We peered through the twilight. . . . Yes, there was something around the giant’s wrist, but so tight that it was almost buried in the flesh. The Doctor touched it gently. But before he could say anything Chee-Chee’s voice broke out again, his words cutting the stillness in a curious, hoarse, sharp whisper.
“The blue stone beads!—Don’t you see them? . . . They don’t fit him any more since he’s grown a giant. But he’s Otho Bludge the artist. That’s the bracelet he got from Pippiteepa the grandmother of the Fairies!—It is he, Doctor, Otho Bludge, who was blown off the Earth in the Days Before There Was a Moon!”
THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER
The Doctor and the Giant
“All right, Chee-Chee, all right,” said the Doctor hurriedly. “Wait now. We’ll see what we can find out. Don’t get excited.”
In spite of the Doctor’s reassuring words I could see that he himself was by this time quite a little agitated. And for that no one could blame him. After weeks in this weird world where naught but extraordinary things came up day after day we had been constantly wondering when we’d see the strange Human whose traces and influence were everywhere so evident. Now at last he had appeared.
I gazed up at the gigantic figure rearing away into the skies above our heads. With one of his feet he could easily have crushed the lot of us like so many cockroaches. Yet he, with the rest of the gathering, seemed not unfriendly to us, if a bit puzzled by our size. As for John Dolittle, he may have been a little upset by Chee-Chee’s announcement, but he certainly wasn’t scared. He at once set to work to get into touch with this strange creature who had called on us. And, as was usual with his experiments of this kind, the other side seemed more than willing to help.
The giant wore very little clothes. A garment somewhat similar to our own, made from the flexible bark and leaves we had discovered in the forest, covered his middle from the arm-pits down to the lower thighs. His hair was long and shaggy, falling almost to his shoulders. The Doctor measured up to a line somewhere near his ankle-bone. Apparently realizing that it was difficult for John Dolittle to talk with him at that range, the giant made a movement with his hand and at once the insects nearest to us rose and crawled away. In the space thus cleared the man-monster sat down to converse with his visitors from the Earth.
It was curious that after this I too no longer feared the enormous creature who looked like something from a fairy tale or a nightmare. Stretching down a tremendous hand, he lifted the Doctor, as though he had been a doll, and set him upon his bare knee. From this height—at least thirty feet above my head—John Dolittle clambered still further up the giant’s frame till he stood upon his shoulder.
Here he apparently had much greater success in making himself understood than he had had lower down. By standing on tip-toe he could just reach the Moon Man’s ear. Presently descending to the knee again, he began calling to me.
“Stubbins—I say, Stubbins! Have you got a notebook handy?”