Rataplan, a Rogue Elephant; and Other Stories Part 16

Just as he was going off in this dream, however, he heard faintly in the distance his mother's voice. He did his best to call to her, to cry out, but he was going deeper and deeper into the dream, and in a very few seconds knew nothing more.

When Mona woke up it was to find his little mother's arms round him; his little mother raining tears of joy and thankfulness upon his face, and a number of sympathizing neighbors chattering at the very top of their voices.

Mona, it seemed, had had a terrible adventure. Such a narrow escape, in fact, that it was a great wonder he was still alive. For the horrible thing in the corner turned out to be a dreadful snake.

"One of our greatest enemies," his mother told him, her motherly eyes still full of tears. "Monkeys have such a lot of enemies, Mona," she said, gently. "There are snakes, and leopards, and parrots and--"

"Tut, tut!" the old mother-monkey interrupted, sharply. "What is the good of telling the child all that? He will get to know fast enough."

"But if he had known," Monica said, gently, caressing her little one with a tender air, and feeling thankful--oh, so thankful!--that she had arrived just in time to call off the snake's attention. "If he had known, he might have--"

"Well, what could he have done?" the old mother monkey said, sharply.

"You know what snakes are."

All the monkeys gathered together, s.h.i.+vered, and glanced round uneasily.

"You know what snakes are; what can you do when you are brought face to face with them like that, and both in a hut?"

Monica nodded gravely, and felt more thankful than ever that her baby had been spared to her.

"I told you he was unlucky," the old mother monkey said, gravely, "but I also told you that he would never come to much harm."

And so it proved. For Mona, as life went on, was always unlucky, but he never came to much harm, although he had some exciting adventures.

As he grew up he became stronger, but always remained a quiet monkey, inclined to whimper.

Quiet monkeys, when inclined to whimper, always have a bad time. Their fellow-monkeys have no patience with their delicacy or whimpering, and do their very best to impress this upon their fellow-creatures as much as possible, in a practical manner. Slaps, sharp tweaks of the tail, and continual teazing, are considered good for both these complaints, and of these little Mona got the full benefit. Altogether, he had an extremely hard time of it.

To begin with, none of the other monkeys seemed to care to a.s.sociate with him. They never gambolled about and let him join; never asked or even attempted to attend to his toilet for him; and the only part of his person which appeared to form any attraction was his tail, which, he being a Mona monkey, was an extremely long one.

There were times when Mona wished he had no tail; it was impossible to keep it still; he was busy all day long whisking it about out of the way of mischievous fingers.

Unlike all the other monkeys, who sat about in groups, chattering, screaming, laughing and scolding, as they felt inclined, Mona generally sat quite alone, with his pathetic little face looking very miserable, and his sad eyes following the many groups of monkeys from place to place.

Mona was a great admirer of the beautiful, and the Vervet monkeys were his chief admiration. Now, these little Vervet monkeys think a great deal of themselves, and consider, in their own way, that they are the masters of the Senegal woods; they are deeply insulted and fiercely angry should a stranger intrude into their domain, and make no scruples about showing what they feel.

They sit about on the branches in immense troops, and are so wonderfully quick and active that at times it is almost impossible to follow their movements.

Very knowing, and cautious, too, are the little Vervets; a stranger may be sitting underneath the very tree on which they are crowding, and not have the faintest idea that there is a monkey near him; should he suddenly look up, however, he would see some hundreds of little heads peeping through the branches, and hundreds of sharp little eyes watching his every movement. Should they wish to attract the stranger's attention, they will drop a stick so cleverly, and with such precision, that it often hits his nose.

Many a morning Mona pa.s.sed watching the gambols and the amusing tricks of the little Vervets; but they never invited him to come and play with them or to take any part in their games. For one thing, he was a Mona monkey, and the families or tribes in the Senegal forest are very particular about keeping together.

There was one monkey, of another family, that Mona took great interest in, and this was a little white-nosed lady-monkey.

This white-nosed monkey was a curious little creature; she had a big, white spot on her nose, like all her family, and a little fringe of white hair all around her face, which looked as though she had put her collar round her face instead of her neck, and gave her a somewhat ludicrous air.

But not in Mona's eyes. In Mona's eyes she was absolutely beautiful, and her long tail--nearly black at the top and dwindling to a peculiar greyish hue at the bottom--was another source of admiration to him.

The little white-nosed monkey was a born flirt; graceful, petulant and coquettish to a degree, and she knew perfectly well from the very first that Mona admired her. She was quite content to be admired, and was, in fact--like all white-nosed monkeys--particularly fond of notice and admiration, not to speak of nuts.

