Kitabı oku: «The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle», sayfa 11

THE THIRD CHAPTER
BAD WEATHER

AS soon as I had the Curlew swung round upon her course again I noticed something peculiar: we were not going as fast as we had been. Our favorable wind had almost entirely disappeared.

This, at first, we did not worry about, thinking that at any moment it might spring up again. But the whole day went by; then two days; then a week,—ten days, and the wind grew no stronger. The Curlew just dawdled along at the speed of a toddling babe.

I now saw that the Doctor was becoming uneasy. He kept getting out his sextant (an instrument which tells you what part of the ocean you are in) and making calculations. He was forever looking at his maps and measuring distances on them. The far edge of the sea, all around us, he examined with his telescope a hundred times a day.

“But Doctor,” I said when I found him one afternoon mumbling to himself about the misty appearance of the sky, “it wouldn’t matter so much, would it, if we did take a little longer over the trip? We’ve got plenty to eat on board now; and the Purple Bird-of-Paradise will know that we have been delayed by something that we couldn’t help.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” he said thoughtfully. “But I hate to keep her waiting. At this season of the year she generally goes to the Peruvian mountains—for her health. And besides, the good weather she prophesied is likely to end any day now and delay us still further. If we could only keep moving at even a fair speed, I wouldn’t mind. It’s this hanging around, almost dead still, that gets me restless—Ah, here comes a wind—Not very strong—but maybe it’ll grow.”

A gentle breeze from the Northeast came singing through the ropes; and we smiled up hopefully at the Curlew’s leaning masts.

“We’ve only got another hundred and fifty miles to make, to sight the coast of Brazil,” said the Doctor. “If that wind would just stay with us, steady, for a full day we’d see land.”

But suddenly the wind changed, swung to the East, then back to the Northeast—then to the North. It came in fitful gusts, as though it hadn’t made up its mind which way to blow; and I was kept busy at the wheel, swinging the Curlew this way and that to keep the right side of it.

Presently we heard Polynesia, who was in the rigging keeping a look-out for land or passing ships, screech down to us,

“Bad weather coming. That jumpy wind is an ugly sign. And look!—over there in the East—see that black line, low down? If that isn’t a storm I’m a land-lubber. The gales round here are fierce, when they do blow—tear your canvas out like paper. You take the wheel, Doctor: it’ll need a strong arm if it’s a real storm. I’ll go wake Bumpo and Chee-Chee. This looks bad to me. We’d best get all the sail down right away, till we see how strong she’s going to blow.”

Indeed the whole sky was now beginning to take on a very threatening look. The black line to the eastward grew blacker as it came nearer and nearer. A low, rumbly, whispering noise went moaning over the sea. The water which had been so blue and smiling turned to a ruffled ugly gray. And across the darkening sky, shreds of cloud swept like tattered witches flying from the storm.

I must confess I was frightened. You see I had only so far seen the sea in friendly moods: sometimes quiet and lazy; sometimes laughing, venturesome and reckless; sometimes brooding and poetic, when moonbeams turned her ripples into silver threads and dreaming snowy night-clouds piled up fairy-castles in the sky. But as yet I had not known, or even guessed at, the terrible strength of the Sea’s wild anger.

When that storm finally struck us we leaned right over flatly on our side, as though some invisible giant had slapped the poor Curlew on the cheek.

After that things happened so thick and so fast that what with the wind that stopped your breath, the driving, blinding water, the deafening noise and the rest, I haven’t a very clear idea of how our shipwreck came about.

I remember seeing the sails, which we were now trying to roll up upon the deck, torn out of our hands by the wind and go overboard like a penny balloon—very nearly carrying Chee-Chee with them. And I have a dim recollection of Polynesia screeching somewhere for one of us to go downstairs and close the port-holes.

