Then the parrot coughed again--loud, like a man. And the King sat up, wide awake, and said, "Who's that?"
"I am Doctor Dolittle," said the parrot--just the way the Doctor would have said it.
"What are you doing in my bedroom?" cried the King. "How dare you get out of prison!
Where are you?--I don't see you."
But the parrot just laughed--a long, deep jolly laugh, like the Doctor's.
"Stop laughing and come here at once, so I can see you," said the King.
"Foolish King!" answered Polynesia. "Have you forgotten that you are talking to John Dolittle, M.D.--the most wonderful man on earth?
Of course you cannot see me. I have made myself invisible. There is nothing I cannot do.
Now listen: I have come here to-night to warn you. If you don't let me and my animals travel through your kingdom, I will make you and all your people sick like the monkeys. For I can make people well: and I can make people ill-- just by raising my little finger. Send your soldiers at once to open the dungeon door, or you shall have mumps before the morning sun has risen on the hills of Jolliginki."
Then the King began to tremble and was very much afraid.
"Doctor," he cried, "it shall be as you say.
Do not raise your little finger, please!" And he jumped out of bed and ran to tell the soldiers to open the prison door.
As soon as he was gone, Polynesia crept downstairs and left the palace by the pantry window.
But the Queen, who was just letting herself in at the backdoor with a latch-key, saw the par- rot getting out through the broken glass. And when the King came back to bed she told him what she had seen.
Then the King understood that he had been tricked, and he was dreadfully angry. He hurried back to the prison at once But he was too late. The door stood open.
The dungeon was empty. The Doctor and all his animals were gone.