The Story of Doctor Dolittle
“Listen,” whispered the parrot, when John Dolittle’s face appeared:
“Prince Bumpo is coming here to-night to see you. And you’ve got to
find some way to turn him white. But be sure to make him promise you
first that he will open the prison-door and find a ship for you to
cross the sea in.”
“This is all very well,” said the Doctor. “But it isn’t so easy to turn
a black man white. You speak as though he were a dress to be re-dyed.
It’s not so simple. ‘Shall the leopard change his spots, or the
Ethiopian his skin,’ you know?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Polynesia impatiently. “But
you _must_ turn this coon white. Think of a way—think hard. You’ve got
plenty of medicines left in the bag. He’ll do anything for you if you
change his color. It is your only chance to get out of prison.”
“Well, I suppose it _might_ be possible,” said the Doctor. “Let me
see—,” and he went over to his medicine-bag, murmuring something about
“liberated chlorine on animal-pigment—perhaps zinc-ointment, as a
temporary measure, spread thick—”
Well, that night Prince Bumpo came secretly to the Doctor in prison and
said to him,
“White Man, I am an unhappy prince. Years ago I went in search of The
Sleeping Beauty, whom I had read of in a book. And having traveled
through the world many days, I at last found her and kissed the lady
very gently to awaken her—as the book said I should. ’Tis true indeed
that she awoke. But when she saw my face she cried out, ‘Oh, he’s
black!’ And she ran away and wouldn’t marry me—but went to sleep
again somewhere else. So I came back, full of sadness, to my father’s
kingdom. Now I hear that you are a wonderful magician and have many
powerful potions. So I come to you for help. If you will turn me white,
so that I may go back to The Sleeping Beauty, I will give you half my
kingdom and anything besides you ask.”
“Prince Bumpo,” said the Doctor, looking thoughtfully at the bottles in
his medicine-bag, “supposing I made your hair a nice blonde color—would
not that do instead to make you happy?”
“No,” said Bumpo. “Nothing else will satisfy me. I must be a white
prince.”
“You know it is very hard to change the color of a prince,” said the
Doctor—“one of the hardest things a magician can do. You only want your
face white, do you not?”
“Yes, that is all,” said Bumpo. “Because I shall wear shining armor and
gauntlets of steel, like the other white princes, and ride on a horse.”
“Must your face be white all over?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes, all over,” said Bumpo—“and I would like my eyes blue too, but I
suppose that would be very hard to do.”
“Yes, it would,” said the Doctor quickly. “Well, I will do what I can
for you. You will have to be very patient though—you know with some
medicines you can never be very sure. I might have to try two or three
times. You have a strong skin—yes? Well that’s all right. Now come
over here by the light—Oh, but before I do anything, you must first go
down to the beach and get a ship ready, with food in it, to take me
across the sea. Do not speak a word of this to any one. And when I have
done as you ask, you must let me and all my animals out of prison.
Promise—by the crown of Jolliginki!”
So the Prince promised and went away to get a ship ready at the
seashore.
When he came back and said that it was done, the Doctor asked Dab-Dab
to bring a basin. Then he mixed a lot of medicines in the basin and
told Bumpo to dip his face in it.
The Prince leaned down and put his face in—right up to the ears.
He held it there a long time—so long that the Doctor seemed to get
dreadfully anxious and fidgety, standing first on one leg and then on
the other, looking at all the bottles he had used for the mixture, and
reading the labels on them again and again. A strong smell filled the
prison, like the smell of brown paper burning.
At last the Prince lifted his face up out of the basin, breathing very
hard. And all the animals cried out in surprise.
For the Prince’s face had turned as white as snow, and his eyes, which
had been mud-colored, were a manly gray!
When John Dolittle lent him a little looking-glass to see himself in,
he sang for joy and began dancing around the prison. But the Doctor
asked him not to make so much noise about it; and when he had closed
his medicine-bag in a hurry he told him to open the prison-door.
Bumpo begged that he might keep the looking-glass, as it was the only
one in the Kingdom of Jolliginki, and he wanted to look at himself all
day long. But the Doctor said he needed it to shave with.
Then the Prince, taking a bunch of copper keys from his pocket, undid
the great double locks. And the Doctor with all his animals ran as fast
as they could down to the seashore; while Bumpo leaned against the wall
of the empty dungeon, smiling after them happily, his big face shining
like polished ivory in the light of the moon.
When they came to the beach they saw Polynesia and Chee-Chee waiting
for them on the rocks near the ship.
“I feel sorry about Bumpo,” said the Doctor. “I am afraid that
medicine I used will never last. Most likely he will be as black as
ever when he wakes up in the morning—that’s one reason why I didn’t
like to leave the mirror with him. But then again, he _might_ stay
white—I had never used that mixture before. To tell the truth, I was
surprised, myself, that it worked so well. But I had to do something,
didn’t I?—I couldn’t possibly scrub the King’s kitchen for the rest
of my life. It was such a dirty kitchen!—I could see it from the
prison-window.—Well, well!—Poor Bumpo!”
“Oh, of course he will know we were just joking with him,” said the
parrot.
“They had no business to lock us up,” said Dab-Dab, waggling her tail
angrily. “We never did them any harm. Serve him right, if he does turn
black again! I hope it’s a dark black.”
