Page:The Story of Doctor Dolittle.djvu/137

Red Sails and Blue Wings should think. Might as well try to win a race in a soup-tureen as hope to get away from them in this old barge. Look how near they are now!—You can see the mustaches on the faces of the men—six of them. What are we going to do?"

Then the Doctor asked Dab-Dab to fly up and tell the swallows that pirates were coming after them in a swift ship, and what should he do about it.

When the swallows heard this, they all came down on to the Doctor's ship; and they told him to unravel some pieces of long rope and make them into a lot of thin strings as quickly as he could. Then the ends of these strings were tied on to the front of the ship; and the swallows took hold of the strings with their feet and flew off, pulling the boat along.

And although swallows are not very strong when only one or two are by themselves, it is different when there are a great lot of them together. And there, tied to the Doctor's ship, were a thousand strings; and two thousand swallows were pulling on each string—all terribly swift fliers.