In spite of our masts being bare of sail we were now scudding along to the southward at a great pace. But every once in a while huge gray-black waves would arise from under the ship’s side like nightmare monsters, swell and climb, then crash down upon us, pressing us into the sea; and the poor Curlew would come to a standstill, half under water, like a gasping, drowning pig.

While I was clambering along towards the wheel to see the Doctor, clinging like a leech with hands and legs to the rails lest I be blown overboard, one of these tremendous seas tore loose my hold, filled my throat with water and swept me like a cork the full length of the deck. My head struck a door with an awful bang. And then I fainted.

THE FOURTH CHAPTER
WRECKED!

WHEN I awoke I was very hazy in my head. The sky was blue and the sea was calm. At first I thought that I must have fallen asleep in the sun on the deck of the Curlew. And thinking that I would be late for my turn at the wheel, I tried to rise to my feet. I found I couldn’t; my arms were tied to something behind me with a piece of rope. By twisting my neck around I found this to be a mast, broken off short. Then I realized that I wasn’t sitting on a ship at all; I was only sitting on a piece of one. I began to feel uncomfortably scared. Screwing up my eyes, I searched the rim of the sea North, East, South and West: no land: no ships; nothing was in sight. I was alone in the ocean!

At last, little by little, my bruised head began to remember what had happened: first, the coming of the storm; the sails going overboard; then the big wave which had banged me against the door. But what had become of the Doctor and the others? What day was this, to-morrow or the day after?—And why was I sitting on only part of a ship?

Working my hand into my pocket, I found my penknife and cut the rope that tied me. This reminded me of a shipwreck story which Joe had once told me, of a captain who had tied his son to a mast in order that he shouldn’t be washed overboard by the gale. So of course it must have been the Doctor who had done the same to me.

But where was he?

The awful thought came to me that the Doctor and the rest of them must be drowned, since there was no other wreckage to be seen upon the waters. I got to my feet and stared around the sea again—Nothing—nothing but water and sky!

Presently a long way off I saw the small dark shape of a bird skimming low down over the swell. When it came quite close I saw it was a Stormy Petrel. I tried to talk to it, to see if it could give me news. But unluckily I hadn’t learned much seabird language and I couldn’t even attract its attention, much less make it understand what I wanted.

Twice it circled round my raft, lazily, with hardly a flip of the wing. And I could not help wondering, in spite of the distress I was in, where it had spent last night—how it, or any other living thing, had weathered such a smashing storm. It made me realize the great big difference between different creatures; and that size and strength are not everything. To this petrel, a frail little thing of feathers, much smaller and weaker than I, the Sea could do anything she liked, it seemed; and his only answer was a lazy, saucy flip of the wing! He was the one who should be called the able seaman. For, come raging gale, come sunlit calm, this wilderness of water was his home.

After swooping over the sea around me (just looking for food, I supposed) he went off in the direction from which he had come. And I was alone once more.

I found I was somewhat hungry—and a little thirsty too. I began to think all sorts of miserable thoughts, the way one does when he is lonesome and has missed breakfast. What was going to become of me now, if the Doctor and the rest were drowned? I would starve to death or die of thirst. Then the sun went behind some clouds and I felt cold. How many hundreds or thousands of miles was I from any land? What if another storm should come and smash up even this poor raft on which I stood?

I went on like this for a while, growing gloomier and gloomier, when suddenly I thought of Polynesia. “You’re always safe with the Doctor,” she had said. “He gets there. Remember that.”

I’m sure I wouldn’t have minded so much if he had been here with me. It was this being all alone that made me want to weep. And yet the petrel was alone!—What a baby I was, I told myself, to be scared to the verge of tears just by loneliness! I was quite safe where I was—for the present anyhow. John Dolittle wouldn’t get scared by a little thing like this. He only got excited when he made a discovery, found a new bug or something. And if what Polynesia had said was true, he couldn’t be drowned and things would come out all right in the end somehow.

