Make sure you're in cperl-mode (not perl-mode) and type "C-c c" from your perl buffer, then press ENTER. cperl is probably installed with your emacs, see http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/CPerlMode

Alternatives:

A while ago I submitted Compile & test "this perl source tree" (Emacs etc) to this site. An adaptation of the above to run MakeMaker style test scripts instead of doing just the above.

I've not really used it for real but Sepia should be able to do what you're asking and much more. It's based Lisp/Emacs/Slime-style development though, which is IMHO *the* best way to develop dynamic languages, but it's probably unfamiliar to most perl programmers and doesn't necessarily scale down well to single-shot scripts.