As soon as they saw that the Doctor was escaping, they sailed the other boat right across the entrance to the bay so that the Doctor could not get out into the open sea.
Then the leader of these bad men (who called himself “Ben Ali, The Dragon”) shook his fist at the Doctor and shouted across the water,
“Ha! Ha! You are caught, my fine friend! You were going to run off in my ship, eh? But you are not a good enough sailor to beat Ben Ali, the Barbary Dragon. I want that duck you’ve got—and the pig too. We’ll have pork-chops and roast duck for supper to-night. And before I let you go home, you must make your friends send me a trunk-full of gold.”
Poor Gub-Gub began to weep; and Dab-Dab made ready to fly to save her life. But the owl, Too-Too, whispered to the Doctor,
“Keep him talking, Doctor. Be pleasant to him. Our old ship is bound to sink soon—the rats said it would be at the bottom of the sea before to-morrow-night—and the rats are never wrong. Be pleasant, till the ship sinks under him. Keep him talking.”
“What, until to-morrow night!” said the Doctor. “Well, I’ll do my best.... Let me see—What shall I talk about?”
“Oh, let them come on,” said Jip. “We can fight the dirty rascals. There are only six of them. Let them come on. I’d love to tell that collie next door, when we get home, that I had bitten a real pirate. Let ’em come. We can fight them.”
“‘Look here, Ben Ali—’”