After two or three hours the swallows began to get tired. And they needed to take a rest soon; so they pulled the boat to an island and hid it in a deep bay till they could continue the flight. The island had a very beautiful, high, green mountain in the middle of it. The Doctor decided to look for water. And he told all the animals to walk on the grass.

Then the Doctor noticed a lot of rats leaving the ship. Jip started to run after them, but the Doctor told him to stop. And one big black rat said,

“Do you know, Doctor, that all ships have rats in them?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor.

“Do you know that rats always leave a sinking ship?” asked the rat.

“Yes,” said the Doctor, “I do.”

“So I want to tell you that we are leaving this ship. This ship isn’t safe. The sides aren’t strong enough. Its boards are rotten. Soon it will sink to the bottom of the sea.”

“But how do you know?” asked the Doctor.

“We always know,” answered the rat. “The tips of our tails start tingling then. It’s a bad ship, Doctor. Don’t sail in it any more. Good-bye! We are now going to look for a good place to live on this island.”

“Good-bye!” said the Doctor. “And thank you very much.”

So then the Doctor and all his animals went to look for water on the island, while the swallows took their rest.

“What is the name of this island?” said the Doctor, climbing up the mountainside. “It seems a pleasant place. What a lot of birds there are!”

“These are the Canary Islands,” said Dab-Dab. “Don’t you hear the canaries singing?”

The Doctor stopped and listened. “Of course!” he said. And soon the canaries came and led him to a beautiful spring of cool, clear water and showed green meadows. And the pushmi-pullyu was glad because he liked the green grass very much. A little later, when they were full, they lay on their backs and the canaries started singing for them. Suddenly two of the swallows came to them.

“Doctor!” they cried, “the pirates are in the bay; and they are on your ship. They are looking for things to steal. There is nobody on their ship now. If you hurry and come down to the shore, you can get onto their ship and escape. But please hurry.”

“That’s a good idea,” said the Doctor – “splendid!” And he called his animals together at once, said Good-bye to the canaries and ran down to the beach. When they reached the shore they saw the pirate-ship, with the three red sails, and there was nobody on it; all the pirates were downstairs in the Doctor’s ship, looking for things to steal. So John Dolittle told his animals to walk very softly and they all crept onto the pirate-ship.