Part IV Chapter 9 Doctor Dolittle's Post Office by Hugh Lofting
THE SECRET LAKE
During the course of the next day's travel the country became, as the snake had foretold, freer and more open. Little by little the islands grew fewer and the mangroves not so tangly. In the dreary views there was less land and more water. The going was much easier now. For miles at a stretch the Doctor could paddle, without the help of his guide, in water that seemed to be quite deep. It was indeed a change to be able to look up and see a clear sky overhead once in a while, instead of that everlasting network of swamp trees. Across the heavens the travelers now occasionally saw flights of wild ducks and geese, winging their way eastward.
"That's a sign we're near open water," said Dab-Dab.
"Yes," the snake agreed. "They're going to Junganyika. It is the feeding ground of great flocks of wild geese."
It was about five o'clock in the evening when they came to the end of the little islands and mud banks. And as the canoe's nose glided easily forward into entirely open water they suddenly found themselves looking across a great inland sea.
The Doctor was tremendously impressed by his first sight of the Secret Lake. If the landscape of the swamp country had been mournful this was even more so. No eye could see across it. The edge of it was like the ocean's—just a line where the heavens and the water meet. Ahead to the eastward—the darkest part of the evening sky—even this line barely showed, for now the murky waters and the frowning night blurred together in an inky mass. To the right and left the Doctor could see the fringe of the swamp trees running around the lake, disappearing in the distance North and South.
Out in the open great banks of gray mist rolled and joined and separated as the wailing wind pushed them fretfully hither and thither over the face of the waters.
"My word!" the Doctor murmured in a quiet voice. "Here one could almost believe that the Flood was not over yet!"
"Jolly place, ain't it?" came Cheapside's cheeky voice from the stern of the canoe. "Give me London any day—in the worst fog ever. This is a bloomin' eels' country. Look at them mist shadows skatin' round the lake. Might be old Noah and 'is family, playin' 'Ring-a-ring-a-rosy' in their night-shirts, they're that lifelike."
"The mists are always there," said the snake—"always have been. In them the first rainbow shone."
"Well," said the sparrow, "I'd sell the whole place cheap if it was mine—mists and all. 'Ow many 'undred miles of this bonny blue ocean 'ave we got to cross before we reach our Mr. Mudface?"
"Not very many," said the snake. "He lives on the edge of the lake a few miles to the North. Let us hurry and try to reach his home before darkness falls."
Once more, with the guide in front, but this time at a much better pace, the party set off.
As the light grew dimmer the calls of several night birds sounded from the mangroves on the left. Too-Too told the Doctor that many of these were owls, but of kinds that he had never seen or met with before.
"Yes," said the Doctor. "I imagine there are lots of different kinds of birds and beasts in these parts that can be found nowhere else in the world."
At last, while it was still just light enough to see, the snake swung into the left and once more entered the outskirts of the mangrove swamps. Following him with difficulty in the fading light, the Doctor was led into a deep glady cove. At the end of this the nose of the canoe suddenly bumped into something hard. The Doctor was about to lean out to see what it was when a deep, deep bass voice spoke out of the gloom quite close to him.
"Welcome, John Dolittle. Welcome to Lake Junganyika."
Then looking up, the Doctor saw on a mound-like island the shape of an enormous turtle—fully twelve feet across the shell—standing outlined against the blue-black sky.
The long journey was over at last.
Doctor Dolittle did not at any time believe in traveling with very much baggage. And all that he had brought with him on this journey was a few things rolled up in a blanket—and, of course, the little black medicine-bag. Among those things, luckily, however, were a couple of candles. And if it had not been for them he would have had hard work to land safely from the canoe.
Getting them lighted in the wind that swept across the lake was no easy matter. But to protect their flame Too-Too wove a couple of little lanterns out of thin leaves, through which the light shone dimly green but bright enough to see your way by.
To his surprise, the Doctor found that the mound, or island, on which the turtle lived was not made of mud, though muddy footprints could be seen all over it. It was made of stone—of stones cut square with a chisel.
