CHAPTER VITHE DOCTOR'S RELEASE

"The Doctor patted him on the shoulder"

"Chief Nyam-Nyam," said he, "I think I have discovered something to-day which should make you and your people rich for the remainder of your lives. Go out now and address the tribesmen. Promise them in my name—and remind them that I come recommended by King Koko—promise them from me that if they will abide peacefully under your rule for another week the country of Chief Nyam-Nyam will be made famous for its riches and prosperity."

Then the old Chief opened the door and made a speech to the clamoring crowd outside. And when he had ended Obombo, the son-in-law, got up and began another speech, calling on the people to drive the old man out into the jungle. But before he had got halfway through the crowd began to murmur to one another:

"Let us not listen to this forward young man. It is far better that we abide the white man's promise and see what comes. He is a man of deeds, not words. Did he not put the Amazons to flight with a magic mouse that lives in his pocket? Let us side with the white man and the venerable Nyam-Nyam, who has ruled us with kindness for so long. Obombo would but lead us into war, and bring us to greater poverty still."

Soon hisses and groans broke out among the crowd and, picking up pebbles and mud, they began pelting Obombo so he could not go on with his speech. Finally he had to run for the jungle himself to escape the fury of the people.

Then when the excitement had died down and the villagers had gone peacefully to their homes, the Doctor told the old Chief of the wealth that lay waiting for him in the oysters of the Harmattan Rocks. And the cormorant agreed to oblige John Dolittle by getting a number of his relatives to do pearl fishing for these people, who were so badly in need of money and food.

And during the next week the Doctor paddled the old Chief to the rocks twice a day. A great number of oysters were fished up by the cormorants and the pearls were sorted by the Doctor, put in little boxes and sent out to be sold. John Dolittle told the old Chief to keep the matter a secret and only to intrust the carrying to reliable men.

And soon money began to pour into the country from the pearl fishing business which the Doctor had established and the people were prosperous and had all the food they wanted.

By the end of that week the Doctor had, indeed, made good his promise. The country of Chief Nyam-Nyam became famous all along the coast of West Africa as a wealthy state.

But wherever money is made in large quantities and business is good, there strangers will always come, seeking their fortune. And before long the little village that used to be so poor and insignificant was full of traders from the neighboring kingdoms, buying and selling in the crowded, busy markets. And, of course, questions were soon asked as to how this country had suddenly got so rich. And, although the Chief had carried out the Doctor's orders and had only intrusted the secret of the fisheries to a few picked men, folks began to notice that canoes frequently came and went between the Harmattan Rocks and the village of Chief Nyam-Nyam.

Then spies from those neighboring countries who had always been robbing and warring upon this land began to sneak around the rocks in canoes. And, of course, very soon the secret was out.

And the Emir of Ellebubu, who was one of the big, powerful neighbors, called up his army and sent them off in war canoes to take possession of the Harmattan Rocks. At the same time he made an attack upon the village, drove everybody out, and carrying off the Doctor and the Chief, he threw them into prison in his own country. Then at last Nyam-Nyam's people had no land left at all.

And in the jungle, where the frightened villagers had fled to hide, Obombo made whispered speeches to little scattered groups of his father-in-law's people, telling them what fools they had been to trust the crazy white man, instead of listening to him, who would have led them to greatness.

"In the jungle Obombo made speeches"

Now, when the Emir of Ellebubu had thrown the Doctor into prison he had refused to allow Dab-Dab, Jip or Gub-Gub to go with him. Jip put up a fight and bit the Emir in the leg. But all he got for that was to be tied up on a short chain.

The prison into which the Doctor was thrown had no windows. And John Dolittle, although he had been in African prisons before, was very unhappy because he was extremely particular about having fresh air. And besides, his hands were firmly tied behind his back with strong rope.

"Dear me," said he while he was sitting miserably on the floor in the darkness, wondering what on earth he was going to do without any of his animals to help him, "what a poor holiday I am spending, to be sure!"

But presently he heard something stirring in his pocket. And to his great delight, the white mouse, who had been sleeping soundly, entirely forgotten by the Doctor, ran out on his lap.

"Good luck!" cried John Dolittle. "You're the very fellow I want. Would you be so good as to run around behind my back and gnaw this beastly rope? It's hurting my wrists."

"Certainly," said the white mouse, setting to work at once. "Why is it so dark? I haven't slept into the night, have I?"

"No," said the Doctor. "It's only about noon, I should say. But we're locked up. That stupid old Emir of Ellebubu made war on Nyam-Nyam and threw me into jail. Bother it, I always seem to be getting into prison! The worst of it was, he wouldn't let Jip or Dab-Dab come with me. I'm particularly annoyed that I haven't got Dab-Dab. I wish I knew some way I could get a message to her."

