The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (20 page)

"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!"

WE all agreed afterwards that none of us had ever worked so hard in our
lives before as we did that day. For my part, I know I was often on the
point of dropping exhausted with fatigue; but I just kept on going—like
a machine—determined that, whatever happened, I would not be the first
to give up.

When we had scrambled to the top of a high peak, almost instantly we saw
the strange mountain pictured in the letter. In shape it was the perfect
image of a hawk's head, and was, as far as we could see, the second
highest summit in the island.

Although we were all out of breath from our climb, the Doctor didn't let
us rest a second as soon as he had sighted it. With one look at the
sun for direction, down he dashed again, breaking through thickets,
splashing over brooks, taking all the short cuts. For a fat man, he was
certainly the swiftest cross-country runner I ever saw.

We floundered after him as fast as we could. When I say WE, I mean Bumpo
and myself; for the animals, Jip, Chee-Chee and Polynesia, were a long
way ahead—even beyond the Doctor—enjoying the hunt like a paper-chase.

At length we arrived at the foot of the mountain we were making for; and
we found its sides very steep. Said the Doctor,

"Now we will separate and search for caves. This spot where we now are,
will be our meeting-place. If anyone finds anything like a cave or a
hole where the earth and rocks have fallen in, he must shout and hulloa
to the rest of us. If we find nothing we will all gather here in about
an hour's time—Everybody understand?"

Then we all went off our different ways.

Each of us, you may be sure, was anxious to be the one to make a
discovery. And never was a mountain searched so thoroughly. But alas!
nothing could we find that looked in the least like a fallen-in cave.
There were plenty of places where rocks had tumbled down to the foot of
the slopes; but none of these appeared as though caves or passages could
possibly lie behind them.

One by one, tired and disappointed, we straggled back to the
meeting-place. The Doctor seemed gloomy and impatient but by no means
inclined to give up.

"Jip," he said, "couldn't you SMELL anything like an Indian anywhere?"

"No," said Jip. "I sniffed at every crack on the mountainside. But I am
afraid my nose will be of no use to you here, Doctor. The trouble is,
the whole air is so saturated with the smell of spider-monkeys that it
drowns every other scent—And besides, it's too cold and dry for good
smelling."

"It is certainly that," said the Doctor—"and getting colder all the
time. I'm afraid the island is still drifting to the southward. Let's
hope it stops before long, or we won't be able to get even nuts and
fruit to eat—everything in the island will perish—Chee-Chee, what luck
did you have?"

"None, Doctor. I climbed to every peak and pinnacle I could see. I
searched every hollow and cleft. But not one place could I find where
men might be hidden."

"And Polynesia," asked the Doctor, "did you see nothing that might put
us on the right track?"

"Not a thing, Doctor—But I have a plan."

"Oh good!" cried John Dolittle, full of hope renewed. "What is it? Let's
hear it."

"You still have that beetle with you," she asked—"the Biz-biz, or
whatever it is you call the wretched insect?"

"Yes," said the Doctor, producing the glass-topped box from his pocket,
"here it is."

"All right. Now listen," said she. "If what you have supposed is
true—that is, that Long Arrow had been trapped inside the mountain by
falling rock, he probably found that beetle inside the cave—perhaps
many other different beetles too, eh? He wouldn't have been likely to
take the Biz-biz in with him, would he?—He was hunting plants, you say,
not beetles. Isn't that right?"

"Yes," said the Doctor, "that's probably so."

"Very well. It is fair to suppose then that the beetle's home, or his
hole, is in that place—the part of the mountain where Long Arrow and
his party are imprisoned, isn't it?"

"Quite, quite."

"All right. Then the thing to do is to let the beetle go—and watch him;
and sooner or later he'll return to his home in Long Arrow's cave. And
there we will follow him—Or at all events," she added smoothing down
her wing-feathers with a very superior air, "we will follow him till the
miserable bug starts nosing under the earth. But at least he will show
us what part of the mountain Long Arrow is hidden in."