While the Doctor was examining them with great curiosity the turtle said:
"They are the ruins of a city. I used to be content to live and sleep in the mud. But since my gout has been so bad I thought I ought to make myself something solid and dry to rest on. Those stones are pieces of a king's house."
"Pieces of a house—of a city!" the Doctor exclaimed, peering into the wet and desolate darkness that surrounded the little island. "But where did they come from?"
"From the bottom of the lake," said the turtle. "Out there," Mudface nodded toward the gloomy wide-stretching waters, "there stood, thousands of years ago, the beautiful city of Shalba. Don't I know, when for long enough I lived in it? Once it was the greatest and fairest city ever raised by men and King Mashtu of Shalba the proudest monarch in the world. Now I, Mudface the turtle, make a nest in the swamp out of the ruins of his palace. Ha! Ha!"
"You sound bitter," said the Doctor. "Did King Mashtu do you any harm?"
"I should say he did," growled Mudface. "But that belongs to the story of the Flood. You have come far. You must be weary and in need of food."
"Well," said the Doctor, "I am most anxious to hear the story. Does it take long to tell?"
"About three weeks would be my guess," whispered Cheapside. "Turtles do everything slow. Something tells me that story is the longest story in the world, Doctor. Let's get a nap and a bite to eat first. We can hear it just as well to-morrow."
So, in spite of John Dolittle's impatience, the story was put off till the following day. For the evening meal Dab-Dab managed to scout around and gather together quite a nice mess of fresh-water shellfish and Too-Too collected some marsh berries that did very well for dessert.
Then came the problem of how to sleep. This was not so easy, because, although the foundations of the turtle's mound were of stone, there was hardly a dry spot on the island left where you could lie down. The Doctor tried the canoe. But it was sort of cramped and uncomfortable for sleeping, and now even there, too, the mud had been carried by Dab-Dab's feet and his own. In this country the great problem was getting away from the mud.
"When Noah's family first came out of the Ark," said the turtle, "they slept in little beds which they strung up between the stumps of the drowned trees."
"Ah, hammocks!" cried the Doctor. "Of course—the very thing!"
Then, with Jip's and Dab-Dab's help, he constructed a very comfortable basket-work hammock out of willow wands and fastened it between two larger mangroves. Into this he climbed and drew the blanket over him. Although the trees leaned down toward the water with his weight, they were quite strong and their bendiness acted like good bed springs.
The moon had now risen and the weird scenery of Junganyika was all green lights and blue shadows. As the Doctor snuffed out his candles and Jip curled himself up at his feet the turtle suddenly started humming a tune in his deep bass voice, waving his long neck from side to side in the moonlight.
"What is that tune you are humming?" asked the Doctor.
"That's the 'Elephants' March,'" said the turtle. "They always played it at the Royal Circus of Shalba for the elephants' procession."
"Let's 'ope it 'asn't many verses," grumbled Cheapside, sleepily putting his head under his wing.
The sun had not yet risen on the gloomy waters of Lake Junganyika before Jip felt the Doctor stirring in his hammock, preparing to get up.
Presently Dab-Dab could be heard messing about in the mud below, bravely trying to get breakfast ready under difficult conditions.
Next Cheapside, grumbling in a sleepy chirp, brought his head out from under his wing, gave the muddy scenery one look and popped it back again.
But it was of little use to try to get more sleep now. The camp was astir. John Dolittle, bent on the one idea of hearing that story, had already swung himself out of his hammock and was now washing his face noisily in the lake. Cheapside shook his feathers, swore a few words in Cockney and flew off his tree down to the Doctor's side.
"Look 'ere, Doctor," he whispered, "this ain't an 'olesome place to stay at all. I'm all full of cramp from the damp night air. You'd get webfooted if you loitered in this country long. Listen, you want to be careful about gettin' old Mudface started on his yarn spinning. D'yer know what 'e reminds me of? Them old Crimea War veterans. Once they begin telling their reminiscences there's no stoppin' 'em. 'E looks like one, too, with that long, scrawny neck of 'is. Tell 'im to make it short and sweet—just to give us the outline of his troubles, like, see? The sooner we can shake the mud of this place off our feet and make tracks for Fantippo the better it'll be for all of us."
