The Sa'-Zada Tales Part 11

"That is quite true," declared Mor, the Peac.o.c.k; "I also am one of the Jungle Watchers--though I get little credit for it. None of the Dwellers thank us; and sometimes in their anger the Sahibs who are making the drive shoot us for our trouble, saying that we have spoiled sport. Many a jungle life have I saved through my cry of 'Miaou!

Miaou!'"

"Disturbers of sleep!" sneered Black Panther; "there is little to choose between you--you're a noisy lot of beggars."

"You are hardly fair, Pardus," remonstrated Sa'-zada. "I quite believe what Hanuman says, for it is well known that some of the Monkey-tribe saved Gibraltar to the British by their watchfulness, and the men are more grateful than you, for to this day monkeys are protected and made much of there."

"It was my people did that," cried Magot, the Rock Ape, blinking his deep, narrow-set eyes. "We have lived there for a long time."

"And in Benares, where I lived once, we are people of great honor,"

added a white-whiskered Monkey. "I should like to see Black Pardus harm one of us there."

The speaker was Entellus, the sacred Hanuman Monkey, whose rights of protection in the City of Temples, Benares, was almost greater than that of the human dwellers.

"You can't twiddle your thumbs! You can't twiddle your thumbs!" cried c.o.c.katoo, mockingly.

"But I can see my under lip," retorted Magh, angrily, sticking it out and looking down at it, "and that's more than you can do, with your lobster's claw of a nose."

c.o.c.katoo had hit the truth about the thumbs, for no ape can make them go around, only in and out straight to the palm. This matter of thumbs is the great line of defence between man and his disputed Simian ancestor.

"Our manner of life," began Hanuman, in the little silence that ensued, "is to live in the tree-tops. Our families are raised there, and we are seldom on the ground."

"No, the ground is a dangerous place," concurred Chimpanzee; "Leopards, and Snakes, and Men, and evil things of that sort about all the time.

I, too, build a little house in the strong branches of a tree, and live there until the fruit gets scarce; then, of course, I have to go to a new part and build another."

"I thought I was the only animal that had sense enough to build a house," grunted Wild Boar.

"Perhaps you are," said Chimpanzee; "I'm no animal."

"You are a Monkey----" began Boar, apologetically.

"I'm not a Monkey," insisted the other, very haughtily; "they go in droves. But we, who are the Jungle People, build houses and have a wife and family just like the Men."

"You can't twiddle your thumbs!" shrieked c.o.c.katoo; but Hathi reached up with his trunk and tweaked the bird's nose before he could repeat the taunt.

"Once upon a time," began Hooluk, solemnly, "there was a great Raja sore troubled because those of my kind, the Apes, ate all the grain and fruit in his country. To be sure, it was a year of much starvation. And the King commanded that all the Bandar-log should be killed.

"Then Hanuman, the wise Ape, who was our cousin, asked of my people what might be done; but we, being tender-hearted, and not knowing how to pacify the King, hung with our heads down and wept in misery.

"Now this gave Hanuman, who is most wise, an idea. He ordered all the other Bandar-log to go far into the jungles and hide, while we were to remain and lament, and declare that our friends were dead. The Raja, hearing our sad cry, relented, and commanded that the killing should cease. And since that time we have always cried thus, and our faces have been black, and all because of the dark sins of the other Bandar-log."

"Was there ever such a lie----" began Pardus; but Jackal interrupted him, declaring that he, too, cried at night because of the wickedness of other Jungle Dwellers.

"By my lonesome life!" muttered Mooswa. "I have heard the Loon cry on Slave Lake, but for a real, depressing night noise commend me to Hooluk. I have no doubt his tale is quite true, a cry such as he has could not have been given him for amus.e.m.e.nt."

"Scratch my head!" cried c.o.c.katoo; "I think Hooluk's tale is quite true, for even I, who am only appreciated because of my beauty----"

"Hide your nose," croaked Kauwa, the Crow.

"Because of my beauty," resumed c.o.c.katoo, "I once saved the life of all my Master's family. The bungalow was on fire and they were asleep.

Scree-ya ah-ah!' I cried; then, 'Quick, Pootai, bring the water----'"

"To be famous one must needs know a great lie and tell it," snarled Pardus, disagreeably. "The way of all Jungle Dwellers is to kill something; but here are pot-bellied, empty-headed Apes, and Birds of little sense, all boasting of saving lives."

"Let me talk," cried Water Monkey, scratching his ribs with industry.

"If I tell not true tales then call Hornbill, and Jackal, and King Cobra to stand against me, for we are all of the same land. We were a big family, a full hundred of us at least, and every way was our way--water, and land, and tree-top. We ate fruits, and nuts, and grains, and things that are cast up by the waters. Talking of fis.h.i.+ng, you should have seen my mother. When the sea had gone back from the sh.o.r.e we would all troop down. When the Crabs saw us coming they would scuttle into holes and under rocks, and we'd catch every Crab on the sh.o.r.e. It was my mother taught me the trick--wise old lady; I'd shove my tail under the rock, the Crab would lay hold of it, and then out he'd come.