"But he may fly, if I let him out," said the Doctor. "Then we shall just
lose him and be no better off than we were before."

"LET him fly," snorted Polynesia scornfully. "A parrot can wing it as
fast as a Biz-biz, I fancy. If he takes to the air, I'll guarantee not
to let the little devil out of my sight. And if he just crawls along the
ground you can follow him yourself."

"Splendid!" cried the Doctor. "Polynesia, you have a great brain. I'll
set him to work at once and see what happens."

Again we all clustered round the Doctor as he carefully lifted off the
glass lid and let the big beetle climb out upon his finger.

"Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home!" crooned Bumpo. "Your house is on fire
and your chil—"

"Oh, be quiet!" snapped Polynesia crossly. "Stop insulting him! Don't
you suppose he has wits enough to go home without your telling him?"

"I thought perchance he might be of a philandering disposition," said
Bumpo humbly. "It could be that he is tired of his home and needs to be
encouraged. Shall I sing him 'Home Sweet Home,' think you?"

"No. Then he'd never go back. Your voice needs a rest. Don't sing to
him: just watch him—Oh, and Doctor, why not tie another message to the
creature's leg, telling Long Arrow that we're doing our best to reach
him and that he mustn't give up hope?"

"I will," said the Doctor. And in a minute he had pulled a dry leaf from
a bush near by and was covering it with little pictures in pencil.

At last, neatly fixed up with his new mail-bag, Mr. Jabizri crawled off
the Doctor's finger to the ground and looked about him. He stretched his
legs, polished his nose with his front feet and then moved off leisurely
to the westward.

We had expected him to walk UP the mountain; instead, he walked AROUND
it. Do you know how long it takes a beetle to walk round a mountain?
Well, I assure you it takes an unbelievably long time. As the hours
dragged by, we hoped and hoped that he would get up and fly the rest,
and let Polynesia carry on the work of following him. But he never
opened his wings once. I had not realized before how hard it is for a
human being to walk slowly enough to keep up with a beetle. It was the
most tedious thing I have ever gone through. And as we dawdled along
behind, watching him like hawks lest we lose him under a leaf or
something, we all got so cross and ill-tempered we were ready to bite
one another's heads off. And when he stopped to look at the scenery or
polish his nose some more, I could hear Polynesia behind me letting out
the most dreadful seafaring swear-words you ever heard.

After he had led us the whole way round the mountain he brought us to
the exact spot where we started from and there he came to a dead stop.

"Well," said Bumpo to Polynesia, "what do you think of the beetle's
sense now? You see he DOESN'T know enough to go home."

"Oh, be still, you Hottentot!" snapped Polynesia. "Wouldn't YOU want to
stretch your legs for exercise if you'd been shut up in a box all day.
Probably his home is near here, and that's why he's come back."

"But why," I asked, "did he go the whole way round the mountain first?"

Then the three of us got into a violent argument. But in the middle of
it all the Doctor suddenly called out,

"Look, look!"

We turned and found that he was pointing to the Jabizri, who was now
walking UP the mountain at a much faster and more business-like gait.

"Well," said Bumpo sitting down wearily; "if he is going to walk OVER
the mountain and back, for more exercise, I'll wait for him here.
Chee-Chee and Polynesia can follow him."

Indeed it would have taken a monkey or a bird to climb the place
which the beetle was now walking up. It was a smooth, flat part of the
mountain's side, steep as a wall.

But presently, when the Jabizri was no more than ten feet above our
heads, we all cried out together. For, even while we watched him, he had
disappeared into the face of the rock like a raindrop soaking into sand.

"He's gone," cried Polynesia. "There must be a hole up there." And in a
twinkling she had fluttered up the rock and was clinging to the face of
it with her claws.

"Yes," she shouted down, "we've run him to earth at last. His hole is
right here, behind a patch of lichen—big enough to get two fingers in."