She took care to come, day after day, to some conspicuous place where Mona could have a good view of her. But this was not all for Mona's edification; she had another admirer, and this was a Patas, or red monkey.

This red monkey was a big fellow, three feet in length, who, with his bright, chestnut fur, with its deep shade of red, and his darkish, cream-colored legs, thought a good deal of himself.

He detested Mona monkeys, and waged war on them continually; but it was not until the fourth day that he discovered the presence of Mona, and found, to his very great disgust, that he was admiring the little white-nosed monkey, too.

This was quite enough. Down came the red monkey so quickly, so softly and swiftly, that he was on Mona before he realized his presence.

The wicked little white-nosed monkey knew perfectly well what was going to happen, and sat up on her branch, put on her most coquettish air, and prepared to thoroughly enjoy herself.

As a rule, Mona had not much spirit, but he realized that his beloved one was looking on, and he made a brave fight. But the red monkey of Senegal is a very powerful animal when provoked, and he was not going to stand any nonsense from a Mona monkey, and so it came to pa.s.s that, after a few minutes' sharp fight, poor little Mona was only too thankful to creep painfully away and hide himself under some bushes, where he cried bitterly.

Sad to relate, the little white-nosed monkey, after this, took no further notice of Mona, but sneered and jeered at him whenever an opportunity offered. She did her best to show him that she despised him, and wished to have nothing more to do with him. And Mona took it meekly, as he took most things.

There was one tribe of monkeys, however, that even Mona would have nothing to do with, and these were the "Knuckle-Walkers." These Knuckle-Walkers had not yet become civilized enough to learn how to walk on the palms of their hands, and no monkey tribe, who thinks anything of itself, ever a.s.sociated with the Knuckle-Walkers. They were a distinct race of monkeys, and this fact was impressed on them rather forcibly occasionally.

Mona had lost his mother by this time. Loving and gentle as she had been when Mona was a baby, as he grew up she grew tired of him, and, as she had other children since his birth, she had moved off with them to another part of the forest.

Mona had learned by this time that if ever the other monkeys were friendly towards him, it was simply that they wanted to make use of him in some way or other.

One eventful day they had invited him to a feast of parrots' feathers.

The young tail feathers of these birds, if plucked out properly, contain some delicious juicy stuff in the quill parts which all monkeys love. Perhaps, it is the difficulty of obtaining this delicious stuff which makes it seem doubly delightful; but, whatever it is, all monkeys will go through a great deal to obtain it.

Mona was deputed to stand in front of the parrots to take off their attention. He was told that this was not nearly so dangerous as pulling the feathers out, and so he believed what was told him, and did his best to attract the parrot's attention, while his fellow- monkeys got behind and pulled out its feathers.

In doing this, careful as he was, poor Mona got some terrific pecks, one of which nearly blinded him; for a parrot's beak can inflict a bad wound, especially if he is really angry.

As Mona did not get a single feather as a reward, he never again consented to attract a parrot's attention while the others obtained their feast.

It was always the same; Mona never came to much harm, yet he was always unlucky.

Once he had really been very much in love with a little lady monkey of his own tribe, and for a time she had seemed very fond of him. But, alas, just as they were getting on so beautifully, the little lady monkey was killed in a quarrel, and poor Mona was left lonely once more.

Another time Mona was sitting on a branch of a tree, thinking about many sad things, when a little movement in front attracted his attention. In an instant his bright little eyes glanced down, and there, creeping slowly up the thick trunk of the tree, was a jaguar.

All the other monkeys were away; they had seen him long ago, but Mona had been dreaming.

With a shrill shriek of terror, Mona looked round for some way of escape, but there was none. To jump would be fatal; to stay where he was would be also fatal. And so Mona crouched down, crying so bitterly, and making such pathetic, little gestures of appeal that even the heart of a jaguar ought to have been touched.

But jaguars have very little heart, and they are extremely fond of monkeys; so, notwithstanding Mona's little beseeching prayers, with one soft spring the jaguar leaped, and in a few moments Mona was no more.

His sad little life, with all its troubles and loneliness, was at an end, and there was not even one monkey to mourn for him.

"A very good thing," the red monkey said, disdainfully. "I hated that Mona monkey. If it hadn't been for him, I should have married the little white-nosed monkey; as it was, she ran away, and married one of her own tribe."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONA DID HIS BEST TO ATTRACT THE PARROT'S ATTENTION"]

"I always said," the old mother monkey remarked, who had looked on at the death from a safe corner. "I always said that Mona was unlucky."