The Emir of Ellebubu went back to his palace feeling certain that after he had starved John Dolittle for a few days he would be able to make him do anything he wanted. He gave orders that no water should be served to the prisoner either, so as to make doubly sure that he would be reduced to .  
But immediately the Emir had left, the white mouse started out through the rat hole in the corner. And all day and all night he kept busy, coming and going bringing in of food which he gathered from the houses of the town: bread crumbs, cheese crumbs, yam crumbs, potato crumbs and crumbs of meat which he pulled off bones. All these he stored carefully in the Doctor's hat in the corner of the prison. And by the end of each day he had collected enough crumbs for one good square meal.
 
The Doctor said he never had the slightest idea of what he was eating, but as the mealy mixture was highly digestible and he did not see why he should mind. To supply his master with water the mouse got nuts, and after a tiny hole in one end he would chop the nut inside into pieces and shake it out through the hole. Then he would fill the empty shell with water and seal up the hole with gum arabic which he got from trees. The water-filled nuts were a little heavy for him to carry, so Dab-Dab would bring them from the river as far as the outside end of the rat hole, and the white mouse would roll them down the hole into the prison.
 
By getting his friends, the village mice, to help him in the preparation of these nuts, he was able to supply them in hundreds. Then all the Doctor had to do when he wanted a drink was to put one in his mouth, crack it with his teeth, and after the cool water had run down his throat, spit the broken shells out.
 
The white mouse also provided crumbs of soap, so that his master could shave—for the Doctor, even in prison, was always very particular about this part of his appearance.
 
Well, when four days had passed the Emir of Ellebubu sent a messenger to the prison to inquire if the Doctor was now willing to do as he was told. The guards after talking to John Dolittle brought word to the Emir that the white man was as as ever and had no intention of giving in.
 
"Very well," said the Emir, stamping his foot, "then let him starve. In ten days more the fool will be dead. Then I will come and laugh over him. So perish all who oppose the wishes of the Emir of Ellebubu!"
 
And in ten days' time he went to the prison, as he had said, to gloat over the terrible fate of the white man. Many of his ministers and generals came with him to help him gloat. But when the prison door was opened, instead of seeing the white man's body stretched upon the floor, the Emir found the Doctor smiling on the threshold, shaved and and all spruced up. The only difference in his appearance was that with no exercise in prison he had grown slightly and rounder.
 
The Emir stared at the prisoner open-mouthed, speechless with . Now, the day before this he had heard for the first time the story of the of the Amazons. The Emir had refused to believe it. But now he began to feel that anything might be true about this man.
 
"See," one of the ministers whispered in his ear, "the sorcerer has even shaved his beard without water or soap. Your , there is surely evil magic here. Set the man free before harm befall. Let us be rid of him."
 
And the frightened minister moved back among the crowd so the Doctor's evil gaze could not fall upon his face.
 
Then the Emir himself began to get panicky. And he gave orders that the Doctor should be released right away.
 
"I will not leave here," said John Dolittle, squarely in the door, "till you have windows put in this prison. It's a disgrace to lock up anyone in a place without windows."
 
"Build windows in the prison at once," the Emir said to the guards.
 
"And after that I won't go," said the Doctor—"not till you have set Chief Nyam-Nyam free; not till you have ordered all your people to leave his country and the Harmattan Rocks; not till you have returned to him the farming lands you robbed him of."
 
"It shall be done," muttered the Emir, grinding his teeth—"Only go!"
 
"I go," said the Doctor. "But if you ever your neighbors again I will return. Beware!"
 
Then he strode through the prison ............