"Well, just wait until I have your hands free," said the white mouse. "Then I'll see what can be done. There! I've bitten through one strand. Now wiggle your hands a bit and you can undo the whole rope."

The Doctor squirmed his arms and wrists and presently his hands were free.

"Thank goodness, I had you in my pocket!" he said. "That was a most uncomfortable position. I wonder what kind of a prison old Nyam-Nyam got. This is the worst one I was ever in."

In the meantime the Emir, celebrating victory in his palace, gave orders that the Harmattan Rocks, which were now to be called the Royal Ellebubu Pearl Fisheries, would henceforth be his exclusive, private property, and no trespassing would be allowed. And he sent out six special men with orders to take over the islands and to bring all the pearls to him.

Now the cormorants did not know that war had broken out, nor anything about the Doctor's misfortune. And when the Emir's men came and took the pearl oysters they had fished up the birds supposed they were Nyam-Nyam's men and let them have them. However, it happened, luckily, that this first load of oysters had only very small and almost worthless pearls in them.

Jip and Dab-Dab were still plotting to find some way to reach the Doctor. But there seemed to be nothing they could think of.

Inside the prison the Doctor was swinging his arms to get the stiffness out of them.

"You said something about a message you had for Dab-Dab, I think," peeped the white mouse's voice from the darkness of the corner.

"Yes," said the Doctor—"and a very urgent one. But I don't see how on earth I'm going to get it to her. This place is made of stone and the door's frightfully thick. I noticed it as I came in."

"Don't worry, Doctor, I'll get it to her," said the mouse. "I've just found an old rat hole over here in the corner. I popped down it and it goes under the wall and comes out by the root of the tree on the other side of the road from the prison."

"Oh, how splendid!" cried the Doctor.

"Give me the message," said the white mouse, "and I'll hand it to Dab-Dab before you can say Jack Robinson. She's sitting in the tree, where the hole comes out."

"Tell her," said the Doctor, "to fly over to the Harmattan Rocks right away and give the cormorants strict orders to stop all pearl fishing at once."

"All right," said the mouse. And he slipped down the rat hole.

Dab-Dab, as soon as she got the message, went straight off to the pearl fisheries and gave the Doctor's instructions to the cormorants.

She was only just in time. For the Emir's six special men were about to land on the islands to get a second load of pearls. Dab-Dab and the cormorants swiftly threw back into the sea the oysters that had been fished up and when the Emir's men arrived they found nothing.

After hanging around a while they paddled back and told the Emir that they could find no more pearl oysters on the rocks. He sent them out to look again; but they returned with the same report.

Then the Emir was puzzled and angry. If Nyam-Nyam could get pearls on the Harmattan Rocks, why couldn't he? And one of his generals said that probably the white man had something to do with it, since it was he who had discovered and started the fisheries.

So the Emir ordered his hammock men and had himself carried to the Doctor's prison. The door was unlocked and the Emir, going inside, said to the Doctor:

"What monkey business have you done to my pearl fisheries, you white-faced villain?"

"They're not your pearl fisheries, you black-faced ruffian," said the Doctor. "You stole them from poor old Nyam-Nyam. The pearls were fished for by diving birds. But the birds are honest and will work only for honest people. Why don't you have windows in your prisons? You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Then the Emir flew into a terrible passion.

"How dare you speak to me like that? I am the Emir of Ellebubu," he thundered.

"'How dare you speak to me like that?'"

"You're an unscrupulous scoundrel," said the Doctor. "I don't want to talk to you."

"If you don't make the birds work for me I'll give orders that you get no food," said the Emir. "You shall be starved to death."

"I have told you," said the Doctor, "that I don't desire any further conversation with you. Not a single pearl shall you ever get from the Harmattan Fisheries."

"And not a bite to eat shall you ever have till I do," the Emir yelled.

Then he turned to the prison guards, gave instructions that the Doctor was not to be fed till further orders and stalked out. The door slammed shut with a doleful clang and after one decent breath of fresh air the Doctor was left in the darkness of his stuffy dungeon.

The Emir of Ellebubu went back to his palace feeling perfectly certain that after he had starved John Dolittle for a few days he would be able to make him do anything he wanted. He gave orders that no water should be served to the prisoner either, so as to make doubly sure that he would be reduced to obedience.

