_THE TWELFTH CHAPTER_
MEDICINE AND MAGIC
VERY, very quietly, making sure that no one should see her, Polynesiathen slipped out at the back of the tree and flew across to the prison.
She found Gub-Gub poking his nose through the bars of the window,trying to sniff the cooking-smells that came from the palace-kitchen.She told the pig to bring the Doctor to the window because she wantedto speak to him. So Gub-Gub went and woke the Doctor who was taking anap.
“Listen,” whispered the parrot, when John Dolittle’s face appeared:“Prince Bumpo is coming here to-night to see you. And you’ve got tofind some way to turn him white. But be sure to make him promise youfirst that he will open the prison-door and find a ship for you tocross the sea in.”
“This is all very well,” said the Doctor. “But it isn’t so easy to turna black man white. You speak as though he were a dress to be re-dyed.It’s not so simple. ‘Shall the leopard change his spots, or theEthiopian his skin,’ you know?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Polynesia impatiently. “Butyou _must_ turn this coon white. Think of a way—think hard. You’ve gotplenty of medicines left in the bag. He’ll do anything for you if youchange his color. It is your only chance to get out of prison.”
“Well, I suppose it _might_ be possible,” said the Doctor. “Let mesee—,” and he went over to his medicine-bag, murmuring something about“liberated chlorine on animal-pigment—perhaps zinc-ointment, as atemporary measure, spread thick—”
Well, that night Prince Bumpo came secretly to the Doctor in prison andsaid to him,
“White Man, I am an unhappy prince. Years ago I went in search of TheSleeping Beauty, whom I had read of in a book. And having traveledthrough the world many days, I at last found her and kissed the ladyvery gently to awaken her—as the book said I should. ’Tis true indeedthat she awoke. But when she saw my face she cried out, ‘Oh, he’sblack!’ And she ran away and wouldn’t marry me—but went to sleepagain somewhere else. So I came back, full of sadness, to my father’skingdom. Now I hear that you are a wonderful magician and have manypowerful potions. So I come to you for help. If you will turn me white,so that I may go back to The Sleeping Beauty, I will give you half mykingdom and anything besides you ask.”
“Prince Bumpo,” said the Doctor, looking thoughtfully at the bottles inhis medicine-bag, “supposing I made your hair a nice blonde color—wouldnot that do instead to make you happy?”
“No,” said Bumpo. “Nothing else will satisfy me. I must be a whiteprince.”
“You know it is very hard to change the color of a prince,” said theDoctor—“one of the hardest things a magician can do. You only want yourface white, do you not?”
“Yes, that is all,” said Bumpo. “Because I shall wear shining armor andgauntlets of steel, like the other white princes, and ride on a horse.”
“Must your face be white all over?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes, all over,” said Bumpo—“and I would like my eyes blue too, but Isuppose that would be very hard to do.”
“Yes, it would,” said the Doctor quickly. “Well, I will do what I canfor you. You will have to be very patient though—you know with somemedicines you can never be very sure. I might have to try two or threetimes. You have a strong skin—yes? Well that’s all right. Now comeover here by the light—Oh, but before I do anything, you must first godown to the beach and get a ship ready, with food in it, to take meacross the sea. Do not speak a word of this to any one. And when I havedone as you ask, you must let me and all my animals out of prison.Promise—by the crown of Jolliginki!”
So the Prince promised and went away to get a ship ready at theseashore.
When he came back and said that it was done, the Doctor asked Dab-Dabto bring a basin. Then he mixed a lot of medicines in the basin andtold Bumpo to dip his face in it.
The Prince leaned down and put his face in—right up to the ears.
He held it there a long time—so long that the Doctor seemed to getdreadfully anxious and fidgety, standing first on one leg and then onthe other, looking at all the bottles he had used for the mixture, andreading the labels on them again and again. A strong smell filled theprison, like the smell of brown paper burning.
At last the Prince lifted his face up out of the basin, breathing veryhard. And all the animals cried out in surprise.
For the Prince’s face had turned as white as snow, and his eyes, whichhad been mud-colored, were a manly gray!
When John Dolittle lent him a little looking-glass to see himself in,he sang for joy and began dancing around the prison. But the Doctorasked him not to make so much noise about it; and when he had closedhis medicine-bag in a hurry he told him to open the prison-door.
Bumpo begged that he might keep the looking-glass, as it was the onlyone in the Kingdom of Jolliginki, and he wanted to look at himself allday long. But the Doctor said he needed it to shave with.
