The Doctor tried again, in several other animal dialects.  But with no result.

Till at last he came to the language of eagles.

“Great Red-Skin,” he said in the fierce screams and short grunts that the big birds use, “never have I been so glad in all my life as I am to-day to find you still alive.”

In a flash Long Arrow’s stony face lit up with a smile of understanding; and back came the answer in eagle-tongue,

“Mighty White Man, I owe my life to you.  For the remainder of my days I am your servant to command.”

Afterwards Long Arrow told us that this was the only bird or animal language that he had ever been able to learn.  But that he had not spoken it in a long time, for no eagles ever came to this island.

Then the Doctor signaled to Bumpo who came forward with the nuts and water.  But Long Arrow neither ate nor drank.  Taking the supplies with a nod of thanks, he turned and carried them into the inner dimness of the cave.  We followed him.

Inside we found nine other Indians, men, women and boys, lying on the rock floor in a dreadful state of thinness and exhaustion.

Some had their eyes closed, as if dead.  Quickly the Doctor went round them all and listened to their hearts.  They were all alive; but one woman was too weak even to stand upon her feet.

At a word from the Doctor, Chee-Chee and Polynesia sped off into the jungles after more fruit and water.

While Long Arrow was handing round what food we had to his starving friends, we suddenly heard a sound outside the cave.  Turning about we saw, clustered at the entrance, the band of Indians who had met us so inhospitably at the beach.

They peered into the dark cave cautiously at first.  But as soon as they saw Long Arrow and the other Indians with us, they came rushing in, laughing, clapping their hands with joy and jabbering away at a tremendous rate.

Long Arrow explained to the Doctor that the nine Indians we had found in the cave with him were two families who had accompanied him into the mountains to help him gather medicine-plants.  And while they had been searching for a kind of moss—­good for indigestion—­which grows only inside of damp caves, the great rock slab had slid down and shut them in.  Then for two weeks they had lived on the medicine-moss and such fresh water as could be found dripping from the damp walls of the cave.  The other Indians on the island bad given them up for lost and mourned them as dead; and they were now very surprised and happy to find their relatives alive.

When Long Arrow turned to the newcomers and told them in their own language that it was the white man who had found and freed their relatives, they gathered round John Dolittle, all talking at once and beating their breasts.

Long Arrow said they were apologizing and trying to tell the Doctor how sorry they were that they had seemed unfriendly to him at the beach.  They had never seen a white man before and had really been afraid of him—­especially when they saw him conversing with the porpoises.  They had thought he was the Devil, they said.