VI Of the Tribe of Haunamon

The great bungalow, set far back in the grassy compound and shaded by mango trees, looked peaceful and sleepy in the afternoon sunlight. The very roses in the carefully rounded beds in the centre of the lawn before the house were nodding as if resting in the shade after the blaze of an Indian noonday sun. The only human creature in sight, a dhersy, sitting cross-legged on the little side porch, was asleep over his sewing. Between the rows of potted ferns and palms along the front veranda appeared glimpses of white as if the occupants of the bungalow might be taking their siestas on the open rattan couches in preference to the warmer curtained beds within, one of which could be seen through an open bedroom door. A mongoose, tied to a post of the veranda, had, for a moment, ceased to fret at his bondage and gone to sleep. Even several lizards half-way across the gravel path from one grassy hunting ground to another had stopped as if too exhausted to pursue the never-ending chase. Only the shadows moved, little by little lengthening out, creeping towards the compound wall, as the never-sleeping sun continued his ceaseless journeying towards the west.

Still one hundred and twenty by the thermometer which on the wall behind the sleeping dhersy caught the direct rays of the sun! At three o'clock of an afternoon in India after a morning's combat with the heat how could Nature do aught but sleep in whatever shade she could find for her weary head? But even in sleepy, dreamy India there are the exceptions that prove the rules. Suddenly a wail arose upon the sleepy air and a most terrified cry broke up all quiet and repose.

The dhersy, startled from his stolen slumber, looking up guiltily, quickly began to turn the wheel of the hand-sewing machine beside him. The mongoose tugged at his cord. And a frightened woman started up from her couch on the front veranda, as a little white figure with flying feet and topiless curly head came running from behind the bungalow with the usual cry of childhood's terror:

"Mother! Mother! Oh, mother!"

Even the ayah, who was trying to keep up with the child but having a hard time to run in her long, tightly-drawn sari, looked frightened. An ugly chattering, sounding from behind the house, kept up for some moments as the mother, having gathered the child up in her arms, sat down again with her, soothing and quieting her as only a mother can, while the ayah dropped panting on the floor beside them.

"There, dear, what is the matter? Tell mother quickly."

"Oh, mother! The monkeys! The monkeys!" sobbed the child.

"There, there, dear, don't cry. You are here with mother now and the monkeys cannot hurt you. Tell mother what happened."

However, before the little girl could calm herself enough to tell the story, the ayah began it for her.

"Baby woke early from her nap to-day, Memsahib, and would not go to sleep again and so I dressed her and brought her down for her bread and milk. She ate it like the good little girl that she is and so I gave her a piece of cake. I had just turned to put the plate back in the cupboard, when I heard a scrambling noise behind me and there was a monkey. He grabbed the cake from baby's hand and ran up a tree, chattering. He was a great, big fellow, the biggest one I ever saw. He looked very fierce and chattered terribly. Of course baby was frightened most to death and she ran at once for you." The ayah looked fearfully over her shoulder. "I'm afraid to go back there again myself."

"Hush, ayah!" whispered the mother over the child's head. "Don't frighten her any more. And you were giving her cake, too, when I have told you that she must not have any for a few days now as she really hasn't been feeling very well."

"Oh, mother!" interrupted the child, who had got the better of her sobs. "The monkey looked so ugly and grabbed the cake right out of my hand just as I was going to take a bite. His paw almost touched my face. Will he come again?"

"No, dear," replied the mother as she hugged the little girl close in her arms. "Father comes home to-night. We will tell him and he will send the monkeys away. Something has got to be done, for we cannot have the naughty monkeys stealing our baby's food right out of her mouth," she added playfully.

"Look, dear," she said in a moment to the child whose fright was soon over. "See how your curls are mussed! And, dearie," she looked at the little girl very reproachfully, "you ran all the way around in the sun without your topi. Go into the house now and let ayah fix your hair and wash your face. Then you can come out again and we will watch for father together, for he will surely come soon. Won't it be nice to have father home again?" And she kissed the child as she set her down on the floor. "A week isn't very long, but it seems a month since he went away this time."

"Yes, the naughty monkeys have been so bad!" nodded the little girl as she hopped along into the bungalow before her native nurse, forgetful of her fear, for her father was coming home and he was to her omnipotent. Nothing, not even a monkey, could harm her while he was near.

For a moment after the child had gone, the mother remained standing by one of the veranda pillars, looking down the road in the direction of the railway station. But soon she retreated to a chair near the door, for the branches of the biggest tree near the porch had begun to sway and she could see distinctly at least one pair of bright eyes peering out from among the shining green leaves.