But immediately the Emir had left, the white mouse started out through the rat hole in the corner. And all day and all night he kept busy, coming and going bringing in crumbs of food which he gathered from the houses of the town: bread crumbs, cheese crumbs, yam crumbs, potato crumbs and crumbs of meat which he pulled off bones. All these he stored carefully in the Doctor's hat in the corner of the prison. And by the end of each day he had collected enough crumbs for one good square meal.

The Doctor said he never had the slightest idea of what he was eating, but as the mealy mixture was highly digestible and nutritious he did not see why he should mind. To supply his master with water the mouse got nuts, and after gnawing a tiny hole in one end he would chop the nut inside into pieces and shake it out through the hole. Then he would fill the empty shell with water and seal up the hole with gum arabic which he got from trees. The water-filled nuts were a little heavy for him to carry, so Dab-Dab would bring them from the river as far as the outside end of the rat hole, and the white mouse would roll them down the hole into the prison.

"The white mouse would roll them down the hole"

By getting his friends, the village mice, to help him in the preparation of these nuts, he was able to supply them in hundreds. Then all the Doctor had to do when he wanted a drink was to put one in his mouth, crack it with his teeth, and after the cool water had run down his throat, spit the broken shells out.

The white mouse also provided crumbs of soap, so that his master could shave—for the Doctor, even in prison, was always very particular about this part of his appearance.

Well, when four days had passed the Emir of Ellebubu sent a messenger to the prison to inquire if the Doctor was now willing to do as he was told. The guards after talking to John Dolittle brought word to the Emir that the white man was as obstinate as ever and had no intention of giving in.

"Very well," said the Emir, stamping his foot, "then let him starve. In ten days more the fool will be dead. Then I will come and laugh over him. So perish all wretches who oppose the wishes of the Emir of Ellebubu!"

And in ten days' time he went to the prison, as he had said, to gloat over the terrible fate of the white man. Many of his ministers and generals came with him to help him gloat. But when the prison door was opened, instead of seeing the white man's body stretched upon the floor, the Emir found the Doctor smiling on the threshold, shaved and hearty and all spruced up. The only difference in his appearance was that with no exercise in prison he had grown slightly stouter and rounder.

The Emir stared at the prisoner open-mouthed, speechless with astonishment. Now, the day before this he had heard for the first time the story of the rout of the Amazons. The Emir had refused to believe it. But now he began to feel that anything might be true about this man.

"See," one of the ministers whispered in his ear, "the sorcerer has even shaved his beard without water or soap. Your Majesty, there is surely evil magic here. Set the man free before harm befall. Let us be rid of him."

And the frightened minister moved back among the crowd so the Doctor's evil gaze could not fall upon his face.

Then the Emir himself began to get panicky. And he gave orders that the Doctor should be released right away.

"I will not leave here," said John Dolittle, standing squarely in the door, "till you have windows put in this prison. It's a disgrace to lock up anyone in a place without windows."

"Build windows in the prison at once," the Emir said to the guards.

"And after that I won't go," said the Doctor—"not till you have set Chief Nyam-Nyam free; not till you have ordered all your people to leave his country and the Harmattan Rocks; not till you have returned to him the farming lands you robbed him of."

"It shall be done," muttered the Emir, grinding his teeth—"Only go!"

"I go," said the Doctor. "But if you ever molest your neighbors again I will return. Beware!"

Then he strode through the prison door out into the sunlit street, while the frightened people fell back on either side and covered their faces, whispering:

"Magic! Do not let his eye fall on you!"

And in the Doctor's pocket the white mouse had to put his paws over his face to keep from laughing.

And now the Doctor set out with his animals and the old Chief to return to Nyam-Nyam's country from the land where he had been imprisoned. On the way they kept meeting with groups of the Chief's people who were still hiding in the jungle. These were told the glad tidings of the Emir's promise. When they learned that their land was now free and safe again the people joined the Doctor's party for the return journey. And long before he came in sight of the village John Dolittle looked like a conquering general coming back at the head of an army, so many had gathered to him on the way.

That night grand celebrations were made in the Chief's village and the Doctor was hailed by the people as the greatest man who had ever visited their land. Two of their worst enemies need now no longer be feared—the Emir had been bound over by a promise and Dahomey was not likely to bother them again after the fright the Amazons got on their last attack. The pearl fisheries were restored to their possession. And the country should now proceed prosperously and happily.

The next day the Doctor went out to the Harmattan Rocks to visit the cormorants and to thank them for the help they had given. The old Chief came along on this trip, and with him four trustworthy men of his. In order that there should be no mistake in future, these men were shown to the cormorants and the birds were told to supply them—and no others—with pearl oysters.

