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Title: Doctor Dolittle in the MoonAuthor: Hugh Lofting* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 0607691h.htmlLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: September 2006Date most recently updated: September 2006This eBook was produced by: Malcolm FarmerProduction notes:Transcriber's note: Illustrations have been kept in the same orderas found in the original text, but have been moved relative to the textso they are as close as possible to the place where their caption textsappear in the main body.Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html
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Transcriber's note: Illustrations have been kept in the sameorder as found in the original text, but have been moved relative tothe text so they are as close as possible to the place where theircaption texts appear in the main body.
1. WE LAND UPON A NEWWORLD
2. THE LAND OF COLOURSAND PERFUMES
3. THIRST!
4. CHEE-CHEE THE HERO
5. ON THE PLATEAU
6. THE MOON LAKE
7. TRACKS OF A GIANT
8. THE SINGING TREES
9. THE STUDY OF PLANTLANGUAGES
10. THE MAGELLAN OF THEMOON
11. WE PREPARE TO CIRCLETHE MOON
12. THE VANITY LILIES
13. THE FLOWER OF MANYSCENTS
14. MIRRORS FORFLOWERS
15. MAKING NEW CLOTHES
16. MONKEY MEMORIES OF THEMOON
17. WE HEAR OF "THECOUNCIL"
18. THE PRESIDENT
19. THE MOON MAN
20. THE DOCTOR AND THEGIANT
21. HOW OTHO BLUDGECAME TO THE MOON
22. HOW THEMOON FOLK HEARD OF DOCTOR DOLITTLE
23. THE MAN WHO MADEHIMSELF A KING
24.DOCTOR DOLITTLE OPENS HIS SURGERY ON THE MOON
25. PUDDLEBY ONCE MORE
"RIGGED HIMSELF UP LIKE A TREE"(INCOLOURS)FRONTISPIECE
"BY SMELLING HE COULD TELL IF THEY WERE SAFE TOEAT"
"THE DOCTOR HAD BROUGHT A COMPASS"
"JUMPING WAS EXTRAORDINARILY EASY"
"IT WAS DIFFERENT FROM ANY TREE I HAVE EVERSEEN"
"THE DOCTOR KEPT GLANCING UP UNEASILY"
"POLYNESIA SOARED INTO THE AIR"
"I REMEMBER CHEE-CHEE TRICKLING SOMETHING COLDBETWEEN MY LIPS"
"SOME OF THE FRUITS WERE AS BIG AS A TRUNK"
"WE APPROACHED THE BLUFF ON WHOSE BROW THE VEGETATIONFLOURISHED"
"THEROUNDNESS OF THIS WORLD WAS MUCH MOREEASILY FELT"(IN COLOURS)
"'YES,' SAID SHE, 'I WAS AWAKE SEVERAL TIMES'
"'YOU BET THEY WERE NOT!' GRUNTED POLYNESIA"
"WE USED A LONG POLE TO PUNT WITH"
"'WHAT DO YOU THINK, DOCTOR?' HE STAMMERED"
"THERE WAS MORE MOVEMENT IN THE LIMBS OF THETREES"
"SPELLBOUND, WE GAZED UP AT THEM"
"FOR QUITE A LONG WHILE HE SAT WATCHING CERTAINSHRUBS"
"SEEING A GIANT SHADOW DISAPPEAR INTO THEGLOOM"
"HE SEEMED TO HAVE BROUGHT EVERYTHING HE COULDNEED"
"THE FAITHFUL MONKEY WOULD COME TO US EVERY THREEHOURS WITH HIS STRANGE VEGETABLES"
"IT WAS NATURAL TO SPRING A STEP THAT MEASURED SIX ORSEVEN FEET"
"MOSTLY THEY WERE ON BARE KNOLLS"
"'YOU MEAN YOU THINK IT WAS HE WHO SENT THESIGNALS?'"
"'I DON'T KNOW, STUBBINS,' SAID HE, FROWNING"
"WE ALWAYS TOOK CARE TO LEAVE LANDMARKS BEHINDUS"
"CERTAINLY THE PLANT LIFE BECAME MORE ELABORATE ANDLIVELY"
"THE FLOWERS WOULD BE ABOUT EIGHTEEN INCHESACROSS"
"CHEE-CHEE JUST FAINTED AWAY AT THE FIRSTSAMPLE"
"HE PASSED HIS HAND ALL AROUND IT"
"HE HELD THEM BEFORE THE LILIES"
"THESE WE RIGGED UP ON STICKS"
"'TOMMY, YOU SEEM TO BE GETTING ENORMOUSLYTALL'"
"HIS HEIGHT HAD INCREASED SOME THREE INCHES"
"'WE LOOK LIKE A FAMILY OF ROBINSON CRUSOES'"
"'LET ME THINK,' SAID CHEE-CHEE"
"LEANING BACK, MUNCHING A PIECE OF YELLOWYAM"
"A TERRIBLE EXPLOSION FOLLOWED"
"THERE WAS NO DOUBT THAT THEY WERE ON THEWATCH"
"PROCEEDED WITH HIS CONVERSATION WITH THEVINES"
"A SPECIES OF BIG LIZARD OVERRAN THE MOON"
"WHERE THE GLOBE OF THE EARTH GLOWED DIMLY"
"EVERY SINGLE SEED WAS CAREFULLY DUG UP BYLONG-BILLED BIRDS"
"STILL MORE BIRDS LEFT THE CONCEALMENT OF THECREEPERS"
"WITH A VERY SERIOUS LOOK ON HER OLD FACE"
"OTHERS WERE UNBELIEVABLY LARGE"
"'LOOK!—THE RIGHTWRIST!—LOOK!'"
"'STUBBINS!—I SAY, STUBBINS!'"
"'VERY POOR HOSPITALITY, I CALL IT'"
"I WATCHED CHEE-CHEE'S HEAD NODDING SLEEPILY"
"THE PIECE FELL INTO ONE OF OUR LAKES"
"THE BIRD WAS INTRODUCED TO THE DOCTOR"
"I HAD THE BIRDS BRING ME REPORTS OF YOURMOVEMENTS"
"I SET THE PILE OFF WITH A LIVE EMBER"
"I COULD WHISTLE SHORT CONVERSATIONS"
"THIS HISTORY HAD BEEN CARVED IN PICTURES ON THE FACEOF A ROCK"
"GRASSHOPPERS WITH CRUDE BANDAGES ON THEIR GAWKYJOINTS"
"THEN HE LECTURED HIS BIG FRIEND"
"'DON'T WORRY, TOMMY, HE'LL COME BACK'"
In writing the story of our adventures in the Moon I, ThomasStubbins, secretary to John Dolittle, M.D. (and son of Jacob Stubbins,the cobbler of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh), find myself greatly puzzled. Itis not an easy task, remembering day by day and hour by hour thosecrowded and exciting weeks. It is true I made many notes for theDoctor, books full of them. But that information was nearly all of ahighly scientific kind. And I feel that I should tell the story herenot for the scientist so much as for the general reader. And it is inthat I am perplexed.
For the story could be told in many ways. People are so different inwhat they want to know about a voyage. I had thought at one time thatJip could help me; and after reading him some chapters as I had firstset them down I asked for his opinion. I discovered he was mostlyinterested in whether we had seen any rats in the Moon. I found I couldnot tell him. I didn't remember seeing any; and yet I am sure theremust have been some—or some sort of creature like a rat.
Then I asked Gub-Gub. And what he was chiefly concerned to hear wasthe kind of vegetables we had fed on. (Dab-Dab snorted at me for mypains and said I should have known better than to ask him.) I tried mymother. She wanted to know how we had managed when our underwear woreout—and a whole lot of other matters about our living conditions,hardly any of which I could answer. Next I went to Matthew Mugg. Andthe things he wanted to learn were worse than either my mother's orJip's: Were there any shops in the Moon? What were the dogs and catslike? The good Cats'-meat-Man seemed to have imagined it a place notvery different from Puddleby or the East End of London.
No, trying to get at what most people wanted to read concerning theMoon did not bring me much profit. I couldn't seem to tell them any ofthe things they were most anxious to know. It reminded me of the firsttime I had come to the Doctor's house, hoping to be hired as hisassistant, and dear old Polynesia the parrot had questioned me. "Areyou a good noticer?" she had asked. I had always thought Iwas—pretty good, anyhow. But now I felt I had been a very poornoticer. For it seemed I hadn't noticed any of the things I should havedone to make the story of our voyage interesting to the ordinarypublic.
The trouble was of courseattention. Human attention is likebutter: you can only spread it so thin and no thinner. If you try tospread it over too many things at once you just don't remember them.And certainly during all our waking hours upon the Moon there was somuch for our ears and eyes and minds to take in it is a wonder, I oftenthink, that any clear memories at all remain.
The one who could have been of most help to me in writing myimpressions of the Moon was Jamaro Bumblelily, the giant moth whocarried us there. But as he was nowhere near me when I set to work uponthis book I decided I had better not consider the particular wishes ofJip, Gub-Gub, my mother, Matthew or any one else, but set the storydown in my own way. Clearly the tale must be in any case an imperfect,incomplete one. And the only thing to do is to go forward with it, stepby step, to the best of my recollection, from where the great insecthovered, with our beating hearts pressed close against his broad back,over the near and glowing landscape of the Moon.
Any one could tell that the moth knew every detail of the country wewere landing in. Planing, circling and diving, he brought hiswide-winged body very deliberately down towards a little valley fencedin with hills. The bottom of this, I saw as we drew nearer, was level,sandy and dry.
The hills struck one at once as unusual. In fact all the mountainsas well (for much greater heights could presently be seen towering awayin the dim greenish light behind the nearer, lower ranges) had onepeculiarity. The tops seemed to be cut off and cup-like. The Doctorafterwards explained to me that they were extinct volcanoes. Nearly allthese peaks had once belched fire and molten lava but were now cold anddead. Some had been fretted and worn by winds and weather and time intoquite curious shapes; and yet others had been filled up or half buriedby drifting sand so that they had nearly lost the appearance ofvolcanoes. I was reminded of "The Whispering Rocks" which we had seenin Spidermonkey Island. And though this scene was different in manythings, no one who had ever looked upon a volcanic landscape beforecould have mistaken it for anything else.
The little valley, long and narrow, which we were apparently makingfor did not show many signs of life, vegetable or animal. But we werenot disturbed by that. At least the Doctor wasn't. He had seen a treeand he was satisfied that before long he would find water, vegetationand creatures.
At last when the moth had dropped within twenty feet of the groundhe spread his wings motionless and like a great kite gently touched thesand, in hops at first, then ran a little, braced himself and came to astandstill.
We had landed on the Moon!
By this time we had had a chance to get a little more used to thenew air. But before we made any attempt to "go ashore" the Doctorthought it best to ask our gallant steed to stay where he was a while,so that we could still further accustom ourselves to the new atmosphereand conditions.
This request was willingly granted. Indeed, the poor insect himself,I imagine, was glad enough to rest a while. From somewhere in hispackages John Dolittle produced an emergency ration of chocolate whichhe had been saving up. All four of us munched in silence, too hungryand too awed by our new surroundings to say a word.
The light changed unceasingly. It reminded me of the NorthernLights, the Aurora Borealis. You would gaze at the mountains above you,then turn away a moment, and on looking back find everything that hadbeen pink was now green, the shadows that had been violet wererose.
Breathing was still kind of difficult. We were compelled for themoment to keep the "moon-bells" handy. These were the greatorange-coloured flowers that the moth had brought down for us. It wastheir perfume (or gas) that had enabled us to cross the airless beltthat lay between the Moon and the Earth. A fit of coughing was alwaysliable to come on if one left them too long. But already we felt thatwe could in time get used to this new air and soon do without the bellsaltogether.
The gravity too was very confusing. It required hardly any effort torise from a sitting position to a standing one. Walking was no effortat all—for the muscles—but for the lungs it was anotherquestion. The most extraordinary sensation was jumping. The leastlittle spring from the ankles sent you flying into the air in the mostfantastic fashion. If it had not been for this problem of breathingproperly (which the Doctor seemed to feel we should approach with greatcaution on account of its possible effect on the heart) we would allhave given ourselves up to this most light-hearted feeling which tookpossession of us. I remember, myself, singing songs—the melodywas somewhat indistinct on account of a large mouthful ofchocolate—and I was most anxious to get down off the moth's backand go bounding away across the hills and valleys to explore this newworld.
But I realize now that John Dolittle was very wise in making uswait. He issued orders (in the low whispers which we found necessary inthis new clear air) to each and all of us that for the present theflowers werenot to be left behind for a single moment.
They were cumbersome things to carry but we obeyed orders. No ladderwas needed now to descend by. The gentlest jump sent one flying off theinsect's back to the ground where you landed from a twenty-five-footdrop with ease and comfort. Zip! The spring was made. And we werewading in the sands of a new world.
We were after all, when you come to think of it, a very odd party,this, which made the first landing on a new world. But in a great manyways it was a peculiarly good combination. First of all, Polynesia: shewas the kind of bird which one always supposed would exist under anyconditions, drought, floods, fire or frost. I've no doubt that at thattime in my boyish way I exaggerated Polynesia's adaptability andendurance. But even to this day I can never quite imagine anycircumstances in which that remarkable bird would perish. If she couldget a pinch of seed (of almost any kind) and a sip of water two orthree times a week she would not only carry on quite cheerfully butwould scarcely even remark upon the strange nature or scantiness of therations. Then Chee-Chee: he was not so easily provided for in thematter of food. But he always seemed to be able to provide for himselfanything that was lacking. I have never known a better forager thanChee-Chee. When every one was hungry he could go off into an entirelynew forest and just by smelling the wild fruits and nuts he could tellif they were safe to eat. How he did this even John Dolittle couldnever find out. Indeed Chee-Chee himself didn't know.
Then myself: I had no scientific qualifications but I had learnedhow to be a good secretary on natural history expeditions and I knew agood deal about the Doctor's ways.
Finally there was the Doctor. No naturalist has ever gone afield tograsp at the secrets of a new land with the qualities John Dolittlepossessed. He never claimed to know anything, beforehand, for certain.He came to new problems with a childlike innocence which made it easyfor himself to learn and the others to teach.
Yes, it was a strange party we made up. Most scientists would havelaughed at us no doubt. Yet we had many things to recommend us that noexpedition ever carried before.
As usual the Doctor wasted no time in preliminaries. Most otherexplorers would have begun by planting a flag and singing nationalanthems. Not so with John Dolittle. As soon as he was sure that we wereall ready he gave the order to march. And without a word Chee-Chee andI (with Polynesia who perched herself on my shoulder) fell in behindhim and started off.
I have never known a time when it was harder to shake loose thefeeling of living in a dream as those first few hours we spent on theMoon. The knowledge that we were treading a new world never beforevisited by Man, added to this extraordinary feeling caused by thegravity, of lightness, of walking on air, made you want every minute tohave some one tell you that you were actually awake and in your rightsenses. For this reason I kept constantly speaking to the Doctor orChee-Chee or Polynesia—even when I had nothing particular to say.But the uncanny booming of my own voice every time I opened my lips andspoke above the faintest whisper merely added to the dream-like effectof the whole experience.
However, little by little, we grew accustomed to it. And certainlythere was no lack of new sights and impressions to occupy our minds.Those strange and ever changing colours in the landscape were mostbewildering, throwing out your course and sense of direction entirely.The Doctor had brought a small pocket compass with him. But onconsulting it, we saw that it was even more confused than we were. Theneedle did nothing but whirl around in the craziest fashion and noamount of steadying would persuade it to stay still.
Giving that up, the Doctor determined to rely on his moon maps andhis own eyesight and bump of locality. He was heading towards where hehad seen that tree—which was at the end of one of the ranges. Butall the ranges in this section seemed very much alike. The maps did nothelp us in this respect in the least. To our rear we could see certainpeaks which we thought we could identify on the charts. But aheadnothing fitted in at all. This made us feel surer than ever that wewere moving toward the Moon's other side which earthly eyes had neverseen.
"It is likely enough, Stubbins," said the Doctor as we strodelightly forward over loose sand which would ordinarily have been veryheavy going, "that it isonly on the other side that waterexists. Which may partly be the reason why astronomers never believedthere was any here at all."
For my part I was so on the look-out for extraordinary sights thatit did not occur to me, till the Doctor spoke of it, that thetemperature was extremely mild and agreeable. One of the things thatJohn Dolittle had feared was that we should find a heat that wasunbearable or a cold that was worse than Arctic. But except for thedifficulty of the strange new quality of the air, no human could haveasked for a nicer climate. A gentle steady wind was blowing and thetemperature seemed to remain almost constantly the same.
We looked about everywhere for tracks. As yet we knew very little ofwhat animal life to expect. But the loose sand told nothing, not evento Chee-Chee, who was a pretty experienced hand at picking up tracks ofthe most unusual kind.
Of odours and scents there were plenty—most of them verydelightful flower perfumes which the wind brought to us from the otherside of the mountain ranges ahead. Occasionally a very disagreeable onewould come, mixed up with the pleasant scents. But none of them, exceptthat of the moon bells the moth had brought with us, could werecognize.
On and on we went for miles, crossing ridge after ridge and still noglimpse did we get of the Doctor's tree. Of course crossing the rangeswas not nearly as hard travelling as it would have been on Earth.Jumping and bounding both upward and downward was extraordinarily easy.Still, we had brought a good deal of baggage with us and all of us werepretty heavy-laden; and after two and a half hours of travel we beganto feel a little discouraged. Polynesia then volunteered to fly aheadand reconnoitre, but this the Doctor was loath to have her do. For somereason he wanted us all to stick together for the present.
However, after another half-hour of going he consented to let herfly straight up so long as she remained in sight, to see if she couldspy out the tree's position from a greater height.
So we rested on our bundles a spell while Polynesia gave animitation of a soaring vulture and straight above our heads climbed andclimbed. At about a thousand feet she paused and circled. Then slowlycame down again. The Doctor, watching her, grew impatient at her speed.I could not quite make out why he was so unwilling to have her awayfrom his side, but I asked no questions.
Yes, she had seen the tree, she told us, but it still seemed a longway off. The Doctor wanted to know why she had taken so long in comingdown and she said she had been making sure of her bearings so that shewould be able to act as guide. Indeed, with the usual accuracy ofbirds, she had a very clear idea of the direction we should take. Andwe set off again, feeling more at ease and confident.
The truth of it was of course that seen from a great height, as thetree had first appeared to us, the distance had seemed much less thanit actually was. Two more things helped to mislead us. One, that themoon air, as we now discovered, made everything look nearer than itactually was in spite of the soft dim light. And the other was that wehad supposed the tree to be one of ordinary earthly size and had madean unconscious guess at its distance in keeping with a fair-sized oakor elm. Whereas when we did actually reach it we found it to beunimaginably huge.
I shall never forget that tree. It was our first experience of moonlife,in the Moon. Darkness was coming on when we finally haltedbeneath it. When I saydarkness I mean that strange kind oftwilight which was the nearest thing to night which we ever saw in theMoon. The tree's height, I should say, would be at least three hundredfeet and the width of it across the trunk a good forty or fifty. Itsappearance in general was most uncanny. The whole design of it wasdifferent from any tree I have ever seen. Yet there was no mistaking itfor anything else. It seemed—how shall I describeit?—alive. Poor Chee-Chee was so scared of it his hairjust stood up on the nape of his neck and it was a long time before theDoctor and I persuaded him to help us pitch camp beneath itsboughs.
Indeed we were a very subdued party that prepared to spend its firstnight on the Moon. No one knew just what it was that oppressed us butwe were all conscious of a definite feeling of disturbance. The windstill blew—in that gentle, steady way that the moon winds alwaysblew. The light was clear enough to see outlines by, although most ofthe night the Earth was invisible, and there was no reflectionwhatever.
I remember how the Doctor, while we were unpacking and laying outthe rest of our chocolate ration for supper, kept glancing uneasily upat those strange limbs of the tree overhead.
Of course it was the wind that was moving them—no doubt ofthat at all. Yet the wind was so deadly regular and even. And themovement of the boughs wasn't regular at all. That was the weird partof it. It almost seemed as though the tree were doing some moving onits own, like an animal chained by its feet in the ground. And stillyou could never be sure—because, after all, the windwasblowing all the time.
And besides, it moaned. Well, we knew trees moaned in the wind athome. But this one did it differently—it didn't seem in keepingwith that regular even wind which we felt upon our faces.
I could see that even the worldly-wise practical Polynesia wasperplexed and upset. And it took a great deal to disturb her. Yet abird's senses towards trees and winds are much keener than a man's. Ikept hoping she would venture into the branches of the tree; but shedidn't. And as for Chee-Chee, also a natural denizen of the forest, nopower on earth, I felt sure, would persuade him to investigate themysteries of this strange specimen of a Vegetable Kingdom we were asyet only distantly acquainted with.
After supper was despatched, the Doctor kept me busy for some hourstaking down notes. There was much to be recorded of this first day in anew world. The temperature; the direction and force of the wind; thetime of our arrival—as near as it could be guessed; the airpressure (he had brought along a small barometer among his instruments)and many other things which, while they were dry stuff for the ordinarymortal, were highly important for the scientist.
