The Doctor, taken aback for a moment, gazed at the pistol muzzle, wondering what to do next. Wilkins, without moving his eyes from the Doctor for a second, closed the pearl box with his left hand and put it into his pocket.
While he was doing this, however, Dab-Dab sneaked in under the table, unseen by anyone. And suddenly she bit the pearl fisherman in the leg with her powerful beak.
With a howl Wilkins bent down to knock her off.
"Now's your chance, Doctor!" yelled the duck.
And in the second while the pistol was lowered the Doctor sprang onto the man's back, gripped him around the neck, and with a crash the two of them went rolling on the floor of the cabin.
Then a tremendous fight began. Over and over and over they rolled around the floor, upsetting things in all directions, Wilkins fighting to get his pistol hand free, the Doctor struggling to keep it bound to his body, Dab-Dab hopping and flying and jumping and flapping to get a bite in on the enemy's nose whenever she saw a chance.
At last John Dolittle, who for his size, was a very powerful wrestler, got the pearl fisherman in a grip of iron where he couldn't move at all. But just as the Doctor was forcing the pistol out of his enemy's hand, one of the other men, who had been aroused by the noise of the fight, woke up. And, leaning out of his bunk from behind the Doctor's back, he hit him a tremendous blow on the head with a bottle. Stunned and senseless, John Dolittle fell over in a heap and lay still upon the floor.
Then all three men sprang on him with ropes and in a minute his arms and legs were tied and the fight was over.
When he woke up the Doctor found himself lying at the bottom of his own canoe, with Dab-Dab tugging at the ropes which bound his wrists to get him free.