"Something must be done!" she said aloud as she sank into the chair, at the same time instinctively taking up in her hand a paper weight which lay on the table beside her. "We just cannot stand being thus bothered and frightened by these animals, and such horrid looking ones too!"

The Burbanks had been in Sindabad only two weeks and had scarcely got settled in their bungalow when Mr. Burbanks had been called away on business. He had felt very secure about leaving his family because of the location of their new home which was about half a mile from the native city and very close to the other few European residences. To him the bungalow had appeared to be far enough away from the native quarter to be free from all unpleasant sights, odours, and visitors, the usual unpleasant associations of too close proximity to one of the sacred cities of India. Disagreeable sounds he had expected they would hear, for the hideous sounds, especially of night in a Hindu city, carry far. But after a residence of five years in India he did not think his family would be particularly annoyed by them.

So Mr. Burbanks had been perfectly satisfied with his new residence and its location until just before he left he and his wife had been obliged to drive through the native city on some errand. It had been with great disgust that they had seen the filth of the place, the usual filth of a native city, but here augmented by a horde of hideous monkeys that, unrestrained, wandered about the streets, over the houses, in and out of the windows, apparently the most respected denizens of this most holy city. To kill a monkey is a most heinous sin in the eyes of a Hindu! Did not Haunamon and his monkeys help the great god Ram and rescue his wife Sita when she had been carried off by his rival? Besides, these animals are surely some Hindu's beloved dead. Therefore no one in Sindabad ever touched or harmed a monkey. When, however, the creatures got so thick that life became unendurable, the people would entice a crowd of them into a great basket and carry them off to the forest and let them loose there. But this did not happen often, because the native of India will put up with well-nigh unendurable conditions rather than break through established custom and perform an unusual task.

As they had looked upon the monkey-infested city, Mrs. Burbanks had wondered aloud if the animals would venture as far as their bungalow, but her husband had assured her that they were much too far from the city and the bazaars for that. But the sight of the animals had taken off the keen edge of their satisfaction in their new home and womanlike Mrs. Burbanks had worried about the matter until a week had passed without the appearance of any such company in the compound. Then she had felt better and both of them had forgotten all about the monkeys. However, the very next morning after her husband's departure a strange running and jumping on the roof had awakened Mrs. Burbanks, who, peering cautiously from the window of her roof-bedroom, a room which the most fortunate of India's foreign residents consider a requisite of their bungalows for the hot weather, she had seen a couple of big monkeys sporting across the roof. And from that moment it had kept up: monkeys here; monkeys there; monkeys everywhere, poking their inquisitive fingers and noses into everything in the compound except the house itself. Into the house they had not ventured and even on the verandas the family had felt secure from intrusion until now; but now one had actually jumped into the rear veranda and stolen a piece of cake from Marjory's hand.

"This is too much! Something must be done!" said Mrs. Burbanks again aloud but in a more decided tone, as she saw three of the brown creatures playing tag across the rose-bed.

Just then the sound of horses' feet upon the road came to her ears; the monkeys vanished; and Mrs. Burbanks forgot her annoyance in greeting her husband as he drove up in a covered gari, shunning the light even of the setting sun.

Mr. Burbanks looked tired as he superintended the carrying in of his luggage and the paying of the gariwala, who, of course, tried to insist upon a larger fare than the correct one handed him. He seemed glad to stretch out at once in a big chair and take a cup of tea from his wife's hand, while he listened drowsily to her account of the happenings of the week of separation. Little Marjory came out for her petting soon and clambered upon the arm of his chair. Smoothing his hair, she wove admiring remarks upon her father's appearance and her gladness at his return into an account of her recent experience with the monkey.

"Father dear," she said, turning his head with a chubby hand on each side of his chin. "Father dear, I'm so glad you have come home. Now you must look right at me for I've something very 'portant to tell you. Father, a monkey"—her eyes got big and round, "a monkey jumped down from the tree—— Oh, father! What funny eyes you've got!" and she stopped her story with a little squeal to look at his eyes which he had made very round in imitation of her own when she had mentioned the monkey. Then not satisfied with just looking at such "funny" eyes, Marjory pulled them up at the corners to see how they would look that way. After a moment's critical survey, she shook her head and went on with her story. "The monkey jumped down from a tree. Ayah had just given me a piece of cake and—— Why, father, what a pretty necktie you've got! I never saw that one before." With pats and pulls she spent some time endeavouring to arrange the "pretty necktie" before going on with her story. "And"—she began again with a lingering look at her last twist at the tie, "that monkey jumped down from the tree right at me and grabbed my cake and ran away."