I threw out my chest, buttoned up my collar and began walking up and down the short raft to keep warm. I would be like John Dolittle. I wouldn’t cry—And I wouldn’t get excited.

How long I paced back and forth I don’t know. But it was a long time—for I had nothing else to do.

At last I got tired and lay down to rest. And in spite of all my troubles, I soon fell fast asleep.

This time when I woke up, stars were staring down at me out of a cloudless sky. The sea was still calm; and my strange craft was rocking gently under me on an easy swell. All my fine courage left me as I gazed up into the big silent night and felt the pains of hunger and thirst set to work in my stomach harder than ever.

“Are you awake?” said a high silvery voice at my elbow.

I sprang up as though some one had stuck a pin in me. And there, perched at the very end of my raft, her beautiful golden tail glowing dimly in the starlight, sat Miranda, the Purple Bird-of-Paradise!

Never have I been so glad to see any one in my life. I almost fell into the water as I leapt to hug her.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” said she. “I guessed you must be tired after all you’ve been through—Don’t squash the life out of me, boy: I’m not a stuffed duck, you know.”

“Oh, Miranda, you dear old thing,” said I, “I’m so glad to see you. Tell me, where is the Doctor? Is he alive?”

“Of course he’s alive—and it’s my firm belief he always will be. He’s over there, about forty miles to the westward.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“He’s sitting on the other half of the Curlew shaving himself—or he was, when I left him.”

“Well, thank Heaven he’s alive!” said I—“And Bumpo—and the animals, are they all right?”

“Yes, they’re with him. Your ship broke in half in the storm. The Doctor had tied you down when he found you stunned. And the part you were on got separated and floated away. Golly, it was a storm! One has to be a gull or an albatross to stand that sort of weather. I had been watching for the Doctor for three weeks, from a cliff-top; but last night I had to take refuge in a cave to keep my tail-feathers from blowing out. As soon as I found the Doctor, he sent me off with some porpoises to help us in our search. There had been quite a gathering of sea-birds waiting to greet the Doctor; but the rough weather sort of broke up the arrangements that had been made to welcome him properly. It was the petrel that first gave us the tip where you were.”

“Well, but how can I get to the Doctor, Miranda?—I haven’t any oars.”

“Get to him!—Why, you’re going to him now. Look behind you.”

I turned around. The moon was just rising on the sea’s edge. And I now saw that my raft was moving through the water, but so gently that I had not noticed it before.

“What’s moving us?” I asked.

“The porpoises,” said Miranda.

I went to the back of the raft and looked down into the water. And just below the surface I could see the dim forms of four big porpoises, their sleek skins glinting in the moonlight, pushing at the raft with their noses.

“They’re old friends of the Doctor’s,” said Miranda. “They’d do anything for John Dolittle. We should see his party soon now. We’re pretty near the place I left them—Yes, there they are! See that dark shape?—No, more to the right of where you’re looking. Can’t you make out the figure of the black man standing against the sky?—Now Chee-Chee spies us—he’s waving. Don’t you see them?”

I didn’t—for my eyes were not as sharp as Miranda’s. But presently from somewhere in the murky dusk I heard Bumpo singing his African comic songs with the full force of his enormous voice. And in a little, by peering and peering in the direction of the sound, I at last made out a dim mass of tattered, splintered wreckage—all that remained of the poor Curlew—floating low down upon the water.

A hulloa came through the night. And I answered it. We kept it up, calling to one another back and forth across the calm night sea. And a few minutes later the two halves of our brave little ruined ship bumped gently together again.

Now that I was nearer and the moon was higher I could see more plainly. Their half of the ship was much bigger than mine.

It lay partly upon its side; and most of them were perched upon the top munching ship’s biscuit.

But close down to the edge of the water, using the sea’s calm surface for a mirror and a piece of broken bottle for a razor, John Dolittle was shaving his face by the light of the moon.

THE FIFTH CHAPTER
LAND!