While the Doctor and his party were out at the Rocks an oyster was fished up that contained an enormous and very beautiful pearl—by far the biggest and handsomest yet found. It was perfect in shape, flawless and a most unusual shade in color. After making a little speech, the Chief presented this pearl to the Doctor as a small return for the services he had done him and his people.

"Thank goodness for that!" Dab-Dab whispered to Jip. "Do you realize what that pearl means to us? The Doctor was down to his last shilling—as poor as a church mouse. We would have had to go circus-traveling with the pushmi-pullyu again, if it hadn't been for this. I'm so glad. For, for my part, I shall be glad enough to stay at home and settle down a while—once we get there."

"'Do you realize what that pearl means to us?'"

"Oh, I don't know," said Gub-Gub. "I love circuses. I wouldn't mind traveling, so long as it's in England—and with a circus."

"Well," said Jip, "whatever happens, it's nice the Doctor's got the pearl. He always seems to be in need of money. And, as you say, Dab-Dab, that should make anybody rich for life."

But while the Doctor was still thanking the Chief for the beautiful present, Quip-the-Carrier flew up with a letter for him.

"It was marked 'Urgent,' in red ink, Doctor," said the swallow, "so Speedy thought he had better send it to you by special delivery."

John Dolittle tore open the envelope.

"Who's it from, Doctor?" asked Dab-Dab.

"Dear me," muttered the Doctor, reading. "It's from that farmer in Lincolnshire whose Brussels sprouts we imported for Gub-Gub. I forgot to answer his letter—you remember, he wrote asking me if I could tell him what the trouble was. And I was so busy it went clean out of my mind. Dear me! I must pay the poor fellow back somehow. I wonder—oh, but there's this. I can send him the pearl. That will pay for his sprouts and something to spare. What a good idea!"

And to Dab-Dab's horror, the Doctor tore a clean piece off the farmer's letter, scribbled a reply, wrapped the pearl up in it and handed it to the swallow.

"Tell Speedy," said he, "to send that off right away—registered. I am returning to Fantippo to-morrow. Good-bye and thank you for the special delivery."

As Quip-the-Carrier disappeared into the distance with the Doctor's priceless pearl Dab-Dab turned to Jip and murmured:

"There goes the Dolittle fortune. My, but it is marvelous how moneydoesn'tstick to that man's fingers!"

"Heigh ho!" sighed Jip, "it's a circus for us, all right."

"Easy comes, easy goes," murmured Gub-Gub. "Never mind. I don't suppose it's really such fun being rich. Wealthy people have to behave so unnaturally."

We are now come to an unusual event in the history of the Doctor's post office, to the one which was, perhaps, the greatest of all the curious things that came about through the institution of the Swallow Mail.

On arriving back at the houseboat from his short and very busy holiday the Doctor was greeted joyfully by the pushmi-pullyu, Too-Too, Cheapside and Speedy the Skimmer. King Koko also came out to greet his friend when he saw the arrival of the Doctor's canoe through a pair of opera glasses (price ten shillings and sixpence) which he had recently got from London by parcel post. And the prominent Fantippans, who had missed their afternoon tea and social gossip terribly during the Postmaster's absence, got into their canoes and followed the King out to the Foreign Mails Office.

"The King saw the Doctor's canoe arriving"

So for three hours after his arrival—in fact, until it was dark—the Doctor did not get a chance to do a thing besides shake hands and answer questions about how he had enjoyed his holiday, where he had been and what he had done. The welcome he received on his return and the sight of the comfortable houseboat, gay with flowering window boxes, made the Doctor, as he afterward said to Dab-Dab, feel as though he were really coming home.

"Yes," said the housekeeper, "but don't forget that you have another home, a real one, in Puddleby."

"That's true," said the Doctor. "I suppose I must be getting on to England soon. But the Fantippans were honestly pleased to see us, weren't they? And, after all, Africa is a nice country, now, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Dab-Dab, "a nice enough country for short holidays—and long drinks."

After supper had been served and eaten and the Doctor had been made to tell the story of the pearl fisheries all over again for the benefit of his own family circle, he at last turned to the enormous pile of letters which were waiting for him. They came, as usual, from all parts of the world, from every conceivable kind of animal and bird. For hours he waded patiently through them, answering them as they came. Speedy acted as his secretary and took down in bird and animal scribble the answers that the Doctor reeled off by the dozen. Often John Dolittle dictated so fast that the poor Skimmer had to get Too-Too (who had a wonderful memory) to come and help listen, so nothing should be missed through not writing it down quick enough.

