The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (21 page)

I know that the Doctor, whose life was surely full enough of big
happenings, always counted the setting free of the Indian scientist
as the greatest thing he ever did. For my part, knowing how much this
meeting must mean to him, I was on pins and needles of expectation and
curiosity as the great stone finally thundered down at our feet and we
gazed across it to see what lay behind.

The gloomy black mouth of a tunnel, full twenty feet high, was revealed.
In the centre of this opening stood an enormous red Indian, seven feet
tall, handsome, muscular, slim and naked—but for a beaded cloth about
his middle and an eagle's feather in his hair. He held one hand across
his face to shield his eyes from the blinding sun which he had not seen
in many days.

"It is he!" I heard the Doctor whisper at my elbow. "I know him by his
great height and the scar upon his chin."

And he stepped forward slowly across the fallen stone with his hand
outstretched to the red man.

Presently the Indian uncovered his eyes. And I saw that they had a
curious piercing gleam in them—like the eyes of an eagle, but kinder
and more gentle. He slowly raised his right arm, the rest of him still
and motionless like a statue, and took the Doctor's hand in his. It was
a great moment. Polynesia nodded to me in a knowing, satisfied kind of
way. And I heard old Bumpo sniffle sentimentally. Then the Doctor tried
to speak to Long Arrow. But the Indian knew no English of course, and
the Doctor knew no Indian. Presently, to my surprise, I heard the Doctor
trying him in different animal languages.

"How do you do?" he said in dog-talk; "I am glad to see you," in
horse-signs; "How long have you been buried?" in deer-language.
Still the Indian made no move but stood there, straight and stiff,
understanding not a word.

The Doctor tried again, in several other animal dialects. But with no
result.

Till at last he came to the language of eagles.

"Great Red-Skin," he said in the fierce screams and short grunts that
the big birds use, "never have I been so glad in all my life as I am
to-day to find you still alive."

In a flash Long Arrow's stony face lit up with a smile of understanding;
and back came the answer in eagle-tongue,

"Mighty White Man, I owe my life to you. For the remainder of my days I
am your servant to command."

Afterwards Long Arrow told us that this was the only bird or animal
language that he had ever been able to learn. But that he had not spoken
it in a long time, for no eagles ever came to this island.

Then the Doctor signaled to Bumpo who came forward with the nuts and
water. But Long Arrow neither ate nor drank. Taking the supplies with a
nod of thanks, he turned and carried them into the inner dimness of the
cave. We followed him.

Inside we found nine other Indians, men, women and boys, lying on the
rock floor in a dreadful state of thinness and exhaustion.

Some had their eyes closed, as if dead. Quickly the Doctor went round
them all and listened to their hearts. They were all alive; but one
woman was too weak even to stand upon her feet.

At a word from the Doctor, Chee-Chee and Polynesia sped off into the
jungles after more fruit and water.

While Long Arrow was handing round what food we had to his starving
friends, we suddenly heard a sound outside the cave. Turning about we
saw, clustered at the entrance, the band of Indians who had met us so
inhospitably at the beach.

They peered into the dark cave cautiously at first. But as soon as they
saw Long Arrow and the other Indians with us, they came rushing
in, laughing, clapping their hands with joy and jabbering away at a
tremendous rate.

Long Arrow explained to the Doctor that the nine Indians we had found
in the cave with him were two families who had accompanied him into the
mountains to help him gather medicine-plants. And while they had been
searching for a kind of moss—good for indigestion—which grows only
inside of damp caves, the great rock slab had slid down and shut them
in. Then for two weeks they had lived on the medicine-moss and such
fresh water as could be found dripping from the damp walls of the cave.
The other Indians on the island had given them up for lost and mourned
them as dead; and they were now very surprised and happy to find their
relatives alive.

When Long Arrow turned to the newcomers and told them in their own
language that it was the white man who had found and freed their
relatives, they gathered round John Dolittle, all talking at once and
beating their breasts.

