Part 8

“Yes. Very good,” said he. “We have now established you as Otho Bludge, the Stone Age artist, who was blown off the Earth when the Moon set herself up in the sky. But how about this Council? I understand you are President of it and can control its workings. Is that so?”

The great giant swung his enormous head round and regarded for a moment the pigmy figure of the Doctor standing, just then, on his forearm.

“The Council?” said he dreamily. “Oh, ah, yes, to be sure, the Council. . . . Well, we had to establish that, you know. At one time it was nothing but war—war, war all the time. We saw that if we did not arrange a balance we would have an awful mess. Too many seeds. Plants spread like everything. Birds laid too many eggs. Bees swarmed too often. Terrible!—You’ve seen that down there on the Earth, I imagine, have you not?”

“Yes, yes, to be sure,” said the Doctor. “Go on, please.”

“Well, there isn’t much more to that. We just made sure, by means of the Council, that there should be _no more warfare_.”

“Humph!” the Doctor grunted. “But tell me: how is it you yourself have lived so long? No one knows how many years ago it is that the Moon broke away from the Earth. And your age, compared with the life of Man in our world, must be something staggering.”

“Well, of course,” said the Moon Man, “just how I got here is something that I have never been able to explain completely, even to myself. But why bother? Here I am. What recollections I have of that time are awfully hazy. Let me see: when I came to myself I could hardly breathe. I remember that. The air—everything—was so different. But I was determined to survive. That, I think, is what must have saved me. I was _determined_ to survive. This piece of land, I recollect, when it stopped swirling was pretty barren. But it had the remnants of trees and plants which it had brought with it from the Earth. I lived on roots and all manner of stuff to begin with. Many a time I thought that I would have to perish. But I didn’t—_because I was determined to survive_. And in the end I did. After a while plants began to grow; insects, which had come with the plants, flourished. Birds the same way—they, like me, were determined to survive. A new world was formed. Years after I realized that I was the one to steer and guide its destiny since I had—at that time anyway—more intelligence than the other forms of life. I saw what this fighting of kind against kind must lead to. So I formed the Council. Since then—oh, dear, how long ago!—vegetable and animal species have come to—Well, you see it here. . . . That’s all. It’s quite simple.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor hurriedly. “I quite understand that—the necessities that led you to establish the Council.—And an exceedingly fine thing it is, in my opinion. We will come back to that later. In the meantime I am greatly puzzled as to how you came to hear of me—with no communication between your world and ours. Your moth came to Puddleby and asked me to accompany him back here. It was you who sent him, I presume?”

“Well, it was I and the Council who sent him,” the Moon Man corrected. “As for the ways in which your reputation reached us, communication is, as you say, very rare between the two worlds. But it does occur once in a long while. Some disturbance takes place in your globe that throws particles so high that they get beyond the influence of earth gravity and come under the influence of our gravity. Then they are drawn to the Moon and stay here. I remember, many centuries ago, a great whirlwind or some other form of rumpus in your world occurred which tossed shrubs and stones to such a height that they lost touch with the Earth altogether and finally landed here. And a great nuisance they were too. The shrubs seeded and spread like wildfire before we realized they had arrived and we had a terrible time getting them under control.”

“That is most interesting,” said the Doctor, glancing in my direction, as he translated, to make sure I got the notes down in my book. “But please tell me of the occasion by which you first learned of me and decided you wanted me up here.”

“That,” said the Moon Man, “came about through something which was, I imagine, a volcanic eruption. From what I can make out, one of your big mountains down there suddenly blew its head off, after remaining quiet and peaceful for many years. It was an enormous and terribly powerful explosion and tons of earth and trees and stuff were fired off into space. Some of this material that started away in the direction of the Moon finally came within the influence of our attraction and was drawn to us. And, as you doubtless know, when earth or plants are shot away some animal life nearly always goes with it. In this case a bird, a kingfisher, in fact, who was building her nest in the banks of a mountain lake, was carried off. Several pieces of the earth landed on the Moon. Some, striking land, were smashed to dust and any animal life they carried—mostly insect of course—was destroyed. But the piece on which the kingfisher traveled fell into one of our lakes.”

It was an astounding story and yet I believe it true. For how else could the Doctor’s fame have reached the Moon? Of course any but a water bird would have been drowned because apparently the mass plunged down fifty feet below the surface, but the kingfisher at once came up and flew off for the shore. It was a marvel that she was alive. I imagine her trip through the dead belt had been made at such tremendous speed that she managed to escape suffocation without the artificial breathing devices which we had been compelled to use.