Toward the end of the pile the Doctor came across a very peculiar thick envelope, all over mud. For a long time none of them could make out a single word of the letter inside, nor even who it was from. The Doctor got all his notebooks out of the safe, compared and peered and pored over the writing for hours. Mud had been used for ink. The signs were made so clumsily they might almost be anything.

But at last, after a tremendous lot of work, copying out afresh, guessing and discussing, the meaning of the extraordinary letter was pieced together, and this is what it said:

"Dear Doctor Dolittle: I have heard of your post office and am writing this as best I can—the first letter I ever wrote. I hear you have a weather bureau in connection with your post office and that a one-eyed albatross is your chief weather prophet. I am writing to tell you that I am the oldest weather prophet in the world. I prophesied the Flood, and it came true to the day and the hour I said it would. I am a very slow walker or I would come and see you and perhaps you could do something for my gout, which in the last few hundred years has bothered me a good deal. But if you will come to see me I will teach you a lot about weather. And I will tell you the story of the Flood, which I saw with my own eyes from the deck of Noah's Ark."Yours very truly,"Mudface."P. S.—I am a turtle."

"Yours very truly,"Mudface."

P. S.—I am a turtle."

At last, on reading the muddy message through, the Doctor's excitement and enthusiasm knew no bounds. He began at once to make arrangements to leave the following day for a visit to the turtle.

But, alas! when he turned again to the letter to see where the turtle lived, he could find nothing to give a clue to his whereabouts! The mysterious writer who had seen the Flood, Noah and the Ark had forgotten to give his address!

"Look here, Speedy," said John Dolittle, "we must try and trace this. Let us leave no stone unturned to find where this valuable document came from. First, we will question everyone in the post office to find out who it was delivered it."

Well, everyone in turn, the pushmi-pullyu, Cheapside, Too-Too, Quip-the-Carrier, all the swallows, any stray birds who were living in the neighborhood, even a pair of rats who had taken up their residence in the houseboat, were cross-examined by the Doctor or Speedy.

But no one had seen the letter arrive; no one could tell what day or hour it had come; no one could guess how it got into the pile of the Doctor's mails; no one knew anything about it. It was one of those little post office mysteries that are always cropping up even in the best-run mail systems.

The Doctor was positively heartbroken. Often in his natural history meditations he had wondered about all sorts of different matters connected with the Ark; and he had decided that Noah, after his memorable voyage was over, must have been a great naturalist. Now had come most unexpectedly a chance to hear the great story from an eye-witness—from someone who had actually known and sailed with Noah—and just because of a silly little slip like leaving out an address the great chance was to be lost!

All attempts to trace the writer having failed, the Doctor, after two days, gave it up and went back to his regular work. This kept him so busy for the next week that he finally forgot all about the turtle and his mysterious letter.

But one night, when he was working late to catch up with the business which had multiplied during his absence, he heard a gentle tapping on the houseboat window. He left his desk and went and opened it. Instantly in popped the head of an enormous snake, with a letter in its mouth—a thick, muddy letter.

"In popped the head of an enormous snake"

"Great heavens!" cried the Doctor. "What a start you gave me! Come in, come in, and make yourself at home."

Slowly and smoothly the snake slid in over the window sill and down on to the floor of the houseboat. Yards and yards and more yards long he came, coiling himself up neatly at John Dolittle's feet like a mooring rope on a ship's deck.

"Pardon me, but is there much more of you outside still?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes," said the snake, "only half of me is in yet."

"Then I'll open the door," said the Doctor, "so you can coil part of yourself in the passage. This room is a bit small."

When at last the great serpent was all in, his thick coils entirely covered the floor of the Doctor's office and a good part of him overflowed into the passage outside.

"Now," said the Doctor, closing the window, "what can I do for you?"

"I've brought you this letter," said the snake. "It's from the turtle. He is wondering why he got no answer to his first."

"But he gave me no address," said John Dolittle, taking the muddy envelope from the serpent. "I've been trying my hardest ever since to find out where he lived."

"Oh, was that it?" said the snake. "Well, old Mudface isn't much of a letter-writer. I suppose he didn't know he had to give his address."

"I'm awfully glad to hear from him again," said the Doctor. "I had given up all hope of ever seeing him. You can show me how to get to him?"

"Why, certainly," said the big serpent. "I live in the same lake as he does, Lake Junganyika."

"You're a water snake, then, I take it," said the Doctor.

"Yes."

"You look rather worn out from your journey. Is there anything I can get you?"

"I'd like a saucer of milk," said the snake.

"I only have wild goats' milk," said John Dolittle. "But it's quite fresh."

And he went out into the kitchen and woke up the housekeeper.