She paused again and inspected her sleepy looking father. "I b'lieve," she said as her eye ran slowly up and down her father's white-clad figure, "I b'lieve I'd like monkeys better if they wore white. Do monkeys ride on railway trains? Did they keep you awake last night as they did mother? You look so sleepy, father dear, that I am sure they did."

Mr. Burbanks, somewhat awakened by the incongruous remarks of his daughter, laughed and said, "I've never met a monkey on a railway train yet. But weren't you afraid of the one you saw?"

"Oh, yes. I cried and ran to mother but I'm not afraid any more now for mother said you wouldn't let them hurt me." And Marjory cuddled down in his arms.

"See, there is one in that tree there now and I'm not afraid," she said after a moment and, raising her head from his arm, pointed towards a tree a little to the right, where was a large monkey jumping from bough to bough with a tiny baby monkey clinging fearlessly beneath her.

The father and the little girl watched the monkey and her baby with great interest until the ayah came and took Marjory in to bed.

Throughout dinner and the evening Mrs. Burbanks told of their troubles with the monkeys during her husband's absence and urged him to do something to drive them away.

But at the close of the evening all the satisfaction she received was this very masculine reply to all of her urgings: "You are simply nervous over them. I don't believe they will do any harm. In fact they seem to me to be rather interesting creatures. That one out there on the lawn this afternoon appeared perfectly harmless and playful. Besides they are sacred animals and we might make the Hindus very angry if we should touch them." And with a yawn Mr. Burbanks started for bed.

When Mrs. Burbanks saw that all of her conversation had not impressed her husband with the urgency of the situation, unusual woman that she was, she said no more, but wisely left the matter to time. Even when they were awakened at an early hour the next morning, she did not say a word, but listened with relish to the remarks which issued from the curtained bed beside her own.

Since Mr. Burbanks' departure his wife had paid no attention to his office, as her servants could be trusted to keep things clean and in order. Therefore, when he came to her a little later in the morning with complaints about the condition of his desk, she was extremely annoyed. His inkstand had been tipped over; his blotting-pad was torn; his pens were lying scattered about the room; and the books on the table were all in confusion. The servants declared that all had been in perfect order the night before. The ayah said that Marjory had not entered the room. So Mrs. Burbanks, after inspecting the strange confusion, was about to leave the room in perplexity when she chanced to glance at one of the high windows. Quickly, with a smile upon her lips and a twinkle in her eye, she motioned to her husband to come from the veranda where he had retired after finding the disorder in his study. His eyes followed hers to the window and there he saw a monkey watching them intently from the small window sill.

"Don't stare at him or he may spring at you," cautioned Mrs. Burbanks. "Monkeys are just the opposite to most animals. You cannot treat one or control him in the same way, for it angers him to have you look him in the eye. The servants all tell me that."

As they turned away, the bearer entered the room. To his wife's amusement, Mr. Burbanks addressed him fretfully. "Boy, can't you drive these monkeys away? They are beginning to be a nuisance."

"Me touch a monkey!" The usually obedient boy raised his hands in horror.

During the dialogue the monkey had scuttled away. So the high window was closed by the long bamboo pole, for—"The monkeys must be kept out even if the ventilation is interfered with," said the head of the house.

After breakfast the post brought a package of home letters and, although it was the middle of the morning, Mr. Burbanks took a while off, after his week of strenuous work, to listen to home news. He laid himself in a comfortable chair preparatory to listening to his wife's reading, for he always preferred to hear her comments and exclamations as she read aloud than to read the letters himself. Mrs. Burbanks seated herself at the table beside him and, although a young woman, put out her hand to take up the reading glasses which invariably lay by her sewing basket.

"Why, my glasses aren't here!" she exclaimed in a tone of annoyance.

A search followed but no glasses could be found. After a while, in despair, Mrs. Burbanks handed the letters to her husband and prepared to be herself the listener, a situation which neither really enjoyed. But scarcely had Mr. Burbanks reached the second page of the first letter when an exclamation of surprise from his wife stopped the reading and he found her looking with laughing eyes at a spot high up on the wall. There, hanging by the bows from the moulding, were the spectacles. With one voice the two exclaimed: "A monkey!"

The boy was called and the spectacles were soon rescued from the dangerous place where they had evidently been hung with great care, for they were uninjured.

Although this was but a trifling incident, Mr. Burbanks was disturbed by the impertinence of the "ugly beasts." But his wife made no comments on the encounters of the morning, going on with her work in silence, although she had to hang her head to hide her smiling lips at some of his muttered remarks when he returned from an attempt to clear up the papers on his office desk. One valuable document was badly blotted with ink and a letter of the greatest importance he had been able to read only after patching together the torn bits gathered from the rug.

