Chapter 19 Doctor Dolittle in the Moon by Hugh Lofting
THE MOON MAN
That night was, I think, the most disturbed one that we spent in the whole course of our stay on the Moon. Not one of us slept soundly or continuously. For one thing, our growth had proceeded at an alarming and prodigious rate; and what bedding we had (we slept in that mild climate with the blankets under us instead of over us) had become absurdly short and insufficient for our new figures. Knees and elbows spilled over the sides and got dreadfully sore on the hard earth. But besides that discomfort, we were again conscious throughout the whole night of mysterious noises and presences. Every one of us seemed to be uneasy in his mind. I remember waking up one time and hearing the Doctor, Chee-Chee and Polynesia all talking in their sleep at the same time.
Hollow-eyed and unrested we finally, at daybreak, crawled out of our various roosts and turned silently to the business of getting breakfast. That veteran campaigner Polynesia was the first to pull herself together. She came back from examining the ground about the camp with a very serious look on her old face.
"Well," said she, "if there's any one in the Moon who hasn't been messing round our bunks while we slept I'd like to know who it is."
"Why?" asked the Doctor. "Anything unusual?"
"Come and see," said the parrot, and led the way out into the clearing that surrounded our bunks and baggage.
Well, we were accustomed to finding tracks around our home, but this which Polynesia showed us was certainly something quite out of the ordinary. For a belt of a hundred yards or more about our headquarters the earth and sand and mud was a mass of footprints. Strange insect tracks, the marks of enormous birds, and—most evident of all—numberless prints of that gigantic human foot which we had seen before.
"Tut, tut!" said the Doctor peevishly. "They don't do us any harm anyway. 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 few extra tracks don't make much difference."
We sat down and started the meal.
But John Dolittle's prophecy that the Animal Kingdom would not delay much longer in getting in touch with us was surprisingly and suddenly fulfilled. I had a piece of yam smeared with honey half-way to my mouth when I became conscious of an enormous shadow soaring over me. I looked up and there was the giant moth who had brought us from Puddleby; I could hardly believe my eyes. With a graceful sweep of his gigantic wings he settled down beside me—a battleship beside a mouse—as though such exact and accurate landings were no more than a part of the ordinary day's work.
We had no time to remark on the moth's arrival before two or three more of the same kind suddenly swept up from nowhere, fanned the dust all over us with their giant wings and settled down beside their brother.
Next, various birds appeared. Some species among these we had already seen in the vines. But there were many we had not: enormous storks, geese, swans and several others. Half of them seemed little bigger than their own kind on the Earth. But others were unbelievably large and were coloured and shaped somewhat differently—though you could nearly always tell to what family they belonged.
Again more than one of us opened his mouth to say something and then closed it as some new and stranger arrival made its appearance and joined the gathering. The bees were the next. I remembered then seeing different kinds on the Earth, though I had never made a study of them. Here they all came trooping, magnified into great terrible-looking monsters out of a dream: the big black bumble bee, the little yellow bumble bee, the common honey bee, the bright green, fast-flying, slender bee. And with them came all their cousins and relatives, though there never seemed to be more than two or three specimens of each kind.
I could see that poor Chee-Chee was simply scared out of his wits. And little wonder! Insects of this size gathering silently about one were surely enough to appal the stoutest heart. Yet to me they were not entirely terrible. Perhaps I was merely taking my cue from the Doctor who was clearly more interested than alarmed. But besides that, the manner of the creatures did not appear unfriendly. Serious and orderly, they seemed to be gathering according to a set plan; and I felt sure that very soon something was going to happen which would explain it all.
And sure enough, a few moments later, when the ground about our camp was literally one solid mass of giant insects and birds, we heard a tread. Usually a footfall in the open air makes little or no sound at all—though it must not be forgotten that we had found that sound of any kind travelled much more readily on the Moon than on the Earth. But this was something quite peculiar. Actually it shook the ground under us in a way that might have meant an earthquake. Yet somehow one knew it was a tread.
