MIRANDA, the Purple Bird-of-Paradise had prophesied rightly when she
had foretold a good spell of weather. For three weeks the good ship
_Curlew_ plowed her way through smiling seas before a steady powerful
wind.
I suppose most real sailors would have found this part of the voyage
dull. But not I. As we got further South and further West the face
of the sea seemed different every day. And all the little things of
a voyage which an old hand would have hardly bothered to notice were
matters of great interest for my eager eyes.
We did not pass many ships. When we did see one, the Doctor would get
out his telescope and we would all take a look at it. Sometimes he
would signal to it, asking for news, by hauling up little colored flags
upon the mast; and the ship would signal back to us in the same way.
The meaning of all the signals was printed in a book which the Doctor
kept in the cabin. He told me it was the language of the sea and that
all ships could understand it whether they be English, Dutch, or
French.
Our greatest happening during those first weeks was passing an iceberg.
When the sun shone on it it burst into a hundred colors, sparkling
like a jeweled palace in a fairy-story. Through the telescope we saw
a mother polar bear with a cub sitting on it, watching us. The Doctor
recognized her as one of the bears who had spoken to him when he was
discovering the North Pole. So he sailed the ship up close and offered
to take her and her baby on to the _Curlew_ if she wished it. But she
only shook her head, thanking him; she said it would be far too hot for
the cub on the deck of our ship, with no ice to keep his feet cool. It
had been indeed a very hot day; but the nearness of that great mountain
of ice made us all turn up our coat-collars and shiver with the cold.
During those quiet peaceful days I improved my reading and writing a
great deal with the Doctor’s help. I got on so well that he let me keep
the ship’s log. This is a big book kept on every ship, a kind of diary,
in which the number of miles run, the direction of your course and
everything else that happens is written down.
The Doctor too, in what spare time he had, was nearly always writing—in
his note-books. I used to peep into these sometimes, now that I could
read, but I found it hard work to make out the Doctor’s handwriting.
Many of these note-books seemed to be about sea things. There were six
thick ones filled full with notes and sketches of different seaweeds;
and there were others on sea birds; others on sea worms; others on
seashells. They were all some day to be re-written, printed and bound
like regular books.
One afternoon we saw, floating around us, great quantities of stuff
that looked like dead grass. The Doctor told me this was gulf-weed. A
little further on it became so thick that it covered all the water as
far as the eye could reach; it made the _Curlew_ look as though she
were moving across a meadow instead of sailing the Atlantic.
Crawling about upon this weed, many crabs were to be seen. And the
sight of them reminded the Doctor of his dream of learning the language
of the shellfish. He fished several of these crabs up with a net and
put them in his listening-tank to see if he could understand them.
Among the crabs he also caught a strange-looking, chubby, little fish
which he told me was called a Silver Fidgit.
After he had listened to the crabs for a while with no success, he put
the fidgit into the tank and began to listen to that. I had to leave
him at this moment to go and attend to some duties on the deck. But
presently I heard him below shouting for me to come down again.
“Stubbins,” he cried as soon as he saw me—“a most extraordinary
thing—Quite unbelievable—I’m not sure whether I’m dreaming—Can’t
believe my own senses. I—I—I—”
[Illustration: “‘He talks English!’”]
“Why, Doctor,” I said, “what is it?—What’s the matter?”
“The fidgit,” he whispered, pointing with a trembling finger to the
listening-tank in which the little round fish was still swimming
quietly, “he talks English! And—and—and _he whistles tunes_—English
tunes!”
“Talks English!” I cried—“Whistles!—Why, it’s impossible.”
“It’s a fact,” said the Doctor, white in the face with excitement.
“It’s only a few words, scattered, with no particular sense to them—all
mixed up with his own language which I can’t make out yet. But they’re
English words, unless there’s something very wrong with my hearing—And
the tune he whistles, it’s as plain as anything—always the same tune.
Now you listen and tell me what you make of it. Tell me everything you
hear. Don’t miss a word.”
I went to the glass tank upon the table while the Doctor grabbed a
note-book and a pencil. Undoing my collar I stood upon the empty
packing-case he had been using for a stand and put my right ear down
under the water.
For some moments I detected nothing at all—except, with my dry ear, the
heavy breathing of the Doctor as he waited, all stiff and anxious, for
me to say something. At last from within the water, sounding like a
child singing miles and miles away, I heard an unbelievably thin, small
voice.
“Ah!” I said.
“What is it?” asked the Doctor in a hoarse, trembly whisper. “What does
he say?”
“I can’t quite make it out,” I said. “It’s mostly in some strange fish
language—Oh, but wait a minute!—Yes, now I get it—‘No smoking’.... ‘My,
here’s a queer one!’ ‘Popcorn and picture postcards here’.... ‘This
way out’.... ‘Don’t spit’—What funny things to say, Doctor!—Oh, but
wait!—Now he’s whistling the tune.”
“What tune is it?” gasped the Doctor.
“John Peel.”
“Ah hah,” cried the Doctor, “that’s what I made it out to be.” And he
wrote furiously in his note-book.