I cannot tell, for never a second were
they given to get their breath or rest their arms.

The Doctor--the quiet, kindly, peaceable, little Doctor!--well, you
wouldn't have known him if you had seen him that day dealing out whacks
you could hear a mile off, walloping and swatting in all directions.

As for Bumpo, with staring eye-balls and grim set teeth, he was
a veritable demon. None dared come within yards of that wicked,
wide-circling door-post. But a stone, skilfully thrown, struck him at
last in the centre of the forehead. And down went the second of the
Three. John Dolittle, the last of the Terribles, was left fighting
alone.

Jip and I rushed to his side and tried to take the places of the fallen
ones. But, far too light and too small, we made but a poor exchange.
Another length of the fence crashed down, and through the widened gap
the Bag-jagderags poured in on us like a flood.

"To the canoes!--To the sea!" shouted the Popsipetels. "Fly for your
lives!--All is over!--The war is lost!"

But the Doctor and I never got a chance to fly for our lives. We were
swept off our feet and knocked down flat by the sheer weight of the mob.
And once down, we were unable to get up again. I thought we would surely
be trampled to death.

But at that moment, above the din and racket of the battle, we heard
the most terrifying noise that ever assaulted human ears: the sound of
millions and millions of parrots all screeching with fury together.

The army, which in the nick of time Polynesia had brought to our rescue,
darkened the whole sky to the westward. I asked her afterwards, how many
birds there were; and she said she didn't know exactly but that they
certainly numbered somewhere between sixty and seventy millions. In
that extraordinarily short space of time she had brought them from the
mainland of South America.

If you have ever heard a parrot screech with anger you will know that it
makes a truly frightful sound; and if you have ever been bitten by one,
you will know that its bite can be a nasty and a painful thing.

The Black Parrots (coal-black all over, they were--except for a scarlet
beak and a streak of red in wing and tail) on the word of command
from Polynesia set to work upon the Bag-jagderags who were now pouring
through the village looking for plunder.

And the Black Parrots' method of fighting was peculiar. This is what
they did: on the head of each Bag-jagderag three or four parrots settled
and to