“But _he_ didn’t have anything to do with it,” said the Doctor. “It was
the King, his father, who had us locked up—it wasn’t Bumpo’s fault....
I wonder if I ought to go back and apologize—Oh, well—I’ll send him
some candy when I get to Puddleby. And who knows?—he may stay white
after all.”
“The Sleeping Beauty would never have him, even if he did,” said
Dab-Dab. “He looked better the way he was, I thought. But he’d never be
anything but ugly, no matter what color he was made.”
“Still, he had a good heart,” said the Doctor—“romantic, of course—but
a good heart. After all, ‘handsome is as handsome does.’”
“I don’t believe the poor booby found The Sleeping Beauty at all,”
said Jip, the dog. “Most likely he kissed some farmer’s fat wife who
was taking a snooze under an apple-tree. Can’t blame her for getting
scared! I wonder who he’ll go and kiss this time. Silly business!”
Then the pushmi-pullyu, the white mouse, Gub-Gub, Dab-Dab, Jip and
the owl, Too-Too, went on to the ship with the Doctor. But Chee-Chee,
Polynesia and the crocodile stayed behind, because Africa was their
proper home, the land where they were born.
And when the Doctor stood upon the boat, he looked over the side
across the water. And then he remembered that they had no one with them
to guide them back to Puddleby.
The wide, wide sea looked terribly big and lonesome in the moonlight;
and he began to wonder if they would lose their way when they passed
out of sight of land.
But even while he was wondering, they heard a strange whispering noise,
high in the air, coming through the night. And the animals all stopped
saying Good-by and listened.
The noise grew louder and bigger. It seemed to be coming nearer to
them—a sound like the Autumn wind blowing through the leaves of a
poplar-tree, or a great, great rain beating down upon a roof.
And Jip, with his nose pointing and his tail quite straight, said,
“Birds!—millions of them—flying fast—that’s it!”
And then they all looked up. And there, streaming across the face of
the moon, like a huge swarm of tiny ants, they could see thousands and
thousands of little birds. Soon the whole sky seemed full of them, and
still more kept coming—more and more. There were so many that for a
little they covered the whole moon so it could not shine, and the sea
grew dark and black—like when a storm-cloud passes over the sun.
And presently all these birds came down close, skimming over the water
and the land; and the night-sky was left clear above, and the moon
shone as before. Still never a call nor a cry nor a song they made—no
sound but this great rustling of feathers which grew greater now than
ever. When they began to settle on the sands, along the ropes of the
ship—anywhere and everywhere except the trees—the Doctor could see that
they had blue wings and white breasts and very short, feathered legs.
As soon as they had all found a place to sit, suddenly, there was no
noise left anywhere—all was quiet; all was still.
And in the silent moonlight John Dolittle spoke:
“I had no idea that we had been in Africa so long. It will be nearly
Summer when we get home. For these are the swallows going back.
Swallows, I thank you for waiting for us. It is very thoughtful of you.
Now we need not be afraid that we will lose our way upon the sea....
Pull up the anchor and set the sail!”
When the ship moved out upon the water, those who stayed behind,
Chee-Chee, Polynesia and the crocodile, grew terribly sad. For never in
their lives had they known any one they liked so well as Doctor John
Dolittle of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.
And after they had called Good-by to him again and again and again,
they still stood there upon the rocks, crying bitterly and waving till
the ship was out of sight.
_THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER_
RED SAILS AND BLUE WINGS
SAILING homeward, the Doctor’s ship had to pass the coast of Barbary.
This coast is the seashore of the Great Desert. It is a wild, lonely
place—all sand and stones. And it was here that the Barbary pirates
lived.
These pirates, a bad lot of men, used to wait for sailors to be
shipwrecked on their shores. And often, if they saw a boat passing,
they would come out in their fast sailing-ships and chase it. When they
caught a boat like this at sea, they would steal everything on it; and
after they had taken the people off they would sink the ship and sail
back to Barbary singing songs and feeling proud of the mischief they
had done. Then they used to make the people they had caught write home
to their friends for money. And if the friends sent no money, the
pirates often threw the people into the sea.
Now one sunshiny day the Doctor and Dab-Dab were walking up and down on
the ship for exercise; a nice fresh wind was blowing the boat along,
and everybody was happy. Presently Dab-Dab saw the sail of another ship
a long way behind them on the edge of the sea. It was a red sail.
“I don’t like the look of that sail,” said Dab-Dab. “I have a feeling
it isn’t a friendly ship. I am afraid there is more trouble coming to
us.”
Jip, who was lying near taking a nap in the sun, began to growl and
talk in his sleep.
“I smell roast beef cooking,” he mumbled—“underdone roast beef—with
brown gravy over it.”
“Good gracious!” cried the Doctor. “What’s the matter with the dog? Is
he _smelling_ in his sleep—as well as talking?”
“I suppose he is,” said Dab-Dab. “All dogs can smell in their sleep.”
“But what is he smelling?” asked the Doctor. “There is no roast beef
cooking on our ship.”
“No,” said Dab-Dab. “The roast beef must be on that other ship over
there.”
“But that’s ten miles away,” said the Doctor. “He couldn’t smell that
far surely!”
“Oh, yes, he could,” said Dab-Dab. “You ask him.”
Then Jip, still fast asleep, began to growl again and his lip curled up
angrily, showing his clean, white teeth.