At length the extraordinary creature that had come to their rescue reached the island; and with Jip and the Doctor still clinging to his wide back, he crawled out of the water on to the beach.  
And then John Dolittle, seeing its head for the first time, cried out in great excitement:
 
"Jip, it's a Quiffenodochus, as sure as I'm alive!"
 
"A Quiffeno-what-us?" asked Jip.
 
"A Quiffenodochus," said the Doctor—"a beast. thought they were extinct—that there weren't any more live ones anywhere in the world. This is a great day, Jip. I'm glad I came here."
 
The tremendous animal which the Fantippans had called a dragon had now climbed right up the beach and was revealed in all his strangeness. At first he looked like some curious mixture between a crocodile and a giraffe. He had short, spreading legs, but enormously long tail and neck. On his head were two stubby little horns.
 
As soon as the Doctor and Jip had climbed down off his back he swung his head around on the end of that enormous neck and said to the Doctor:
 
"Do you feel all right now?"
 
"Yes, thanks," said John Dolittle.
 
"I was afraid," said the creature, "that I wouldn't be in time to save your life. It was my brother who first saw you. We thought it was a native and we were getting ready to give him our usual terrifying reception. But while we watched from behind the trees my brother suddenly cried: 'Great heavens! That's Doctor Dolittle—and he's drowning. See, how he waves his arms! He must be saved at any cost. There isn't one man like that born in a thousand years! Let's go after him, quick!' Then word was passed around the island that John Dolittle, the great doctor, was drowning out in the straits. Of course, we had all heard of you. And, rushing down to a secret which we have on the far side of the island, we dashed into the sea and swam out to you under water. I was the best swimmer and got to you first. I'm awfully glad I was in time. You're sure you feel all right?"
 
"Oh, quite," said the Doctor, "thank you. But why did you swim under water?"
 
"We didn't want the natives to see us," said the strange beast. "They think we are dragons—and we let them go on thinking it. Because then they don't come near the island and we have our country to ourselves."
 
The creature stretched his long neck still longer and whispered in the Doctor's ear:
 
"They think we live on men and breathe fire! But all we ever really eat is bananas. And when anyone tries to come here we go down to a hollow in the middle of the island and suck up the mist, the fog, that always hangs around there. Then we come back to the beach and roar and rampage. And we breathe the fog out through our and they think it's smoke. That's the way we've kept this island to ourselves for a thousand years. And this is the only part of the world where we are left—where we can live in peace."
 
"How very interesting!" said the Doctor. "Naturalists have thought your kind of animals are no longer living, you know. You are Quiffenodochi, are you not?"
 
"Oh, no," said the beast. "The Quiffenodochus has gone long ago. We are the Piffilosaurus. We have six toes on the back feet, while the Quiffenodochi, our cousins, have only five. They died out about two thousand years ago."
 
"But where are the rest of your people?" asked the Doctor. "I thought you said that many of you had swum out to rescue us."
 
"They did," said the Piffilosaurus. "But they kept hidden under the water, lest the natives on the shore should see and get to know that the old story about the dragon's mother-in-law wasn't true. While I was bringing you here they were swimming all around you under the water, ready to help if I needed them. They have gone around to the secret cove so they may come unseen. We had better be going on ourselves now. Whatever happens, we mustn't be seen from the shore and have the natives coming here. It would be the end of us if that should ever happen, because, between ourselves, although they think us so terrible, we are really more harmless than sheep."
 
"Do any other animals live here?" asked the Doctor.
 
"Oh, yes, indeed," said the Piffilosaurus. "This island is peopled by harmless, vegetable-feeding creatures. If we had the others, of course, we wouldn't last long. But come, I will show you around the island. Let us go quietly up that valley there, so we shan't be seen till we reach the cover of the woods."
 
Then John Dolittle and Jip were taken by the Piffilosaurus all over the island of No-Man's-Land.
 
T............