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.”
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_