Often and often I have wished that I had one of those memories thatseem to be able to recall all impressions no matter how small andunimportant. For instance, I have often wanted to remember exactly thatfirst awakening on the Moon. We had all been weary enough withexcitement and exercise, when we went to bed, to sleep soundly. All Ican remember of my waking up is spending at least ten minutes workingout where I was. And I doubt if I could have done it even then if I hadnot finally realized that John Dolittle was awake ahead of me andalready pottering around among his instruments, taking readings.
The immediate business now on hand was food. There was literallynothing for breakfast. The Doctor began to regret his hasty departurefrom the moth. Indeed it was only now, many, many hours after we hadleft him in our unceremonious haste to find the tree and explore thenew world, that we realized that we had not as yet seen any signs ofanimal life. Still it seemed a long way to go back and consult him; andit was by no means certain that he would still be there,
Just the same, we needed food, and food we were going to find.Hastily we bundled together what things we had unpacked for the night'scamping. Which way to go? Clearly if we had here reached one tree,there must be some direction in which others lay, where we could findthat water which the Doctor was so sure must exist. But we could scanthe horizon with staring eyes or telescope as much as we wished and notanother leaf of a tree could we see.
This time without waiting to be ordered Polynesia soared into theair to do a little scouting.
"Well," she said on her return, "I don't see any actual trees atall. The beastly landscape is more like the Sahara Desert than anyscenery I've ever run into. But over there behind that higher range-theone with the curious hat-shaped peak in the middle—you see theone I mean?"
"Yes," said the Doctor. "I see. Go on."
"Well, behind that there is a dark horizon different from any otherquarter. I won't swear it is trees. But myself, I feel convinced thatthere is something else there besides sand. We had better get moving.It is no short walk."
Indeed itwas no short walk. It came to be a forced march orrace between us and starvation. On starting out we had not foreseenanything of the kind. Going off without breakfast was nothing afterall. Each one of us had done that before many a time. But as hour afterhour went by and still the landscape remained a desert of rollingsand-dunes, hills and dead dry volcanoes, our spirits fell lower andlower.
This was one of the times when I think I saw John Dolittle really athis best. I know, although I had not questioned him, that he hadalready been beset with anxiety over several matters on the first stepsof our march. Later he spoke of them to me: not at the time. And asconditions grew worse, as hunger gnawed at our vitals and the mostterrible thirst parched our tongues—as strength and vitalitybegan to give way and mere walking became the most terrible hardship,the Doctor grew cheerier and cheerier. He didn't crack dry jokes in anirritating way either. But by some strange means he managed to keep thewhole party in good mood. If he told a funny story it was always at theright time and set us all laughing at our troubles. In talking to himafterwards about this I learned that he had, when a young man, beenemployed on more than one exploration trip to keep the expedition ingood humour. It was, he said, the only way he could persuade the chiefto take him, since at that time he had no scientific training torecommend him.
Anyway, I sincerely doubt whether our party would have held out ifit had not been for his sympathetic and cheering company. The agoniesof thirst were something new to me. Every step I thought must be mylast.
Finally at what seemed to be the end of our second day, I vaguelyheard Polynesia saying something about "Forests ahead!" I imagine Imust have been half delirious by then. I still staggered along, blindlyfollowing the others. I know wedid reach water because before Ifell and dozed away into a sort of half faint I remember Chee-Cheetrickling something marvellously cool between my lips out of a cup madefrom a folded leaf.
When I awoke I felt very much ashamed of myself. What an explorer!The Doctor was moving around already—and, of course, Chee-Cheeand Polynesia. John Dolittle came to my side immediately he saw I wasawake.
As though he knew the thoughts that were in my mind he at oncestarted to reprimand me for feeling ashamed of my performance. Hepointed out that after all Chee-Chee and Polynesia were accustomed totravelling in hot dry climates and that so, for that matter, was hehimself.
"Taken all in all, Stubbins," said he, "your own performance hasbeen extremely good. You made the trip, the whole way, and onlycollapsed when relief was in sight. No one could ask for more thanthat. I have known many experienced explorers who couldn't have donenearly as well. It was a hard lap—a devilish hard lap. You weremagnificent. Sit up and have some breakfast. Thank goodness, we'vereached food at last!"
Weak and frowsty, I sat up. Arranged immediately around me was acollection of what I later learned were fruits. The reliable Chee-Chee,scared though he might be of a moving tree or a whispering wind, hadserved the whole party with that wonderful sense of his for scentingout wild foodstuffs. Not one of the strange courses on the bill of farehad I or the Doctor seen before. But if Chee-Chee said they were safewe knew we need not fear.
Some of the fruits were as big as a large trunk; some as small as awalnut. But, starving as we were, we just dived in and ate and ate andate. Water there was too, gathered in the shells of enormous nuts andodd vessels made from twisted leaves. Never has a breakfast tasted somarvellous as did that one of fruits which I could not name.
Chee-Chee!—Poor little timid Chee-Chee, who conquered your ownfears and volunteered to go ahead of us alone, into the jungle to findfood when our strength was giving out. To the world you were just anorgan-grinder's monkey. But to us whom you saved from starvation, whenterror beset you at every step, you will for ever be ranked high in thelist of the great heroes of all time. Thank goodness we had you withus! Our bones might to-day be mouldering in the sands of the Moon if ithad not been for your untaught science, your jungle skill—and,above all, your courage that overcame your fear!
Well, to return: as I ate these strange fruits and sipped the waterthat brought life back I gazed upward and saw before me a sort ofridge. On its level top a vegetation, a kind of tangled forest,flourished; and trailing down from this ridge were little outposts ofthe Vegetable Kingdom, groups of bushes and single trees, thatscattered and dribbled away in several directions from the main mass.Why and how that lone tree survived so far away we could neversatisfactorily explain. The nearest John Dolittle could come to it wasthat some underground spring supplied it with enough water or moistureto carry on. Yet there can be no doubt that to have reached suchenormous proportions it must have been there hundreds—perhapsthousands—of years. Anyway, it is a good thing for us itwas there. If it had not been, as a pointer towards thishabitable quarter of the Moon—it is most likely our wholeexpedition would have perished.
When the Doctor and I had finished our mysterious breakfast westarted to question Chee-Chee about the forest from which he hadproduced the food we had eaten.
"I don't know how I did it," said Chee-Chee when we asked him. "Ijust shut my eyes most of the time—terribly afraid. I passedtrees, plants, creepers, roots. I smelt—Goodness! I too washungry, remember. I smelt hard as I could. And soon of course I spottedfood, fruits. I climbed a tree—half the time with my eyes shut.Then I see some monster, golly! What a jungle—different from anymonkey ever see before—Woolly, woolly!—Ooh, ooh! All thesame, nuts smell good. Catch a few. Chase down the tree. Run some more.Smell again. Good!—Up another tree. Different fruit, good justthe same. Catch a few. Down again. Run home. On the way smell goodroot. Same as ginger—only better. Dig a little. Keep eyesshut—don't want to see monster. Catch a piece of root. Run allthe way home. Here I am. Finish!"
Well, dear old Chee-Chee's story was descriptive of his own heroicadventures but it did not give us much idea of the moon forest which wewere to explore. Nevertheless, rested and fit, we now felt much moreinclined to look into things ourselves.
Leaving what luggage we had brought with us from our originallanding point, we proceeded towards the line of trees at the summit ofthe bluff, about four miles ahead of us. We now felt that we could findour way back without much difficulty to the two last camps we hadestablished.
The going was about the same, loose sand—only that as weapproached the bluff we found the sand firmer to the tread.
On the way up the last lap towards the vegetation line we were outof view of the top itself. Often the going was steep. All the way I hadthe feeling that we were about to make new and greatdiscoveries—that for the first time we were to learn somethingimportant about the true nature of the mysterious Moon.
Indeed our first close acquaintance with the forests of the Moon wasmade in quite a dramatic manner. If it had been on a stage it could nothave been arranged better for effect. Suddenly as our heads topped thebluff we saw a wall of jungle some mile or so ahead of us. It wouldtake a very long time to describe those trees in detail. It wasn't thatthere were so many kinds but each one was so utterly different from anytree we had seen on the Earth. And yet, curiously enough, they didremind you of vegetable forms you had seen, but not of trees.
For instance, there was one whole section, several square miles inextent apparently, that looked exactly like ferns. Another reminded meof a certain flowering plant (I can't recall the name of it) whichgrows a vast number of small blossoms on a flat surface at the top. Thestems are a curious whitish green. This moon tree wasexactlythe same, only nearly a thousand times as big. The denseness of thefoliage (or flowering) at the top was so compact and solid that welater found no rain could penetrate it. And for this reason the Doctorand I gave it the name of theUmbrella Tree. But not one singletree was there which was the same as any tree we had seen before. Andthere were many, many more curious growths that dimly reminded you ofsomething, though you could not always say exactly what.
One odd thing that disturbed us quite a little was a strange sound.Noises of any kind, no matter how faint, we already knew could travellong distances on the Moon. As soon as we had gained the plateau on topof the bluff we heard it. It was a musical sound. And yet not the soundof a single instrument. It seemed almost as though there was a smallorchestra somewhere playing very, very softly. We were by this timebecoming accustomed to strange things. But I must confess that thisdistant hidden music upset me quite a little, and so, I know, it didthe Doctor.
At the top of the bluff we rested to get our wind before we coveredthe last mile up to the jungle itself. It was curious how clearlymarked and separated were those sections of the Moon's landscape. Andyet doubtless the smaller scale of all the geographical features ofthis world, so much less in bulk than our own, could partly account forthat. In front of us a plateau stretched out, composed of hard sand,level and smooth as a lake, bounded in front by the jungle and to therear of us by the cliff we had just scaled. I wondered as I lookedacross at the forest what scenery began on the other side of the woodsand if it broke off in as sharp a change as it did here.
As the most important thing to attend to first was the establishmentof a water supply, Chee-Chee was asked to act as guide. The monkey setout ahead of us to follow his own tracks which he had made last night.This he had little difficulty in doing across the open plateau. Butwhen we reached the edge of the forest it was not so easy. Much of histravelling here had been done by swinging through the trees. He alwaysfelt safer so, he said, while explaining to us how he had been guidedto the water by the sense of smell. Again I realized how lucky we hadbeen to have him with us. No one but a monkey could have found his waythrough that dense, dimly lit forest to water. He asked us to staybehind a moment on the edge of the woods while he went forward to makesure that he could retrace his steps. We sat down again and waited.
"Did you wake up at all during the night, Stubbins?" the Doctorasked after a little.
"No," I said. "I was far too tired. Why?"
"Did you, Polynesia?" he asked, ignoring my question.
"Yes," said she, "I was awake several times."
"Did you hear or see anything—er—unusual?"
"Yes," said she. "I can't be absolutely certain. But I sort of feltthere was something moving around the camp keeping a watch on us.
"Humph!" muttered the Doctor. "So did I."
Then he relapsed into silence.
Another rather strange thing that struck me as I gazed over thelandscape while we waited for Chee-Chee to return was the appearance ofthe horizon. The Moon's width being so much smaller than the Earth's,the distance one could see was a great deal shorter. This did not applyso much where the land was hilly or mountainous; but on the level, orthe nearly level it made a very striking difference. Theroundness of this world was much more easily felt and understoodthan was that of the world we had left. On this plateau, for example,you could only see seven or eight miles, it seemed, over the levelbefore the curve cut off your vision. And it gave quite a new charactereven to the hills, where peaks showed behind other ranges, droppingdownward in a way that misled you entirely as to their actualheight.
Finally Chee-Chee came back to us and said he had successfullyretraced his steps to the water he had found the night before. He wasnow prepared to lead us to it. He looked kind of scared and ill atease. The Doctor asked him the reason for this, but he didn't seem ableto give any.
"Everything's all right, Doctor," said he—"at least I supposeit is. It was partly that—oh, I don't know—I can't quitemake out what it is they have asked you here for. I haven't actuallylaid eyes on any animal life since we left the moth who brought us. YetI feel certain that there's lots of it here. It doesn't appear to wantto be seen. That's what puzzles me. On the Earth the animals were neverslow in coming forward when they were in need of your services."
"You bet they were not!" grunted Polynesia. "No one who ever sawthem clamouring around the surgery door could doubt that."
"Humph!" the Doctor muttered, "I've noticed it myself already. Idon't understand it quite—either. It almost looks as though therewere something about our arrival which they didn't like.... Iwonder.... Well, anyway, I wish the animal life here would get in touchwith us and let us know what it is all about. This state of things is,to say the least—er—upsetting."
And so we went forward with Chee-Chee as guide to find the water.Our actual entrance into that jungle was quite an experience and verydifferent from merely a distant view of it. The light outside was notbright; inside the woods it was dimmer still. My only other experienceof jungle life had been in Spidermonkey Island. This was something likethe Spidermonkey forest and yet it was strikingly different.
From the appearance and size of that first tree we had reached, theDoctor had guessed its age to be very, very great. Here the vegetablelife in general seemed to bear out that idea beyond all question. Theenormous trees with their gigantic trunks looked as though they hadbeen there since the beginning of time. And there was surprisinglylittle decay—a few shed limbs and leaves. That was all. In unkeptearthly forests one saw dead trees everywhere, fallen to the ground orcaught half-way in the crotches of other trees, withered and dry. Notso here. Every tree looked as though it had stood so and grown in peacefor centuries.
At length, after a good deal of arduous travel—the going forthe most part was made slow by the heaviest kind of undergrowth, withvines and creepers as thick as your leg—we came to a sort of openplace in which lay a broad calm lake with a pleasant waterfall at oneend. The woods that surrounded it were most peculiar. They looked likeenormous asparagus. For many, many square miles their tremendous mastsrose, close together, in ranks. No creepers or vines had here beengiven a chance to flourish. The enormous stalks had taken up all theroom and the nourishment of the crowded earth. The tapering tops,hundreds of feet above our heads, looked good enough to eat. Yet I'veno doubt that if we had ever got up to them they would have been foundas hard as oaks.
The Doctor walked down to the clean sandy shore of the lake andtried the water. Chee-Chee and I did the same. It was pure and clearand quenching to the thirst. The lake must have been at least fivemiles wide in the centre.
"I would like," said John Dolittle, "to explore this by boat. Do yousuppose, Chee-Chee, that we could find the makings of a canoe or a raftanywhere?"
"I should think so," said the monkey. "Wait a minute and I will takea look around and see."
So, with Chee-Chee in the lead, we proceeded along the shore insearch of materials for a boat. On account of that scarcity of dead ordried wood which we had already noticed, our search did not at firstappear a very promising one. Nearly all the standing trees were prettyheavy and full of sap. For our work of boat-building a light hatchet onthe Doctor's belt was the best tool we had. It looked sadly smallcompared with the great timber that reared up from the shores of thelake.
But after we had gone along about a mile I noticed Chee-Chee upahead stop and peer into the jungle. Then, after he had motioned to uswith his hand to hurry, he disappeared into the edge of the forest. Oncoming up with him we found him stripping the creepers and moss offsome contrivance that lay just within the woods, not more than ahundred yards from the water's edge.
We all fell to, helping him, without any idea of what it might be wewere uncovering. There seemed almost no end to it. It was a longobject, immeasurably long. To me it looked like a dead tree—thefirst dead, lying tree we had seen.
"What do you think it is, Chee-Chee?" asked the Doctor.
"It's a boat," said the monkey in a firm and matter-of-fact voice."No doubt of it at all in my mind. It's a dug-out canoe. They used touse them in Africa."
"But, Chee-Chee," cried John Dolittle, "look at the length! It's afull-sized Asparagus Tree. We've uncovered a hundred feet of it alreadyand still there's more to come."
"I can't help that," said Chee-Chee. "It's a dug-out canoe just thesame. Crawl down with me here underneath it, Doctor, and I'll show youthe marks of tools and fire. It has been turned upside down."
With the monkey guiding him, the Doctor scrabbled down below thequeer object; and when he came forth there was a puzzled look on hisface.
"Well, theymight be the marks of tools, Chee-Chee," he wassaying. "But then again they might not. The traces of fire are moreclear. But that could be accidental. If the tree burned down it couldvery easily—"
"The natives in my part of Africa," Chee-Chee interrupted, "alwaysused fire to eat out the insides of their dug-out canoes. They builtlittle fires all along the tree, to hollow out the trunk so that theycould sit in it. The tools they used were very simple, just stonescoops to chop out the charred wood with. I am sure this is a canoe,Doctor. But it hasn't been used in a long time. See how the bow hasbeen shaped up into a point."
"I know," said the Doctor. "But the Asparagus Tree has a naturalpoint at one end anyhow."
"And, Chee-Chee," put in Polynesia, "who in the name of goodnesscould ever handle such a craft? Why, look, the thing is as long as abattleship!"
Then followed a half-hour's discussion, between the Doctor andPolynesia on the one side and Chee-Chee on the other, as to whether thefind we had made was, or was not, a canoe. For me, I had no opinion. Tomy eyes the object looked like an immensely long log, hollowed somewhaton the one side, but whether by accident or design I could nottell.
In any case it was certainly too heavy and cumbersome for us to use.And presently I edged into the argument with the suggestion that we goon further and find materials for a raft or boat wecouldhandle.
The Doctor seemed rather glad of this excuse to end a fruitlesscontroversy, and soon we moved on in search of something which wouldenable us to explore the waters of the lake. A march of a mile furtheralong the shore brought us to woods that were not so heavy. Here theimmense asparagus forests gave way to a growth of smaller girth; andthe Doctor's hatchet soon felled enough poles for us to make a raftfrom. We laced them together with thongs of bark and found themsufficiently buoyant when launched to carry us and our small supply ofbaggage with ease. Where the water was shallow we used a long pole topunt with; and when we wished to explore greater depths we employedsweeps, or oars, which we fashioned roughly with the hatchet.
From the first moment we were afloat the Doctor kept me busy takingnotes for him. In the equipment he had brought with him there was afine-meshed landing net; and with it he searched along the shores forsigns of life in this moon lake, the first of its kind we had metwith.
"It is very important, Stubbins," said he, "to find out what fish wehave here. In evolution the fish life is a very important matter."
"What isevolution?" asked Chee-Chee.
I started out to explain it to him but was soon called upon by theDoctor to make more notes—for which I was not sorry, as the taskturned out to be a long and heavy one. Polynesia, however, took it upwhere I left off and made short work of it.
"Evolution, Chee-Chee," said she, "is the story of how Tommy got ridof the tail you are carrying—because he didn't need it anymore—and the story of how you grew it and kept it because youdid need it....Evolution! Proof!—Professors' talk.A long word for a simple matter."
It turned out that our examination of the lake was neither excitingnor profitable. We brought up all sorts of water-flies, manylarvæ of perfectly tremendous size, but we found as yet nofishes. The plant life—water plant I mean—was abundant.
"I think," said the Doctor, after we had poled ourselves around thelake for several hours, "that there can be no doubt now that theVegetable Kingdom here is much more important than the Animal Kingdom.And what there is of the Animal Kingdom seems to be mostly insect.However, we will camp on the shore of this pleasant lake and perhaps weshall see more later."
So we brought our raft to anchor at about the place from which wehad started out and pitched camp on a stretch of clean yellow sand.
I shall never forget that night. It was uncanny. None of us sleptwell. All through the hours of darkness we heard things moving aroundus. Enormous things. Yet never did we see them or find out what theywere. The four of us were nevertheless certain that all night we werebeing watched. Even Polynesia was disturbed. There seemed no doubt thatthere was plenty of animal life in the Moon, but that it did not as yetwant to show itself to us. The newness of our surroundings alone wasdisturbing enough, without this very uncomfortable feeling thatsomething had made the moon folks distrustful of us.
Another thing which added to our sleeplessness that night was thecontinuance of the mysterious music. But then so many strange thingscontributed to our general mystification and vague feeling of anxietythat it is hard to remember and distinguish them all.
The next morning after breakfasting on what remained of our fruitswe packed up and started off for further exploration. While the last ofthe packing had been in progress Chee-Chee and Polynesia had gone aheadto do a little advanced scouting for us. They formed an admirable teamfor such work. Polynesia would fly above the forest and getlong-distance impressions from the air of what lay ahead whileChee-Chee would examine the more lowly levels of the route to befollowed, from the trees and the ground.
The Doctor and I were just helping one another on with our packswhen Chee-Chee came rushing back to us in great excitement. His teethwere chattering so he could hardly speak.
"What do you think, Doctor!" he stammered. "We've found tracks backthere. Tracks of a man! But so enormous! You've no idea. Come quick andI'll show you."
The Doctor looked up sharply at the scared and excited monkey,pausing a moment as though about to question him. Then he seemed tochange his mind and turned once more to the business of taking up thebaggage. With loads hoisted we gave a last glance around the campingground to see if anything had been forgotten or left.
Our route did not lie directly across the lake, which mostlysprawled away to the right of our line of march. But we had to make ourway partly around the lower end of it. Wondering what new chapter layahead of us, we fell in behind Chee-Chee and in silence started offalong the shore.
After about half an hour's march we came to the mouth of a riverwhich ran into the upper end of the lake. Along the margin of this wefollowed Chee-Chee for what seemed like another mile or so. Soon theshores of the stream widened out and the woods fell back quite adistance from the water's edge. The nature of the ground was stillclean firm sand. Presently we saw Polynesia's tiny figure ahead,waiting for us.
