THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER RED SAILS AND BLUE WINGS

 S

AILING¹ homeward, the Doctor’s ship had to pass the coast of Barbary. This coast is the seashore of the Great Desert. It is a wild, lonely place—all sand and stones. And it was here that the Barbary pirates² lived.

 

These pirates, a bad lot of men, used to wait for sailors to be shipwrecked on their shores. And often, if they saw a boat passing, they would come out in their fast sailing-ships and chase it. When they caught a boat like this at sea, they would steal everything on it; and after they had taken the people off they would sink the ship and sail back to Barbary singing songs and feeling proud of the mischief³ they had done. Then they used to make the people they had caught write home to their friends for money. And if[112] the friends sent no money, the pirates often threw the people into the sea.

 

Now one sunshiny day the Doctor and Dab-Dab were walking up and down on the ship for exercise; a nice fresh wind was blowing the boat along, and everybody was happy. Presently Dab-Dab saw the sail of another ship a long way behind them on the edge of the sea. It was a red sail.

 

“I don’t like the look of that sail,” said Dab-Dab. “I have a feeling it isn’t a friendly ship. I am afraid there is more trouble coming to us.”

 

Jip, who was lying near taking a nap in the sun, began to growl⁴ and talk in his sleep.

 

“I smell roast beef cooking,” he mumbled—“underdone roast beef—with brown gravy⁵ over it.”

 

“Good gracious⁶!” cried the Doctor. “What’s the matter with the dog? Is he smelling in his sleep—as well as talking?”

 

“I suppose he is,” said Dab-Dab. “All dogs can smell in their sleep.”

 

“But what is he smelling?” asked the Doctor.[113] “There is no roast beef cooking on our ship.”

 

“No,” said Dab-Dab. “The roast beef must be on that other ship over there.”

 

“But that’s ten miles away,” said the Doctor. “He couldn’t smell that far surely!”

 

“Oh, yes, he could,” said Dab-Dab. “You ask him.”

 

Then Jip, still fast asleep, began to growl again and his lip curled up angrily, showing his clean, white teeth.

 

“I smell bad men,” he growled—“the worst men I ever smelt⁷. I smell trouble. I smell a fight—six bad scoundrels fighting against one brave man. I want to help him. Woof—oo—WOOF!” Then he barked, loud, and woke himself up with a surprised look on his face.

 

“See!” cried Dab-Dab. “That boat is nearer now. You can count its three big sails—all red. Whoever it is, they are coming after us.... I wonder who they are.”

 

“They are bad sailors,” said Jip; “and their ship is very swift. They are surely the pirates of Barbary.”

 

“Well, we must put up more sails on our boat,”[114] said the Doctor, “so we can go faster and get away from them. Run downstairs, Jip, and fetch me all the sails you see.”

 

The dog hurried downstairs and dragged up every sail he could find.

 

Docor sees pirates in distance

“‘They are surely the pirates of Barbary’”

But even when all these were put up on the masts⁸ to catch the wind, the boat did not go nearly as fast as the pirates’—which kept coming on behind, closer and closer.

 

“This is a poor ship the Prince gave us,” said Gub-Gub, the pig—“the slowest he could find, I[115] should think. Might as well try to win a race in a soup-tureen as hope to get away from them in this old barge⁹. 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 unravel¹⁰ some pieces of long rope and make them into a lot of thin strings¹¹ 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.

 

[116]

 

And in a moment the Doctor found himself traveling so fast he had to hold his hat on with both hands; for he felt as though the ship itself were flying through waves that frothed and boiled with speed.

 

And all the animals on the ship began to laugh and dance about in the rushing air, for when they looked back at the pirates’ ship, they could see that it was growing smaller now, instead of bigger. The red sails were being left far, far behind.

1 ailing   

v.生病

参考例句：

• They discussed the problems ailing the steel industry. 他们讨论了困扰钢铁工业的问题。
• She looked after her ailing father. 她照顾有病的父亲。

2 pirates   

n.海盗( pirate的名词复数 )；剽窃者；侵犯版权者；非法播音的人（或组织）

参考例句：

• Children dressed (themselves) up as pirates. 孩子们假扮成海盗。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The pirates treated their captives with barbarity. 海盗们残暴地对待他们的俘虏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 mischief   

n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹

参考例句：

• Nobody took notice of the mischief of the matter. 没有人注意到这件事情所带来的危害。
• He seems to intend mischief.看来他想捣蛋。

4 growl   

v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣

参考例句：

• The dog was biting,growling and wagging its tail.那条狗在一边撕咬一边低声吼叫，尾巴也跟着摇摆。
• The car growls along rutted streets.汽车在车辙纵横的街上一路轰鸣。

5 gravy   

n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快

参考例句：

• You have spilled gravy on the tablecloth.你把肉汁泼到台布上了。
• The meat was swimming in gravy.肉泡在浓汁之中。

6 gracious   

adj.亲切的，客气的，宽厚的，仁慈的

参考例句：

• She was a very gracious lady.她是一位非常和蔼可亲的女士。
• She was gracious enough to show us round her home.她彬彬有礼地领我们参观了她的家。

7 smelt   

v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼

参考例句：

• Tin is a comparatively easy metal to smelt.锡是比较容易熔化的金属。
• Darby was looking for a way to improve iron when he hit upon the idea of smelting it with coke instead of charcoal.达比一直在寻找改善铁质的方法，他猛然想到可以不用木炭熔炼，而改用焦炭。

8 masts   

船桅( mast的名词复数 )； 桅杆； 旗杆； 天线塔

参考例句：

• Her masts leveled with the spires of churches. 船的桅杆和教堂的塔尖一样高。
• First the sails and then the masts went. 先是帆坏了，随后桅杆也断了。

9 barge   

n.平底载货船，驳船

参考例句：

• The barge was loaded up with coal.那艘驳船装上了煤。
• Carrying goods by train costs nearly three times more than carrying them by barge.通过铁路运货的成本比驳船运货成本高出近3倍。

10 unravel   

v.弄清楚（秘密）；拆开，解开，松开

参考例句：

• He was good with his hands and could unravel a knot or untangle yarn that others wouldn't even attempt.他的手很灵巧，其他人甚至都不敢尝试的一些难解的绳结或缠在一起的纱线，他都能解开。
• This is the attitude that led him to unravel a mystery that long puzzled Chinese historians.正是这种态度使他解决了长期以来使中国历史学家们大惑不解的谜。

11 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。