"What do you think, Dab-Dab," he said breathless with excitement, "I've got a second letter from the turtle and the messenger is going to take us to see him!"

When Dab-Dab entered the postmaster's office with the milk she found John Dolittle reading the letter. Looking at the floor, she gave a squawk of disgust.

"It's a good thing for you Sarah isn't here," she cried. "Just look at the state of your office—it'sfull of snake!"

It was a long but a most interesting journey that the Doctor took from Fantippo to Lake Junganyika. It turned out that the turtle's home lay many miles inland in the heart of one of the wildest, most jungly parts of Africa.

The Doctor decided to leave Gub-Gub home this time and he took with him only Jip, Dab-Dab, Too-Too and Cheapside—who said he wanted a holiday and that his sparrow friends could now quite well carry on the city deliveries in his absence.

The great water snake began by taking the Doctor's party down the coast south for some forty or fifty miles. There they left the sea, entered the mouth of a river and started to journey inland. The canoe (with the snake swimming alongside it) was quite the best thing for this kind of travel so long as the river had water in it. But presently, as they went up it, the stream grew narrower and narrower. Till at last, like many rivers in tropical countries, it was nothing more than the dry bed of a brook, or a chain of small pools with long sand bars between.

Overhead the thick jungle arched and hung like a tunnel of green. This was a good thing by day-time, as it kept the sun off better than a parasol. And in the dry stretches of river bed, where the Doctor had to carry or drag the canoe on home-made runners, the work was hard and shade something to be grateful for.

At the end of the first day John Dolittle wanted to leave the canoe in a safe place and finish the trip on foot. But the snake said they would need it further on, where there was more water and many swamps to cross.

As they went forward the jungle around them seemed to grow thicker and thicker all the time. But there was always this clear alley-way along the river bed. And though the stream's course did much winding and twisting, the going was good.

The Doctor saw a great deal of new country, trees he had never met before, gay-colored orchids, butterflies, ferns, birds and rare monkeys. So his notebook was kept busy all the time with sketching and jotting and adding to his already great knowledge of natural history.

On the third day of travel this river bed led them into an entirely new and different kind of country. If you have never been in a mangrove swamp, it is difficult to imagine what it looks like. It was mournful scenery. Flat bog land, full of pools and streamlets, dotted with tufts of grass and weed, tangled with gnarled roots and brambling bushes, spread out for miles and miles in every direction. It reminded the Doctor of some huge shrubbery that had been flooded by heavy rains. No large trees were here, such as they had seen in the jungle lower down. Seven or eight feet above their heads was as high as the mangroves grew and from their thin boughs long streamers of moss hung like gray, fluttering rags.

The life, too, about them was quite different. The gayly colored birds of the true forest did not care for this damp country of half water and half land. Instead, all manner of swamp birds—big-billed and long-necked, for the most part—peered at them from the sprawling saplings. Many kinds of herons, egrets, ibises, grebes, bitterns—even stately anhingas, who can fly beneath the water—were wading in the swamps or nesting on the little tufty islands. In and out of the holes about the gnarled roots strange and wondrous water creatures—things half fish and half lizard—scuttled and quarreled with brightly colored crabs.

For many folks it would have seemed a creepy, nightmary sort of country, this land of the mangrove swamps. But to the Doctor, for whom any kind of animal life was always companionable and good intentioned, it was a most delightful new field of exploration.

They were glad now that the snake had not allowed them to leave the canoe behind. For here, where every step you took you were liable to sink down in the mud up to your waist, Jip and the Doctor would have had hard work to get along at all without it. And, even with it, the going was slow and hard enough. The mangroves spread out long, twisting, crossing arms in every direction to bar your passage—as though they were determined to guard the secrets of this silent, gloomy land where men could not make a home and seldom ever came.

Indeed, if it had not been for the giant water snake, to whom mangrove swamps were the easiest kind of traveling, they would never have been able to make their way forward. But their guide went on ahead of them for hundreds of yards to lead the way through the best openings and to find the passages where the water was deep enough to float a canoe. And, although his head was out of sight most of the time in the tangled distance, he kept, in the worst stretches, a firm hold on the canoe by taking a turn about the bowpost with his tail. And whenever they were stuck in the mud he would contract that long, muscular body of his with a jerk and yank the canoe forward as though it had been no more than a can tied on the end of a string.

Dab-Dab, Too-Too and Cheapside did not, of course, bother to sit in the canoe. They found flying from tree to tree a much easier way to travel. But in one of these jerky pulls which the snake gave on his living towline, the Doctor and Jip were left sitting in the mud as the canoe was actually yanked from under them. This so much amused the vulgar Cheapside, who was perched in a mangrove tree above their heads, that he suddenly broke the solemn silence of the swamp by bursting into noisy laughter.

