"'Turn back, Jip!' gasped the Doctor"
But Jip had no intention of turning back and leaving the Doctor to drown—though he saw no possible chance of rescue.
Presently John Dolittle's mouth filled with water and he began to splutter and gurgle and Jip was really frightened. But just as the Doctor's eyes were closing and he seemed too weak to swim another stroke a curious thing happened. Jip felt something come up under the water, right beneath his feet, and lift him and the Doctor slowly out of the sea, like the rising deck of a submarine. Up and up they were lifted, now entirely out of the water. And, gasping and sprawling side by side, they gazed at one another in utter astonishment.
"What is it, Doctor?" said Jip, staring down at the strange thing, which had now stopped rising and was carrying them like a ship, right across the strong course of the current, in the direction of the island.
"I haven't the—hah—remotest—hah—idea," panted John Dolittle. "Can it be a whale? No, because the skin isn't a whale's. This is fur," he said, plucking at the stuff he was sitting on.
"Well, it's an animal of some kind, isn't it?" said Jip. "But where's its head?" and he gazed down the long sloping back that stretched in a flat curve in front of them for a good thirty yards.
"Its head is under water," said the Doctor. "But there's its tail, look, behind us."