Well, when breakfast had been disposed of the Doctor sharpened his pencil, got out a notebook and, telling Too-Too to listen carefully, in case he should miss anything, he asked the turtle to begin the story of the Flood.
Cheapside had been right. Although it did not take a fortnight to tell it did take a very full day. Slowly and evenly the sun rose out of the East, passed across the heavens and sank down into the West. And still Mudface went murmuring on, telling of all the wonders he had seen in days long ago, while the Doctor's pencil wiggled untiringly over the pages of his notebook. The only interruptions were when the turtle paused to lean down and moisten his long throat with the muddy water of the lake, or when the Doctor stopped him to ask a question on the natural history of antediluvian times.
Dab-Dab prepared lunch and supper and served them as silently as she could, so as not to interrupt; but for the Doctor they were very scrappy meals. On into the night the story went. And now John Dolittle wrote by candle-light, while all his pets, with the exception of Too-Too, were already nodding or dozing.
At last, about half past ten—to Cheapside's great relief—the turtle pronounced the final words.
"And that, John Dolittle, is the end of the story of the Flood by one who saw it with his own eyes."
For some time after the turtle finished no one spoke. Even the irreverent Cheapside was silent. Little bits of stars, dimmed by the light of a half-full moon, twinkled like tiny eyes in the dim blue dome that arched across the lake. Away off somewhere among the tangled mangroves an owl hooted from the swamp and Too-Too turned his head quickly to listen. Dab-Dab, the economical housekeeper, seeing the Doctor close his notebook and put away his pencil, blew out the candle.
At last the Doctor spoke:
"Mudface, I don't know when, in all my life I have listened to a story that interested me so much. I—I'm glad I came."
"I too am glad, John Dolittle. You are the only one in the world now who understands the speech of animals. And if you had not come my story of the Flood could not have been told. I'm getting very old and do not ever move far away from Junganyika."
"Would it be too much to ask you?" said the Doctor, "to get me some souvenir from the city below the lake?"
"Not at all," said the turtle. "I'll go down and try to get you something right away."
Slowly and smoothly, like some unbelievable monster of former days, the turtle moved his great bulk across his little island and slid himself into the lake without splashing or disturbance of any kind. Only a gentle swirling in the water showed where he had disappeared.
In silence they all waited—the animals now, for the moment, reawakened and full of interest. The Doctor had visions of his enormous friend moving through the slime of centuries at the bottom of the lake, hunting for some souvenir of the great civilization that passed away with the Flood. He hoped that he would bring a book or something with writing on it.
Instead, when at last he reappeared wet and shining in the moonlight, he had a carved stone window-sill on his back which must have weighed over a ton.
"Lor' bless us!" muttered Cheapside. "What a wonderful piano-mover 'e would make to be sure! Great Carter Patterson! Does 'e think the Doctor's goin' to 'ang that on 'is watch-chain?"
"It was the lightest thing I could find," said the turtle, rolling it off his back with a thud that shook the island. "I had hoped I could get a vase or a plate or something you could carry. But all the smaller objects are now covered in fathoms of mud. This I broke off from the second story of the palace—from the queen's bedroom window. I thought perhaps you'd like to see it anyway, even if it was too much for you to carry home. It's beautifully carved. Wait till I wash some of the mud off it."
The candles were lighted again and after the carvings had been cleaned the Doctor examined them with great care and even made sketches of some of them in his notebook.
By the time the Doctor had done, all his party, excepting Too-Too, had fallen asleep. It was only when he heard Jip suddenly snore from the hammock that he realized how late it was. As he blew out the candles again he found that it was very dark, for now the moon had set. He climbed into bed and drew the blankets over him.