When we drew up with her we saw that she was standing by an enormousfootprint. There was no doubt about its being a man's, clear in everydetail. It was the most gigantic thing I have ever seen, a barefoottrack fully four yards in length. There wasn't only one, either. Downthe shore the trail went on for a considerable distance; and the spanthat the prints lay apart gave one some idea of the enormous stride ofthe giant who had left this trail behind him.
Questioning and alarmed, Chee-Chee and Polynesia gazed silently upat the Doctor for an explanation.
"Humph!" he muttered after a while. "So Man is here, too. Mygoodness, what a monster! Let us follow the trail."
Chee-Chee was undoubtedly scared of such a plan. It was clearly bothhis and Polynesia's idea that the further we got away from the maker ofthose tracks the better. I could see terror and fright in the eyes ofboth of them. But neither made any objection; and in silence we ploddedalong, following in the path of this strange human who must, it wouldseem, be something out of a fairy tale.
But alas! It was not more than a mile further on that the footprintsturned into the woods where, on the mosses and leaves beneath thetrees, no traces had been left at all. Then we turned about andfollowed the river quite a distance to see if the creature had comeback out on the sands again. But never a sign could we see. Chee-Cheespent a good deal of time too at the Doctor's request trying to findhis path through the forest by any signs, such as broken limbs or marksin the earth which he might have left behind. But not another tracecould we find. Deciding that he had merely come down to the stream toget a drink, we gave up the pursuit and turned back to the line of ouroriginal march.
Again I was thankful that I had company on that expedition. It wascertainly a most curious and extraordinary experience. None of us spokevery much, but when we did it seemed that all of us had been thinkingthe same things.
The woods grew more and more mysterious, and more and morealive, as we went onward towards the other side of the Moon, theside that earthly Man had never seen before. For one thing, the strangemusic seemed to increase; and for another, there was more movement inthe limbs of the trees. Great branches that looked like arms, bunchesof small twigs that could have been hands, swung and moved and clawedthe air in the most uncanny fashion. And always that steady wind wenton blowing, even, regular and smooth.
All of the forest was not gloomy, however. Much of it wasunbelievably beautiful. Acres of woods there were which presentednothing but a gigantic sea of many-coloured blossoms, colours thatseemed like something out of a dream, indescribable, yet clear in one'smemory as a definite picture of something seen.
The Doctor as we went forward spoke very little; when he did it wasalmost always on the same subject: "the absence of decay," as he putit.
"I am utterly puzzled, Stubbins," said he, in one of his longeroutbursts when we were resting. "Why, there is hardly any leaf-mould atall!"
"What difference would that make, Doctor?" I asked.
"Well, that's what the trees live on, mostly, in our world," saidhe. "The forest growth, I mean—the soil that is formed by dyingtrees and rotting leaves—that is the nourishment that bringsforth the seedlings which finally grow into new trees. But here! Well,of course there issome soil—and some shedding of leaves.But I've hardly seen a dead tree since I've been in these woods. Onewould almost think that there were some—er—balance. Somearrangement of—er—well—I can't explain it....It beats me entirely."
I did not, at the time, completely understand what he meant. And yetit did seem as though every one of these giant plants that rose aboutus led a life of peaceful growth, undisturbed by rot, by blight or bydisease.
Suddenly in our march we found ourselves at the end of the woodedsection. Hills and mountains again spread before us. They were not thesame as those we had first seen, however. These had vegetation, of akind, on them. Low shrubs and heath plants clothed this rolling landwith a dense growth—often very difficult to get through.
But still no sign of decay—little or no leaf-mould. The Doctornow decided that perhaps part of the reason for this was theseasons—or rather the lack of seasons. He said that we wouldprobably find that here there was no regular winter or summer. It wasan entirely new problem, so far as the struggle for existence wasconcerned, such as we knew in our world.
Into this new heath and hill country we travelled for miles. Andpresently we arrived upon a rather curious thing. It was a sort ofbasin high up and enclosed by hills or knolls. The strange part of itwas that here there were not only more tracks of the Giant Man, just aswe had seen lower down, but there were also unmistakable signs offire. In an enormous hollow ashes lay among the sands. TheDoctor was very interested in those ashes. He took some and addedchemicals to them and tested them in many ways. He confessed himself atlast entirely puzzled by their nature. But he said he nevertheless feltquite sure we had stumbled on the scene of the smoke signalling we hadseen from Puddleby. Curiously long ago, it seemed, that time whenToo-Too, the owl, had insisted he saw smoke burst from the side of theMoon. That was when the giant moth lay helpless in our garden. Andyet—how long was it? Only a few days!
"It was from here, Stubbins," said the Doctor, "that the signals wesaw from the Earth were given out, I feel certain. This place, as yousee, is miles and miles across. But what was used to make an explosionas large as the one we saw from my house I have no idea."
"But it was smoke we saw," said I, "not a flash."
"That's just it," he said. "Some curious material must have beenused that we have as yet no knowledge of. I thought that by testing theashes I could discover what it was. But I can't. However, we may yetfind out."
For two reasons the Doctor was anxious for the present not to gettoo far from the forest section. (We did not know then, you see, thatthere were other wooded areas beside this through which we had justcome.) One reason was that we had to keep in touch with our food supplywhich consisted of the fruits and vegetables of the jungle. The otherwas that John Dolittle was absorbed now in the study of this VegetableKingdom which he felt sure had many surprises in store for the studentnaturalist.
After a while we began to get over the feeling of uncannycreepiness, which at the beginning had made us so uncomfortable. Wedecided that our fears were mostly caused by the fact that these woodsand plants were so different from our own. There was no unfriendlinessin these forests after all, we assured ourselves—except that wewere being watched. That we knew—and that we werebeginning to get used to.
As soon as the Doctor had decided that we would set up our newheadquarters on the edge of the forest, and we had our camp properlyestablished, we began making excursions in all directions through thejungle. And from then on I was again kept very busy taking notes of theDoctor's experiments and studies.
One of the first discoveries we made in our study of the Moon'sVegetable Kingdom was that there was practically no warfare going onbetween it and the Animal Kingdom. In the world we had left we had beenaccustomed to see the horses and other creatures eating up the grass ingreat quantities and many further examples of the struggle thatcontinually goes on between the two. Here, on the other hand, theanimals (or, more strictly speaking, the insects, for there seemed asyet hardly any traces of other animal species) and the vegetable lifeseemed for the most part to help one another rather than to fight anddestroy. Indeed we found the whole system of Life on the Moon asingularly peaceful business. I will speak of this again later on.
We spent three whole days in the investigation of the strange musicwe had heard. You will remember that the Doctor, with his skill on theflute, was naturally fond of music; and this curious thing we had metwith interested him a great deal. After several expeditions we foundpatches of the jungle where we were able to see and hear the tree musicworking at its best.
There was no doubt about it at all: The trees were making the soundsand they were doing itdeliberately. In the way that anÆolian harp works when set in the wind at the right angle, thetrees moved their branches to meet the wind so that certain notes wouldbe given out. The evening that the Doctor made this discovery of whathe called theSinging Trees he told me to mark down in the diaryof the expedition as a Red Letter Date. I shall never forget it. We hadbeen following the sound for hours, the Doctor carrying a tuning-forkin his hand, ringing it every once in a while to make sure of the noteswe heard around us. Suddenly we came upon a little clearing about whichgreat giants of the forest stood in a circle. It was for all the worldlike an orchestra. Spellbound, we stood and gazed up at them, as firstone and then another would turn a branch to the steady blowing wind anda note would boom out upon the night, clear and sweet. Then a group,three or four trees around the glade, would swing a limb and a chordwould strike the air, and go murmuring through the jungle. Fantasticand crazy as it sounds, no one could have any doubt who heard andwatched that these trees were actually making sounds, which theywanted to make, with the aid of the wind.
Of course, as the Doctor remarked, unless the wind had always blownsteadily and evenly such a thing would have been impossible. JohnDolittle himself was most anxious to find out on what scale of musicthey were working. To me, I must confess, it sounded just mildlypleasant. Therewas a time: I could hear that. And some wholephrases repeated once in a while, but not often. For the most part themelody was wild, sad and strange. But even to my uneducated ear it wasbeyond all question a quite clear effort at orchestration; there werecertainly treble voices and bass voices and the combination was sweetand agreeable.
I was excited enough myself, but the Doctor was worked up to a pitchof interest such as I have seldom seen in him.
"Why, Stubbins," said he, "do you realize what thismeans?—It's terrific. If these trees can sing, a choirunderstands one another and all that,they must have alanguage.—They can talk! A language in the Vegetable Kingdom!We must get after it. Who knows? I may yet learn it myself. Stubbins,this is a great day!"
And so, as usual on such occasions, the good man's enthusiasm justcarried him away bodily. For days, often without food, often withoutsleep, he pursued this new study. And at his heels I trotted with mynote book always ready—though, to be sure, he put in far morework than I did because frequently when we got home he would go onwrestling for hours over the notes or new apparatus he was building, bywhich he hoped to learn the language of the trees.
You will remember that even before we left the Earth John Dolittlehad mentioned the possibility of the moon bells having some means ofcommunicating with one another. That they could move, within the limitsof their fixed position, had been fully established. To that we hadgrown so used and accustomed that we no longer thought anything of it.The Doctor had in fact wondered if this might possibly be a means ofconversation in itself—the movement of limbs and twigs andleaves, something like a flag signal code. And for quite a long whilehe sat watching certain trees and shrubs to see if they used thismethod for talking between themselves.
About this time there was one person whom both the Doctor and I werecontinually reminded of, and continually wishing for, and that was LongArrow, the Indian naturalist whom we had met in Spidermonkey Island. Tobe sure, he had never admitted to the Doctor that he had had speechwith plant life. But his knowledge of botany and the natural history ofthe Vegetable Kingdom was of such a curious kind we felt that here hewould have been of great help to us. Long Arrow, the son of GoldenArrow, never booked a scientific note in his life. How wouldhe—when he was unable to write? Just the same he could tell youwhy a certain coloured bee visited a certain coloured flower; whythat moth chosethat shrub to lay its eggs in; why thisparticular grub attacked the roots of this kind of water plant.
Often of an evening the Doctor and I would speak of him, wonderingwhere he was and what he was doing. When we sailed away fromSpidermonkey Island he was left behind. But that would not mean hestayed there. A natural-born tramp who rejoiced in defying the elementsand the so-called laws of Nature, he could be looked for anywhere inthe two American continents.
And again, the Doctor would often refer to my parents. He evidentlyhad a very guilty feeling about them—despite the fact that it wasno fault of his that I had stowed away aboard the moth that brought ushere. A million and one things filled his mind these days, of course;but whenever there was a let-down, a gap, in the stream of hisscientific inquiry, he would come back to the subject.
"Stubbins," he'd say, "you shouldn't have come.... Yes, yes, I know,you did it for me. But Jacob, your father—and your mothertoo—they must be fretting themselves sick about yourdisappearance. And I am responsible.... Well, we can't do anythingabout that now, I suppose. Let's get on with the work."
And then he'd plunge ahead into some new subject and the matterwould be dropped—till it bothered him again.
Throughout all our investigations of the Moon's Vegetable Kingdom wecould not get away from the idea that the animal life was still, forsome unknown reason, steering clear of us. By night, when we weresettling down to sleep, we'd often get the impression that huge moths,butterflies or beetles were flying or crawling near us.
We made quite sure of this once or twice by jumping out of our bedsand seeing a giant shadow disappear into the gloom. Yet never could weget near enough to distinguish what the creatures were before theyescaped beyond the range of sight. But that they hadcome—whatever they were—to keep an eye on us seemed quitecertain. Also that all of them were winged. The Doctor had a theorythat the lighter gravity of the Moon had encouraged the development ofwings to a much greater extent than it had on the Earth.
And again those tracks of the strange Giant Man. They were alwaysturning up in the most unexpected places; I believe that if the Doctorhad allowed Polynesia and Chee-Chee complete liberty to follow themthat the enormous Human would have been run down in a very short time.But John Dolittle seemed still anxious to keep his family together. Iimagine that with his curiously good instinctive judgment he feared anattempt to separate us. And in any case of course both Chee-Chee andPolynesia were quite invaluable in a tight place. They were neither ofthem heavy-weight fighters, it is true; but their usefulness as scoutsand guides was enormous. I have often heard John Dolittle say that hewould sooner have that monkey or the parrot Polynesia with him insavage countries than he would the escort of a dozen regiments.
With some of our experimental work we wandered off long distancesinto the heath lands to see what we could do with the gorgeousflowering shrubs that thronged the rolling downs; and often we followedthe streams many miles to study the gigantic lilies that swayed theirstately heads over the sedgy banks.
And little by little our very arduous labours began to berepaid.
I was quite astonished when I came to realize how well the Doctorhad prepared for this expedition. Shortly after he decided that hewould set to work on the investigation of this supposed language of theplants he told me we would have to go back and fetch the remainder ofour baggage which we had left at the point of our first arrival.
So the following morning, bright and early, he, Chee-Chee and I setout to retrace our steps. Polynesia was left behind. The Doctor toldnone of us why he did this, but we decided afterwards that, as usual,he knew what he was doing.
It was a long and hard trip. It took us a day and a half going thereand two days coming back with the load of baggage. At our originallanding-place we again found many tracks of the Giant Human, and otherstrange marks on the sands about our baggage-dump which told us thathere too curious eyes had been trying to find out things without beingseen.
A closer examination of the tracks made by the Giant Human in theseparts where they were especially clear told the Doctor that his rightleg stride was considerably longer than his left. The mysterious MoonMan evidently walked with a limp. But with such a stride he wouldclearly be a very formidable creature anyway.
When we got back and started unpacking the bundles and boxes whichhad been left behind, I saw, as I have already said, how well theDoctor had prepared for his voyage. He seemed to have broughteverything that he could possibly need for the trip: hatchets, wire,nails, files, a hand-saw, all the things we couldn't get on the Moon.It was so different from his ordinary preparations for avoyage—which hardly ever consisted of more than the little blackbag and the clothes he stood in.
As usual he rested only long enough to get a few mouthfuls of foodbefore he set to work. There seemed to be a dozen different apparatuseshe wanted to set up at once, some for the testing of sound, others forvibrations, etc., etc. With the aid of a saw and an axe and a few othertools, half a dozen small huts had sprung up in an hour around ourcamp.
Laying aside for the present all worry on the score of why he hadbeen summoned to the Moon—of why the Animal Kingdom continued totreat us with suspicion, of why the Giant Human so carefully kept outof our way, the Doctor now plunged into the study of plant languagesheart and soul.
He was always happy so, working like a demon, snatching his mealsand his sleep here and there when he thought of such earthly matters.It was a most exhausting time for the rest of us, keeping pace withthis firebrand of energy when he got on an interesting scent. And yetit was well worth while too. In one and a half days he had establishedthe fact that the treesdid converse with one another by meansof branch gestures. But that was only the first step. Copying andpractising, he rigged himself up like a tree and talked in theglade—after a fashion—with these centuries-old denizens ofthe jungle.
From that he learned still more—that language, of a kind, wascarried on by using other means—by scents given out, in adefinite way—short or long perfumes, like a regular Morse Code;by the tones of wind-song when branches were set to the right angle toproduce certain notes; and many other odd strange means.
Every night, by bed-time, I was nearly dead from the strain andeffort of taking notes in those everlasting books, of which he seemedto have brought an utterly inexhaustible supply.
Chee-Chee looked after the feeding of us—Thankgoodness!—or I fear we would easily have starved to death, ifoverwork itself hadn't killed us. Every three hours the faithful littlemonkey would come to us wherever we were at the moment with his messesof strange vegetables and fruits and a supply of good clean drinkingwater.
As official recorder of the Expedition (a job of which I was veryproud even if it was hard work) I had to book all the Doctor'scalculations as well as his natural history notes. I have already toldyou something of temperature, air pressure, time and what not. Afurther list of them would have included the calculation of distancetravelled. This was quite difficult. The Doctor had brought with him apedometer (that is a little instrument which when carried in the pockettells you from the number of strides made the miles walked). But in theMoon, with the changed gravity, a pace was quite different from thatusual on the Earth. And what is more, it never stayed the same. Whenthe ground sloped downward it was natural to spring a step that quitepossibly measured six or seven feet—this with no out-of-the-wayeffort at all. And even on the up grade one quite frequently used astride that was far greater than in ordinary walking.
It was about this time that the Doctor first spoke of making a tourof the Moon. Magellan, you will remember, was the first to sail aroundour world. And it was a very great feat. The Earth contains more waterarea than land. The Moon, on the contrary, we soon saw, had more dryland than water. There were no big oceans. Lakes and chains of lakeswere all the water area we saw. To complete a round trip of this worldwould therefore be harder, even though it was shorter, than the voyagethat Magellan made.
It was on this account that the Doctor was so particular about mybooking a strict record of the miles we travelled. As to direction, wehad not as yet been so careful about maintaining a perfectly straightline. Because it was by no means easy for one thing; and for another,the subjects we wished to study, such as tree-music, tracks, watersupply, rock formation, etc., often led us off towards every quarter ofthe compass. When I say thecompass I mean something a littledifferent from the use of that word in earthly geography. As I havetold you, the magnetic compass which John Dolittle had brought with himfrom Puddleby did not behave in a helpful manner at all. Something elsemust be found to take its place.
John Dolittle, as usual, went after that problem too with muchenergy. He was a very excellent mathematician, was the Doctor. And oneafternoon he sat down with a note book and the Nautical Almanac andworked out tables which should tell him from the stars where he was andin what direction he was going. It was curious, that strange sense ofcomfort we drew from the stars. They, the heavenly bodies which fromthe Earth seemed the remotest, most distant, unattainable and strangestof objects, here suddenly became friendly; because, I suppose, theywere the only things that really stayed the same. The stars, as we sawthem from the Moon, were precisely as the stars we had seen from theEarth. The fact that they were nearly all countless billions of milesaway made no difference. For us they were something that we had seenbefore and knew.
It was while we were at work on devising some contrivance to takethe place of the compass that we made the discovery of the explosivewood. The Doctor after trying many things by which he hoped to keep adefinite direction had suddenly said one day:
"Why, Stubbins, I have it.—The wind! It always blowssteady—and probably from precisely the same quarter—or atall events with a regular calculable change most likely. Let us test itand see."
So right away we set to work to make various wind-testing devices.We rigged up weather-vanes from long streamers of light bark. And thenJohn Dolittle hit upon the idea of smoke.
"That is something," said he, "if we only place it properly, whichwill warn us by smell if the wind changes. And in the meantime we cancarry on our studies of the Animal Kingdom and its languages." Sowithout further ado we set to work to build fires—or rather largesmoke smudges—which should tell us how reliable our wind would beif depended on for a source of direction.
We went to a lot of trouble working out how we could best placethese fires so that they should give us the most satisfactory results.First of all we decided with much care on the exact position where wewould build them. Mostly they were on bare knolls or shoulders, wherethey couldn't spread to the underbrush and start a bush-fire. Then camethe question of fuel:—What would be the best wood to build themof?
There were practically no dead trees, as I have said. The only thingto do then was to cut some timber down and let it dry.
This we proceeded to do but did not get very far with it before theDoctor suddenly had qualms of conscience. Trees that could talk could,one would suppose, alsofeel. The thought was dreadful. Wehadn't even the courage to ask the trees about it—yet. So we fellback upon gathering fallen twigs and small branches. This made the workheavier still because, of course, we needed a great deal of fuel tohave fires big enough to see and smell for any distance.
After a good deal of discussion we decided that this was a thingwhich couldn't be hurried. A great deal depended on its success. It wasa nuisance, truly, but we had just got to be patient. So we went backinto the jungle-lands and set to work on getting out various samples ofwoods to try.
It took a longish time, for the Doctor and myself were the only oneswho could do this work. Chee-Chee tried to help by gathering twigs; butthe material we most needed was wood large enough to last a fairtime.
Well, we harvested several different kinds. Some wouldn't burn atall when we tried them. Others, we found, were pretty fair burners, butnot smoky enough.
With about the fifth kind of wood, I think it was that we testedout, we nearly had a serious accident. Fire seemed to be (outside ofthe traces we had found of the smoke signal apparatus) a thing quiteunusual in the Moon. There were no traces of forest burnings anywhere,so far as we had explored. It was therefore with a good deal of fearand caution that we struck matches to test out our fuel.
About dusk one evening the Doctor set a match to a sort of fern wood(something like a bamboo) and he narrowly escaped a bad burning. Thestuff flared up like gunpowder.
We took him off, Chee-Chee and I, and examined him. We found he hadsuffered no serious injuries, though he had had a very close shave. Hishands were somewhat blistered and he told us what to get out of thelittle black bag to relieve the inflammation.
We had all noticed that as the wood flared up it sent off densemasses of white smoke. And for hours after the explosion clouds ofheavy fumes were still rolling round the hills near us.
When we had the Doctor patched up he told us he was sure that we hadstumbled by accident on the fuel that had been used for making thesmoke signals we had seen from Puddleby.
"But my goodness, Doctor," said I, "what an immense bonfire it musthave been to be visible all that distance!—Thousands of tons ofthe stuff, surely, must have been piled together to make a smudge whichcould be seen that far."