Chee-Chee ran to the Doctor and hid under his coat. Polynesia never moved, just sat there on her tree-branch, looking rather peeved and impatient but evidently interested. I followed the direction of her gaze with my own eyes, for I knew that her instinct was always a good guide. I found that she was watching the woods that surrounded the clearing where we had established our camp. Her beady little eyes were fixed immovably on a V-shaped cleft in the horizon of trees away to my left.
It is curious how in those important moments I always seemed to keep an eye on old Polynesia. I don't mean to say that I did not follow the Doctor and stand ready to take his orders. But whenever anything unusual or puzzling like this came up, especially a case where animals were concerned, it was my impulse to keep an eye on the old parrot to see how she was taking it.
Now I saw her cocking her head on one side—in a quite characteristic pose—looking upward towards the cleft in the forest wall. She was muttering something beneath her breath (probably in Swedish, her favourite swearing language), but I could not make out more than a low peevish murmur. Presently, watching with her, I thought I saw the trees sway. Then something large and round seemed to come in view above them in the cleft.
It was now growing dusk. It had taken, we suddenly realized, a whole day for the creatures to gather; and in our absorbed interest we had not missed our meals. One could not be certain of his vision, I noticed the Doctor suddenly half rise, spilling poor old Chee-Chee out upon the ground. 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 creature approaching, whatever—whoever—it was, must clearly be so monstrous that everything we had met with on the Moon so far would dwindle into insignificance in comparison.
And still old Polynesia sat motionless on her limb muttering and spluttering like a fire-cracker on a damp night.
Very soon we could hear other sounds from the oncoming creature besides his earth-shaking footfall. Giant trees snapped and crackled beneath his tread like twigs under a mortal's foot. I confess that an ominous terror clutched at my heart too now. I could sympathize with poor Chee-Chee's timidity. Oddly enough though at this, the most terrifying moment in all our experience on the Moon, the monkey did not try to conceal himself. He was standing beside the Doctor fascinatedly watching the great shadow towering above the trees.
Onward, nearer, came the lumbering figure. Soon there was no mistaking its shape. It had cleared the woods now. The gathered insects and waiting birds were making way for it. Suddenly we realized that it was 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 awed silence. "You may be a frightfully important person here. But my goodness! It has taken you an awfully long time to come and call on us!"
Serious as the occasion was in all conscience, Polynesia's remarks, continued in an uninterrupted stream of annoyed criticism, finally gave me the giggles. And after I once got started I couldn't have kept a straight face if I had been promised a fortune.
The dusk had now settled down over the strange assembly. Starlight glowed 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 another effort to stifle my silly titters I saw John Dolittle, the size of his figure looking perfectly absurd in comparison with the Moon Man's, rise to meet the giant who had come to visit us.
"I am glad to meet you—at last," said he in dignified well-bred English. A curious grunt of incomprehension was all that met his civility.
Then seeing that the Moon Man evidently did not follow his language, John Dolittle set to work to find some tongue that would be understandable to him. I suppose there never was, and probably never will 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 are used to-day or have been preserved from the past. None of them had the slightest effect upon the Moon Man. Turning to animal languages however, the Doctor met with slightly better results. A word here and there seemed to be understood.
But it was when John Dolittle fell back on the languages of the Insect and Vegetable Kingdoms that the Moon Man at last began to wake up and show interest. With fixed gaze Chee-Chee, Polynesia and I watched the two figures as they wrestled with the problems of common speech. Minute after minute went by, hour after hour. Finally the Doctor made a signal to me behind his back and I knew that now he was really ready. I picked up my note book and pencil from the ground.
As I laid back a page in preparation for dictation there came a strange cry from Chee-Chee.
"Look!—The right wrist!—Look!"
We peered through the twilight.... Yes, there was something around the giant's wrist, but so tight that it was almost buried in the flesh. The Doctor touched it gently. But before he could say anything Chee-Chee's voice broke out again, his words cutting the stillness in a curious, hoarse, sharp whisper.
"The blue stone beads!—Don't you see them?... They don't fit him any more since he's grown a giant. But he's Otho Bludge the artist. That's the bracelet he got from Pippiteepa the grandmother of the Fairies!:—It is he, Doctor, Otho Bludge, who was blown off the Earth in the Days Before There Was a Moon!"