The Sa'-Zada Tales Part 10

"I had no idea Snakes were so fond of each other," said Magh, maliciously.

"Yes; I think I should have eaten _him_ to have saved that worry. But I must tell you about the Mem-Sahib and the Cook. He was small and so black--a perfect little Pig. One day when the Sahib was away, the Cook became possessed of strange devils."

"Became drunken on his Master's liquor, I suppose," remarked Sa'-zada.

"Perhaps, for he came and took me out of the box, wound me around his shoulders and waist, and went with a clamor of evil sounds, in to my Mem-Sahib."

"Just like a Man," sneered Pardus.

"Even I was ashamed," continued Hamadryad. "My Mem-Sahib cried out with fear, and her eyes were dreadful to look into.

"I glided twice about the Man-devil's neck, and drew each coil tight and tight and tighter, and swung my head forward until I looked into his eyes, and I nodded twice thus," and the King Cobra swayed his vicious black head back and forth with the full suggestiveness of a death thrust, until each one of the animals s.h.i.+vered with fear.

"I think he died of the Man-fear Hathi has spoken of, for I did not strike him--it may be that the coils about his throat were over-tight.

But I glided back to my box, and I think the Mem-Sahib knew that I did not wish to even make her afraid."

"Most interesting," declared Sa'-zada. "Is that all, Cobra?"

"Yes; I'm tired. Let Python talk."

The huge Snake uncoiled three yards of his length, slipped it forward as easily, as noiselessly as one blows smoke, shoved his big flat head up over the Keeper's knee, ran his tongue out four times to moisten his lips, and said: "I am also from the East, and I do not like this land.

Here my strength is nothing, for I can't eat. A Chicken twice a month--what is that to one of my size? Sa'-zada will eat as much in a day; and yet in my full strength I could crush five such as our Little Brother. Many loops! in my own Jungle I could wind myself about a Buffalo and pull his ribs together until his whole body was like loose earth. I have done it. Sa'-zada knows that for months and months after I came I ate nothing, and in the end they took me out on the floor there, six of them, and shoved food down my throat with a stick.

"Once I had run down a Barking Deer, and swallowed him, and was having a little sleep, when I wandered into the most frightful sort of nightmare. It came to me in my sleep that Bagh had charged me of a sudden, and gripped my throat in his strong jaws. I opened my eyes in fright, and, sure enough, I was being choked with a rope in the hands of the Men-kind. Each end of it was fastened to a long bamboo, and the Men were on either side of me. I made the leaves and dry wood in that part of the Jungle whirl for a little, but it was no use--I couldn't get away. Also a man of the White-kind was sitting on a laid tree, and in his hands was a loud-voiced gun. But I nearly paid him out for some of the insult. They dragged me on to the road, and I lay there quiet and simple-looking. He thought I was asleep, I suppose. At any rate he came up and touched me on the nose with his toe.

"I struck; but, though I knew it not, the rope was tight held by one of the Yellow-kind who stood behind me, and I but got a full choking; though, as I have said, the other, he of the White Face, was stricken with fear.

"They put me in a box, but though I have no appet.i.te here, I could eat there, and they gave me so many chickens that I shed my beautiful skin almost monthly. I nearly died from the over-diet, not being used to such plenty."

"Tell us of your food-winning in the Jungle," craved Sa'-zada.

"Though I go wondrous swift," began Python, "yet if any of the Deer-kind pa.s.sed me on foot I could not catch them. Because of this I was forced to take great thought to outwit them. You, Gidar, and you, Hathi, know of the elephant creeper that is in all those Jungles, how it runs from tree to tree for many a mile--so strong that it sometimes pulls down the biggest wood-grower. Well, having knowledge of a Deer's path, I would stretch my body across it much after that fas.h.i.+on, and the silly creatures with their ribbed faces, always coughing a hoa.r.s.e bark, and always possessed of a stupid fear, would walk right into my folds, thinking me a part of the creeper. Once, even, as I think of it, a hunter--of the White-kind he was--ate his food sitting on a coil of my body as I lay twisted about a tree. To tell you the truth, I was asleep, having fed well, and only woke up because of his sticking his cutting knife into my back, thinking, of course, he was standing it in the wood, when I suddenly squirmed and upset him, and his food and drink.