"And who could have made it?" put in Chee-Chee.
For a moment there was silence. Then Polynesia spoke the thoughtthat was in my mind—and I imagine in the Doctor's too.
"The man who made those torches," said she quietly, "could move anawful lot of timber in one day, I'll warrant."
"You mean you think it washe who sent the signals?" askedChee-Chee, his funny little eyes staring wide open withastonishment.
"Why not?" said Polynesia. Then she lapsed into silent contemplationand no further questioning from Chee-Chee could get a word out ofher.
"Well," said the monkey at last, "if hedid send it thatwould look as though he were responsible for the whole thing. It musthave been he who sent the moth down to us—who needed the Doctor'sassistance and presence here."
He looked towards John Dolittle for an answer to this suggestion.But the Doctor, like Polynesia, didn't seem to have anything tosay.
Well, in spite of our little mishap, our wood tests with smoke wereextremely successful. We found that the wind as a direction-pointercould certainly be relied on for three or four days at a time.
"Of course, Stubbins," said the Doctor, "we will have to test againbefore we set off on our round trip. It may be that the breeze, whileblowing in one prevailing direction now, may change after a week or so.Also we will have to watch it that the mountain ranges don't deflectthe wind's course and so lead us astray. But from what we have seen sofar, I feel pretty sure that we have here something to take the placeof the compass."
I made one or two attempts later, when Polynesia and Chee-Chee wereout of earshot, to discover what John Dolittle thought about this ideathat it had really been the Moon Man who had brought us here and notthe Animal Kingdom. I felt that possibly he might talk more freely tome alone on the subject than he had been willing to with all of uslistening. But he was strangely untalkative.
"I don't know, Stubbins," said he, frowning, "I really don't know.To tell the truth, my mind is not occupied with that problemnow—at all events, not as a matter for immediate decision. Thisfield of the lunar Vegetable Kingdom is something that could take upthe attention of a hundred naturalists for a year or two. I feel wehave only scratched the surface. As we go forward into the unknownareas of the Moon's further side we are liable to make discoveriesof—well, er—who can tell? When the Moon Man and the AnimalKingdom make up their minds that they want to get in touch with us, Isuppose we shall hear from them. In the meantime we have our work todo—more than we can do.... Gracious, I wish I had a whole staffwith me!—Surveyors, cartographers, geologists and the rest. Thinkof it! Here we are, messing our way along across a new world—andwe don't even know where we are! I think I have a vague idea of theline we have followed. And I've tried to keep a sort of chart of ourmarch. But I should be making maps, Stubbins, real maps, showing allthe peaks, valleys, streams, lakes, plateaux andeverything.—Dear, dear! Well, we must do the best we can."
Of course on a globe larger than that of the Moon we could neverhave done as well as we did. When you come to think of it, one man, aboy, a monkey and a parrot, as a staff for the exploration of a wholeworld, makes the expedition sound, to say the least, absurd.
We did not realize, any of us, when we started out from our firstlanding that we were going to make a circular trip of the Moon's globe.It just worked out that way. To begin with, we were expecting everyhour that some part of the Animal Kingdom would come forward into theopen. But it didn't. And still we went on. Then this language of thetrees and flowers came up and got the Doctor going on one of hisfever-heat investigations. That carried us still further. We alwaystook great care when departing from one district for an excursion ofany length to leave landmarks behind us, camps or dumps, so that wecould find our way back to food and shelter if we should get caught ina tight place.
In this sort of feeling our way forward Polynesia was most helpful.The Doctor used to let her off regularly now to fly ahead of us andbring back reports. That gave us some sort of idea of what we shouldprepare for. Then in addition to that, the Doctor had brought with himseveral small pocket surveying instruments with which he marked on hischart roughly the points at which we changed course to any considerableextent.
In the earlier stages of our trip we had felt we must keep in touchwith the first fruit section we had met with, in order to have a supplyof vegetables and fruits to rely on for food. But we soon discoveredfrom Polynesia's scouting reports, that other wooded sections lay aheadof us. To these we sent Chee-Chee, the expert, to investigate. And whenhe returned and told us that they contained even a better diet thanthose further back, we had no hesitation in leaving her old haunts andventuring still further into the mysteries of the Moon's FurtherSide.
The Doctor's progress with the language of the trees and plantsseemed to improve with our penetration into the interior. Many times westopped and pitched camp for four or five days, while he set up somenew apparatus and struggled with fresh problems in plant language. Itseemed to grow easier and easier for him all the time. Certainly theplant life became more elaborate and lively. By this we were all grownmore accustomed to strange things in the Vegetable Kingdom. And even tomy unscientific eyes it was quite evident that here the flowers andbushes were communicating with one another with great freedom and inmany different ways.
I shall never forget our first meeting with the Vanity Lilies, asthe Doctor later came to call them. Great gaudy blooms they were, onlong slender stems that swayed and moved in groups like peoplewhispering and gossiping at a party. When we came in sight of them forthe first time, they were more or less motionless. But as weapproached, the movement among them increased as though they weredisturbed by, or interested in, our coming.
I think they were beyond all question the most beautiful flowers Ihave ever seen. The wind, regular as ever, had not changed. But theheads of these great masses of plants got so agitated as we drew near,that the Doctor decided he would halt the expedition andinvestigate,
We pitched camp as we called it—a very simple business in theMoon, because we did not have to raise tents or build a fire. It wasreally only a matter of unpacking, getting out the food to eat and thebedding to sleep in.
We were pretty weary after a full day's march. Beyond the lily beds(which lay in a sort of marsh) we could see a new jungle district withmore strange trees and flowering creepers.
After a short and silent supper, we lay down and pulled the coversover us. The music of the forest grew louder as darkness increased. Itseemed almost as though the whole vegetable world was remarking onthese visitors who had invaded their home.
And then above the music of the woods we'd hear the drone of flying,while we dropped off to sleep. Some of the giant insects were hoveringnear, as usual, to keep an eye on these creatures from anotherworld.
I think that of all our experiences with the plant life of the Moonthat with the Vanity Lilies was perhaps the most peculiar and the mostthrilling. In about two days the Doctor had made extraordinary stridesin his study of this language. That, he explained to me, was due moreto the unusual intelligence of this species and its willingness to helpthan to his own efforts. But of course if he had not already doneconsiderable work with the trees and bushes it is doubtful if thelilies could have got in touch with him as quickly as they did.
By the end of the third day Chee-Chee, Polynesia and I were allastonished to find that John Dolittle was actually able to carry onconversation with these flowers. And this with the aid of very littleapparatus. He had now discovered that the Vanity Lilies spoke amongthemselves largely by the movement of their blossoms. They useddifferent means of communication with species of plants and trees otherthan their own—and also (we heard later) in talking with birdsand insects; but among themselves the swaying of the flower-heads wasthe common method of speech.
The lilies, when seen in great banks, presented a very gorgeous andwonderful appearance. The flowers would be, I should judge, abouteighteen inches across, trumpet-shaped and brilliantly coloured. Thebackground was a soft cream tone and on this great blotches of violetand orange were grouped around a jet-black tongue in the centre. Theleaves were a deep olive green.
But it was that extraordinary look of alive intelligence that wasthe most uncanny thing about them. No one, no matter how little he knewof natural history in general or of the Moon's Vegetable Kingdom, couldsee those wonderful flowers without immediately being arrested by thispeculiar character. You felt at once that you were in the presence ofpeople rather than plants; and to talk with them, or to try to, seemedthe most natural thing in the world.
I filled up two of those numerous note books of the Doctor's on hisconversations with the Vanity Lilies. Often he came back to theseflowers later, when he wanted further information about the Moon'sVegetable Kingdom. For as he explained to us, it was in this speciesthat Plant Life—so far at all events as it was known on eitherthe Moon or the Earth—had reached its highest point ofdevelopment.
Another peculiar thing that baffled us completely, when we firstcame into the marshy regions of the Vanity Lily's home, was the varietyof scents which assailed our noses. For a mile or so around thelocality there was no other flower visible; the whole of the marshseemed to have been taken up by the lilies and nothing else intruded ontheir domain. Yet at least half a dozen perfumes were distinct andclear. At first we thought that perhaps the wind might be bringing usscents from other plants either in the jungle or the flowering heathlands. But the direction of the breeze was such that it could only comeover the sandy desert areas and was not likely to bring perfumes asstrong as this.
It was the Doctor who first hit upon the idea that possibly the lilycould give off more than one scent at will. He set to work to find outright away. And it took no more than a couple of minutes to convincehim that it could. He said he was sorry he had not got Jip with him.Jip's expert sense of smell would have been very useful here. But forordinary purposes it required nothing more delicate than an averagehuman's nose to tell that this flower, when John Dolittle hadcommunicated the idea to it, was clearly able to give out at least halfa dozen different smells as it wished.
The majority of these perfumes were extremely agreeable. But therewere one or two that nearly knocked you down. It was only after theDoctor had asked the lilies about this gift of theirs that they sentforth obnoxious ones in demonstrating all the scents that they couldgive out. Chee-Chee just fainted away at the first sample. It was likesome deadly gas. It got into your eyes and made them run. The Doctorand I only escaped suffocation by flight—carrying the body of theunconscious monkey along with us.
The Vanity Lilies, seeing what distress they had caused, immediatelythrew out the most soothing lovely scent I have ever smelled. Clearlythey were anxious to please us and cultivate our acquaintance. Indeedit turned out later from their conversation with the Doctor (which Itook down word for word) that in spite of being a stationary part ofthe Moon's landscape, they had heard of John Dolittle, the greatnaturalist, and had been watching for his arrival many days. They werein fact the first creatures in our experience of the Moon that made usfeel we were among friends.
I think I could not do better, in trying to give you an idea of theDoctor's communication with the Vegetable Kingdom of the Moon, than toset down from my diary, word for word, some parts of the conversationbetween him and the Vanity Lilies as he translated them to me fordictation at the time. Even so, there are many I am sure who will doubtthe truth of the whole idea: that a man could talk with the flowers.But with them I am not so concerned. Any one who had followed JohnDolittle through the various stages of animal, fish, and insectlanguages would not, I feel certain, find it very strange, when thegreat man did at last come in touch with plant life of unusualintelligence, that he should be able to converse with it.
On looking over my diary of those eventful days the scene of thatoccasion comes up visibly before my eyes. It was about an hour beforedusk—that is the slight dimming of the pale daylight whichproceeded a half darkness, the nearest thing to real night we ever sawon the Moon. The Doctor, as we left the camp, called back over hisshoulder to me to bring an extra note book along as he expected to makea good deal of progress to-night. I armed myself therefore with threeextra books and followed him out.
Halting about twenty paces in front of the lily beds (we had campedback several hundred yards from them after they had nearly suffocatedChee-Chee) the Doctor squatted on the ground and began swaying his headfrom side to side. Immediately the lilies began moving their heads inanswer, swinging, nodding, waving, and dipping.
"Are you ready, Stubbins?" asked John Dolittle.
"Yes, Doctor," said I, making sure my pencil point would last awhile.
"Good," said he.—"Put it down":
The Doctor—"Do you like this stationary life—Imean, living in the same place all the time, unable to move?"
The Lilies—(Several of them seemed to answer inchorus)—"Why, yes—of course. Being stationary doesn'tbother us. We hear about all that is going on."
The Doctor—"From whom, what, do you hear it?"
The Lilies—"Well, the other plants, the bees, thebirds, bring us news of what is happening."
The Doctor-"Oh, do you communicate with the bees and thebirds?"
The Lilies-"Why, certainly, of course!"
The Doctor—"Yet the bees and the birds are racesdifferent from your own."
The Lilies—"Quite true, but the bees come to us forhoney. And the birds come to sit among our leaves—especially thewarblers—and they sing and talk and tell us of what is happeningin the world. What more would you want?"
The Doctor-"Oh, quite so, quite so. I didn't mean you shouldbe discontented. But don't you ever want to move, to travel?"
The Lilies—"Good gracious, no! What's the use of allthis running about? After all, there's no place likehome—provided it's a good one. It's a pleasant life welead—and very safe. The folks who rush around are always havingaccidents, breaking legs and so forth. Those troubles can't happen tous. We sit still and watch the world go by. We chat sometimes amongourselves and then there is always the gossip of the birds and the beesto entertain us."
The Doctor—"And you really understand the language ofthe birds and bees!—You astonish me."
The Lilies—"Oh, perfectly—and of the beetles andmoths too."
It was at about this point in our first recorded conversation thatwe made the astonishing discovery that the Vanity Lilies couldsee. The light, as I have told you, was always somewhat dim onthe Moon. The Doctor, while he was talking, suddenly decided he wouldlike a smoke. He asked the lilies if they objected to the fumes oftobacco. They said they did not know because they had never had anyexperience of it. So the Doctor said he would light his pipe and ifthey did not like it he would stop.
So taking a box of matches from his pocket he struck a light. We hadnot fully realized before how soft and gentle was the light of the Moonuntil that match flared up. It is true that in testing our woods forsmoke fuel we had made much larger blazes. But then, I suppose we hadbeen more intent on the results of our experiments than on anythingelse. Now, as we noticed the lilies suddenly draw back their heads andturn aside from the flare, we saw that the extra illumination of a merematch had made a big difference to the ordinary daylight they wereaccustomed to.
When the Doctor noticed how the lilies shrank away from the glow ofthe matches he became greatly interested in this curious unexpectedeffect that the extra light had had on them.
"Why, Stubbins," he whispered, "they could not have felt the heat.We were too far away. If it is the glare that made them draw back itmust be that they have some organs so sensitive to light that quitepossiblythey can see! I must find out about this."
Thereupon he began questioning the lilies again to discover how muchthey could tell him of their sense of vision. He shot his hand out andasked them if they knew what movement he had made. Every time (thoughthey had no idea of what he was trying to find out) they told himprecisely what he had done. Then going close to one large flower hepassed his hand all round it; and the blossom turned its head and facedthe moving hand all the way round the circle.
There was no doubt in our minds whatever, when we had finished ourexperiments, that the Vanity Lilies could in their own waysee—though where the machinery called eyes was placed in theiranatomy we could not as yet discover.
The Doctor spent hours and days trying to solve this problem. But,he told me, he met with very little success. For a while he was forcedto the conclusion (since he could not find in the flowers any eyes suchas we knew) that what he had taken for a sense of vision was only someother sense, highly developed, which produced the same results asseeing.
"After all, Stubbins," said he, "just because we ourselves only havefive senses, it doesn't follow that other creatures can't have more. Ithas long been supposed that certain birds had a sixth sense. Still, theway those flowers feel light, can tell colours, movement, and form,makes it look very much as though they had found a way ofseeing—even if they haven't got eyes.... Humph! Yes, one mightquite possibly see with other things besides eyes."
Going through his baggage that night after our day's work was done,the Doctor discovered among his papers an illustrated catalogue whichhad somehow got packed by accident. John Dolittle, always a devotedgardener, had catalogues sent to him from nearly every seed merchantand nurseryman in England.
"Why, Stubbins!" he cried, turning over the pages of gorgeousannuals in high glee—"Here's a chance; if those lilies can see wecan test them with this.—Pictures of flowers in colour!"
The next day he interviewed the Vanity Lilies with the catalogue andhis work was rewarded with very good results. Taking the brightlycoloured pictures of petunias, chrysanthemums and hollyhocks, he heldthem in a good light before the faces of the lilies. Even Chee-Chee andI could see at once that this caused quite a sensation. The greattrumpet-shaped blossoms swayed downwards and forwards on their slenderstems to get a closer view of the pages. Then they turned to oneanother as though in critical conversation.
Later the Doctor interpreted to me the comments they had made and Ibooked them among the notes. They seemed most curious to knowwho these flowers were. They spoke of them (or rather of theirspecies) in a peculiarly personal way. This was one of the firstoccasions when we got some idea or glimpses of lunarVegetableSociety, as the Doctor later came to call it. It almost seemed asthough these beautiful creatures were surprised, like human ladies, atthe portraits displayed and wanted to know all about these foreignbeauties and the lives they led.
This interest in personal appearance on the part of the lilies was,as a matter of fact, what originally led the Doctor to call theirspecies the Vanity Lily. In their own strange tongue they questionedhim for hours and hours about these outlandish flowers whose pictureshe had shown them. They seemed very disappointed when he told them theactual size of most earthly flowers. But they seemed a little pleasedthat their sisters of the other world could not at least compete withthem in that. They were also much mystified when John Dolittleexplained to them that with us no flowers or plants (so far as wasknown) had communicated with Man, birds, or any other members of theAnimal Kingdom.
Questioning them further on this point of personal appearance, theDoctor was quite astonished to find to what an extent it occupied theirattention. He found that they always tried to get nearer water so thatthey could see their own reflections in the surface. They got terriblyupset if some bee or bird came along and disturbed the pollen powder ontheir gorgeous petals or set awry the angle of their pistils.
The Doctor talked to various groups and individuals; and in thecourse of his investigations he came across several plants who, whilethey had begun their peaceful lives close to a nice pool or streamwhich they could use as a mirror, had sadly watched while the water haddried up and left nothing but sun-baked clay for them to look into.
So then and there John Dolittle halted his questioning of the VanityLilies for a spell while he set to work to provide these unfortunates,whose natural mirrors had dried up, with something in which they couldsee themselves.
We had no regular looking-glasses of course, beyond the Doctor's ownshaving mirror, which he could not very well part with. But from theprovisions we dug out various caps and bottoms of preserved fruits andsardine tins. These we polished with clay and rigged up on sticks sothat the lilies could see themselves in them.
"It is a fact, Stubbins," said the Doctor, "that the naturaltendency is always to grow the way you want to grow. These flowers havea definite conscious idea of what they consider beautiful and what theyconsider ugly. These contrivances we have given them, poor though theyare, will therefore have a decided effect on their evolution."
That is one of the pictures from our adventures in the Moon whichalways stands out in my memory: the Vanity Lilies, happy in thepossession of their new mirrors, turning their heads this way and thatto see how their pollen-covered petals glowed in the soft light,swaying with the wind, comparing, whispering and gossiping.
I truly believe that if other events had not interfered, the Doctorwould have been occupied quite contentedly with his study of these veryadvanced plants for months. And there was certainly a great deal to belearned from them. They told him for instance of another species oflily that he later came to call thePoison Lily orVampireLily. This flower liked to have plenty of room and it obtained itby sending out deadly scents (much more serious in their effects thanthose unpleasant ones which the Vanities used) and nothing round aboutit could exist for long.
Following the directions given by the Vanity Lilies we finally ransome of these plants down and actually conversed with them—thoughwe were in continual fear that they would be displeased with us andmight any moment send out their poisonous gases to destroy us.
From still other plants which the Vanities directed us to the Doctorlearned a great deal about what he called "methods of propagating."Certain bushes, for example, could crowd out weeds and other shrubs byincreasing the speed of their growth at will and by spreading theirseed abroad several times a year.
In our wanderings, looking for these latter plants, we came acrossgreat fields of the "moon bells" flourishing and growing under naturalconditions. And very gorgeous indeed they looked, acres and acres ofbrilliant orange. The air was full of their invigorating perfume. TheDoctor wondered if we would see anything of our giant moth near theseparts. But though we hung about for several hours we saw very few signsof insect life.
"I don't understand it at all," John Dolittle muttered. "What reasonat least can the moth who brought us here have for keeping out of ourway?"
"His reasons may not be his own," murmured Polynesia.
"What do you mean?" asked the Doctor.
"Well," said she, "others may be keeping him—and the rest,away from us."
"You mean the Moon Man?" said John Dolittle.
But to this Polynesia made no reply and the subject was dropped.
"That isn't the thing that's bothering me so much," saidChee-Chee.
There was a pause. And before he went on I know that all of us werequite sure what was in his mind.
"It's our getting back home," he said at last. "Getting here wasdone for us by these moon folks—for whatever reason they had. Butwe'd stand a mighty poor chance of ever reaching the Earth again ifthey're going to stand off and leave us to ourselves to get back."
Another short spell of silence—during which we all did alittle serious and gloomy thinking.
"Oh, well," said the Doctor, "come, come! Don't let's bother aboutthe stiles till we reach them. After all we don't know for certain thatthese—er—whoever it is—are definitely unfriendly tous. They may have reasons of their own for working slowly. You mustremember that we are just as strange and outlandish to them as they andtheir whole world are to us. We mustn't let any idea of that kindbecome a nightmare. We have only been here, let's see, not much overtwo weeks. It is a pleasant land and there is lots to be learned. TheVegetable Kingdom is clearly well disposed towards us. And if we givethem time I'm sure that the—er—others will be too, in theend."
Another matter which came up about this time was the effect of moonfood on ourselves. Polynesia was the first to remark upon it.
"Tommy," said she one day, "you seem to be getting enormouslytall—and fat, aren't you?"
"Er—am I?" said I. "Well, Ihad noticed my belt seemeda bit tight. But I thought it was just ordinary growing."
"And the Doctor too," the parrot went on. "I'll swear he'sbigger—unless my eyesight is getting queer."
"Well, we can soon prove that," said John Dolittle. "I know myheight exactly—five feet two and a half. I have a two-foot rulein the baggage. I'll measure myself against a tree right away."
