How long I paced back and forth I don't know. But it was a long time-- for I had nothing else to do.
At last I got tired and lay down to rest. And in spite of all my troubles, I soon fell fast asleep.
This time when I woke up, stars were staring down at me out of a cloudless sky. The sea was still calm; and my strange craft was rocking gently under me on an easy swell. All my fine courage left me as I gazed up into the big silent night and felt the pains of hunger and thirst set to work in my stomach harder than ever.
"Are you awake?" said a high silvery voice at my elbow.
I sprang up as though some one had stuck a pin in me. And there, perched at the very end of my raft, her beautiful golden tail glowing dimly in the starlight, sat Miranda, the Purple Bird-of-Paradise!
Never have I been so glad to see any one in my life. I almost f ell into the water as I leapt to hug her.
"I didn't want to wake you," said she. "I guessed you must be tired after all you've been through--Don't squash the life out of me, boy: I'm not a stuffed duck, you know."
"Oh, Miranda, you dear old thing," said I, "I'm so glad to see you. Tell me, where is the Doctor? Is he alive?"
"Of course he's alive--and it's my firm belief he always will be.
He's over there, about forty miles to the westward."
"What's he doing there?"
"He's sitting on the other half of the Curlew shaving himself-- or he was, when I left him."
"Well, thank Heaven he's alive!" said I--"And Bumpo--and the animals, are they all right?"
"Yes, they're with him. Your ship broke in half in the storm.
The Doctor had tied you down when he found you stunned. And the part you were on got separated and floated away. Golly, it was a storm! One has to be a gull or an albatross to stand that sort of weather. I had been watching for the Doctor for three weeks, from a cliff-top; but last night I had to take refuge in a cave to keep my tail-feathers from blowing out. As soon as I found the Doctor, he sent me off with some porpoises to look for you. A Stormy Petrel volunteered to help us in our search. There had been quite a gathering of sea-birds waiting to greet the Doctor; but the rough weather sort of broke up the arrangements that had been made to welcome him properly. It was the petrel that first gave us the tip where you were."
"Well, but how can I get to the Doctor, Miranda?--I haven't any oars."
"Get to him!--Why, you're going to him now. Look behind you."
I turned around. The moon was just rising on the sea's edge. And I now saw that my raft was moving through the water, but so gently that I had not noticed it before.
"What's moving us?" I asked.
"The porpoises," said Miranda.
I went to the back of the raft and looked down into the water.
And just below the surface I could see the dim forms of four big porpoises, their sleek skins glinting in the moonlight, pushing at the raft with their noses.
"They're old friends of the Doctor's," said Miranda. "They'd do anything for John Dolittle. We should see his party soon now.
We're pretty near the place I left them--Yes, there they are! See that dark shape?--No, more to the right of where you're looking.
Can't you make out the figure of the black man standing against the sky?--Now Chee-Chee spies us--he's waving. Don't you see them?"
I didn't--for my eyes were not as sharp as Miranda's. But presently from somewhere in the murky dusk I heard Bumpo singing his African comic songs with the full force of his enormous voice. And in a little, by peering and peering in the direction of the sound, I at last made out a dim mass of tattered, splintered wreckage--all that remained of the poor Curlew-- floating low down upon the water.
A hulloa came through the night. And I answered it. We kept it up, calling to one another back and forth across the calm night sea. And a few minutes later the two halves of our brave little ruined ship bumped gently together again.
Now that I was nearer and the moon was higher I could see more plainly. Their half of the ship was much bigger than mine.
It lay partly upon its side; and most of them were perched upon the top munching ship's biscuit.
But close down to the edge of the water, using the sea's calm surface for a mirror and a piece of broken bottle for a razor, John Dolittle was shaving his face by the light of the moon.