"Ah," cried the Doctor, "this great slab of rock then must have slid
down from the summit and shut off the mouth of the cave like a door.
Poor fellows! What a dreadful time they must have spent in there!—Oh,
if we only had some picks and shovels now!"

"Picks and shovels wouldn't do much good," said Polynesia. "Look at the
size of the slab: a hundred feet high and as many broad. You would need
an army for a week to make any impression on it."

"I wonder how thick it is," said the Doctor; and he picked up a big
stone and banged it with all his might against the face of the rock.
It made a hollow booming sound, like a giant drum. We all stood still
listening while the echo of it died slowly away.

And then a cold shiver ran down my spine. For, from within the mountain,
back came three answering knocks: BOOM!... BOOM!. .. BOOM!

Wide-eyed we looked at one another as though the earth itself had
spoken. And the solemn little silence that followed was broken by the
Doctor.

"Thank Heaven," he said in a hushed reverent voice, "some of them at
least are alive!"

THE next part of our problem was the hardest of all: how to roll aside,
pull down or break open, that gigantic slab. As we gazed up at it
towering above our heads, it looked indeed a hopeless task for our tiny
strength.

But the sounds of life from inside the mountain had put new heart in us.
And in a moment we were all scrambling around trying to find any opening
or crevice which would give us something to work on. Chee-Chee scaled
up the sheer wall of the slab and examined the top of it where it leaned
against the mountain's side; I uprooted bushes and stripped off hanging
creepers that might conceal a weak place; the Doctor got more leaves
and composed new picture-letters for the Jabizri to take in if he should
turn up again; whilst Polynesia carried up a handful of nuts and pushed
them into the beetle's hole, one by one, for the prisoners inside to
eat.

"Nuts are so nourishing," she said.

But Jip it was who, scratching at the foot of the slab like a good
ratter, made the discovery which led to our final success.

"Doctor," he cried, running up to John Dolittle with his nose all
covered with black mud, "this slab is resting on nothing but a bed of
soft earth. You never saw such easy digging. I guess the cave behind
must be just too high up for the Indians to reach the earth with their
hands, or they could have scraped a way out long ago. If we can only
scratch the earth-bed away from under, the slab might drop a little.
Then maybe the Indians can climb out over the top."

The Doctor hurried to examine the place where Jip had dug.

"Why, yes," he said, "if we can get the earth away from under this front
edge, the slab is standing up so straight, we might even make it fall
right down in this direction. It's well worth trying. Let's get at it,
quick."

We had no tools but the sticks and slivers of stone which we could
find around. A strange sight we must have looked, the whole crew of us
squatting down on our heels, scratching and burrowing at the foot of the
mountain, like six badgers in a row.

After about an hour, during which in spite of the cold the sweat fell
from our foreheads in all directions, the Doctor said,

"Be ready to jump from under, clear out of the way, if she shows signs
of moving. If this slab falls on anybody, it will squash him flatter
than a pancake."

Presently there was a grating, grinding sound.

"Look out!" yelled John Dolittle, "here she comes!—Scatter!"

We ran for our lives, outwards, toward the sides. The big rock slid
gently down, about a foot, into the trough which we had made beneath it.
For a moment I was disappointed, for like that, it was as hopeless
as before—no signs of a cave-mouth showing above it. But as I looked
upward, I saw the top coming very slowly away from the mountainside.
We had unbalanced it below. As it moved apart from the face of the
mountain, sounds of human voices, crying gladly in a strange tongue,
issued from behind. Faster and faster the top swung forward, downward.
Then, with a roaring crash which shook the whole mountain-range beneath
our feet, it struck the earth and cracked in halves.

How can I describe to any one that first meeting between the two
greatest naturalists the world ever knew, Long Arrow, the son of Golden
Arrow and John Dolittle, M.D., of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh? The scene rises
before me now, plain and clear in every detail, though it took place so
many, many years ago. But when I come to write of it, words seem such
poor things with which to tell you of that great occasion.