"The canoe was yanked from under them"

"Lor' bless us, Doctor, but you do get yourself into some comical situations! Who would think to see John Dolittle, M.D., heminent physician of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, bein' pulled through a mud swamp in darkest Africa by a couple of 'undred yards of fat worm! You've no idea how funny you look!"

"Oh, close your silly face!" growled Jip, black mud from head to foot, scrambling back into the canoe. "It's easy for you—you can fly through the mess."

"It 'ud make a nice football ground, this," murmured Cheapside. "I'm surprised the Hafricans 'aven't took to it. I didn't know there was this much mud anywhere—outside of 'Amstead 'Eath after a wet Bank 'Oliday. I wonder when we're going to get there. Seems to me we're comin' to the end of the world—or the middle of it. 'Aven't seen a 'uman face since we left the shore. 'E's an exclusive kind of gent, our Mr. Turtle, ain't 'e? Meself, I wouldn't be surprised if we ran into old Noah, sitting on the wreck of the Hark, any minute.... 'Elp the Doctor up, Jip. Look, 'e's got his chin caught under a root."

The snake, hearing Cheapside's chatter, thought something must be wrong. He turned his head-end around and came back to see what the matter was. Then a short halt was made in the journey while the Doctor and Jip cleaned themselves up, and the precious notebooks, which had also been jerked out into the mud, were rescued and stowed in a safe place.

"Do no people at all live in these parts?" the Doctor asked the snake.

"None whatever," said the guide. "We left the lands where men dwell behind us long ago. Nobody can live in these bogs but swamp birds, marsh creatures and water snakes."

"How much further have we got to go?" asked the Doctor, rinsing the mud off his hat in a pool.

"About one more day's journey," said the snake. "A wide belt of these swamps surrounds the Secret Lake of Junganyika on all sides. The going will become freer as we approach the open water of the lake."

"We are really on the shores of it already, then?"

"Yes," said the serpent. "But, properly speaking, the Secret Lake cannot be said to have shores at all—or, certainly, as you see, no shore where a man can stand."

"Why do you call it the Secret Lake?" asked the Doctor.

"Because it has never been visited by man since the Flood," said the giant reptile. "You will be the first to see it. We who live in it boast that we bathe daily in the original water of the Flood. For before the Forty Days' Rain came it was not there, they say. But when the Flood passed away this part of the world never dried up. And so it has remained, guarded by these wide mangrove swamps, ever since."

"What was here before the Flood then?" asked the Doctor.

"They say rolling, fertile country, waving corn and sunny hilltops," the snake replied. "That is what I have heard. I was not there to see. Mudface, the turtle, will tell you all about it."

"How wonderful!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Let us push on. I am most anxious to see him—and the Secret Lake."

During the course of the next day's travel the country became, as the snake had foretold, freer and more open. Little by little the islands grew fewer and the mangroves not so tangly. In the dreary views there was less land and more water. The going was much easier now. For miles at a stretch the Doctor could paddle, without the help of his guide, in water that seemed to be quite deep. It was indeed a change to be able to look up and see a clear sky overhead once in a while, instead of that everlasting network of swamp trees. Across the heavens the travelers now occasionally saw flights of wild ducks and geese, winging their way eastward.

"That's a sign we're near open water," said Dab-Dab.

"Yes," the snake agreed. "They're going to Junganyika. It is the feeding ground of great flocks of wild geese."

It was about five o'clock in the evening when they came to the end of the little islands and mud banks. And as the canoe's nose glided easily forward into entirely open water they suddenly found themselves looking across a great inland sea.

The Doctor was tremendously impressed by his first sight of the Secret Lake. If the landscape of the swamp country had been mournful this was even more so. No eye could see across it. The edge of it was like the ocean's—just a line where the heavens and the water meet. Ahead to the eastward—the darkest part of the evening sky—even this line barely showed, for now the murky waters and the frowning night blurred together in an inky mass. To the right and left the Doctor could see the fringe of the swamp trees running around the lake, disappearing in the distance North and South.

Out in the open great banks of gray mist rolled and joined and separated as the wailing wind pushed them fretfully hither and thither over the face of the waters.

"My word!" the Doctor murmured in a quiet voice. "Here one could almost believe that the Flood was not over yet!"

"Jolly place, ain't it?" came Cheapside's cheeky voice from the stern of the canoe. "Give me London any day—in the worst fog ever. This is a bloomin' eels' country. Look at them mist shadows skatin' round the lake. Might be old Noah and 'is family, playin' 'Ring-a-ring-a-rosy' in their night-shirts, they're that lifelike."