THEY all gave me a great greeting as I clambered off my half of the ship on to theirs. Bumpo brought me a wonderful drink of fresh water which he drew from a barrel; and Chee-Chee and Polynesia stood around me feeding me ship’s biscuit.

But it was the sight of the Doctor’s smiling face—just knowing that I was with him once again—that cheered me more than anything else. As I watched him carefully wipe his glass razor and put it away for future use, I could not help comparing him in my mind with the Stormy Petrel. Indeed the vast strange knowledge which he had gained from his speech and friendship with animals had brought him the power to do things which no other human being would dare to try. Like the petrel, he could apparently play with the sea in all her moods. It was no wonder that many of the ignorant savage peoples among whom he passed in his voyages made statues of him showing him as half a fish, half a bird, and half a man. And ridiculous though it was, I could quite understand what Miranda meant when she said she firmly believed that he could never die. Just to be with him gave you a wonderful feeling of comfort and safety.

Except for his appearance (his clothes were crumpled and damp and his battered high hat was stained with salt water) that storm which had so terrified me had disturbed him no more than getting stuck on the mud-bank in Puddleby River.

Politely thanking Miranda for getting me so quickly, he asked her if she would now go ahead of us and show us the way to Spidermonkey Island. Next, he gave orders to the porpoises to leave my old piece of the ship and push the bigger half wherever the Bird-of-Paradise should lead us.

How much he had lost in the wreck besides his razor I did not know—everything, most likely, together with all the money he had saved up to buy the ship with. And still he was smiling as though he wanted for nothing in the world. The only things he had saved, as far as I could see—beyond the barrel of water and bag of biscuit—were his precious note-books. These, I saw when he stood up, he had strapped around his waist with yards and yards of twine. He was, as old Matthew Mugg used to say, a great man. He was unbelievable.

And now for three days we continued our journey slowly but steadily—southward.

The only inconvenience we suffered from was the cold. This seemed to increase as we went forward. The Doctor said that the island, disturbed from its usual paths by the great gale, had evidently drifted further South than it had ever been before.

On the third night poor Miranda came back to us nearly frozen. She told the Doctor that in the morning we would find the island quite close to us, though we couldn’t see it now as it was a misty dark night. She said that she must hurry back at once to a warmer climate; and that she would visit the Doctor in Puddleby next August as usual.

“Don’t forget, Miranda,” said John Dolittle, “if you should hear anything of what happened to Long Arrow, to get word to me.”

The Bird-of-Paradise assured him she would. And after the Doctor had thanked her again and again for all that she had done for us, she wished us good luck and disappeared into the night.

We were all awake early in the morning, long before it was light, waiting for our first glimpse of the country we had come so far to see. And as the rising sun turned the eastern sky to gray, of course it was old Polynesia who first shouted that she could see palm-trees and mountain tops.

With the growing light it became plain to all of us: a long island with high rocky mountains in the middle—and so near to us that you could almost throw your hat upon the shore.

The porpoises gave us one last push and our strange-looking craft bumped gently on a low beach. Then, thanking our lucky stars for a chance to stretch our cramped legs, we all bundled off on to the land—the first land, even though it was floating land, that we had trodden for six weeks. What a thrill I felt as I realized that Spidermonkey Island, the little spot in the atlas which my pencil had touched, lay at last beneath my feet!

When the light increased still further we noticed that the palms and grasses of the island seemed withered and almost dead. The Doctor said that it must be on account of the cold that the island was now suffering from in its new climate. These trees and grasses, he told us, were the kind that belonged to warm, tropical weather.

The porpoises asked if we wanted them any further. And the Doctor said that he didn’t think so, not for the present—nor the raft either, he added; for it was already beginning to fall to pieces and could not float much longer.

