Anyway I sincerely doubt whether our party would have held out if it had not been for his sympathetic and cheering company. The agonies of thirst were something new to me. Every step I thought must be my last.
“I remember Chee-Chee trickling something cool between my lips”
Finally at what seemed to be the end of our second day, I vaguely heard Polynesia saying something about “Forests ahead!” I imagine I must have been half delirious by then. I still staggered along, blindly following the others. I know we did reach water because before I fell and dozed away into a sort of half faint I remember Chee-Chee trickling something marvelously cool between my lips out of a cup made from a folded leaf.
THE FOURTH CHAPTER
Chee-Chee the Hero
When I awoke I felt very much ashamed of myself. What an explorer! The Doctor was moving around already—and, of course, Chee-Chee and Polynesia. John Dolittle came to my side immediately he saw I was awake.
As though he knew the thoughts that were in my mind he at once started to reprimand me for feeling ashamed of my performance. He pointed out that after all Chee-Chee and Polynesia were accustomed to traveling in hot dry climates and that so, for that matter, was he himself.
“Taken all in all, Stubbins,” said he, “your own performance has been extremely good. You made the trip, the whole way, and only collapsed when relief was in sight. No one could ask for more than that. I have known many experienced explorers who couldn’t have done nearly as well. It was a hard lap—a devilish hard lap. You were magnificent. Sit up and have some breakfast. Thank goodness, we’ve reached food at last!”
Weak and frowsty, I sat up. Arranged immediately around me was a collection of what I later learned were fruits. The reliable Chee-Chee, scared though he might be of a moving tree or a whispering wind, had served the whole party with that wonderful sense of his for scenting out wild foodstuffs. Not one of the strange courses on the bill of fare had I or the Doctor seen before. But if Chee-Chee said they were safe we knew we need not fear.
Some of the fruits were as big as a large trunk; some as small as a walnut. But, starving as we were, we just dived in and ate and ate and ate. Water there was too, gathered in the shells of enormous nuts and odd vessels made from twisted leaves. Never has a breakfast tasted so marvelous as did that one of fruits which I could not name.