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," 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.
But even when all these were put up on the
masts 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 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.
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