When the Doctor had accomplished this he was astonished to find thathis height had increased some three inches since he had been on theMoon. Of what my own had been before I landed, I was not so sure; butmeasurement made it too a good deal more than I had thought it. And asto my waist line, there was no doubt that it had grown enormously. EvenChee-Chee, when we came to look at him, seemed larger and heavier.Polynesia was of course so small that it would need an enormousincrease in her figure to make difference enough to see.
But there was no question at all that the rest of us had grownconsiderably since we had been here.
"Well," said the Doctor, "I suppose it is reasonable enough. All thevegetable and insect world here is tremendously much larger thancorresponding species in our own world. Whatever helped them togrow—climate, food, atmosphere, air-pressure, etc.—shouldmake us do the same. There is a great deal in this for theinvestigation of biologists and physiologists. I suppose the longseasons—or almost no seasons at all, you might say—and theother things which contribute to the long life of the animal andvegetable species would lengthen our lives to hundreds of years, if welived here continually. You know when I was talking to the VampireLilies the other day they told me that even cut flowers—whichwith them would mean of course only blossoms that were broken off bythe wind or accident—live perfectly fresh for weeks and evenmonths—provided they get a little moisture. That accounts for themoon bells which the moth brought down with him lasting so well inPuddleby. No, we've got to regard this climate as something entirelydifferent from the Earth's. There is no end to the surprises it mayspring on us yet. Oh, well, I suppose we will shrink back to ourordinary size when we return home. Still I hope we don't grow toogigantic. My waistcoat feels most uncomfortably tight already. It'sfunny we didn't notice it earlier. But, goodness knows, we have hadenough to keep our attention occupied."
It had been indeed this absorbing interest in all the new thingsthat the Moon presented to our eyes that had prevented us from noticingour own changed condition. The following few days, however, our growthwent forward at such an amazing pace that I began seriously to worryabout it. My clothes were literally splitting and the Doctor's also.Finally, taking counsel on the matter, we proceeded to look into whatmeans this world offered of making new ones.
Luckily the Doctor, while he knew nothing about tailoring, did knowsomething about the natural history of those plants and materials thatsupply clothes and textile fabrics for Man.
"Let me see," said he one afternoon when we had decided that almosteverything we wore had become too small to be kept any longer: "Cottonis out of the question. The spinning would take too long, even if wehad any, to say nothing of the weaving. Linen? No, likewise.—Ihaven't seen anything that looked like a flax plant. About all thatremains is root fibre, though heaven help us if we have to wear thatkind of material next our skins! Well, we must investigate and see whatwe can find."
With the aid of Chee-Chee we searched the woods. It took us severaldays to discover anything suitable, but finally we did. It was anodd-looking swamp tree whose leaves were wide and soft. We found thatwhen these were dried in the proper way they kept a certain pliabilitywithout becoming stiff or brittle. And yet they were tough enough to besewn without tearing. Chee-Chee and Polynesia supplied us with thethread we needed. This they obtained from certain vinetendrils—very fine—which they shredded and twisted intoyarn. Then one evening we set to work and cut out our new suits.
"Better make them large enough," said the Doctor, waving a pair ofscissors over our rock work-table, "Goodness only knows how soon we'lloutgrow them."
We had a lot of fun at one another's expense when at length thesuits were completed and we tried them on.
"We look like a family of Robinson Crusoes," said John Dolittle. "Nomatter: they will serve our purpose. Any port in a storm."
For underwear we cut up all we had and made one garment out of twoor three. We were afraid as yet to try our new tailoring next the skin.Luckily we only had to provide for a very mild climate.
"Now what about footwear?" said I when I had my coat and trouserson. "My shoes are all split across the top."
"That part is easy," said Chee-Chee. "I know a tree in the junglewhich I found when hunting for fruits. The bark strips off easily andyou can cut it into sandals that will last quite a while. The only hardpart will be plaiting thongs strong enough to keep them in place onyour feet."
He guided us to the tree he had spoken of and we soon had outfittedourselves with footgear which would last us at least a week.
"Good!" said the Doctor. "Now we need not worry about clothes for awhile anyway, and can give our attention to more serious matters."
It was when we were on our way to visit still another new kind ofplant that the subject of the Moon's early history came up again inconversation. The Doctor had heard of a "whispering vine" which used,as a method of conversation, the rattling or whispering of itsleaves.
"Do you remember, Chee-Chee," the Doctor asked, "if your grandmotherever spoke, in her stories of very ancient times, of any peculiar orextraordinary plants or trees?"
"I don't think so, Doctor," he replied. "My grandmother in her talksof the Time Before There Was a Moon kept pretty much to animals andpeople. She hardly ever mentioned the trees or vegetable world, exceptto say of this country or that, that it was heavily wooded, or bare anddesert. Why?"
"Well, of course in my mind there is no doubt that the Moon was oncea part of the Earth, as many scientists believe. And if so I amwondering why we do not see more plants and trees of our own home kindshere."
"Well, but we have, Doctor," said Polynesia. "How about theAsparagus Forests?"
"Quite so," said the Doctor. "There have been many that reminded oneof earthly species in their shapes, even if they have grown into giantshere. But this speech among plants and trees—and other evidencesof social advance and development in the Vegetable Kingdom—issomething so established and accepted here I am all the time wonderingif something like it had not started on the Earth long ago—say inthe Days Before There Was a Moon. And it was merely because ournaturalists were not quick enough to—er—catch on to it,that we supposed there was no means of communication among flowers andtrees."
"Let me think," said Chee-Chee, and he held his forehead tightlywith both hands.
"No," he said after a while, "I don't recall my grandmother'sspeaking of things like that at all. I remember in her story of OthoBludge, the prehistoric artist, that she told us about certain woods heused to make handles for his flint chisels and other tools andhousehold implements. She described the wood, for instance, that heused to make bowls out of for carrying water in. But she never spoke oftrees and plants that could talk."
It was about midday and we had halted for lunch on our excursion insearch of the Whispering Vines we had been told of. We were not morethan two or three hours' walk from our old base camp. But that, withthe speed so easy in moon marching, means a much greater distance thanit does on the Earth. From this camp where the Doctor had set up hisapparatus for his special botanical studies, we had now for nearly aweek been making daily expeditions in search of the various new speciesthat the Vanity Lilies had described for us. But we always got backbefore nightfall. Well, this noon the Doctor was leaning back, munchinga large piece of yellow yam—a vegetable we got from the edges ofthe jungle and which we had found so nourishing we had made it almostour chief article of diet.
"Tell me, Chee-Chee," said he: "what was the end of that story aboutOtho Bludge the prehistoric artist? It was a most fascinatingtale."
"Well, I think I have told you," said Chee-Chee, "pretty nearly allthere was to tell. In the Days Before There Was a Moon, as Grandmotheralways began, Otho Bludge was a man alone, a man apart. Making pictureson horn and bone with a stone knife, that was his hobby. His greatambition was to make a picture of Man. But there was no one to drawfrom, for Otho Bludge was a man alone. One day, when he wished aloudfor some one to make a picture from, he saw this beautifulgirl—Pippiteepa was her name—kneeling on a rock waiting forhim to make a portrait of her. He made it—the best work he everdid, carved into the flat of a reindeer's antler. About her right ankleshe wore a string of blue stone beads. When the picture was finishedshe started to disappear again into the mountains' evening mist, asmysteriously as she had come. Otho called to her to stay. She was theonly human being he had ever seen besides his own image in the pools.He wanted her company, poor Otho Bludge, the carver of horn, the manapart. But even as she passed into the twilight for ever she cried outto him that she could not stay—for she was of the Fairy Folk andnot of his kin. He rushed to the rock where she had knelt; but all hefound was the string of blue stone beads which she had worn about herankle. Otho, broken-hearted, took them and bound them on his own wristwhere he wore them night and day, hoping always that she would comeback.
"There is nothing more. We youngsters used to pester my grandmotherfor a continuance of the tale. It seemed so sad, so unsatisfying, anending. But the old lady insisted that thatwas the end. Notlong after apparently Otho Bludge, the carver of horn and the manapart, just disappeared, completely, as though the Earth had swallowedhim up."
"Humph!" muttered the Doctor. "Have you any idea when?"
"No," said the monkey. "You see, even my grandmother's ideas of timeand place in these stories she told us were very hazy. She had only hadthem handed down to her by her parents and grandparents, just as shepassed them on to us. But I am pretty sure it was around the time ofthe Great Flood. Grandmother used to divide her stories into twoperiods: those belonging to the Days Before There Was a Moon and thosethat happened after. The name of Otho Bludge the artist only came intothose before."
"I see," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "But tell me: can you recallanything your grandmother said about the time of the change—Imean, when the one period left off and the other began?"
"Not a very great deal," said Chee-Chee. "It was the same when wequestioned her about the Flood. That that event had taken place, therewas no doubt; but, except for a few details, very little seemed to havebeen handed down as to how it came about, or of what was going on onthe Earth at the time, or immediately after it. I imagine they wereboth great catastrophes—perhaps both came together—and suchconfusion fell upon all creatures that they were far too busy to takenotes, and too scattered afterwards to keep a very clear picture intheir minds. But I do remember that my grandmother said the first nightwhen the Moon appeared in the sky some of our monkey ancestors saw agroup of men kneeling on a mountain-top worshipping it. They had alwaysbeen sun-worshippers and were now offering up prayers to the Moon also,saying it must be the Sun's Wife,"
"But," asked the Doctor, "did not Man know that the Moon must haveflown off from the Earth?"
"That is not very clear," said Chee-Chee. "We often questioned mygrandmother on this point. But there were certainly some awful big gapsin her information. It was like a history put together from odd bitsthat had been seen from different sides of the Earth and filled in bygossip and hearsay generations after. It seems that to begin with theconfusion was terrible. Darkness covered the Earth, the noise of aterrible explosion followed and there was great loss of life. Then thesea rushed into the hole that had been made, causing more havoc anddestruction still. Man and beast slunk into caves for shelter or ranwild across the mountains, or just lay down and covered their eyes toshut out the dreadful vision. From what Monkey History has to relate,none lived who had actually seen the thing take place. But that I havealways doubted. And much later there was a regular war among mankindwhen human society had pulled itself together again sufficiently to getback to something like the old order."
"What was the war about?" asked the Doctor.
"Well, by that time," said Chee-Chee, "Man had multipliedconsiderably and there were big cities everywhere. The war was over thequestion: Was the Moon a goddess, or was she not? The oldsun-worshippers said she was the wife or daughter of the Sun and wastherefore entitled to adoration. Those who said the Moon had flown offfrom the flanks of the Earth had given up worshipping the Sun. Theyheld that if the Earth had the power to shoot off another world likethat, thatit should be adored, as the Mother Earth from whichwe got everything, and not the Sun. They said it showed the Earth wasthe centre of all things, since the Sun had never shot off children.Then there were others who said that the Sun and the new Earth shouldbe adored as gods—and yet others that wanted all three, Sun andEarth and Moon, to form a great triangle of Almighty Power. The war wasa terrible one, men killing one another in thousands—greatly tothe astonishment of the Monkey People. For to us it did not seem thatany of the various parties reallyknew anything for certainabout the whole business."
"Dear, dear," the Doctor muttered as Chee-Chee ended. "The firstreligious strife-the first of so many. What a pity!—Just asthough it mattered to any one what his neighbour believed so long as hehimself led a sincere and useful life and was happy!"
This expedition on the trail of the Whispering Vines proved to beone of the most fruitful and satisfactory of all our excursions.
When we finally arrived at the home of this species, we found it avery beautiful place. It was a rocky gulch hard by the jungle, where adense curtain of creepers hung down into a sort of pocket precipicewith a spring-fed pool at the bottom. In such a place you could imaginefairies dancing in the dusk, wild beasts of the forest sheltering, oroutlaws making their headquarters.
With a squawk Polynesia flew up and settled in the hanging tendrilsthat draped the rock wall. Instantly we saw a general wave of movementgo through the vines and a whispering noise broke out which could beplainly heard by any ears. Evidently the vines were somewhat disturbedat this invasion by a bird they did not know. Polynesia, a little upsetherself, flew back to us at once.
"Shiver my timbers!" said she in a disgruntled mutter. "This countrywould give a body the creeps. Those vines actually moved and squirmedlike snakes when I took a hold of them."
"They are not used to you, Polynesia," laughed the Doctor. "Youprobably scared them to death. Let us see if we can get intoconversation with them."
Here the Doctor's experience with the Singing Trees came in veryhelpfully. I noticed as I watched him go to work with what smallapparatus he had brought with him that he now seemed much surer of howto begin. And it was indeed a surprisingly short time before he wasactually in conversation with them, as though he had almost beentalking with them all his life.
Presently he turned to me and spoke almost the thought that was inmy mind.
"Stubbins," he said, "the ease with which these plants answer mewould almost make me thinkthey have spoken with a man before!Look, I can actually make responses with the lips, like ordinary humanspeech."
He dropped the little contrivance he held in his hands and hissingsoftly through his teeth he gave out a sort of whispered cadence. Itwas a curious combination between some one humming a tune and hissing aconversational sentence.
Usually it had taken John Dolittle some hours, occasionally somedays, to establish a communication with these strange almost human moontrees good enough to exchange ideas with them. But both Chee-Chee and Igrunted with astonishment at the way they instantly responded to hiswhispered speech. Swinging their leafy tendrils around to meet thebreeze at a certain angle, they instantly gave back a humming, hissingmessage that might have been a repetition of that made by the Doctorhimself.
"They say they are glad to see us, Stubbins," he jerked out over hisshoulder.
"Why, Doctor," I said, "this is marvellous! You got results rightaway. I never saw anything like it."
"They have spoken with a man before," he repeated. "Not a doubt ofit. I can tell by the way they—Good gracious, what's this?"
He turned and found Chee-Chee tugging at his left sleeve. I havenever seen the poor monkey so overcome with fright. He stuttered andjibbered but no intelligible sounds came through his chatteringteeth.
"Why, Chee-Chee!" said the Doctor. "What is it?—What'swrong?"
"Look!"—was all he finally managed to gulp.
He pointed down to the margin of the pond lying at the foot of thecliff. We had scaled up to a shelf of rock to get nearer to the vinesfor convenience. Where the monkey now pointed there was clearly visiblein the yellow sand of the pool's beach two enormous footprints such aswe had seen by the shores of the lake.
"The Moon Man!" the Doctor whispered.—"Well, I was sureof it—that these vines had spoken with a man before. Iwonder—"
"Sh!" Polynesia interrupted. "Don't let them see you looking. Butwhen you get a chance glance up towards the left-hand shoulder of thegulch."
Both the Doctor and I behaved as though we were proceeding with ourbusiness of conversing with the vines. Then pretending I was scratchingmy ear I looked up in the direction the parrot had indicated. There Isaw several birds. They were trying to keep themselves hidden among theleaves. But there was no doubt that they were there on the watch.
As we turned back to our work an enormous shadow passed over us,shutting off the light of the sun. We looked up, fearing as any onewould, some attack or danger from the air. Slowly a giant moth of thesame kind that had brought us to this mysterious world sailed acrossthe heavens and disappeared.
A general silence fell over us all that must have lasted a goodthree minutes.
"Well," said the Doctor at length, "if this means that the AnimalKingdom has decided finally to make our acquaintance, so much thebetter. Those are the first birds we have seen—and that was thefirst insect—since our moth left us. Curious, to find the birdlife so much smaller than the insect. However, I suppose they will letus know more when they are ready. Meantime we have plenty to do here.Have you a note book, Stubbins?"
"Yes, Doctor," said I. "I'm quite prepared whenever you are."
Thereupon the Doctor proceeded with his conversation with theWhispering Vines and fired off questions and answers so fast that I waskept more than busy booking what he said.
It was indeed, as I have told you, by far the most satisfactoryinquiry we had made into the life of the Moon, animal or vegetable, upto that time. Because while these vines had not the almost humanappearance of the Vanity Lilies, they did seem to be in far closertouch with the general life of the Moon. The Doctor asked them aboutthis warfare which we had heard of from the last plants we hadvisited—the struggle that occurred when one species of plantwished for more room and had to push away its intruding neighbours. Andit was then for the first time we heard about the Council.
"Oh," said they, "you mustn't get the idea that one species of plantis allowed to make war for its own benefit regardless of the lives orrights of others. Oh, dear, no! We folk of the Moon have long since gotpast that. There was a day when we had constant strife, species againstspecies, plants against plants, birds against insects, and so on. Butnot any more."
"Well, how do you manage?" asked the Doctor, "when two differentspecies want the same thing?"
"It's all arranged by the Council," said the vines.
"Er—excuse me," said the Doctor. "I don't quite understand.What council?"
"Well, you see," said the vines, "some hundreds of yearsago—that is, of course, well within the memory of most of us,we—"
"Excuse me again," the Doctor interrupted. "Do you mean that most ofthe plants and insects and birds here have been living severalcenturies already?"
"Why, certainly," said the Whispering Vines. "Some, of course, areolder than others. But here on the Moon we consider a plant or a birdor a moth quite young if he has seen no more than two hundred years.And there are several trees, and a few members of the Animal Kingdomtoo, whose memories go back to over a thousand years."
"You don't say!" murmured the Doctor. "I realized, of course, thatyour lives were much longer than ours on the Earth. But I had no ideayou went as far back as that. Goodness me!—Well, please goon."
"In the old days, then, before we instituted the Council," the vinescontinued, "there was a terrible lot of waste and slaughter. They tellof one time when a species of big lizard overran the whole Moon. Theygrew so enormous that they ate up almost all the green stuff there was.No tree or bush or plant got a chance to bring itself to seeding-timebecause as soon as it put out a leaf it was gobbled up by those hungrybrutes. Then the rest of us got together to see what we could do."
"Er—pardon," said the Doctor. "But how do you mean, gottogether? You plants could not move, could you?"
"Oh, no," said the vines. "We couldn't move, But we couldcommunicate with the rest—take part in conferences, as it were,by means of messengers—birds and insects, you know."
"How long ago was that?" asked the Doctor.—"I mean, for howlong has the animal and vegetable world here been able to communicatewith one another?"
"Precisely," said the vines, "we can't tell you. Of course, somesort of communication goes back a perfectly enormous long way, somehundreds of thousands of years. But it was not always as good as it isnow. It has been improving all the time. Nowadays it would beimpossible for anything of any importance at all to happen in ourcorner of the Moon without its being passed along through plants andtrees and insects and birds to every other corner of our globe within afew moments. For instance, we have known almost every movement you andyour party have made since you landed in our world."
"Dear me!" muttered the Doctor. "I had no idea. However, pleaseproceed."
"Of course," they went on, "it was not always so. But after theinstitution of the Council communication and co-operation became muchbetter and continued to grow until it reached its present stage."
The Whispering Vines then went on to tell the Doctor in greaterdetail of that institution which they had vaguely spoken of already,"The Council." This was apparently a committee or general governmentmade up of members from both the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms. Itsmain purpose was to regulate life on the Moon in such a way that thereshould be no more warfare. For example, if a certain kind of shrubwanted more room for expansion, and the territory it wished to takeover was already occupied by, we'll say, bullrushes, it was not allowedto thrust out its neighbour without first submitting the case to theCouncil. Or if a certain kind of butterfly wished to feed upon thehoney of some flower and was interfered with by a species of bee orbeetle, again the argument had to be put to the vote of thisall-powerful committee before any action could be taken.
This information explained a great deal which had heretofore puzzledus.
"You see, Stubbins," said the Doctor, "the great size of almost alllife here, the development of intelligence in plant forms, and muchmore besides, could not possibly have come about if this regulation hadnot been in force. Our world could learn a lot from the Moon,Stubbins—the Moon, its own child whom it presumes to despise! Wehave no balancing or real protection of life. With us it is, and hasalways been, 'dog eat dog.'"
The Doctor shook his head and gazed off into space to where theglobe of our mother Earth glowed dimly. Just so had I often seen theMoon from Puddleby by daylight.
"Yes," he repeated, his manner becoming of a sudden deeply serious,"our world that thinks itself so far advanced has not the wisdom, theforesight, Stubbins, which we have seen here. Fighting, gighting,fighting, always fighting!—So it goes on down there with us....The 'survival of the fittest'! ... I've spent my whole life trying tohelp the animal, the so-called lower, forms of life. I don't mean I amcomplaining. Far from it. I've had a very good time getting in touchwith the beasts and winning their friendship. If I had my life overagain I'd do just the same thing. But often, so often, I have felt thatin the end it was bound to be a losing game. It is this thing here,this Council of Life—of life adjustment—that could havesaved the day and brought happiness to all."
"Yes, Doctor," said I, "but listen: compared with our world, theyhave no animal life here at all, so far as we've seen. Only insets andbirds. They've no lions or tigers who have to hunt for deer and wildgoats to get a living, have they?"
"True, Stubbins—probably true," said he. "But don't forgetthat that same warfare of species against species goes on in the InsectKingdom as well as among the larger carnivora. In another million yearsfrom now some scientist may show that the war going on between Man andthe House Fly to-day is the most important thing in currenthistory.—And besides, who shall say what kind of a creature thetiger was before he took to a diet of meat?"
John Dolittle then turned back to the vines and asked some furtherquestions. These were mostly about the Council; how it worked; of whatit was composed; how often it met, etc. And the answers that they gavefilled out a picture which we had already half guessed and half seen ofLife on the Moon.