As we were preparing to go inland and explore the island, we suddenly noticed a whole band of Red Indians watching us with great curiosity from among the trees. The Doctor went forward to talk to them. But he could not make them understand. He tried by signs to show them that he had come on a friendly visit. The Indians didn’t seem to like us however. They had bows and arrows and long hunting spears, with stone points, in their hands; and they made signs back to the Doctor to tell him that if he came a step nearer they would kill us all. They evidently wanted us to leave the island at once. It was a very uncomfortable situation.

At last the Doctor made them understand that he only wanted to see the island all over and that then he would go away—though how he meant to do it, with no boat to sail in, was more than I could imagine.

While they were talking among themselves another Indian arrived—apparently with a message that they were wanted in some other part of the island. Because presently, shaking their spears threateningly at us, they went off with the newcomer.

“What discourteous pagans!” said Bumpo. “Did you ever see such inhospitability?—Never even asked us if we’d had breakfast, the benighted bounders!”

“Sh! They’re going off to their village,” said Polynesia. “I’ll bet there’s a village on the other side of those mountains. If you take my advice, Doctor, you’ll get away from this beach while their backs are turned. Let us go up into the higher land for the present—some place where they won’t know where we are. They may grow friendlier when they see we mean no harm. They have honest, open faces and look like a decent crowd to me. They’re just ignorant—probably never saw white folks before.”

So, feeling a little bit discouraged by our first reception, we moved off towards the mountains in the centre of the island.

THE SIXTH CHAPTER
THE JABIZRI

WE found the woods at the feet of the hills thick and tangly and somewhat hard to get through. On Polynesia’s advice, we kept away from all paths and trails, feeling it best to avoid meeting any Indians for the present.

But she and Chee-Chee were good guides and splendid jungle-hunters; and the two of them set to work at once looking for food for us. In a very short space of time they had found quite a number of different fruits and nuts which made excellent eating, though none of us knew the names of any of them. We discovered a nice clean stream of good water which came down from the mountains; so we were supplied with something to drink as well.

We followed the stream up towards the heights. And presently we came to parts where the woods were thinner and the ground rocky and steep. Here we could get glimpses of wonderful views all over the island, with the blue sea beyond.

While we were admiring one of these the Doctor suddenly said, “Sh!—A Jabizri!—Don’t you hear it?”

We listened and heard, somewhere in the air about us, an extraordinarily musical hum—like a bee, but not just one note. This hum rose and fell, up and down—almost like some one singing.

“No other insect but the Jabizri beetle hums like that,” said the Doctor. “I wonder where he is—quite near, by the sound—flying among the trees probably. Oh, if I only had my butterfly-net! Why didn’t I think to strap that around my waist too. Confound the storm: I may miss the chance of a lifetime now of getting the rarest beetle in the world—Oh look! There he goes!”

A huge beetle, easily three inches long I should say, suddenly flew by our noses. The Doctor got frightfully excited. He took off his hat to use as a net, swooped at the beetle and caught it. He nearly fell down a precipice on to the rocks below in his wild hurry, but that didn’t bother him in the least. He knelt down, chortling, upon the ground with the Jabizri safe under his hat. From his pocket he brought out a glass-topped box, and into this he very skilfully made the beetle walk from under the rim of the hat. Then he rose up, happy as a child, to examine his new treasure through the glass lid.

It certainly was a most beautiful insect. It was pale blue underneath; but its back was glossy black with huge red spots on it.

“There isn’t an entymologist in the whole world who wouldn’t give all he has to be in my shoes to-day,” said the Doctor—“Hulloa! This Jabizri’s got something on his leg—Doesn’t look like mud. I wonder what it is.”

He took the beetle carefully out of the box and held it by its back in his fingers, where it waved its six legs slowly in the air. We all crowded about him peering at it. Rolled around the middle section of its right foreleg was something that looked like a thin dried leaf. It was bound on very neatly with strong spider-web.

It was marvelous to see how John Dolittle with his fat heavy fingers undid that cobweb cord and unrolled the leaf, whole, without tearing it or hurting the precious beetle. The Jabizri he put back into the box. Then he spread the leaf out flat and examined it.