THE TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER How the Moon Folk Heard of Doctor Dolittle

The bird the Moon Man had spoken of (it seems she had since been elected to the Council) was presently brought forward and introduced to the Doctor. She gave us some valuable information about her trip to the Moon and how she had since adapted herself to new conditions.

She admitted it was she who had told the Moon Folk about John Dolittle and his wonderful skill in treating sicknesses, of his great reputation among the birds, beasts and fishes of the Earth.

It was through this introduction also that we learned that the gathering about us was nothing less than a full assembly of the Council itself—with the exception, of course, of the Vegetable Kingdom, who could not come. That community was however represented by different creatures from the Insect and Bird Worlds who were there to see to it that its interests were properly looked after.

This was evidently a big day for the Moon People. After our interview with the kingfisher we could see that arguments were going on between different groups and parties all over the place. At times it looked like a political meeting of the rowdiest kind. These discussions the Doctor finally put down quite firmly by demanding of the Moon Man in a loud voice the reason for his being summoned here.

“After all,” said he when some measure of quiet had been restored, “you must realize that I am a very busy man. I appreciate it as a great honor that I have been asked to come here. But I have duties and obligations to perform on the Earth which I have left. I presume that you asked me here for some special purpose. Won’t you please let me know what it is?”

A silent pause spread over the chattering assembly. I glanced round the queer audience of birds and bugs who squatted, listening. The Doctor, quite apart from his demand for attention had evidently touched upon a ticklish subject. Even the Moon Man himself seemed somewhat ill at ease.

“Well,” he said at last, “the truth is we were sorely in need of a good physician. I myself have been plagued by a bad pain in the foot. And then many of the bigger insects—the grasshoppers especially—have been in very poor health now for some time. From what the kingfisher told me, I felt you were the only one who could help us—that you—er—perhaps wouldn’t mind if we got you up here where your skill was so sorely needed. Tell me now: you were not put out by the confidence we placed in you? We had no one in our own world who could help us. Therefore we agreed, in a special meeting of the Council, to send down and try to get you.”

The Doctor made no reply.

“You must realize,” the Moon Man went on, his voice dropping to a still more apologetic tone, “that this moth we sent took his life in his hand. We cast lots among the larger birds, moths, butterflies and other insects. It had to be one of our larger kinds. It was a long trip, requiring enormous staying power. . . .”

The Moon Man spread out his giant hands in protest—a gesture very suggestive of the other world from which he originally came. The Doctor hastened to reassure him.

“Why, of course, of course,” said he. “I—we—were most glad to come. In spite of the fact that I am always terribly busy down there, this was something so new and promising in natural history I laid every interest aside in my eagerness to get here. With the moth you sent the difficulty of language did not permit me to make the preparations I would have liked. But pray do not think that I have regretted coming. I would not have missed this experience for worlds. It is true I could have wished that you had seen your way to getting in touch with us sooner. But there—I imagine you too have your difficulties. I suppose you must be kept pretty busy.”

“Busy?” said the Moon Man blankly. “Oh, no. I’m not busy. Life is very quiet and pleasant here.—Sometimes too quiet, we think. A session with the Council every now and then and a general inspection of the globe every so often: that is all I have to bother with. The reason I didn’t come and see you sooner, to be quite honest, was because I was a bit scared. It was something so new, having human folks visit you from another world. There was no telling what you might turn out to be—what you might do. For another thing, I expected you to be alone. For weeks past I have had the birds and insects—and the plants too—send me reports of your movements and character. You see, I had relied solely on the statements of a kingfisher. No matter how kind and helpful you had been to the creatures of your own world, it did not follow that you would be the same way inclined towards the Moon Folk. I am sorry if I did not appear properly hospitable. But you must make allowances. It—it was all so—so new.”

“Oh, quite, quite,” said the Doctor, again most anxious to make his host feel at ease. “Say no more, please, of that. I understand perfectly. There are a few points, however, on which I would like to have some light thrown. For one thing, we thought we saw smoke on the Moon, from Puddleby, shortly after your moth arrived. Can you tell us anything about that?”

“Why, of course,” said the Moon Man quickly. “I did that. We were quite worried about the moth. As I told you, we felt kind of guilty about the risky job we had given him. It was Jamaro who finally drew the marked card in the lottery.”

“Jamaro!” muttered the Doctor, slightly bewildered—“Lottery?—I—er—”

“The lottery to decide who should go,” the Moon Man explained. “I told you: we drew lots. Jamaro Bumblelily was the moth who drew the ticket which gave the task to him.”

“Oh, I see,” said the Doctor—“Jamaro. Yes, yes. You give your insects names in this land. Very natural and proper of course, where they are so large and take such an important part in the life and government of the community. You can no doubt tell all these insects one from another, even when they belong to the same species?”