"But when it was the dry season and the leaves were off the trees, the Jungle was so open that even the silly Deer could see the rich color of my beautiful skin, and for days and days I went hungry. Then I would go to the small water ponds, _Jheels_, and curling my tail about a tree on one side, put myself across, and catching a tree on the other side with my teeth, swing my body back and forth and throw the water all out on the land. Then I would eat all the Fish-dwellers, and go to sleep for a week.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I WOULD STRETCH MY BODY ACROSS IT MUCH AFTER THAT FAs.h.i.+ON."]

"Once in a land of many pigs, I worked for days and days in that part of the Jungle bending down small trees, and arranging the creepers until I had a _keddah_ with two long sides running far out into the Jungle. Then, going beyond, I made a great noise, rus.h.i.+ng up and down, and many of these Dwellers being possessed of fear, fled into the _keddah_ and I devoured them."

Chita sat on his haunches and looked at Python in astonishment, his big black head low hung, and a sneer of great unbelief on his mustached lips.

"Surely this is the one great liar!" he exclaimed. "If these things be not written in the Book, then Python has most surely had such a dream as he has told us of."

"Without doubt it is a lie," declared Magh, "but for my part I am ready to believe anything of his kind. In my Jungle home never once did I climb out on a tree limb without pinching it to see whether it was wood or a vile thing such as yon mottled boaster."

"Are the stories of Python written in the Book, O Sa'-zada?" queried Mooswa.

"No," answered the Keeper, "but Python may have had this strange manner of life."

"Whether they be true tales or false tales," hissed Python, "I am now tired, and they are at an end."

"Well," said Sa'-zada, stroking the glistening scales of the big Snake's head, "it is time to cage up now. Perhaps we'll all have strange dreams to-night."

Soon the animals were sound asleep, all but Magh, who spent an hour chattering to Blitz, her Fox Terrier Pup, on the enormity of telling false tales.

Sixth Night

The Story of the Monkeys

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

SIXTH NIGHT

THE STORY OF THE MONKEYS

Such a row there had been all day in Animal Town.

Sa'-zada, the Keeper, had told Magh, the Orang-outang, that the Monkeys were to tell stories that night at the usual meeting. That was the cause of the excitement.

All day the Monkeys, living in a row of cages like dwellers in tenement houses, had chattered to each other through the bars, and admonished one another to think of just the cleverest things any of their family or ancestors had ever done.

"We are like the Men-kind," Magh kept repeating; "we are the Bandar-log, the Jungle People.

"Listen, Comrades, what is my name even? Orang-outang, which means Chief of the Jungle People.

"See, even I have my Dog, as do the Men-kind," and she held up Blitz, the Fox-Terrier Pup, by the ear until he squealed and bit her in the arm. "See, he has bitten me even as he would a man," she cried, triumphantly.

Two doors down were three little brown Monkeys caged with an Armadillo who looked like a toy, iron-plated gun-boat.

"Oh, we are people who think," cried one of these, pouncing down on the Armadillo. The little gun-boat drew his armor plate down about him like a Mud-turtle. The Monkey caught the side of it with his hand, lifted it up, bit the Armadillo in the soft flesh, and raced up on his shelf where he chattered: "Oh, we are the people who think. That is not instinct--my father was never caged with an Armadillo."

At last night came, and Sa'-zada, throwing down bars and opening cages, had gathered as usual his animal friends in front of Tiger's cage.

"Ho, Little Brother," began Black Panther, speaking to Sa'-zada, "why should we who are great in our own jungles listen to these empty-headed Bandar-log? Was there ever any good at their hands?"

"Oo-oo! A-huk, a-huk!" cried Hanuman, "you of all the thieving slayers should know of that matter. How many times have you been saved from danger because of our watchfulness--and also Bagh the Killer! Many a hard drive, the hunt drive of the Men-kind, has come to nothing because of us--because we never sleep. When your stomach is full you sleep soundly, trusting to a warning from us, the Bandar-log. Nothing can be done in the jungles that we do not know. And do we steal silently away as is your method? Not a bit of it. By the safety of Jungle-dwellers!

we give the cry of beware! Listen----

"A-huk, a-huk! Chee-chee-chee! Waugh, waugh, a-huk!" and the voice of the gray-whiskered, black-faced ape reverberated on the dead night air through the houses of Animal Town like the clangor of a cracked bell.