"How far off the rocks is the ship now?" asked the gull.
"About a mile, I should say," said Dab-Dab. "But she's a big one—judging by the height of her mast-light—and she won't be long before she's aground on the cape."
"Keep right on, Doctor," said the gull. "I'm going off to get some friends of mine."
And the seagull spread his wings and flew away toward the land, calling the same cry as the Doctor had heard through the post office window.
John Dolittle had no idea of what he meant to do. Nor was the gull himself sure that he would be in time to succeed with the plan he had in mind. But presently, to his delight, the seabird heard his call being answered from the rocky shores shrouded in darkness. And soon he had hundreds of his brother gulls circling round him in the night.
Then he took them to the great ship, which was sailing calmly onward toward the rocks and destruction. And there, going forward to where the helmsman held the spokes of the wheel and watched the compass swinging before him in the light of a little, dim lamp, the gulls started dashing themselves into the wheelman's face and covering the glass of the compass, so he could not steer the ship.
"The gulls dashed themselves into the wheelman's face"