Long Arrow said they were apologizing and trying to tell the Doctor how
sorry they were that they had seemed unfriendly to him at the beach.
They had never seen a white man before and had really been afraid of
him—especially when they saw him conversing with the porpoises. They
had thought he was the Devil, they said.

Then they went outside and looked at the great stone we had thrown down,
big as a meadow; and they walked round and round it, pointing to the
break running through the middle and wondering how the trick of felling
it was done.

Travelers who have since visited Spidermonkey Island tell me that that
huge stone slab is now one of the regular sights of the island. And that
the Indian guides, when showing it to visitors, always tell THEIR story
of how it came there. They say that when the Doctor found that the rocks
had entrapped his friend, Long Arrow, he was so angry that he ripped the
mountain in halves with his bare hands and let him out.

FROM that time on the Indians' treatment of us was very different. We
were invited to their village for a feast to celebrate the recovery of
the lost families. And after we had made a litter from saplings to carry
the sick woman in, we all started off down the mountain.

On the way the Indians told Long Arrow something which appeared to be
sad news, for on hearing it, his face grew very grave. The Doctor asked
him what was wrong. And Long Arrow said he had just been informed
that the chief of the tribe, an old man of eighty, had died early that
morning.

"That," Polynesia whispered in my ear, "must have been what they went
back to the village for, when the messenger fetched them from the
beach.—Remember?"

"What did he die of?" asked the Doctor.

"He died of cold," said Long Arrow.

Indeed, now that the sun was setting, we were all shivering ourselves.

"This is a serious thing," said the Doctor to me. "The island is still
in the grip of that wretched current flowing southward. We will have to
look into this to-morrow. If nothing can be done about it, the Indians
had better take to canoes and leave the island. The chance of being
wrecked will be better than getting frozen to death in the ice-floes of
the Antarctic."

Presently we came over a saddle in the hills, and looking downward on
the far side of the island, we saw the village—a large cluster of grass
huts and gaily colored totem-poles close by the edge of the sea.

"How artistic!" said the Doctor—"Delightfully situated. What is the
name of the village?"

"Popsipetel," said Long Arrow. "That is the name also of the tribe. The
word signifies in Indian tongue, The Men of The Moving Land. There are
two tribes of Indians on the island: the Popsipetels at this end and the
Bag-jagderags at the other."

"Which is the larger of the two peoples?"

"The Bag-jagderags, by far. Their city covers two square leagues. But,"
added Long Arrow a slight frown darkening his handsome face, "for me, I
would rather have one Popsipetel than a hundred Bag-jagderags."

The news of the rescue we had made had evidently gone ahead of us. For
as we drew nearer to the village we saw crowds of Indians streaming out
to greet the friends and relatives whom they had never thought to see
again.

These good people, when they too were told how the rescue had been the
work of the strange white visitor to their shores, all gathered round
the Doctor, shook him by the hands, patted him and hugged him. Then they
lifted him up upon their strong shoulders and carried him down the hill
into the village.

There the welcome we received was even more wonderful. In spite of the
cold air of the coming night, the villagers, who had all been shivering
within their houses, threw open their doors and came out in hundreds.
I had no idea that the little village could hold so many. They thronged
about us, smiling and nodding and waving their hands; and as the details
of what we had done were recited by Long Arrow they kept shouting
strange singing noises, which we supposed were words of gratitude or
praise.

We were next escorted to a brand-new grass house, clean and
sweet-smelling within, and informed that it was ours. Six strong Indian
boys were told off to be our servants.

On our way through the village we noticed a house, larger than the rest,
standing at the end of the main street. Long Arrow pointed to it and
told us it was the Chief's house, but that it was now empty—no new
chief having yet been elected to take the place of the old one who had
died.

Inside our new home a feast of fish and fruit had been prepared. Most of
the more important men of the tribe were already seating themselves at
the long dining-table when we got there. Long Arrow invited us to sit
down and eat.