When I come to describe it I find myself wishing that I were a greatpoet, or at all events a great writer. For this moon-world was indeed aland of wondrous rest. Trees that sang; flowers that could see;butterflies and bees that conversed with one another and with theplants on which they fed, watched over by a parent council that guardedthe interests of great and small, strong and weak, alike—thewhole community presented a world of peace, goodwill and happinesswhich no words of mine could convey a fair idea of.
"One thing I don't quite understand," said the Doctor to the vines,"is how you manage about seeding. Don't some of the plants throw downtoo much seed and bring forth a larger crop than is desirable?"
"That," said the Whispering Vines, "is taken care of by the birds.They have orders to eat up all the seed except a certain quantity foreach species of plant."
"Humph!" said the Doctor. "I hope I have not upset things for theCouncil. I did a little experimental planting myself when I firstarrived here. I had brought several kinds of seed with me from theEarth and I wanted to see how they would do in this climate. So far,however, the seeds have not come up at all."
The vines swayed slightly with a rustling sound that might easilyhave been a titter of amusement.
"You have forgotten, Doctor," said they, "that news travels fast inthe Moon. Your gardening experiments were seen and immediately reportedto the Council. And after you had gone back to your camp every singleseed that you had planted was carefully dug up by long-billed birds anddestroyed. The Council is awfully particular about seeds. It has to be.If we got overrun by any plant, weed or shrub, all of our peacefulbalance would be upset and goodness knows what might happen. Why, thePresident—"
The particular vines which were doing the talking were three largeones that hung close by the Doctor's shoulder. In a very sudden andcurious manner they had broken off in the middle of what they weresaying like a person who had let something slip out in conversationwhich had been better left unsaid. Instantly a tremendous excitementwas visible throughout all the creepers that hung around the gulch. Younever saw such swaying, writhing, twisting and agitation. With squawksof alarm a number of brightly coloured birds fluttered out of thecurtain of leaves and flew away over the rocky shoulders above ourheads.
"What's the matter?—What has happened, Doctor?" I asked asstill more birds left the concealment of the creepers and disappearedin the distance.
"I've no idea, Stubbins," said he. "Some one has said a little toomuch, I fancy. Tell me," he asked, turning to the vines again: "Who isthe President?"
"The president of the Council," they replied after a pause.
"Yes, that I understand," said the Doctor. "But what, who, ishe?"
For a little there was no answer, while the excitement and agitationbroke out with renewed confusion among the long tendrils that drapedthe rocky alcove. Evidently some warnings and remarks were beingexchanged which we were not to understand.
At last the original vines which had acted as spokesmen in theconversation addressed John Dolittle again.
"We are sorry," they said, "but we have our orders. Certain thingswe have been forbidden to tell you."
"Who forbade you?" asked the Doctor.
But from then on not a single word would they answer. The Doctormade several attempts to get them talking again but without success.Finally we were compelled to give it up and return to camp—whichwe reached very late.
"I think," said Polynesia, as the Doctor, Chee-Chee and I set aboutpreparing the vegetarian supper, "that we sort of upset Society in theMoon this afternoon. Gracious, I never saw such a land in mylife!—And I've seen a few. I suppose that by now every bumble beeand weed on the whole globe is talking about the Whispering Vines andthe slip they made in mentioning the President.President!Shiver my timbers! You'd think he were St. Peter himself! What are theymaking such a mystery about, I'd like to know?"
"We'll probably learn pretty soon now," said the Doctor, cuttinginto a huge melon-like fruit. "I have a feeling that they won't thinkit worth while to hold aloof from us much longer.—I hope notanyway."
"Me too," said Chee-Chee. "Frankly, this secrecy is beginning to getunder my skin. I'd like to feel assured that we are going to be given apassage back to Puddleby. For a while, anyway, I've had enough ofadventure."
"Oh, well, don't worry," said the Doctor. "I still feel convincedthat we'll be taken care of. Whoever it was that got us up here did sowith some good intention. When I have done what it is that's wanted ofme, arrangements will be made for putting us back on the Earth, neverfear."
"Humph!" grunted Polynesia, who was cracking nuts on a limb aboveour heads. "I hope you're right. I'm none too sure, myself—No,none too sure."
That night was, I think, the most disturbed one that we spent in thewhole course of our stay on the Moon. Not one of us slept soundly orcontinuously. For one thing, our growth had proceeded at an alarmingand prodigious rate; and what bedding we had (we slept in that mildclimate with the blankets under us instead of over us) had becomeabsurdly short and insufficient for our new figures. Knees and elbowsspilled over the sides and got dreadfully sore on the hard earth. Butbesides that discomfort, we were again conscious throughout the wholenight of mysterious noises and presences. Every one of us seemed to beuneasy in his mind. I remember waking up one time and hearing theDoctor, Chee-Chee and Polynesia all talking in their sleep at the sametime.
Hollow-eyed and unrested we finally, at daybreak, crawled out of ourvarious roosts and turned silently to the business of gettingbreakfast. That veteran campaigner Polynesia was the first to pullherself together. She came back from examining the ground about thecamp with a very serious look on her old face.
"Well," said she, "if there's any one in the Moon whohasn'tbeen messing round our bunks while we slept I'd like to know who itis."
"Why?" asked the Doctor. "Anything unusual?"
"Come and see," said the parrot, and led the way out into theclearing that surrounded our bunks and baggage.
Well, we were accustomed to finding tracks around our home, but thiswhich Polynesia showed us was certainly something quite out of theordinary. For a belt of a hundred yards or more about our headquartersthe earth and sand and mud was a mass of footprints. Strange insecttracks, the marks of enormous birds, and—most evident ofall—numberless prints of that gigantic human foot which we hadseen before.
"Tut, tut!" said the Doctor peevishly. "They don't do us any harmanyway. What does it matter if they come and look at us in our sleep?I'm not greatly interested, Polynesia. Let us take breakfast. A fewextra tracks don't make much difference."
We sat down and started the meal.
But John Dolittle's prophecy that the Animal Kingdom would not delaymuch longer in getting in touch with us was surprisingly and suddenlyfulfilled. I had a piece of yam smeared with honey half-way to my mouthwhen I became conscious of an enormous shadow soaring over me. I lookedup and there was the giant moth who had brought us from Puddleby; Icould hardly believe my eyes. With a graceful sweep of his giganticwings he settled down beside me—a battleship beside amouse—as though such exact and accurate landings were no morethan a part of the ordinary day's work.
We had no time to remark on the moth's arrival before two or threemore of the same kind suddenly swept up from nowhere, fanned the dustall over us with their giant wings and settled down beside theirbrother.
Next, various birds appeared. Some species among these we hadalready seen in the vines. But there were many we had not: enormousstorks, geese, swans and several others. Half of them seemed littlebigger than their own kind on the Earth. But others were unbelievablylarge and were coloured and shaped somewhat differently—thoughyou could nearly always tell to what family they belonged.
Again more than one of us opened his mouth to say something and thenclosed it as some new and stranger arrival made its appearance andjoined the gathering. The bees were the next. I remembered then seeingdifferent kinds on the Earth, though I had never made a study of them.Here they all came trooping, magnified into great terrible-lookingmonsters out of a dream: the big black bumble bee, the little yellowbumble bee, the common honey bee, the bright green, fast-flying,slender bee. And with them came all their cousins and relatives, thoughthere never seemed to be more than two or three specimens of eachkind.
I could see that poor Chee-Chee was simply scared out of his wits.And little wonder! Insects of this size gathering silently about onewere surely enough to appal the stoutest heart. Yet to me they were notentirely terrible. Perhaps I was merely taking my cue from the Doctorwho was clearly more interested than alarmed. But besides that, themanner of the creatures did not appear unfriendly. Serious and orderly,they seemed to be gathering according to a set plan; and I felt surethat very soon something was going to happen which would explain itall.
And sure enough, a few moments later, when the ground about our campwas literally one solid mass of giant insects and birds, we heard atread. Usually a footfall in the open air makes little or no sound atall—though it must not be forgotten that we had found that soundof any kind travelled much more readily on the Moon than on the Earth.But this was something quite peculiar. Actually it shook the groundunder us in a way that might have meant an earthquake. Yet somehow oneknew it was a tread.
Chee-Chee ran to the Doctor and hid under his coat. Polynesia nevermoved, just sat there on her tree-branch, looking rather peeved andimpatient but evidently interested. I followed the direction of hergaze with my own eyes, for I knew that her instinct was always a goodguide. I found that she was watching the woods that surrounded theclearing where we had established our camp. Her beady little eyes werefixed immovably on a V-shaped cleft in the horizon of trees away to myleft.
It is curious how in those important moments I always seemed to keepan eye on old Polynesia. I don't mean to say that I did not follow theDoctor and stand ready to take his orders. But whenever anythingunusual or puzzling like this came up, especially a case where animalswere concerned, it was my impulse to keep an eye on the old parrot tosee how she was taking it.
Now I saw her cocking her head on one side—in a quitecharacteristic pose—looking upward towards the cleft in theforest wall. She was muttering something beneath her breath (probablyin Swedish, her favourite swearing language), but I could not make outmore than a low peevish murmur. Presently, watching with her, I thoughtI saw the trees sway. Then something large and round seemed to come inview above them in the cleft.
It was now growing dusk. It had taken, we suddenly realized, a wholeday for the creatures to gather; and in our absorbed interest we hadnot missed our meals. One could not be certain of his vision, I noticedthe Doctor suddenly half rise, spilling poor old Chee-Chee out upon theground. The big round thing above the tree-tops grew bigger and higher;it swayed gently as it came forward and with it the forest swayed also,as grass moves when a cat stalks through it.
Any minute I was expecting the Doctor to say something. The creatureapproaching, whatever—whoever—it was, must clearly be somonstrous that everything we had met with on the Moon so far woulddwindle into insignificance in comparison.
And still old Polynesia sat motionless on her limb muttering andspluttering like a fire-cracker on a damp night.
Very soon we could hear other sounds from the oncoming creaturebesides his earth-shaking footfall. Giant trees snapped and crackledbeneath his tread like twigs under a mortal's foot. I confess that anominous terror clutched at my heart too now. I could sympathize withpoor Chee-Chee's timidity. Oddly enough though at this, the mostterrifying moment in all our experience on the Moon, the monkey did nottry to conceal himself. He was standing beside the Doctor fascinatedlywatching the great shadow towering above the trees.
Onward, nearer, came the lumbering figure. Soon there was nomistaking its shape. It had cleared the woods now. The gathered insectsand waiting birds were making way for it. Suddenly we realized that itwas towering over us, quite near, its long arms hanging at its sides.It was human.
We had seen the Moon Man at last!
"Well, for pity's sake!" squawked Polynesia, breaking the awedsilence. "You may be a frightfully important person here. But mygoodness! It has taken you an awfully long time to come and call onus!"
Serious as the occasion was in all conscience, Polynesia's remarks,continued in an uninterrupted stream of annoyed criticism, finally gaveme the giggles. And after I once got started I couldn't have kept astraight face if I had been promised a fortune.
The dusk had now settled down over the strange assembly. Starlightglowed weirdly in the eyes of the moths and birds that stood about us,like a lamp's flame reflected in the eyes of a cat. As I made anothereffort to stifle my silly titters I saw John Dolittle, the size of hisfigure looking perfectly absurd in comparison with the Moon Man's, riseto meet the giant who had come to visit us.
"I am glad to meet you—at last," said he in dignifiedwell-bred English. A curious grunt of incomprehension was all that methis civility.
Then seeing that the Moon Man evidently did not follow his language,John Dolittle set to work to find some tongue that would beunderstandable to him. I suppose there never was, and probably neverwill be, any one who had the command of languages that the Doctor had.One by one he ran through most of the earthly human tongues that areused to-day or have been preserved from the past. None of them had theslightest effect upon the Moon Man. Turning to animal languageshowever, the Doctor met with slightly better results. A word here andthere seemed to be understood.
But it was when John Dolittle fell back on the languages of theInsect and Vegetable Kingdoms that the Moon Man at last began to wakeup and show interest. With fixed gaze Chee-Chee, Polynesia and Iwatched the two figures as they wrestled with the problems of commonspeech. Minute after minute went by, hour after hour. Finally theDoctor made a signal to me behind his back and I knew that now he wasreally ready. I picked up my note book and pencil from the ground.
As I laid back a page in preparation for dictation there came astrange cry from Chee-Chee.
"Look!—The right wrist!—Look!"
We peered through the twilight.... Yes, therewas somethingaround the giant's wrist, but so tight that it was almost buried in theflesh. The Doctor touched it gently. But before he could say anythingChee-Chee's voice broke out again, his words cutting the stillness in acurious, hoarse, sharp whisper.
"The blue stone beads!—Don't you see them?... Theydon't fit him any more since he's grown a giant. But he's Otho Bludgethe artist. That's the bracelet he got from Pippiteepa the grandmotherof the Fairies!:—It is he, Doctor, Otho Bludge, who was blown offthe Earth in theDays Before There Was a Moon!"
"All right, Chee-Chee, all right," said the Doctor hurriedly. "Waitnow. We'll see what we can find out. Don't get excited."
In spite of the Doctor's reassuring words, I could see that hehimself was by this time quite a little agitated. And for that no onecould blame him. After weeks in this weird world where naught butextraordinary things came up day after day we had been constantlywondering when we'd see the strange Human whose traces and influencewere everywhere so evident. Now at last he had appeared.
I gazed up at the gigantic figure rearing away into the skies aboveour heads. With one of his feet he could easily have crushed the lot ofus like so many cockroaches. Yet he, with the rest of the gathering,seemed not unfriendly to us, if a bit puzzled by our size. As for JohnDolittle, he may have been a little upset by Chee-Chee's announcement,but he certainly wasn't scared. He at once set to work to get intotouch with this strange creature who had called on us. And, as wasusual with his experiments of this kind, the other side seemed morethan willing to help.
The giant wore very little clothes. A garment somewhat similar toour own, made from the flexible bark and leaves we had discovered inthe forest, covered his middle from the arm-pits down to the lowerthighs. His hair was long and shaggy, falling almost to his shoulders.The Doctor measured up to a line somewhere near his ankle-bone.Apparently realizing that it was difficult for John Dolittle to talkwith him at that range, the giant made a movement with his hand and atonce the insects nearest to us rose and crawled away. In the space thuscleared the man-monster sat down to converse with his visitors from theEarth.
It was curious that after this I too no longer feared the enormouscreature who looked like something from a fairy-tale or a nightmare.Stretching down a tremendous hand, he lifted the Doctor, as though hehad been a doll, and set him upon his bare knee. From thisheight—at least thirty feet above my head—John Dolittleclambered still further up the giant's frame till he stood upon hisshoulder.
Here he apparently had much greater success in making himselfunderstood than he had had lower down. By standing on tip-toe he couldjust reach the Moon Man's ear. Presently descending to the knee again,he began calling to me.
"Stubbins—I say, Stubbins! Have you got a notebook handy?"
"Yes, Doctor. In my pocket. Do you want me to take dictation?"
"Please," he shouted back—for all the world like a foremanyelling orders from a high building. "Get this down. I have hardlyestablished communication yet, but I want you to book some preliminarynotes. Are you ready?"
As a matter of fact, the Doctor in his enthusiasm had misjudged howeasy he'd find it to converse with the Moon Man. For a good hour Istood waiting with my pencil poised and no words for dictation werehanded down. Finally the Doctor called to me that he would have todelay matters a little till he got in close touch with our giantvisitor.
"Humph!" grunted Polynesia. "I don't see why he bothers. I never sawsuch an unattractive enormous brute.—Doesn't look as though hehad the wits of a caterpillar anyway. And to think that it was thisgreat lump of unintelligent mutton that has kept the Doctor—JohnDolittle, M.D.—and the rest of us, hanging about till it suitedhim to call on us!—After sending for us, mind you! That's thepart that rattles me!"
"Oh, but goodness!" muttered Chee-Chee, peering up at the toweringfigure in the dusk. "Think—think how old he is! That manwas living when the Moon separated from the Earth—thousands,maybe millions, of years ago! Golly, what an age!"
"Yes: he's old enough to know better," snapped theparrot—"better manners anyway. Just because he's fat andovergrown is no reason why he should treat his guests with suchoutrageous rudeness."
"Oh, but come now, Polynesia," I said, "we must not forget that thisis a human being who has been separated from his own kind for centuriesand centuries. And even such civilization as he knew on the Earth, wayback in those Stone Age days, was not, I imagine, anything to boast of.Pretty crude, I'll bet it was, the world then. The wonder is, to my wayof thinking, that he has any mind at all—with no other humans tomingle with through all that countless time. I'm not surprised thatJohn Dolittle finds it difficult to talk with him."
"Oh, well now, Tommy Stubbins," said she, "that may sound all veryscientific and high-falutin. But just the same there's no denying thatthis overgrown booby was the one who got us up here. And the least hecould have done was to see that we were properly received and caredfor—instead of letting us fish for ourselves with no one to guideus or to put us on to the ropes. Very poor hospitality, I call it."
"You seem to forget, Polynesia," I said mildly, "that in spite ofour small size, we may have seemed—as the Doctor said—quiteas fearful to him and his world as he and his have been tous—even if he did arrange to get us here. Did you notice that helimped?"
"I did," said she, tossing her head. "He dragged his left foot afterhim with an odd gait. Pshaw! I'll bet that's what he got the Doctor uphere for—rheumatism or a splinter in his toe. Still, what Idon't understand is how he heard of John Dolittle, famous thoughhe is, with no communication between his world and ours."
It was very interesting to me to watch the Doctor trying to talkwith the Moon Man. I could not make the wildest guess at what sort oflanguage it could be that they would finally hit upon. After all thattime of separation from his fellows, how much could this strangecreature remember of a mother tongue?
As a matter of fact, I did not find out that evening at all. TheDoctor kept at his experiments, in his usual way, entirely forgetful oftime or anything else. After I had watched for a while Chee-Chee's headnodding sleepily I finally dozed off myself.
When I awoke it was daylight. The Doctor was still engaged with thegiant in his struggles to understand and be understood. However, Icould see at once that he was encouraged. I shouted up to him that itwas breakfast-time. He heard, nodded back to me and then apparentlyasked the giant to join us at our meal. I was surprised and delightedto see with what ease he managed to convey this idea to our big friend.For the Moon Man at once sat him down upon the ground near ourtarpaulin which served as a table-cloth and gazed critically over thefoodstuffs laid out. We offered him some of our famous yellow yam. Atthis he shook his head vigorously. Then with signs and grunts heproceeded to explain something to John Dolittle.
"He tells me, Stubbins," said the Doctor presently, "that the yellowyam is the principal cause of rapid growth. Everything in this world,it seems, tends towards size; but this particular food is the worst. Headvises us to drop it—unless we want to grow as big as he is. Hehas been trying to get back to our size, apparently, for ever solong."
"Try him with some of the melon, Doctor," said Chee-Chee.
This, when offered to the Moon Man, was accepted gladly; and for alittle we all munched in silence.
"How are you getting on with his language, Doctor?" I askedpresently.
"Oh, so so," he grumbled. "It's odd—awfully strange. At firstI supposed it would be something like most human languages, a variationof vocal sounds. And I tried for hours to get in touch with him alongthose lines. But it was only a few vague far-off memories that I couldbring out. I was, of course, particularly interested to link up aconnection with some earthly language. Finally I went on to thelanguages of the insects and the plants and found that he spoke alldialects, in both, perfectly. On the whole I am awfully pleased with myexperiments. Even if I cannot link him up with some of our own deadlanguages, at least his superior knowledge of the insect and vegetabletongues will be of great value to me."
"Has he said anything so far about why he got you up here?" askedPolynesia.
"Not as yet," said the Doctor. "But we've only just begun, you know.All in good time, Polynesia, all in good time."
The Doctor's warning to the parrot that perhaps we were just asterrifying to the Moon Man (in spite of his size) as he and his worldwere to us, proved to be quite true. After breakfast was over and I gotout the usual note book for dictation it soon appeared that this giant,the dread President of the Council, was the mildest creature living. Helet us crawl all over him and seemed quite pleased that we took so muchinterest in him. This did not appear to surprise the Doctor, who fromthe start had regarded him as a friend. But to Chee-Chee and myself,who had thought that he might gobble us up at any moment, it was, tosay the least, a great relief. I will not set down here in detail thatfirst talk between the Moon Man and the Doctor. It was very long andwent into a great many matters of languages and natural history thatmight not be of great interest to the general reader. But here andthere in my report of that conversation I may dictate it word for word,where such a course may seem necessary to give a clear picture of theideas exchanged. For it was certainly an interview of greatimportance.
The Doctor began by questioning the giant on the history thatChee-Chee had told us as it had been handed down to him by hisgrandmother. Here the Moon Man's memory seemed very vague; but whenprompted with details from the Monkeys' History, he occasionallyresponded and more than once agreed with the Doctor's statements orcorrected them with a good deal of certainty and firmness.