"The mists are always there," said the snake—"always have been. In them the first rainbow shone."

"Well," said the sparrow, "I'd sell the whole place cheap if it was mine—mists and all. 'Ow many 'undred miles of this bonny blue ocean 'ave we got to cross before we reach our Mr. Mudface?"

"Not very many," said the snake. "He lives on the edge of the lake a few miles to the North. Let us hurry and try to reach his home before darkness falls."

Once more, with the guide in front, but this time at a much better pace, the party set off.

As the light grew dimmer the calls of several night birds sounded from the mangroves on the left. Too-Too told the Doctor that many of these were owls, but of kinds that he had never seen or met with before.

"Yes," said the Doctor. "I imagine there are lots of different kinds of birds and beasts in these parts that can be found nowhere else in the world."

At last, while it was still just light enough to see, the snake swung into the left and once more entered the outskirts of the mangrove swamps. Following him with difficulty in the fading light, the Doctor was led into a deep glady cove. At the end of this the nose of the canoe suddenly bumped into something hard. The Doctor was about to lean out to see what it was when a deep, deep bass voice spoke out of the gloom quite close to him.

"Welcome, John Dolittle. Welcome to Lake Junganyika."

Then looking up, the Doctor saw on a mound-like island the shape of an enormous turtle—fully twelve feet across the shell—standing outlined against the blue-black sky.

"The Doctor saw the shape of an enormous turtle"

The long journey was over at last.

Doctor Dolittle did not at any time believe in traveling with very much baggage. And all that he had brought with him on this journey was a few things rolled up in a blanket—and, of course, the little black medicine-bag. Among those things, luckily, however, were a couple of candles. And if it had not been for them he would have had hard work to land safely from the canoe.

Getting them lighted in the wind that swept across the lake was no easy matter. But to protect their flame Too-Too wove a couple of little lanterns out of thin leaves, through which the light shone dimly green but bright enough to see your way by.

To his surprise, the Doctor found that the mound, or island, on which the turtle lived was not made of mud, though muddy footprints could be seen all over it. It was made of stone—of stones cut square with a chisel.

While the Doctor was examining them with great curiosity the turtle said:

"They are the ruins of a city. I used to be content to live and sleep in the mud. But since my gout has been so bad I thought I ought to make myself something solid and dry to rest on. Those stones are pieces of a king's house."

"Pieces of a house—of a city!" the Doctor exclaimed, peering into the wet and desolate darkness that surrounded the little island. "But where did they come from?"

"From the bottom of the lake," said the turtle. "Out there," Mudface nodded toward the gloomy wide-stretching waters, "there stood, thousands of years ago, the beautiful city of Shalba. Don't I know, when for long enough I lived in it? Once it was the greatest and fairest city ever raised by men and King Mashtu of Shalba the proudest monarch in the world. Now I, Mudface the turtle, make a nest in the swamp out of the ruins of his palace. Ha! Ha!"

"You sound bitter," said the Doctor. "Did King Mashtu do you any harm?"

"I should say he did," growled Mudface. "But that belongs to the story of the Flood. You have come far. You must be weary and in need of food."

"Well," said the Doctor, "I am most anxious to hear the story. Does it take long to tell?"

"About three weeks would be my guess," whispered Cheapside. "Turtles do everything slow. Something tells me that story is the longest story in the world, Doctor. Let's get a nap and a bite to eat first. We can hear it just as well to-morrow."

So, in spite of John Dolittle's impatience, the story was put off till the following day. For the evening meal Dab-Dab managed to scout around and gather together quite a nice mess of fresh-water shellfish and Too-Too collected some marsh berries that did very well for dessert.

Then came the problem of how to sleep. This was not so easy, because, although the foundations of the turtle's mound were of stone, there was hardly a dry spot on the island left where you could lie down. The Doctor tried the canoe. But it was sort of cramped and uncomfortable for sleeping, and now even there, too, the mud had been carried by Dab-Dab's feet and his own. In this country the great problem was getting away from the mud.

"When Noah's family first came out of the Ark," said the turtle, "they slept in little beds which they strung up between the stumps of the drowned trees."

"Ah, hammocks!" cried the Doctor. "Of course—the very thing!"

Then, with Jip's and Dab-Dab's help, he constructed a very comfortable basket-work hammock out of willow wands and fastened it between two larger mangroves. Into this he climbed and drew the blanket over him. Although the trees leaned down toward the water with his weight, they were quite strong and their bendiness acted like good bed springs.

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