This we were glad enough to do, as we were all hungry. But we were both
surprised and disappointed when we found that the fish had not been
cooked. The Indians did not seem to think this extraordinary in the
least, but went ahead gobbling the fish with much relish the way it was,
raw.

With many apologies, the Doctor explained to Long Arrow that if they had
no objection we would prefer our fish cooked.

Imagine our astonishment when we found that the great Long Arrow, so
learned in the natural sciences, did not know what the word COOKED
meant!

Polynesia who was sitting on the bench between John Dolittle and myself
pulled the Doctor by the sleeve.

"I'll tell you what's wrong, Doctor," she whispered as he leant down to
listen to her: "THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO FIRES! They don't know how to make
a fire. Look outside: It's almost dark, and there isn't a light showing
ii the whole village. This is a fireless people."

THEN the Doctor asked Long Arrow if he knew what fire was, explaining it
to him by pictures drawn on the buckskin table-cloth. Long Arrow said
he had seen such a thing—coming out of the tops of volcanoes; but that
neither he nor any of the Popsipetels knew how it was made.

"Poor perishing heathens!" muttered Bumpo. "No wonder the old chief died
of cold!"

At that moment we heard a crying sound at the door. And turning round,
we saw a weeping Indian mother with a baby in her arms. She said
something to the Indians which we could not understand; and Long Arrow
told us the baby was sick and she wanted the white doctor to try and
cure it.

"Oh Lord!" groaned Polynesia in my ear—"Just like Puddleby: patients
arriving in the middle of dinner. Well, one thing: the food's raw, so
nothing can get cold anyway."

The Doctor examined the baby and found at once that it was thoroughly
chilled.

"Fire—FIRE! That's what it needs," he said turning to Long
Arrow—"That's what you all need. This child will have pneumonia if it
isn't kept warm."

"Aye, truly. But how to make a fire," said Long Arrow—"where to get it:
that is the difficulty. All the volcanoes in this land are dead."

Then we fell to hunting through our pockets to see if any matches had
survived the shipwreck. The best we could muster were two whole ones and
a half—all with the heads soaked off them by salt water.

"Hark, Long Arrow," said the Doctor: "divers ways there be of making
fire without the aid of matches. One: with a strong glass and the rays
of the sun. That however, since the sun has set, we cannot now employ.
Another is by grinding a hard stick into a soft log—Is the daylight
gone without?—Alas yes. Then I fear we must await the morrow; for
besides the different woods, we need an old squirrel's nest for
fuel—And that without lamps you could not find in your forests at this
hour."

"Great are your cunning and your skill, oh White Man," Long Arrow
replied. "But in this you do us an injustice. Know you not that all
fireless peoples can see in the dark? Having no lamps we are forced to
train ourselves to travel through the blackest night, lightless. I will
despatch a messenger and you shall have your squirrel's nest within the
hour."

He gave an order to two of our boy-servants who promptly disappeared
running. And sure enough, in a very short space of time a squirrel's
nest, together with hard and soft woods, was brought to our door.

The moon had not yet risen and within the house it was practically
pitch-black. I could feel and hear, however, that the Indians were
moving about comfortably as though it were daylight. The task of making
fire the Doctor had to perform almost entirely by the sense of touch,
asking Long Arrow and the Indians to hand him his tools when he mislaid
them in the dark. And then I made a curious discovery: now that I had
to, I found that I was beginning to see a little in the dark myself. And
for the first time I realized that of course there is no such thing as
pitch-dark, so long as you have a door open or a sky above you.

Calling for the loan of a bow, the Doctor loosened the string, put the
hard stick into a loop and began grinding this stick into the soft wood
of the log. Soon I smelt that the log was smoking. Then he kept feeding
the part that was smoking with the inside lining of the squirrel's nest,
and he asked me to blow upon it with my breath. He made the stick drill
faster and faster. More smoke filled the room. And at last the darkness
about us was suddenly lit up. The squirrel's nest had burst into flame.