I think I ought perhaps to say something here about the Moon Man'sface. In the pale daylight of a lunar dawn it looked clever andintelligent enough, but not nearly so old as one would have expected.It is indeed hard to describe that face. It wasn't brutish and yet ithad in it something quite foreign to the average human countenance asseen on the Earth. I imagine that his being separated from human kindfor so long may have accounted for this. Beyond question it was ananimal-like countenance and yet it was entirely free from anything likeferocity. If one could imagine a kindly animal who had used all hisfaculties in the furtherance of helpful and charitable ends one wouldhave the nearest possible idea of the face of the Moon Man, as I saw itclearly for the first time when he took breakfast with us thatmorning.
In the strange tongues of insects and plants John Dolittle fired offquestion after question at our giant guest. Yes, he admitted, heprobably was Otho Bludge, the prehistoric artist. Thisbracelet?—Yes, he wore it because some one... And then his memoryfailed him.... What some one?... Well anyway he remembered that it hadfirst been worn by a woman before he had it. What matter, after all? Itwas long ago, terribly long. Was there anything else that we would liketo know?
There was a question I myself wanted to ask. The night before, in mywanderings with Chee-Chee over the giant's huge body, I had discovereda disc or plate hanging to his belt. In the dusk then I had not beenable to make out what it was. But this morning I got a better view ofit: the most exquisite picture of a girl kneeling with a bow and arrowin her hands, carved upon a plate of reindeer horn. I asked the Doctordid he not want to question the Moon Man about it. We all guessed, ofcourse, from Chee-Chee's story, what it was. But I thought it mightprompt the giant's memory to things out of the past that would be ofvalue to the Doctor. I even whispered to John Dolittle that the giantmight be persuaded to give it to us or barter it for something. Even Iknew enough about museum relics to realize its tremendous value.
The Doctor indeed did speak of it to him. The giant raised it fromhis belt, where it hung by a slender thong of bark and gazed at it awhile. A spark of recollection lit up his eyes for a moment Then, witha pathetic fumbling sort of gesture, he pressed it to his heart amoment while that odd fuddled look came over his countenance once more.The Doctor and I, I think, both felt we had been rather tactless anddid not touch upon the subject again.
I have often been since—though I certainly was not at thetime—amused at the way the Doctor took charge of the situationand raced all over this enormous creature as though he were some newkind of specimen to be labelled and docketed for a natural historymuseum. Yet he did it in such a way as not to give the slightestoffence.
"Yes. Very good," said he. "We have now established you as OthoBludge, the Stone Age artist, who was blown off the Earth when the Moonset herself up in the sky. But how about this Council? I understand youare president of it and can control its workings. Is that so?"
The great giant swung his enormous head round and regarded for amoment the pigmy figure of the Doctor standing, just then, on hisforearm.
"The Council?" said he dreamily. "Oh, ah, yes, to be sure, theCouncil.... Well, we had to establish that, you know. At one time itwas nothing but war—war, war all the time. We saw that if we didnot arrange a balance we would have an awful mess. Too many seeds.Plants spread like everything. Birds laid too many eggs. Bees swarmedtoo often. Terrible!—You've seen that down there on the Earth, Iimagine, have you not?"
"Yes, yes, to be sure," said the Doctor. "Go on, please."
"Well, there isn't much more to that. We just made sure, by means ofthe Council, that there should beno more warfare"
"Humph!" the Doctor grunted. "But tell me: how is it you yourselfhave lived so long? No one knows how many years ago it is that the Moonbroke away from the Earth. And your age, compared with the life of Manin our world, must be something staggering."
"Well, of course," said the Moon Man, "just how I got here issomething that I have never been able to explain completely, even tomyself. But why bother? Here I am. What recollections I have of thattime are awfully hazy. Let me see: when I came to myself I could hardlybreathe. I remember that. The air—everything—was sodifferent. But I was determined to survive. That, I think, is what musthave saved me. I wasdetermined to survive. This piece of land,I recollect, when it stopped swirling, was pretty barren. But it hadthe remnants of trees and plants which it had brought with it from theEarth. I lived on roots and all manner of stuff to begin with. Many atime I thought that I would have to perish. But Ididn't—because I was determined to survive. And in the endI did. After a while plants began to grow; insects, which had come withthe plants, flourished. Birds the same way—they, like me, weredetermined to survive. A new world was formed. Years after I realizedthat I was the one to steer and guide its destiny since I had—atthat time anyway—more intelligence than the other forms of life.I saw what this fighting of kind against kind must lead to. So I formedthe Council. Since then—oh, dear, how long ago!—vegetableand animal species have come to—Well, you see it here.... That'sall. It's quite simple."
"Yes, yes," said the Doctor hurriedly. "I quite understandthat—the necessities that led you to establish theCouncil.—And an exceedingly fine thing it is, in my opinion. Wewill come back to that later. In the meantime I am greatly puzzled asto how you came to hear of me—with no communication between yourworld and ours. Your moth came to Puddleby and asked me to accompanyhim back here. It was you who sent him, I presume?"
"Well, it was I and the Council who sent him," the Moon Mancorrected. "As for the ways in which your reputation reached us,communication is, as you say, very rare between the two worlds. But itdoes occur once in a long while. Some disturbance takes place in yourglobe that throws particles so high that they get beyond the influenceof earth gravity and come under the influence of our gravity. Then theyare drawn to the Moon and stay here. I remember,' many centuries ago, agreat whirlwind or some other form of rumpus in your world occurredwhich tossed shrubs and stones to such a height that they lost touchwith the Earth altogether and finally landed here. And a great nuisancethey were too. The shrubs seeded and spread like wildfire before werealized they had arrived and we had a terrible time getting them undercontrol."
"That is most interesting," said the Doctor, glancing in mydirection, as he translated, to make sure I got the notes down in mybook. "But please tell me of the occasion by which you first learned ofme and decided you wanted me up here."
"That," said the Moon Man, "came about through something which was,I imagine, a volcanic eruption. From what I can make out, one of yourbig mountains down there suddenly blew its head off, after remainingquiet and peaceful for many years. It was an enormous and terriblypowerful explosion and tons of earth and trees and stuff were fired offinto space. Some of this material that started away in the direction ofthe Moon finally came within the influence of our attraction and wasdrawn to us. And, as you doubtless know, when earth or plants are shotaway some animal life nearly always goes with it. In this case a bird,a kingfisher, in fact, who was building her nest in the banks of amountain lake, was carried off. Several pieces of the earth landed onthe Moon. Some, striking land, were smashed to dust and any animal lifethey carried—mostly insect of course—was destroyed. But thepiece on which the kingfisher travelled fell into one of ourlakes."
It was an astounding story and yet I believe it true. For how elsecould the Doctor's fame have reached the Moon? Of course any but awater bird would have been drowned because apparently the mass plungeddown fifty feet below the surface, but the kingfisher at once came upand flew off for the shore. It was a marvel that she was alive. Iimagine her trip through the dead belt had been made at such tremendousspeed that she managed to escape suffocation without the artificialbreathing devices which we had been compelled to use.
The bird the Moon Man had spoken of (it seems he had since beenelected to the Council) was presently brought forward and introduced tothe Doctor. He gave us some valuable information about his trip to theMoon and how he had since adapted himself to new conditions.
He admitted it was he who had told the Moon Folk about John Dolittleand his wonderful skill in treating sicknesses, of his great reputationamong the birds, beasts and fishes of the Earth.
It was through this introduction also that we learned that thegathering about us was nothing less than a full assembly of the Councilitself—with the exception, of course, of the Vegetable Kingdom,who could not come. That community was however represented by differentcreatures from the Insect and Bird Worlds who were there to see to itthat its interests were properly looked after.
This was evidently a big day for the Moon People. After ourinterview with the kingfisher we could see that arguments were going onbetween different groups and parties all over the place. At times itlooked like a political meeting of the rowdiest kind. These discussionsthe Doctor finally put down quite firmly by demanding of the Moon Manin a loud voice the reason for his being summoned here.
"After all," said he when some measure of quiet had been restored,"you must realize that I am a very busy man. I appreciate it as a greathonour that I have been asked to come here. But I have duties andobligations to perform on the Earth which I have left. I presume thatyou asked me here for some special purpose. Won't you please let meknow what it is?"
A silent pause spread over the chattering assembly. I glanced roundthe queer audience of birds and bugs who squatted, listening. TheDoctor, quite apart from his demand for attention, had evidentlytouched upon a ticklish subject. Even the Moon Man himself seemedsomewhat ill at ease.
"Well," he said at last, "the truth is we were sorely in need of agood physician. I myself have been plagued by a bad pain in the foot.And then many of the bigger insects—the grasshoppersespecially—have been in very poor health now for some time. Fromwhat the kingfisher told me, I felt you were the only one who couldhelp us—that you—er—perhaps wouldn't mind if we gotyou up here where your skill was so sorely needed. Tell me now: youwere not put out by the confidence we placed in you? We had no one inour own world who could help us. Therefore we agreed, in a specialmeeting of the Council, to send down and try to get you."
The Doctor made no reply.
"You must realize," the Moon Man went on, his voice dropping to astill more apologetic tone, "that this moth we sent took his life inhis hand. We cast lots among the larger birds, moths, butterflies andother insects. It had to be one of our larger kinds. It was a longtrip, requiring enormous staying power...."
The Moon Man spread out his giant hands in protest—a gesturevery suggestive of the other world from which he originally came. TheDoctor hastened to reassure him.
"Why, of course, of course," said he. "I—we—were mostglad to come. In spite of the fact that I am always terribly busy downthere, this was something so new and promising in natural history Ilaid every interest aside in my eagerness to get here. With the mothyou sent the difficulty of language did not permit me to make thepreparations I would have liked. But pray do not think that I haveregretted coming. I would not have missed this experience for worlds.It is true I could have wished that you had seen your way to getting intouch with us sooner. But there—I imagine you too have yourdifficulties. I suppose you must be kept pretty busy."
"Busy?" said the Moon Man blankly. "Oh, no. I'm not busy. Life isvery quiet and pleasant here.—Sometimes too quiet, we think. Asession with the Council every now and then and a general inspection ofthe globe every so often: that is all I have to bother with. The reasonI didn't come and see you sooner, to be quite honest, was because I wasa bit scared. It was something so new, having human folks visit youfrom another world. There was no telling what you might turn out tobe—what you might do. For another thing, I expected you to bealone. For weeks past I have had the birds and insects—and theplants too—send me reports of your movements and character. Yousee, I had relied solely on the statements of a kingfisher. No matterhow kind and helpful you had been to the creatures of your own world,it did not follow that you would be the same way inclined towards theMoon Folk. I am sorry if I did not appear properly hospitable. But youmust make allowances. It—it was all so—so new."
"Oh, quite, quite," said the Doctor, again most anxious to make hishost feel at ease. "Say no more, please, of that. I understandperfectly. There are a few points, however, on which I would like tohave some light thrown. For one thing, we thought we saw smoke on theMoon, from Puddleby, shortly after your moth arrived. Can you tell usanything about that?"
"Why, of course," said the Moon Man quickly. "I did that. We werequite worried about the moth. As I told you, we felt kind of guiltyabout the risky job we had given him. It was Jamaro who finally drewthe marked card in the lottery."
"Jamaro!" muttered the Doctor, slightlybewildered—"Lottery?—I—er—"
"The lottery to decide who should go," the Moon Man explained. "Itold you: we drew lots. Jamaro Bumblelily was the moth who drew theticket which gave the task to him."
"Oh, I see," said the Doctor—"Jamaro. Yes, yes. You give yourinsects names in this land. Very natural and proper of course, wherethey are so large and take such an important part in the life andgovernment of the community. You can no doubt tell all these insectsone from another, even when they belong to the same species?"
"Certainly," said the Moon Man. "We have, I suppose, severalhundreds of thousands of bees in the Moon. But I know each one by hisfirst name, as well as his swarm, or family, name. Anyhow, to continue:it was then Jamaro Bumblelily who drew the ticket that gave him the jobof going to the Earth after you. He was very sportsmanlike and nevergrumbled a bit. But we were naturally anxious. It is true thatcreatures had come, at rare intervals, from the Earth to our world. Butso far none had gone from us to the Earth. We had only the vaguest ideaof what your world would be like—from the descriptions of thekingfisher. And even in getting those we had been greatly handicappedby language. It had only been after days and weeks of work that we hadbeen able to understand one another in the roughest way. So we hadarranged with Jamaro Bumblelily that as soon as he landed he was to tryand find some way to signal us to let us know he was all right. And wewere to signal back to him. It seems he made a bad landing and layhelpless in your garden for some days. For a long while we waited ingreat anxiety. We feared he must have perished in his heroic exploit.Then we thought that maybe if we signalled to him he would beencouraged and know that we were still expecting his return. So we setoff the smoke smudge."
"Yes," said the Doctor. "I saw it, even if Jamaro didn't. But tellme: how did you manage to raise such an enormous smudge? It must havebeen as big as a mountain."
"True," said the Moon Man. "For twenty days before Jamaro'sdeparture I and most of the larger birds and insects had gathered theJing-jing bark from the forest."
"Gathered thewhat?" asked the Doctor.
"The Jing-jing bark," the Moon Man repeated. "It is a highlyexplosive bark from a certain tree we have here."
"But how did you light it?" asked the Doctor.
"By friction," said the Moon Man—"drilling a hard-wood stickinto a soft-wood log. We had tons and tons of the bark piled in abarren rocky valley where it would be safe from firing the bush orjungle. We are always terrified of bush-fires here—our world isnot large, you know. I set the pile off with a live ember which Icarried on a slate. Then I sprang back behind a rock bluff to defend myeyes. The explosion was terrific and the smoke kept us all coughing fordays before it finally cleared away."
We were frequently reminded during this long conversation (it lastedover a full day and a half) that the strange crowd about us was thegreat Council itself. Questions every now and then were hurled at theMoon Man from the dimness of the rear. He was continually turning hishead as messages and inquiries were carried across to him from mouth tomouth. Sometimes without consulting the Doctor further he would answerthem himself in queer sounds and signs. It was quite evident that theCouncil was determined to keep in touch with any negotiations that weregoing on.
As for John Dolittle, there was so much that he wanted to find outit looked—in spite of his hurry to get back to the Earth—asthough his queries would never end—which, in a first meetingbetween two worlds, is not after all to be wondered at.
"Can you remember," he asked, "when you first felt the Moonsteadying herself, how you got accustomed to the new conditions? We hadon our arrival a perfectly terrible time, you know. Different air,different gravity, different hearing and the rest. Tell me: how did youmanage?"
Frowning, the Moon Man passed his gigantic hand across his brow.
"Really—it's so long ago," he muttered. "As I told you, Inearly died, many times. Getting enough food to stay alive on kept mebusy the first few months, Then when I was sure that that problem wassolved I began to watch. Soon I saw that the birds and insects werefaced with the same difficulties as I was. I searched the Moon globefrom end to end. There were no others of my own kind here. I was theonly man. I needed company badly. 'All right,' I said, 'I'll study theInsect and Bird Kingdoms.' The birds adapted themselves much quickerthan I did to the new conditions. I soon found that they, being in thesame boat as myself, were only too glad to co-operate with me inanything that would contribute to our common good. Of course I wascareful to kill nothing. For one thing I had no desire to; and foranother I realized that if, on such a little globe, I started to makeenemies, I could not last long. From the beginning I had done my bestto live and let live. With no other human to talk with I can't tell youhow terribly, desperately lonely I felt. Then I decided I'd try tolearn the language of the birds. Clearly they had a language. No onecould listen to their warblings and not see that. For years I worked atit—often terribly discouraged at my poor progress.Finally—don't ask me when—I got to the point where I couldwhistle short conversations with them. Then came the insects—thebirds helped me in that too. Then the plant languages. The bees startedme. They knew all the dialects. And ... well ..."
"Go on," said the Doctor. The tone of his voice was calm and quiet,but I could see that he was deeply, intensely interested.
"Oh, dear me," sighed the Moon Man, almost petulantly, "my memory,you know, for dates as far back as that, is awfully poor. To-day itseems as though I had talked Heron and Geranium all my life. But justwhen it was, actually, that I reached the point where I could conversefreely with the insects and plants, I couldn't give you the vaguestidea. I do know that it took me far, far longer to get in touch withthe vegetable forms of life than it did with either the insects or thebirds. I am afraid that our keeping count of time throughout has beenpretty sketchy—certainly in our earlier history anyway. But thenyou must remember we were occupied with a great number of far moreserious tasks. Recently—the last thousand years or so—wehave been making an effort to keep a history and we can show you, Ithink, a pretty good record of most of the more important events withinthat time. The trouble is that nearly all of the dates you want areearlier than that."
"Well, never mind," said the Doctor. "We are getting on very wellunder the circumstances. I would like very much to see that record youspeak of and will ask you to show it to me, if you will be so good,later."
He then entered into a long examination of the Moon Man (carefullyavoiding all dates, periods and references to time) on a whole host ofsubjects. The majority of them were concerned with insect and plantevolution and he kept a strict eye on me to see that all questions andreplies were jotted down in the note book. Gracious! What an unendinglist it seemed to my tired mind! How had the Moon Man first realizedthat the plants were anxious to talk and co-operate with him? What hadled him to believe that the bees were in communication with the flowersthey fed on? Which fruits and vegetables had he found were good forhuman food and how had he discovered their nutritious qualities withoutpoisoning himself? etc., etc., etc. It went on for hours. I got most ofit down, with very few mistakes, I think. But I know I was more thanhalf asleep during the last hours of the interview.
The only trouble with most of it was this same old bugbear of time.After all these ages of living without human company the poor giant'smind had got to the point where it simply didn'tuse time. Evenin this record of the last thousand years, which he had proudly told uswas properly dated, we found, when he showed it to us, that an error ofa century more or less meant very little.
This history had been carved in pictures and signs on the face of awide flat rock. The workmanship of Otho the prehistoric artist showedup here to great advantage. While the carvings were not by any means tobe compared with his masterpiece of the kneeling girl, theynevertheless had a dash and beauty of design that would arrest theattention of almost any one.
Nevertheless, despite the errors of time, both in his recollectionsand his graven history, we got down the best booking that we could inthe circumstances. And with all its slips and gaps it was a mostthrilling and exciting document. It was the story of a new world'sevolution; of how a man, suddenly transported into space with nothingbut what his two hands held at the moment of the catastrophe, had madehimself the kindly monarch of a kingdom—a kingdom more wondrousthan the wildest imaginings of the mortals he had left behind. For hewas indeed a king, even if he called himself no more than the Presidentof the Council. And what hardships and terrible difficulties he hadovercome in doing it, only we could realize—we, who had come herewith advantages and aids which he had never known.
Finally a lull did come in this long, long conversation between theDoctor and the Moon Man. And while I lay back and stretched my righthand, cramped from constant writing, Polynesia gave vent to a greatdeal which she had evidently had on her mind for some time.
"Well," she grunted, lifting her eyebrows, "what did I tell you,Tommy? Rheumatism! That's what the Doctor has come all this wayfor—rheumatism! I wouldn't mind it so much in the case ofthe Moon Man himself. Because he certainly is a man in a hundred. Butgrasshoppers! Think of it!—Think of bringing JohnDolittle, M.D., billions of miles" (Polynesia's ideas on geographicalmeasurement were a bit sketchy) "just to wait on a bunch ofgrasshoppers! I—"
But the remainder of her indignant speech got mixed up with some ofher favourite Swedish swear words and the result was something that noone could make head or tail of.
Very soon this pause in the conversation between the Doctor and theMoon Man was filled up by a great deal of talking among the Council.Every member of that important parliament apparently wanted to knowexactly what had been said and decided on and what newmeasures—if any—were to be put in force. We could see thatthe poor President was being kept very busy.
At length the Doctor turned once more to the giant and said:
"Well now, when would it be convenient for you and the insectpatients to be examined? I shall be most happy to do everythingpossible for you all, but you must realize that I would like to getback to the Earth as soon as I conveniently can."
Before answering the Moon Man proceeded to consult his Councilbehind him. And, to judge from the length of the discussions thatfollowed, he was meeting with quite a little criticism in whateverplans he was proposing. But finally he managed to quiet them; andaddressing John Dolittle once more, he said:
"Thank you. If it will not inconvenience you, we will come to-morrowand have you minister to us. You have been very kind to come at all. Ihope we will not seem too large an undertaking for you. At least, sinceyou have approved of our system and government here, you will have thesatisfaction of knowing that you are assisting us in a time of greatneed."
"Why, of course, of course," said the Doctor at once. "I shall beonly too glad. That is what I am for, after all. I am a doctor, youknow, a physician—even if I have become a naturalist in my lateryears. At what hour will you be ready for me?"
"At dawn," said the Moon Man. Even in these modern days ideas oftime on the Moon seemed strangely simple. "We will wait on you atsunrise. Till then, pleasant dreams and good rest!"
Even the garrulous Polynesia was too tired to talk much more thatnight. For all of us it had been a long and steady session, thatinterview, tense with excitement. The Moon Man and his Council hadbarely departed before every one of us was dozing off without a changeof clothes or a bite to eat. I am sure that nothing on Earth—orMoon—could have disturbed our slumbers.
The daylight was just beginning to show when we were awakened. I amnot certain who was the first to arouse himself (probably JohnDolittle), but I do know that I was the first to get up.