Then the Prince, taking a bunch of copper keys from his pocket, undidthe great double locks. And the Doctor with all his animals ran as fastas they could down to the seashore; while Bumpo leaned against the wallof the empty dungeon, smiling after them happily, his big face shininglike polished ivory in the light of the moon.
When they came to the beach they saw Polynesia and Chee-Chee waitingfor them on the rocks near the ship.
“I feel sorry about Bumpo,” said the Doctor. “I am afraid thatmedicine I used will never last. Most likely he will be as black asever when he wakes up in the morning—that’s one reason why I didn’tlike to leave the mirror with him. But then again, he _might_ staywhite—I had never used that mixture before. To tell the truth, I wassurprised, myself, that it worked so well. But I had to do something,didn’t I?—I couldn’t possibly scrub the King’s kitchen for the restof my life. It was such a dirty kitchen!—I could see it from theprison-window.—Well, well!—Poor Bumpo!”
“Oh, of course he will know we were just joking with him,” said theparrot.
“They had no business to lock us up,” said Dab-Dab, waggling her tailangrily. “We never did them any harm. Serve him right, if he does turnblack again! I hope it’s a dark black.”
“But _he_ didn’t have anything to do with it,” said the Doctor. “It wasthe King, his father, who had us locked up—it wasn’t Bumpo’s fault....I wonder if I ought to go back and apologize—Oh, well—I’ll send himsome candy when I get to Puddleby. And who knows?—he may stay whiteafter all.”
“The Sleeping Beauty would never have him, even if he did,” saidDab-Dab. “He looked better the way he was, I thought. But he’d never beanything but ugly, no matter what color he was made.”
“Still, he had a good heart,” said the Doctor—“romantic, of course—buta good heart. After all, ‘handsome is as handsome does.’”
“I don’t believe the poor booby found The Sleeping Beauty at all,”said Jip, the dog. “Most likely he kissed some farmer’s fat wife whowas taking a snooze under an apple-tree. Can’t blame her for gettingscared! I wonder who he’ll go and kiss this time. Silly business!”
Then the pushmi-pullyu, the white mouse, Gub-Gub, Dab-Dab, Jip andthe owl, Too-Too, went on to the ship with the Doctor. But Chee-Chee,Polynesia and the crocodile stayed behind, because Africa was theirproper home, the land where they were born.
And when the Doctor stood upon the boat, he looked over the sideacross the water. And then he remembered that they had no one with themto guide them back to Puddleby.
The wide, wide sea looked terribly big and lonesome in the moonlight;and he began to wonder if they would lose their way when they passedout of sight of land.
But even while he was wondering, they heard a strange whispering noise,high in the air, coming through the night. And the animals all stoppedsaying Good-by and listened.
The noise grew louder and bigger. It seemed to be coming nearer tothem—a sound like the Autumn wind blowing through the leaves of apoplar-tree, or a great, great rain beating down upon a roof.
And Jip, with his nose pointing and his tail quite straight, said,
“Birds!—millions of them—flying fast—that’s it!”
And then they all looked up. And there, streaming across the face ofthe moon, like a huge swarm of tiny ants, they could see thousands andthousands of little birds. Soon the whole sky seemed full of them, andstill more kept coming—more and more. There were so many that for alittle they covered the whole moon so it could not shine, and the seagrew dark and black—like when a storm-cloud passes over the sun.
And presently all these birds came down close, skimming over the waterand the land; and the night-sky was left clear above, and the moonshone as before. Still never a call nor a cry nor a song they made—nosound but this great rustling of feathers which grew greater now thanever. When they began to settle on the sands, along the ropes of theship—anywhere and everywhere except the trees—the Doctor could see thatthey had blue wings and white breasts and very short, feathered legs.As soon as they had all found a place to sit, suddenly, there was nonoise left anywhere—all was quiet; all was still.
And in the silent moonlight John Dolittle spoke:
“I had no idea that we had been in Africa so long. It will be nearlySummer when we get home. For these are the swallows going back.Swallows, I thank you for waiting for us. It is very thoughtful of you.Now we need not be afraid that we will lose our way upon the sea....Pull up the anchor and set the sail!”
“Crying bitterly and waving till the ship was out ofsight”]
When the ship moved out upon the water, those who stayed behind,Chee-Chee, Polynesia and the crocodile, grew terribly sad. For never intheir lives had they known any one they liked so well as Doctor JohnDolittle of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.
And after they had called Good-by to him again and again and again,they still stood there upon the rocks, crying bitterly and waving tillthe ship was out of sight.