"Oh, there was good eating on those sh.o.r.es. Fat Oysters the size of a banana. It was mother showed me how to take a stone in my hand, and break them off the rocks. And, as Magh has said, we are much like the men, for not one of our family would eat an Oyster until he had washed it in the water.

"But we poor people had lots of trials. Crossing the streams was worst of all. If we made the Monkeys bridge from tree to tree, like as not Python would be lying in wait to pick off one of our number. And if we walked across on the bottom----"

"Walked on the bottom!" cried Sa'-zada, in astonishment.

"Yes, we never swim; we always walk across on the bottom; though, sometimes, of course, we floated over on logs; but that was very dangerous because of Magar the Crocodile."

"Ghurrgle-ugle-ugle, uh-hu!" said Sher Abi, "the long-tailed one is right. I could tell a true story touching that matter. Whuff-f-f! but it was a hot day. I was lying with my wife in the water near the bank.

I was hungry--I am always hungry; and getting food in a small way is wearisome to one of my heavy habit. I was resting, and Black-head the Magar Bird was running about inside of my jaws catching Flies for his dinner. And, while I think of it, while I am by no means vain of my sweet nature, I claim it was most good of me to hold my heavy lips open for him. Suddenly Black-head gave his little cry of warning to me and flew up in the air. 'Something is coming,' I whispered to Abni, my wife; and, sure enough, it was the Bandar-log, the Water Monkeys, chattering and yelling, and knocking down fruit from the trees as though the whole jungle belonged to them.

"'The old trick,' I whispered to Abni; 'float across like a log.' You know I can look wondrous like a log when I try; and a dinner of the Bandar-log, even, was not to be despised in a time of great hunger.

"'Chee-chee, a-houp-a-houp, chickety-chee-chee!' You'd have thought their throats would split with the uproar when they saw one log floating across and another just starting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND THEY ALL CLAMBERED ON TO MY BACK."]

"'Oh, ho!' cried the leader, swinging by his tail from a limb of the Mangrove tree, and peering down at me; 'the wind is driving all the dead trees from this side to the other. Get aboard, children, quick.'

And they all clambered on to my back, shoving and pus.h.i.+ng like a lot of Jackal pups----"

"Have I not said it," cried Gidar, the Jackal, "that Sher Abi is a devourer of our young? Jackal pups--murderer!"

"Half way across," resumed Sher Abi, "I opened an eye to take a squint at the general condition of these Bandar-log, as to which might be fat and which might be lean, and, would you believe it, the leader of these fool people saw me looking, and screamed with fright. I closed all the valves of nostrils and eyes and sank in the water. The Bandar-log were so excited that more than half of them jumped into my jaws, and Abni, who came back, hearing the noise, took care of the others. Eh-hu!

Gluck! Monkeys are stupid, but not bad eating."

"Listen to that, Comrades," cried Water Monkey. "Sher Abi the Poacher boasts of killing my people. Have I not said that our life is one of danger? He and Python are as bad as Men. My mother was killed by a Man, and all for the sake of a few mangoes."

"But how are we to know that Mango-tree was not as others in the Jungle?" pleaded Monkey. "True it grew close to a bungalow, but what of that? Close to the Jungle, trees and bungalows are so mixed up that n.o.body knows which is free land and which is bond land. Have I not seen even the Men-kind frightened over such matters, and killing each other.

But, as I have said, this Man, who was a Sahib, shot my mother as she was in a tree. She clung to a limb, and, young as I was, I helped her, holding on to her arms. All day she cried, and cried, and cried, just as you have heard the young of the Men-kind; and all night she cried, too. In the morning the Sahib came out, and I heard him say that he hadn't slept all night because of the wailing that was like a babe's.

When he looked up at my mother she became so afraid that she fell dead at his feet. Peeping down through the leaves I saw the fear look that Hathi has spoken of come into the Man's eyes, only they did not look evil as they had when he pointed the fire-stick at us. I swung down from branch to branch to my mother, and sitting beside her, cried also, being but a little chap and all alone in the Jungle. Then the Man took me up in his arms and said: 'Poor little Oungea. It was a shame to kill the old girl; I feel like a murderer----'

"He took me into the bungalow and I had a fine life of it, though he taught me many things that were evil."

"I don't believe that," sneered Pardus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND SITTING BESIDE HER, CRIED ALSO, BEING BUT A LITTLE CHAP AND ALL ALONE IN THE JUNGLE...."]

"Impossible! Caw-w!" laughed Kauwa.

"What evil tricks are there left to teach the Bandar-log?" queried Hathi.

"He taught me to drink gin," answered Oungea; "at first a little gin and much sugar, and after a time I could take it without sugar."