What a strange sight! In the dim light hundreds, perhaps thousands,of gigantic insects, all invalids, stood about our camp staring at thetiny human physician who had come so far to cure their ailments. Someof these creatures we had not so far seen and never even suspectedtheir presence on the Moon: caterpillars as long as a village streetwith gout in a dozen feet; immense beetles suffering from an afflictionof the eyes; grasshoppers as tall as a three-storey house with crudebandages on their gawky joints; enormous birds with a wing heldpainfully in an odd position. The Doctor's home had become once more aclinic; and all the halt and lame of Moon Society had gathered at hisdoor.
The great man, when I finally roused him, swallowed two or threegulps of melon, washed them down with a draft of honey and water, tookoff his coat and set to work.
Of course the poor little black bag, which had done such yeomanservice for many years in many lands, was not equal to a demand likethis. The first thing to run out was the supply of bandages. Chee-Cheeand I tore up blankets and shirts to make more. Then the embrocationbecame exhausted; next the iodine and the rest of the antiseptics. Butin his botanical studies of the trees and plants of this world theDoctor had observed and experimented with several things which he hadfound helpful in rheumatic conditions and other medical uses. Chee-Cheeand Polynesia were despatched at once to find the herbs and roots andleaves that he wanted.
For hours and hours he worked like a slave. It seemed as though theend of the line of patients would never be reached. But finally he didget the last of them fixed up and despatched. It was only then herealized that the Moon Man had let all the other sufferers come forwardahead of himself. Dusk was coming on. The Doctor peered round the greatspace about our camp. It was empty, save for a giant figure thatsquatted silent, motionless and alone, by the forest's edge.
"My goodness!" muttered the Doctor. "I had entirely forgotten him.And he never uttered a word. Well, no one can say he is selfish. That,I fancy, is why he rules here. I must see what is the matter with himat once."
John Dolittle hurried across the open space and questioned thegiant. An enormous left leg was stretched out for his examination. Likea fly, the Doctor travelled rapidly up and down it, pinching andsqueezing and testing here and there.
"More gout," he said at last with definite decision. "A bad enoughcase too. Now listen, Otho Bludge."
Then he lectured his big friend for a long time. Mostly it seemedabout diet, but there was a great deal concerning anatomy, exercise,dropsy, andstarch in it too.
At the end of it the Moon Man seemed quite a little impressed, muchhappier in his mind and a great deal more lively and hopeful. Finally,after thanking the Doctor at great length, he departed, while theground shook again beneath his limping tread.
Once more we were all fagged out and desperately sleepy.
"Well," said the Doctor as he arranged his one remaining blanket onhis bed, "I think that's about all we can do. To-morrow—or maybethe next day—we will, if all goes well, start back forPuddleby."
"Sh!" whispered Polynesia. "There's some one listening. I'msure—over there behind those trees."
"Oh, pshaw!" said the Doctor. "No one could hear us at thatrange."
"Don't forget how sound travels on the Moon," warned the parrot.
"But my goodness!" said the Doctor. "Theyknow we've got togo some time. We can't stay here for ever. Didn't I tell the Presidenthimself I had jobs to attend to on the Earth? If I felt they needed mebadly enough I wouldn't mind staying quite a while yet. But there'sStubbins here. He came away without even telling his parents where hewas going or how long it might be before he returned. I don't know whatJacob Stubbins may be thinking, or his good wife. Probably worried todeath. I—"
"Sh!—Sh!—Will you be quiet?" whispered Polynesiaagain. "Didn't you hear that? I tell you there's some onelistening—or I'm a Double Dutchman. Pipe down, for pity's sake.There are ears all round us. Go to sleep!"
We all took the old parrot's advice—only too willingly. Andvery soon every one of us was snoring.
This time we did not awaken early. We had no jobs to attend to andwe took advantage of a chance to snooze away as long as we wished.
It was nearly midday again when we finally got stirring. We were inneed of water for breakfast. Getting the water had always beenChee-Chee's job. This morning, however, the Doctor wanted him to huntup a further supply of medicinal plants for his surgical work. Ivolunteered therefore to act as water-carrier.
With several vessels which we had made from gourds I started out forthe forests.
I had once or twice performed this same office of emergencywater-carrier before. I was therefore able on reaching the edge of thejungle to make straight for the place where we usually got oursupplies.
I hadn't gone very far before Polynesia overtook me.
"Watch out, Tommy!" said she, in a mysterious whisper as she settledon my shoulder.
"Why?" I asked. "Is anything amiss?"
"I don't quite know," said she. "But I'm uneasy and I wanted to warnyou. Listen: that whole crowd that came to be doctored yesterday, youknow? Well, not one of them has shown up again since. Why?"
There was a pause.
"Well," said I presently, "I don't see any particular reason whythey should. They got their medicine, their treatment. Why should theypester the Doctor further? It's a jolly good thing that some patientsleave him alone after they are treated, isn't it?"
"True, true," said she. "Just the same their all staying away thenext day looks fishy to me. They didn'tall get treated. There'ssomething in it. I feel it in my bones. And besides, I can't find theMoon Man himself. I've been hunting everywhere for him. He too has goneinto hiding again, just the same as they all did when we first arrivedhere.... Well, look out! That's all. I must go back now. But keep youreyes open, Tommy. Good luck!"
I couldn't make head or tail of the parrot's warning and, greatlypuzzled, I proceeded on my way to the pool to fill my water-pots.
There I found the Moon Man. It was a strange and sudden meeting. Ihad no warning of his presence till I was actually standing in thewater filling the gourds. Then a movement of one of his feet revealedhis immense form squatting in the concealment of the dense jungle. Herose to his feet as soon as he saw that I perceived him.
His expression was not unfriendly—just as usual, a kindly,calm half-smile. Yet I felt at once uneasy and a little terrified. Lameas he was, his speed and size made escape by running out of thequestion. He did not understand my language, nor I his. It was a lonelyspot, deep in the woods. No cry for help would be likely to reach theDoctor's ears.
I was not left long in doubt as to his intentions. Stretching outhis immense right hand, he lifted me out of the water as though I werea specimen of some flower he wanted for a collection. Then withenormous strides he carried me away through the forest. One step of hiswas half-an-hour's journey for me. And yet it seemed as though he puthis feet down very softly, presumably in order that his usualthunderous tread should not be heard—or felt—by others.
At length he stopped. He had reached a wide clearing. JamaroBumblelily, the same moth that had brought us from the Earth, waswaiting. The Moon Man set me down upon the giant insect's back. I heardthe low rumble of his voice as he gave some final orders. I had beenkidnapped.
Never have I felt so utterly helpless in my life. While he spokewith the moth the giant held me down with his huge hand upon theinsect's back. A cry, I thought, might still be worth attempting. Iopened my mouth and bawled as hard as I could. Instantly the Moon Man'sthumb came round and covered my face. He ceased speaking.
Soon I could feel from the stirring of the insect's legs that he wasgetting ready to fly. The Doctor could not reach me now in time even ifhe had heard my cry. The giant removed his hand and left me free as themoth broke into a run. On either side of me the great wings spread out,acres-wide, to breast the air. In one last mad effort I raced over theleft wing and took a flying leap. I landed at the giant's waistline andclung for all I was worth, still yelling lustily for the Doctor. TheMoon Man picked me off and set me back upon the moth. But as my hold athis waist was wrenched loose something ripped and came away in my hand.It was the masterpiece, the horn picture of Pippiteepa. In his anxietyto put me aboard Jamaro again, who was now racing over the ground at aterrible speed, he never noticed that I carried his treasure withme.
Nor indeed was I vastly concerned with it at the moment. My mindonly contained one thought: I was being taken away from the Doctor.Apparently I was to be carried off alone and set back upon the Earth.As the moth's speed increased still further I heard a fluttering nearmy right ear. I turned my head. And there, thank goodness, wasPolynesia flying along like a swallow! In a torrent of words she pouredout her message. For once in her life she was too pressed for time toswear.
"Tommy!—They know the Doctor is worried about your stayingaway from your parents. I told him to be careful last night. Theyheard. They're afraid if you stay he'll want to leave too, to get youback. And—"
The moth's feet had left the ground and his nose was tilted upwardto clear the tops of the trees that bordered the open space. Thepowerful rush of air, so familiar to me from my first voyage of thiskind, was already beginning—and growing all the time. Flappingand beating, Polynesia put on her best speed and for a while longermanaged to stay level with my giant airship.
"Don't worry, Tommy," she screeched. "I had an inkling of what theMoon Man had up his sleeve, though I couldn't find out where he washiding. And I warned the Doctor. He gave me this last message for youin case they should try to ship you out: Look after the old lame horsein the stable. Give an eyes to the fruit trees.And don't worry!He'll find a way down all right, he says. Watch out for the secondsmoke signal." (Polynesia's voice was growing faint and she was alreadydropping behind.) ... "Good-bye and good luck!"
I tried to shout an answer; but the rushing air stopped my breathand made me gasp. "Good-bye and good luck!"—It was the last Iheard from the Moon.
I lowered myself down among the deep fur to avoid the pressure ofthe tearing wind. My groping hands touched something strange. It wasthe moon bells. The giant in sending me down to the Earth had thoughtof the needs of the human. I grabbed one of the big flowers and held ithandy to plunge my face in. Bad times were coming, I knew when we mustcross the Dead Belt. There was nothing more I could do for the present.I would lie still and take it easy till I reached Puddleby and thelittle house with the big garden.
Well, for the most part my journey back was not very different fromout first voyage. If it was lonelier for me than had been the trip withthe Doctor, I, at all events, had the comfort this time of knowing fromexperience that the journeycould be performed by a human withsafety.
But dear me, what a sad trip it was! In addition to my loneliness Ihad a terrible feeling of guilt. I was leaving the Doctorbehind—the Doctor who had never abandoned me nor any friend inneed. True, it was not my fault, as I assured myself over and overagain. Yet I couldn't quite get rid of the idea that if I had only beena little more resourceful or quicker-witted this would not havehappened. And how,how was I going to face Dab-Dab, Jip and therest of them with the news that John Dolittle had been left in theMoon?
The journey seemed endlessly long. Some fruit also had beenprovided, I found, by the Moon Man; but as soon as we approached theDead Belt I felt too seasick to eat and remained so for the rest of thevoyage.
At last the motion abated enough to let me sit up and takeobservations. We were quite close to the Earth. I could see it shiningcheerfully in the sun and the sight of it warmed my heart. I had notrealized till then how homesick I had been for weeks past.
The moth landed me on Salisbury Plain. While not familiar with thedistrict, I knew the spire of Salisbury Cathedral from pictures. Andthe sight of it across this flat characteristic country told me where Iwas. Apparently it was very early morning, though I had no idea of theexact hour.
The heavier air and gravity of the Earth took a good deal of gettingused to after the very different conditions of the Moon. Feeling likenothing so much as a ton-weight of misery, I clambered down from themoth's back and took stock of my surroundings.
Morning mists were rolling and breaking over this flat piece of mynative Earth. From higher up it had seemed so sunny and homelike andfriendly. Down here on closer acquaintance it didn't seem attractive atall.
Presently when the mists broke a little, I saw, not far off, a road.A man was walking along it. A farm labourer, no doubt, going to hiswork. How small he seemed! Perhaps he was a dwarf. With a suddenlonging for human company, I decided to speak to him. I lunged heavilyforward (the trial of the disturbing journey and the unfamiliar balanceof earth gravity together made me reel like a drunken man) and when Ihad come within twenty paces I hailed him. The results were astonishingto say the least. He turned at the sound of my voice. His face wentwhite as a sheet. Then he bolted like a rabbit and was gone into themist.
I stood in the road down which he had disappeared. And suddenly itcame over me what I was and how I must have looked. I had not measuredmyself recently on the Moon, but I did so soon after my return to theEarth. My height was nine feet nine inches and my waist measurementfifty-one inches and a half. I was dressed in a home-made suit of barkand leaves. My shoes and leggings were made of root-fibre and my hairwas long enough to touch my shoulders.
No wonder the poor farm hand suddenly confronted by such anapparition on the wilds of Salisbury Plain had bolted! Suddenly Ithought of Jamaro Bumblelily again. I would try to give him a messagefor the Doctor. If the moth could not understand me, I'd writesomething for him to carry back. I set out in search. But I never sawhim again. Whether the mists misled me in direction or whether he hadalready departed moonwards again I never found out.
So, here I was, a giant dressed like a scarecrow, no money in mypockets—no earthly possessions beyond a piece of reindeer horn,with a prehistoric picture carved on it. And then I realized, ofcourse, that the farm labourer's reception of me would be what I wouldmeet with everywhere. It was a long way from Salisbury to Puddleby,that I knew. I must have coach-fare; I must have food.
I tramped along the road a while thinking. I came in sight of afarm-house. The appetizing smell of frying bacon reached me. I wasterribly hungry. It was worth trying. I strode up to the door andknocked gently. A woman opened it. She gave one scream at sight of meand slammed the door in my face. A moment later a man threw open awindow and levelled a shot-gun at me.
"Get off the place," he snarled—"Quick! Or I'll blow your uglyhead off."
More miserable than ever I wandered on down the road. What was tobecome of me? There was no one to whom I could tell the truth. For whowould believe my story? But I must get to Puddleby. I admitted I wasnot particularly keen to do that—to face the Dolittle householdwith the news. And yet I must. Even without the Doctor's last messageabout the old horse and the fruit trees, and the rest, it was myjob—to do my best to take his place while he was away. And thenmy parents—poor folk! I fear I had forgotten them in my misery.And would even they recognize me now?
Then of a sudden I came upon a caravan of gipsies. They were campedin a thicket of gorse by the side of the road and I had not seen themas I approached.
They too were cooking breakfast and more savoury smells tantalizedmy empty stomach. It is rather strange that the gipsies were the onlypeople I met who were not afraid of me. They all came out of the wagonsand gathered about me gaping; but they were interested, not scared.Soon I was invited to sit down and eat. The head of the party, an oldman, told me they were going on to a county fair and would be glad tohave me come with them.
I agreed with thanks. Any sort of friendship which would save mefrom an outcast lot was something to be jumped at. I found out laterthat the old gipsy's idea was to hire me off (at a commission) to acircus as a giant.
But as a matter of fact, that lot also I was glad to accept when thetime came. I had to have money. I could not appear in Puddleby like ascarecrow. I needed clothes, I needed coach-fare, and I needed food tolive on.
The circus proprietor—when I was introduced by my friend thegipsy—turned out to be quite a decent fellow. He wanted to bookme up for a year's engagement. But I, of course, refused. He suggestedsix months. Still I shook my head. My own idea was the shortestpossible length of time which would earn me enough money to get back toPuddleby looking decent. I guessed from the circus man's eagerness thathe wanted me in his show at almost any cost and for almost any lengthof time. Finally after much argument we agreed upon a month.
Then came the question of clothes. At this point I was verycautious. He at first wanted me to keep my hair long and wear littlemore than a loin-cloth. I was to be a "Missing Link from Mars" orsomething of the sort. I told him I didn't want to be anything of thekind (though his notion was much nearer to the truth than he knew). Hisnext idea for me was "The Giant Cowboy from the Pampas." For this I wasto wear an enormous sun-hat, woolly trousers, pistols galore, and spurswith rowels like saucers. That didn't appeal to me either very much asa Sunday suit to show to Puddleby.
Finally, as I realized more fully how keen the showman was to haveme, I thought I would try to arrange my own terms.
"Look here, Sir," I said: "I have no desire to appear something I amnot. I am a scientist, an explorer, returned from foreign parts. Mygreat growth is a result of the climates I have been through and thediet I have had to live on. I will not deceive the public bymasquerading as a Missing Link or Western Cowboy. Give me a decent suitof black such as a man of learning would wear. And I will guarantee totell your audiences tales of travel—true tales—such as theyhave never imagined in their wildest dreams. But I will not sign on formore than a month. That is my last word. Is it a bargain?"
Well, it was. He finally agreed to all my terms. My wages were to bethree shillings a day. My clothes were to be my own property when I hadconcluded my engagement. I was to have a bed and a wagon to myself. Myhours for public appearance were strictly laid down and the rest of mytime was to be my own.
It was not hard work. I went on show from ten to twelve in themorning, from three to five in the afternoon, and from eight to ten atnight. A tailor was produced who fitted my enormous frame with adecent-looking suit. A barber was summoned to cut my hair. During myshow hours I signed my autograph to pictures of myself which the circusproprietor had printed in great numbers. They were sold at threepenceapiece. Twice a day I told the gaping crowds of holiday folk the storyof my travels. But I never spoke of the Moon. I called it just a"foreign land"—which indeed was true enough.
At last the day of my release came. My contract was ended, and withthree pounds fifteen shillings in my pocket, and a good suit of clothesupon my back, I was free to go where I wished. I took the first coachin the direction of Puddleby. Of course many changes had to be made andI was compelled to stop the night at one point before I could makeconnections for my native town.
On the way, because of my great size, I was stared and gaped at byall who saw me. But I did not mind it so much now. I knew that at leastI was not a terrifying sight.
On reaching Puddleby at last, I decided I would call on my parentsfirst, before I went to the Doctor's house. This may have been just aputting off of the evil hour. But anyway, I had the good excuse that Ishould put an end to my parents' anxiety.
I found them just the same as they had always been—very gladto see me, eager for news of where I had gone and what I had done. Iwas astonished, however, that they had taken my unannounced departureso calmly—that is, Iwas astonished until it came outthat, having heard that the Doctor also had mysteriously disappeared,they had not been nearly so worried as they might have been. Such wastheir faith in the great man, like the confidence that all placed inhim. Ifhe had gone and taken me with him, then everything wassurely all right.
I was glad too that they recognized me despite my unnatural size.Indeed, I think they took a sort of pride in that I had, likeCæsar, "grown so great." We sat in front of the fire and I toldthem all of our adventures as well as I could remember them.
It seemed strange that they, simple people though they were,accepted my preposterous story of a journey to the Moon with no vestigeof doubt or disbelief. I feared there were no other humans in theworld—outside of Matthew Mugg, who would so receive my statement.They asked me when I expected the Doctor's return. I told them whatPolynesia had said of the second smoke signal by which John Dolittleplanned to notify me of his departure from the Moon. But I had to admitI felt none too sure of his escape from a land where his services wereso urgently demanded. Then when I almost broke down, accusing myself ofabandoning the Doctor, they both comforted me with assurances that Icould not have done more than I had.
Finally my mother insisted that I stay the night at their house andnot attempt to notify the Dolittle household until the morrow. I wasclearly overtired and worn out, she said. So, still willing to put offthe evil hour, I persuaded myself that Iwas tired and turnedin.
The next day I sought out Matthew Mugg, the Cats'-meat-Man. I merelywanted his support when I should present myself at "the little housewith the big garden." But it took me two hours to answer all thequestions he fired at me about the Moon and our voyage.
At last I did get to the Doctor's house. My hand had hardly touchedthe gate-latch before I was surrounded by them all. Too-Too thevigilant sentinel had probably been on duty ever since we left and onehoot from him brought the whole family into the front garden like afire alarm. A thousand exclamations and remarks about my increasedgrowth and changed appearance filled the air. But there never was adoubt in their minds as to who I was.
And then suddenly a strange silence fell over them all when they sawthat I had returned alone. Surrounded by them I entered the house andwent to the kitchen. And there by the fireside, where the great manhimself has so often sat and told us tales, I related the whole storyof our visit to the Moon.
At the end they were nearly all in tears, Gub-Gub howling outloud.
"We'll never see him again!" he wailed. "They'll never let him go.Oh, Tommy, howcould you have left him?"
"Oh, be quiet!" snapped Jip. "He couldn't help it. He was kidnapped.Didn't he tell you? Don't worry. We'll watch for the smoke signal. JohnDolittle will come back to us, never fear. Remember he has Polynesiawith him."
"Aye!" squeaked the white mouse. "She'll find a way."
"I am not worried," sniffed Dab-Dab, brushing away her tearswith one wing, and swatting some flies off the bread-board with theother. "But it's sort of lonely here without him."
"Tut-tut!" grunted Too-Too. "Of course he'll come back!"
There was a tapping at the window.
"Cheapside," said Dab-Dab. "Let him in, Tommy."
I lifted the sash and the cockney sparrow fluttered in and took hisplace upon the kitchen table, where he fell to picking up whatbread-crumbs had been left after the housekeeper's careful "clearingaway." Too-Too told him the situation in a couple of sentences.
"Why, bless my heart!" said the sparrow. "Why all these long faces?John Dolittle stuck in the Moon!—Preposterousnotion!—Pre-posterous, I tell you. You couldn't get thatman stuck nowhere. My word, Dab-Dab! When you clear away you don'tleave much fodder behind, do you? Any mice what live in your 'ouseshouldn't 'ave no difficulty keepin' their figures."
Well, it was done. And I was glad to be back in the old house. Iknew it was only a question of time before I would regain a normal sizeon a normal diet. Meanwhile here I would not have to see anyone I didnot want to.
And so I settled down to pruning the fruit-trees, caring for thecomfort of the old horse in the stable and generally trying to take theDoctor's place as best I could. And night after night as the year woreon Jip, Too-Too and I would sit out, two at a time, while the Moon wasvisible, to watch for the smoke signal. Often when we returned to thehouse with the daylight, discouraged and unhappy, Jip would rub hishead against my leg and say:
"Don't worry, Tommy. He'll come back. Remember he has Polynesia withhim. Between them they will find a way."
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