“Certainly,” said the Moon Man. “We have, I suppose, several hundreds of thousands of bees in the Moon. But I know each one by his first name, as well as his swarm, or family name. Anyhow, to continue: it was then Jamaro Bumblelily who drew the ticket that gave him the job of going to the Earth after you. He was very sportsmanlike and never grumbled a bit. But we were naturally anxious. It is true that creatures had come, at rare intervals, from the Earth to our world. But so far none had gone from us to the Earth. We had only the vaguest idea of what your world would be like—from the descriptions of the kingfisher. And even in getting those we had been greatly handicapped by language. It had only been after days and weeks of work that we had been able to understand one another in the roughest way. So we had arranged with Jamaro Bumblelily that as soon as he landed he was to try and find some way to signal us to let us know he was all right. And we were to signal back to him. It seems he made a bad landing and lay helpless in your garden for some days. For a long while we waited in great anxiety. We feared he must have perished in his heroic exploit. Then we thought that maybe if we signaled to him he would be encouraged and know that we were still expecting his return. So we set off the smoke smudge.”

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “I saw it, even if Jamaro didn’t. But tell me: how did you manage to raise such an enormous smudge? It must have been as big as a mountain.”

“True,” said the Moon Man. “For twenty days before Jamaro’s departure I and most of the larger birds and insects had gathered the Jing-jing bark from the forest.”

“Gathered the _what_?” asked the Doctor.

“The Jing-jing bark,” the Moon Man repeated. “It is a highly explosive bark from a certain tree we have here.”

“But how did you light it?” asked the Doctor.

“By friction,” said the Moon Man—“drilling a hard-wood stick into a soft-wood log. We had tons and tons of the bark piled in a barren rocky valley where it would be safe from firing the bush or jungle. We are always terrified of bush-fires here—our world is not large, you know. I set the pile off with a live ember which I carried on a slate. Then I sprang back behind a rock bluff to defend my eyes. The explosion was terrific and the smoke kept us all coughing for days before it finally cleared away.”

THE TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER The Man Who Made Himself a King

We were frequently reminded during this long conversation (it lasted over a full day and a half) that the strange crowd about us was the great Council itself. Questions every now and then were hurled at the Moon Man from the dimness of the rear. He was continually turning his head as messages and enquiries were carried across to him from mouth to mouth. Sometimes without consulting the Doctor further he would answer them himself in queer sounds and signs. It was quite evident that the Council was determined to keep in touch with any negotiations that were going on.

As for John Dolittle, there was so much that he wanted to find out it looked—in spite of his hurry to get back to the Earth—as though his queries would never end—which, in a first meeting between two worlds, is not after all to be wondered at.

“Can you remember,” he asked, “when you first felt the Moon steadying herself, how you got accustomed to the new conditions? We had on our arrival a perfectly terrible time, you know. Different air, different gravity, different hearing and the rest. Tell me: how did you manage?”

Frowning, the Moon Man passed his gigantic hand across his brow.

“Really—it’s so long ago,” he muttered. “As I told you, I nearly died, many times. Getting enough food to stay alive on kept me busy the first few months. Then when I was sure that that problem was solved I began to watch. Soon I saw that the birds and insects were faced with the same difficulties as I was. I searched the Moon globe from end to end. There were no others of my own kind here. I was the only man. I needed company badly. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll study the Insect and Bird Kingdoms.’ The birds adapted themselves much quicker than I did to the new conditions. I soon found that they, being in the same boat as myself, were only too glad to cooperate with me in anything that would contribute to our common good. Of course I was careful to kill nothing. For one thing I had no desire to; and for another I realized that if, on such a little globe, I started to make enemies I could not last long. From the beginning I had done my best to live and let live. With no other human to talk with I can’t tell you how terribly, desperately lonely I felt. Then I decided I’d try to learn the language of the birds. Clearly they had a language. No one could listen to their warblings and not see that. For years I worked at it—often terribly discouraged at my poor progress. Finally—don’t ask me when—I got to the point where I could whistle short conversations with them. Then came the insects—the birds helped me in that too. Then the plant languages. The bees started me. They knew all the dialects. And . . . well . . .”

“Go on,” said the Doctor. The tone of his voice was calm and quiet, but I could see that he was deeply, intensely interested.

