Part II Chapter 4 Doctor Dolittle's Return by Hugh Lofting
THE GENTLEMAN IN THE MOON
I rushed to his bedside.
"'Otho, Otho!' I cried. He did not stir. He was unconscious. I felt his pulse. It was fast and jumpy. I got a thermometer out of the bag. His temperature was high—far too high. His rheumatism had run into complications—probably some form of rheumatic fever.
"I worked over him for hours. I knew if I did not bring the temperature down soon, this by itself could kill him. I got cold water and soaked big leaves in it. I plastered these all over his body and, by fanning him, I did manage to get the temperature lower by several degrees. I realized I had only got there just in time to save his life.
"It seems funny, when I look back on it now. There I was working like a slave to save the life of the man who meant to hold me a prisoner! Yet I did not think of it then. The only idea that filled my mind was that I, as a physician, must leave no stone unturned to keep him from dying.
"At last, after I had given him a heart stimulant with the hypodermic needle, he became conscious. Weakly he opened his eyes and looked at me. He said nothing. There came a curious, ashamed sort of expression into his face as he recognized who I was—that it was I who was working to save him. Presently he fell off into a peaceful sleep. I took his pulse again. While it was still fast, it was ever so much better and quite steady. I knew that the worst was over. I told one of the birds to call me as soon as he woke up. Then I curled up on the floor of his hut to get some sleep myself. As I dozed off I felt more at peace in my mind than I had done for many hours.
"I stayed with him I don't know how long—maybe four or five days. During all that time he never spoke. At the end, when I was about to leave him, he was quite well again, but still weak. I gave him the usual instructions as to what he should do. It was hardly necessary, for he had heard them many times before. I fastened up my medicine-bag and turned towards the open door of his hut.
"The sun was shining on the beautiful moonscape. You know how it looked, Stubbins—sort of dreamlike and mysterious—rows and rows of mountains, dead volcanoes with that strange greenish light on them. I paused a moment to gaze on it before I stepped out of the hut. 'So, John Dolittle,' I said to myself, 'I suppose you are a big fool. But you chose to be a doctor when you were a youngster and this is the price you pay. You are a prisoner on this world for life. This landscape is what you will see for the remainder of your days. Well, what else could you do? So be it.'
"I stepped over the door-sill into the open air. Then I heard a cry from within the hut. The Moon Man, for the first time for days, was speaking to me. I turned and went back to his bedside.
"He was trying to sit up. 'There, there,' I said, 'settle down and rest. I will come again to-morrow to see how you are.' He sank back looking awfully feeble and I wondered whether I really ought to leave him. I felt his pulse again. It was good. Then suddenly he broke forth, speaking in a mixture of all sorts of languages, so that I had hard work keeping up with what he was trying to say.
"'My mind is sort of fuzzy,' he whispered. 'But I wanted to tell you that I know you have saved my life—without gaining anything for yourself.... While I was sleeping just now I seemed to remember something of the days before there was a moon. I have not dealt with men for so long.... But I remember—yes, I remember those times when I was on the earth, ages and ages ago. I remember how men acted toward one another.... You are what was called—er—a very true friend. Isn't that it, John Dolittle? ... So I just wanted to tell you that any time you wish to return to your world I will help you in any way I can.... You are free to go—whenever you wish.'"
The Doctor paused a moment.
"Well, you can imagine my astonishment. A moment before I had seen myself a prisoner on the moon for life—giving up all hope of ever seeing the earth, Puddleby, my friends, home, again. Now I was free. Suddenly all the unkind thoughts I had felt against this man fell away. I was bound to admit that he was greater, bigger, even than I had guessed. Something in his recollections of the earth had made up his mind to this determination. And my coming to his assistance, the very thing that should have ruined my chances of ever getting home, had acted for me just the other way. I was free!
"And then all at once I realized that, child as he was, the Moon Man had wanted my company as well as my help as a doctor. For some moments I did not answer him. I was thinking—thinking how much it meant to him to say those words, 'You are free to go.' He was giving up the only human friendship he had known in thousands of years. And that is why, for a little, I did not speak.
"At last I said, 'No man can know how long you will live—probably for many thousands of years yet, if you do as I tell you. When I return to the earth I mean to write a book, a book about the moon—and it's about you too, a great part of it. People on the earth, you know, have always spoken of the Man in the Moon, but I hope that when my book is written—and read—they will come to speak of the Gentleman in the Moon. Certainly I shall do my best to show them that what I found in you, Otho Bludge, was not only a great man but one of the truest gentlemen I have ever known.'
"Then I left him and went back to my camp.
"There is little more to tell. The next time I visited him he was able to get up and move about. He was as good as his word. He wasted no time in preparing the bonfire for my smoke signal. For this he got thousands and thousands of birds to help him. They all brought a stick or twig of that explosive wood which he had used for his own signal. It reminded me of the time when I got the birds in Africa to build the island in the lake out of stones. But, for these creatures in the moon to gather together a bonfire whose smoke would be large enough to be seen from the earth, was a tremendous undertaking.
"Just about the time it was finished I happened to discover—in some astronomical almanacs I had with me—that we were due to have an eclipse in about ten days from then. This interested me very much. For one thing I was most keen to see an eclipse from the moon and to find out what the other planets looked like when they came out in daylight hours. And, for another thing, I felt sure that my signals would show better when the moon was partly in shadow.
"So I asked Otho to put off firing the bonfire till the eclipse was under way. He became very interested in the matter himself. He wanted to know just how I had calculated that it would come at a certain hour on a certain date. He suggested that we should have two bonfires ready and set them off separately—to make surer that one at least of them would be seen. I found out, Stubbins, also that when he tried to get a signal down to us here, to tell us of the coming of the moth, he had set off several before we happened to be looking at the moon and saw one.
"Then came the question of what sort of creature I should have to fly me down. I had grown so big by then; and there was considerable weight too in the baggage which I wanted to bring with me. The Giant Moth when we tried out a practice flight could hardly rise from the ground under the load. So something else had to be found to make the trip.
"Birds were out of the question. Here we always think of birds as being larger than insects; but up there they were smaller—difference in diet again, I suppose. And then birds need more air—they have a different sort of breathing apparatus. The trip between the moon and the earth requires a tremendous amount of effort—very hard work. Getting through the dead belt, where there is practically no air at all, is easier for the insect fliers than any other. I doubt if a bird, no matter what his wing-spread, could manage it.
"Well, after a few experiments Otho and I decided to try the Mammoth Locust. You all saw what a tremendous creature he is. His way of flying is quite extraordinary—not at all the same as his cousins, the grasshopper, the cicada and the mantis. The locust flies both like a bird and an insect. The number of wing-beats per second is sort of betwixt and between. I have notes on that too.
"Anyway, we got the baggage and ourselves aboard this Mammoth Locust and made a trial flight. He could lift the load quite easily—that is, he could in that gravity. Whether he could have done the same with the earth's gravity, I cannot say. But that didn't matter so much. When he got near to this world he would be coming down; and going back he would have no load to carry, beyond the weight of his own body."