that they would pull the boat over to anisland not far off, and hide it in a deep bay till they had got breathenough to go on.

  And presently the Doctor saw the island they had spoken of. It had avery beautiful, high, green mountain in the middle of it.

  When the ship had sailed safely into the bay where it could not be seenfrom the open sea, the Doctor said he would get off on to the island tolook for water—because there was none left to drink on his ship. Andhe told all the animals to get out too and romp on the grass to stretchtheir legs.

  Now as they were getting off, the Doctor noticed that a whole lot ofrats were coming up from downstairs and leaving the ship as well. Jipstarted to run after them, because chasing rats had always been hisfavorite game. But the Doctor told him to stop.

  And one big black rat, who seemed to want to say something to theDoctor, now crept forward timidly along the rail, watching the dog outof the corner of his eye. And after he had coughed nervously two orthree 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 itwere something disgraceful. But you can’t blame us, can you? Afterall, who _would_ stay on a sinking ship, if he could get off it?”

  “‘And you have heard that rats always leave a sinkingship?’”]

  “It’s very natural,” said the Doctor—“very natural. I quiteunderstand.... Was there—Was there anything else you wished to say?”

  “Yes,” said the rat. “I’ve come to tell you that we are leaving thisone. But we wanted to warn you before we go. This is a bad ship youhave here. It isn’t safe. The sides aren’t strong enough. Its boardsare rotten. Before to-morrow night it will sink to the bottom of thesea.”

  “But how do you know?” asked the Doctor.

  “We always know,” answered the rat. “The tips of our tails get thattingly feeling—like when your foot’s asleep. This morning, at sixo’clock, while I was getting breakfast, my tail suddenly began totingle. At first I thought it was my rheumatism coming back. So I wentand asked my aunt how she felt—you remember her?—the long, piebaldrat, rather skinny, who came to see you in Puddleby last Spring withjaundice? Well—and she said _her_ tail was tingling like everything!Then we knew, for sure, that this boat was going to sink in less thantwo days; and we all made up our minds to leave it as soon as we gotnear enough to any land. It’s a bad ship, Doctor. Don’t sail in it anymore, or you’ll be surely drowned.... Good-by! We are now going tolook for a good place to live on this island.”

  “Good-by!” said the Doctor. “And thank you very much for coming totell me. Very considerate of you—very! Give my regards to your aunt. Iremember her perfectly.... Leave that rat alone, Jip! Come here! Liedown!”

  So then the Doctor and all his animals went off, carrying pails andsaucepans, to look for water on the island, while the swallows tooktheir rest.

  “I wonder what is the name of this island,” said the Doctor, as he wasclimbing up the mountainside. “It seems a pleasant place. What a lot ofbirds there are!”

  “Why, these are the Canary Islands,” said Dab-Dab. “Don’t you hear thecanaries singing?”

  The Doctor stopped and listened.

  “Why, to be sure—of course!” he said. “How stupid of me! I wonder ifthey can tell us where to find water.”

  And presently the canaries, who had heard all about Doctor Dolittlefrom 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 showedhim lovely meadows where the bird-seed grew and all the other sights oftheir island.

  And the pushmi-pullyu was glad they had come; because he liked thegreen grass so much better than the dried apples he had been eating onthe ship. And Gub-Gub squeaked for joy when he found a whole valleyfull of wild sugar-cane.

  A little later, when they had all had plenty to eat and drink, andwere lying on their backs while the canaries sang for them, two of theswallows came hurrying up, very flustered and excited.

  “Doctor!” they cried, “the pirates have come into the bay; and they’veall got on to your ship. They are downstairs looking for things tosteal. They have left their own ship with nobody on it. If you hurryand come down to the shore, you can get on to their ship—which is veryfast—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 thecanaries and ran down to the beach.

  When they reached the shore they saw the pirate-ship, with the threered sails, standing in the water; and—just as the swallows hadsaid—there was nobody on it; all the pirates were downstairs in theDoctor’s ship, looking for things to steal.

  So John Dolittle told his animals to walk very softly and they allcrept on to the pirate-ship.

  _THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER_

  THE BARBARY DRAGON

  EVERYTHING would have gone all right if the pig had not caught a coldin his head while eating the damp sugar-cane on the island. This iswhat happened:

  After they had pulled up the anchor without a sound, and were movingthe ship very, very carefully out of the bay, Gub-Gub suddenly sneezedso loud that the pirates on the other ship came rushing upstairs to seewhat the noise was.

  As soon as they saw that the Doctor was escaping, they sailed the otherboat right across the entrance to the bay so that the Doctor could notget out into the open sea.

  Then the leader of these bad men (who called himself “Ben Ali, TheDragon”) 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 inmy ship, eh? But you are not a good enough sailor to beat Ben Ali, theBarbary Dragon. I want that duck you’ve got—and the pig too. We’ll havepork-chops and roast duck for supper to-night. And before I let you gohome, 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 herlife. But the owl, Too-Too, whispered to the Doctor,

  “Keep him talking, Doctor. Be pleasant to him. Our old ship is boundto sink soon—the rats said it would be at the bottom of the sea beforeto-morrow-night—and the rats are never wrong. Be pleasant, till theship sinks under him. Keep him talking.”

  “What, until to-morrow night!” said the Doctor. “Well, I’ll do mybest.... 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 thatcollie next door, when we get home, that I had bitten a real pirate.Let ’em come. We can fight them.”

  “‘Look here, Ben Ali—’”]

  “But they have pistols and swords,” said the Doctor. “No, that wouldnever do. I must talk to him.... Look here, Ben Ali—”

  But before the Doctor could say any more, the pirates began to sail theship nearer, laughing with glee, and saying one to another, “Who shallbe the first to catch the pig?”

  Poor Gub-Gub was dreadfully frightened; and the pushmi-pullyu began tosharpen 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 Alibad names in dog-language.

  But presently something seemed to go wrong with the pirates; theystopped laughing and cracking jokes; they looked puzzled; something wasmaking 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 theboat was indeed getting lower and lower in the water. And one of themsaid
to Ben Ali,

  “But surely if this old boat were sinking we should see the ratsleaving it.”

  And Jip shouted across from the other ship,

  “You great duffers, there are no rats there to leave! They left twohours 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 andfaster—till the boat looked almost as though it were standing on itshead; and the pirates had to cling to the rails and the masts andthe ropes and anything to keep from sliding off. Then the sea rushedroaring in through all the windows and the doors. And at last the shipplunged right down to the bottom of the sea, making a dreadful gurglingsound; and the six bad men were left bobbing about in the deep water ofthe bay.

  Some of them started to swim for the shores of the island; while otherscame and tried to get on to the boat where the Doctor was. But Jip keptsnapping at their noses, so they were afraid to climb up the side ofthe ship.

  Then suddenly they all cried out in great fear,

  “_The sharks!_ The sharks are coming! Let us get on to the ship beforethey eat us! Help, help!—The sharks! The sharks!”

  And now the Doctor could see, all over the bay, the backs of big fishesswimming swiftly through the water.

  And one great shark came near to the ship, and poking his nose out ofthe water he said to the Doctor,