“Oh, dear me,” sighed the Moon Man, almost petulantly, “my memory, you know, for dates as far back as that, is awfully poor. To-day it seems as though I had talked Heron and Geranium all my life. But just when it was, actually, that I reached the point where I could converse freely with the insects and plants, I couldn’t give you the vaguest idea. I do know that it took me far, far longer to get in touch with the vegetable forms of life than it did with either the insects or the birds. I am afraid that our keeping count of time throughout has been pretty sketchy—certainly in our earlier history anyway. But then you must remember we were occupied with a great number of far more serious tasks. Recently—the last thousand years or so—we have been making an effort to keep a history and we can show you, I think, a pretty good record of most of the more important events within that time. The trouble is that nearly all of the dates you want are earlier than that.”

“Well, never mind,” said the Doctor. “We are getting on very well under the circumstances. I would like very much to see that record you speak of and will ask you to show it to me, if you will be so good, later.”

He then entered into a long examination of the Moon Man (carefully avoiding all dates, periods and references to time) on a whole host of subjects. The majority of them were concerned with insect and plant evolution and he kept a strict eye on me to see that all questions and replies were jotted down in the notebook. Gracious! What an unending list it seemed to my tired mind! How had the Moon Man first realized that the plants were anxious to talk and cooperate with him? What had led him to believe that the bees were in communication with the flowers they fed on? Which fruits and vegetables had he found were good for human food and how had he discovered their nutritious qualities without poisoning himself? etc., etc., etc. It went on for hours. I got most of it down, with very few mistakes, I think. But I know I was more than half asleep during the last hours of the interview.

The only trouble with most of it was this same old bug-bear of time. After all these ages of living without human company the poor giant’s mind had got to the point where it simply didn’t use time. Even in this record of the last thousand years, which he had proudly told us was properly dated, we found, when he showed it to us, an error of a century more or less meant very little.

This history had been carved in pictures and signs on the face of a wide flat rock. The workmanship of Otho the pre-historic artist showed up here to great advantage. While the carvings were not by any means to be compared with his masterpiece of the kneeling girl, they nevertheless had a dash and beauty of design that would arrest the attention of almost any one.

Nevertheless despite the errors of time, both in his recollections and his graven history, we got down the best booking that we could in the circumstances. And with all its slips and gaps it was a most thrilling and exciting document. It was the story of a new world’s evolution; of how a man, suddenly transported into space with nothing but what his two hands held at the moment of the catastrophe, had made himself the kindly monarch of a kingdom—a kingdom more wondrous than the wildest imaginings of the mortals he had left behind. For he was indeed a king, even if he called himself no more than the President of the Council. And what hardships and terrible difficulties he had overcome in doing it, only we could realize—we, who had come here with advantages and aids which he had never known.

Finally a lull did come in this long, long conversation between the Doctor and the Moon Man. And while I lay back and stretched my right hand, cramped from constant writing, Polynesia gave vent to a great deal which she had evidently had on her mind for some time.

“Well,” she grunted, lifting her eyebrows, “what did I tell you, Tommy? Rheumatism! That’s what the Doctor has come all this way for—_rheumatism_! I wouldn’t mind it so much in the case of the Moon Man himself. Because he certainly is a man in a hundred. But _grasshoppers_! Think of it—Think of bringing John Dolittle, M.D., billions of miles” (Polynesia’s ideas on geographical measurement were a bit sketchy) “just to wait on a bunch of grasshoppers! I—”

But the remainder of her indignant speech got mixed up with some of her favorite Swedish swear words and the result was something that no one could make head or tail of.

Very soon this pause in the conversation between the Doctor and the Moon Man was filled up by a great deal of talking among the Council. Every member of that important parliament apparently wanted to know exactly what had been said and decided on and what new measures—if any—were to be put in force. We could see that the poor President was being kept very busy.

At length the Doctor turned once more to the giant and said:

“Well now, when would it be convenient for you and the insect patients to be examined? I shall be most happy to do everything possible for you all, but you must realize that I would like to get back to the Earth as soon as I conveniently can.”

Before answering the Moon Man proceeded to consult his Council behind him. And, to judge from the length of the discussions that followed, he was meeting with quite a little criticism in whatever plans he was proposing. But finally he managed to quiet them; and addressing John Dolittle once more, he said:

“Thank you. If it will not inconvenience you, we will come to-morrow and have you minister to us. You have been very kind to come at all. I hope we will not seem too large an undertaking for you. At least, since you have approved of our system and government here, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are assisting us in a time of great need.”

“Why, of course, of course,” said the Doctor at once. “I shall be only too glad. That is what I am for, after all. I am a doctor, you know, a physician—even if I have become a naturalist in my later years. At what hour will you be ready for me?”

“At dawn,” said the Moon Man. Even in these modern days ideas of time on the Moon seemed strangely simple. “We will wait on you at sunrise. Till then, pleasant dreams and good rest!”

THE TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER Doctor Dolittle Opens His Surgery on the Moon