You can imagine our surprise when we found that the inside of the leaf was covered with signs and pictures, drawn so tiny that you almost needed a magnifying-glass to tell what they were. Some of the signs we couldn’t make out at all; but nearly all of the pictures were quite plain, figures of men and mountains mostly. The whole was done in a curious sort of brown ink.

For several moments there was a dead silence while we all stared at the leaf, fascinated and mystified.

“I think this is written in blood,” said the Doctor at last. “It turns that color when it’s dry. Somebody pricked his finger to make these pictures. It’s an old dodge when you’re short of ink—but highly unsanitary—What an extraordinary thing to find tied to a beetle’s leg! I wish I could talk beetle language, and find out where the Jabizri got it from.”

“But what is it?” I asked—“Rows of little pictures and signs. What do you make of it, Doctor?”

“It’s a letter,” he said—“a picture letter. All these little things put together mean a message—But why give a message to a beetle to carry—and to a Jabizri, the rarest beetle in the world?—What an extraordinary thing!”

Then he fell to muttering over the pictures.

“I wonder what it means: men walking up a mountain; men walking into a hole in a mountain; a mountain falling down—it’s a good drawing, that; men pointing to their open mouths; bars—prison-bars, perhaps; men praying; men lying down—they look as though they might be sick; and last of all, just a mountain—a peculiar-shaped mountain.”

All of a sudden the Doctor looked up sharply at me, a wonderful smile of delighted understanding spreading over his face.

“Long Arrow!” he cried, “don’t you see, Stubbins?—Why, of course! Only a naturalist would think of doing a thing like this: giving his letter to a beetle—not to a common beetle, but to the rarest of all, one that other naturalists would try to catch—Well, well! Long Arrow!—A picture-letter from Long Arrow. For pictures are the only writing that he knows.”

“Yes, but who is the letter to?” I asked.

“It’s to me very likely. Miranda had told him, I know, years ago, that some day I meant to come here. But if not for me, then it’s for any one who caught the beetle and read it. It’s a letter to the world.”

“Well, but what does it say? It doesn’t seem to me that it’s much good to you now you’ve got it.”

“Yes, it is,” he said, “because, look, I can read it now. First picture: men walking up a mountain—that’s Long Arrow and his party; men going into a hole in a mountain—they enter a cave looking for medicine-plants or mosses; a mountain falling down—some hanging rocks must have slipped and trapped them, imprisoned them in the cave. And this was the only living creature that could carry a message for them to the outside world—a beetle, who could burrow his way into the open air. Of course it was only a slim chance that the beetle would be ever caught and the letter read. But it was a chance; and when men are in great danger they grab at any straw of hope.... All right. Now look at the next picture: men pointing to their open mouths—they are hungry; men praying—begging any one who finds this letter to come to their assistance; men lying down—they are sick, or starving. This letter, Stubbins, is their last cry for help.”

He sprang to his feet as he ended, snatched out a note-book and put the letter between the leaves. His hands were trembling with haste and agitation.

“Come on!” he cried—“up the mountain—all of you. There’s not a moment to lose. Bumpo, bring the water and nuts with you. Heaven only knows how long they’ve been pining underground. Let’s hope and pray we’re not too late!”

“But where are you going to look?” I asked. “Miranda said the island was a hundred miles long and the mountains seem to run all the way down the centre of it.”

“Didn’t you see the last picture?” he said, grabbing up his hat from the ground and cramming it on his head. “It was an oddly shaped mountain—looked like a hawk’s head. Well, there’s where he is—if he’s still alive. First thing for us to do, is to get up on a high peak and look around the island for a mountain shaped like a hawks’ head—Just to think of it! There’s a chance of my meeting Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow, after all!—Come on! Hurry! To delay may mean death to the greatest naturalist ever born!”