Part III Chapter 3 Doctor Dolittle's Garden by Hugh Lofting
THE GIANT RACE
I shall never forget the feeling I had as my eyes made out the strange picture there on the lawn beneath the eerie light of the Moon. It wasn't so much that I was frightened but that I was astonished, overwhelmed—so overwhelmed that for some moments after I had stifled my first impulse to yell, I could not speak at all. Presently I looked back at the Doctor and opened my mouth, but no words came.
"What is it, Stubbins?" said he, rising and joining me at the window.
Used as John Dolittle was to strange sights and unusual things, this vision outside the glass for a moment staggered even him. There was a face looking in at us. To begin with it took one quite a while to realize that it was a face. It was so large that you did not take it in or see the connexion, at first, between the various features. In fact the entire window, at least six feet high by three feet wide, only encompassed part of it. But there was no mistaking the eyes—strange and very beautiful eyes. Anyone but those who, like the Doctor and myself, were intimately familiar with the anatomy of insects, would quite possibly have taken them for something else. But to us, in spite of their positively gigantic size, they were unmistakably the eyes of a moth.
Set close together, bulging outward, shimmering like vast iridescent opals in the pale candlelight from the room, they made us feel as though we were gazing through a powerful magnifying-glass at an ordinary moth's head.
"Heaven preserve us!" I heard the Doctor mutter at my elbow. "It must be the Giant Race. Snuff the candles out, Stubbins. Then we'll be able to see the rest of him better."
With trembling hands I did as I was told—then sped back to the window and the fascination of this astonishing apparition. And now, when the candlelight did not interfere with the Moon's rays in the garden, it was possible to see more. The moth positively seemed to fill the whole garden.
His shoulders behind the head, which was pressed close against the panes, towered up to a height of at least two storeys. The enormous wings were folded close to the thick furry body, giving the appearance of the gable-end of a house—and quite as large. The enormous foot which had softly struck the window still rested on the sill. The great creature was quite motionless. And even before the Doctor spoke of it, I got the impression that he was injured in some way. Of course, the excitement among those in the room was terrific. Every one, with the exception of Gub-Gub and Bumpo, rushed to the window and a general clatter broke forth which the Doctor at once hushed. Poor Bumpo seemed to feel that whatever strange sight it was that lay outside in the garden must surely have been conjured up by the same evil spirits that guided his hand over the atlas; and nothing would induce him to go and take a look at it. As for Gub-Gub, he preferred the safety of his retreat beneath the table to any moonlight encounters with the supernatural.
"Come, Stubbins," said the Doctor, "get some lanterns and we will go out. Chee-Chee, bring me my little black bag, will you, please?"
Followed by Jip, Polynesia and Too-Too, the Doctor hurried out into the back garden. You may be sure I was not far behind them with the lanterns—nor was Chee-Chee with the bag.
That whole night was one long procession of surprises. As soon as I got out into the garden I became conscious of something funny happening to my breathing. The air seemed unusual. As I paused, sniffing and half gasping, Chee-Chee overtook me. He too seemed to be affected.
"What is it, Tommy?" he asked. "Feels like sniffing a smelling-bottle—sort of takes your breath away."
I could give him no explanation. But on reaching the Doctor we found that he also was suffering from some inconvenience in breathing.
"Give me one of those lanterns, Stubbins," said he. "If this moth is injured I want to see what I can do to help him."
It was a curious fantastic sight. The Doctor's figure looked so absurdly small beside the gigantic form of his "patient." Also it was very hard to see at such close quarters and by such a small light where the patient left off and where the garden began. One enormous thing, which I had at first thought to be a tree he had knocked down in landing, turned out to be his middle left leg. It was hairy and the hairs on it were as thick as twigs.
"What do you reckon is the matter with him, Doctor?" I asked.
"I can't just tell yet," said John Dolittle, bending, and peering around with his lantern. "His legs seem to be all right and I should judge that his wings are too. Of course I couldn't get up to examine them without a good big ladder. But their position seems natural enough. It would almost appear as though exhaustion were the trouble. From the general collapsed condition of the whole moth he looks to me as though he were just dead beat from a long journey."
"What is this business that keeps catching our throats, Doctor?" asked Chee-Chee.
"The air is surcharged with oxygen," said the Doctor. "Though what the source of it is I haven't yet discovered. Possibly the creature's fur, or maybe his wing powder. It is quite harmless, I think, if a bit heady and exhilarating. Bring along that second lantern, Stubbins, and let's take another look at his head. How on earth he managed to land down on a lawn this size without ripping himself on the trees I have no idea. He must be a very skilful flier in spite of his great size."
With the aid of the two lights we carefully made our way towards the creature's head, which was almost touching the side of the house. We had to pull bushes and shrubs aside to get up close.
Here we found the peculiar quality of the air on which we had already remarked more pronounced than ever. It was so strong that it occasionally made the head reel with momentary fits of dizziness but was not otherwise unpleasant. Lying on the ground beneath the moth's nose were several enormous orange-coloured flowers. And the Doctor finally detected the oxygen, as he called it, as coming from these. We were both nearly bowled over as we stooped to examine them. The Doctor, bidding me also retire for a while, withdrew into the house, where from the surgery he produced cloths soaked in some chemical liquid to counteract the effect of the potent perfumed gas from the flowers. With these tied about our noses and mouths we returned to our investigations.
"I don't think it's pure oxygen," said the Doctor as he examined one of the enormous blossoms. "If it were I don't imagine we could stand it even as well as this. It is a powerful natural scent given out by the flowers which is heavily charged with oxygen. Did you ever see such gigantic blooms? Five of them. He must have brought them with him. But from where?—And why?"
Bending down, the Doctor placed one of the flowers under the moth's nose.
"He couldn't have brought them for nothing," said he. "Let's see what effect their perfume has on him."