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_