Mr. Burbanks was plainly annoyed but his annoyance grew to fear in the early afternoon when, in passing by the dining-room door, he happened to look in. Marjory had slipped into her mother's chair and with a big napkin around her neck was about to eat a luscious guava which lay on the plate before her. Mr. Burbanks was just on the point of calling out something in play to his little daughter, when a quick motion on the wall behind her attracted his attention. Afraid to move or speak for fear of bringing greater danger to the child, the father watched in silence. An immense monkey slid down the wall and jumped into the chair beside the little girl, with his eye on the fruit before her. The child, frightened, shooed with her handkerchief at the beast, who, turning his eyes upon her, showed his teeth and snarled. The man held his breath; but the child, shoving the plate of fruit towards the animal quickly slipped from her chair and ran, unharmed, out of the room. In a second the monkey had seized the guava and was gone through the high window.

That was the last straw. No one could live in such danger! Mr. Burbanks went back to his study and called the boy, but he did not tell his wife what he had seen.

"Can you drive the monkeys away?" he asked the boy again.

"Me no touch monkeys. Me afraid. Monkeys belong gods," was the reply he received.

The gentleman could see that no help was to be had from his servants and he realized that he himself must move cautiously or he might bring the wrath of the Hindu city upon him. Therefore he thought the matter over carefully and decided that first of all after it had become dark he would fire off his pistol and perhaps frighten the monkeys away without harming them. So, as soon as night had come and all were in bed, he told his wife what he intended to do. She was overjoyed at his quick conversion to her views, for she did not know even then of Marjory's experience, as the child, soon forgetting it in her play, had not mentioned it to her mother.

Mr. Burbanks stepped out upon the roof and after a moment's pause fired his pistol into a clump of trees at a little distance from the bungalow. A sharp, shrill, almost human cry came from the tree and then all was still. Even the chokidar, already asleep, did not seem to have heard the shot.

"Well, I've killed one, I guess," Mr. Burbanks said as he came back into the room. "That is too bad! I hope the natives won't mind. But it is over now and we need not worry. If they do make a fuss we will just have to face the music, that's all. Probably it will drive the animals away effectually, if one of them is killed. I most sincerely hope so."

There was quiet throughout the night, although Mrs. Burbanks lay awake listening for trouble as women will. But in the early morning, just as she had at last fallen into a light sleep, they were both awakened by the usual noise of running and jumping on the roof. With an exclamation of great annoyance Mr. Burbanks sprang up and opened the shutters of the door. He stood there in silence for a minute before he spoke again and then he called his wife softly to come and look out. There, on the roof, stood a female monkey and before her lay a tiny, baby monkey, dead, with a hole in its breast. The mother patted it with her paw; she stroked it; then she ran around it and jumped up and down as if to attract its attention. Then she took it up and put its arms about her and started to spring away, evidently expecting it to cling beneath her as it had always done; but the little thing fell limply back upon the roof. Again and again the mother tried, with the infinite patience of a mother. But finally, with a cry of despair, she picked the baby up in her arms and, squatting down, rocked to and fro, moaning and moaning. The servant, bringing up the chota hazri, made a noise at the foot of the stairs. The monkey, with an almost human look of woe, glanced around at the sound and the Burbanks, watching from the shuttered door, saw the agonized expression on her face, as she sprang to her feet and with the dead baby still clasped tightly in her arms leaped away among the tree tops.

With tears in her eyes Mrs. Burbanks turned to her husband. "You won't shoot another, will you?"

"No, my dear, we'll move before I use the gun again. But it seemed to be a choice between her baby and mine and, of course, I am glad that it was hers," Mr. Burbanks replied. Then he told his wife of Marjory's experience.

But the Burbanks did not have to move, for the monkeys disappeared. Since her parents never told Marjory why they had gone, she watched for them for a long time and ate her cakes in haste lest "a naughty monkey might snatch 'em."

One day a short time after their disappearance Marjory received a present from her father of a little black dog. When she playfully asked him why he had bought her the dog, expecting that he would say because she had been such a good girl, he said, "Because monkeys are afraid of dogs."

"Why, how funny!" she exclaimed. "You bought me a mongoose because snakes are afraid of mongooses and now I have a dog because monkeys are afraid of dogs. What pet will you buy me next, father dear?"

"I will have to live in India a little longer before I can answer that question, my daughter." And, wondering what unexpected danger would next assail his child in this strange land, he swung her up on his shoulder and, as it was sunset, carried her tenderly into the house to her waiting ayah, followed by the dog—a tiny, but sufficient guard against the encroachments of the tribe of Haunamon.