The Sa'-Zada Tales

Said the Keeper: "Comrades, you must all be very careful, for this is Snake's night."

"Oo-o-oh!" whimpered Jackal, "is Nag the Cobra to come here among us?"

Even Hathi trembled, and blowing softly through his trumpet, said: "Oh, Sa'-zada, I who am a Lord of the Jungle, fearing not any Dweller therein, feel great pains this evening. I am sure that hay is musty and has disagreed with me. If you do not mind, Little Brother, I will go back to my stall and lie down."

"Will Deboia the Climber come also, Little Master?" asked Magh. "If so, I think my Terrier Pup is feeling unwell; I will take him to my cage and wrap him in his blanket. I hate snake stories, anyway."

"Hiz-z-z!" laughed Python, who was already there. "Lords of the Jungle indeed! When I strike or throw a loop, or go swift as the wind through the Jungle – Thches-s-s! but I am no boaster. See our friends. When the smallest of my kind are to be here each one makes his excuses."

"Never fear, Comrades," Sa'-zada assured the frightened animals, "Nag the Cobra, and Karait, and all the others will behave themselves if they are left alone. Only don't move about, that's all. The first law when Snakes are about is – keep still."

"Yes, we like quietness," assented Python. "Once there was a fussy old Buffalo Bull who used to come to my pool and stir up the mud until it was scarce fit to live in. In the end I threw a loop around his neck, and he became one of the quietest Bulls you ever saw in your life."

"Now, Comrades," said Sa'-zada, as he returned accompanied by the Dwellers of the Snake House, "Hamadryad, the King Cobra, has promised us a story."

"Look at my length," cried Hamadryad, drawing his yellow and black mottled body through many intricate knots like a skein of colored silk; "think you I was born this way just as I am? At first – that was up in the Yoma Hills in Burma – I was not much larger than a good-sized hair from Tiger's mustache, and since then it has been nothing but adventure. Even my Mother, where she had us hid in a pile of rocks covered with ferns, had to fight for our lives."

"Phuff!" retorted Boar, disdainfully, "many a nest of Cobra eggs have I rid the world of."

"Not of my kind, I'll warrant," snorted Python, blowing his foul breath like a small sirocco almost in Pig's face. "Of Nag, or Hamadryad's family, perhaps, yes, for, know you, Comrades, what Nagina does with her eggs? Lays them in the sun to hatch apsi (of themselves). But my Mother – ah, you should have seen her, Comrades; all the eggs gathered in a heap, and her great, beautiful body – much like my own in color – wound tenderly about them until the young came forth. Perhaps a matter of two moons and never a bite for her to eat all the time. That's what I call being a genuine Mother."

"Very wise, indeed, and thoughtful," cried the Salt Water Snake. "My Mother – well I remember it – carried her eggs about in her body till they were hatched, which seems to me quite as good a plan. Also, nobody molests us – if they do, they die quickly. We all can kill quite as readily as Nag the Cobra, though there is less talk about us."

"Even so," assented Hamadryad, "the proof of the matter is in being here; and, as I was going to say, it is this way with my people; in the hot weather when there is no rain we burrow in the ground for months at a stretch. And then the rains come on and we are driven out of our holes by the water, and live abroad in the Jungles for a time. It was at this season of the year I speak of; I had just come up out of my burrow and was wondrous hungry, I can tell you; and, traveling, I came across the trail of a Karait. I followed Karait's trail, and found him in a hole under a bungalow of the Men-kind. It was dry under the bungalow, so I rested after my meal in the hole that had been Karait's. It was a good place, so I lived there. Every day a young of the Men-kind – "

"I know," interrupted Mooswa; "a Boy, eh?"

"Perhaps; but the old ones called him 'Baba.' And Baba used to come every day under the bungalow to play. He threw little sticks and stones at me; but nothing to hurt, mind you, for he was small. The things he threw wouldn't have injured a Fly-Lizard as he crawled on the bungalow posts. He laughed when he saw me, and called, as he clapped his little hands, and I wouldn't have hurt him – why should I? I don't eat Babas.

"When I heard the heavy feet of the Men I always slipped in the hole; but, one day, by an evil chance I was to one side looking for food, and Baba was following, when his Mother saw me. Such a row there was, the Men running, and Baba's Mother calling, and only the little one with no fear. Surely it was the fear of which Chita and Hathi have spoken which came over the Men-kind.

"There was one of a great size, like Bear Muskwa, with a stomach such as Magh's. He was a native baboo. He had a black face, and his voice was like the trumpet of Hathi; but when I went straight his way, and rose up to strike, his fat legs made great haste to carry him far away. Then I glided in the hole."

"Ghur-ah! it seems a strange tale," snarled Wolf; "even I would not dare, being alone, to chase one of the Men-kind."

"It may be true," declared Sa'-zada, "for it is written in the Book that Hamadryad is the only Snake that will really chase a man, and show fight."

"I could hear the Men-kind talking and tramping about," continued King Cobra, "and meant to lie still till night, and then go away, for I usually traveled in the dark, you know. But presently there was a soft whistling music calling me to come out; and also at times a pleading voice, though of the Men-kind, I knew that, 'Ho, Bhai (brother), ho, Raj Naga (King Cobra)! come here, quick, Little Brother.' Then the soft whistle called me, sometimes loud, and sometimes low, and even the noise was twisting and swinging in the air just as I might myself.

"Hiz-z-z-za! but I commenced to tremble; and I was full of fear, and I was full of love for the soft sounds, and with my eyes I wished to see it. So I came out of the hole, and there was a Black Man making the soft call from a hollow stick."

"A Snake Charmer with his pipes," exclaimed Sa'-zada.

"I raised up in anger, thinking that he, too, would soon run away; but he pointed with his hand, now this way, from side to side, even as the sweet sound from the hollow stick seemed to twist and curl in the air; and following his hand with my eyes, I commenced to swing as the hand swung.

"'Ho, Little Brother!' he called, 'come here.'

"It was to a basket at his side; for, though I meant not to do it, I glided into it."

"That was the manner of your taking?" asked Chita.

"Better than having one's toes squeezed in an iron trap," declared Jackal.

"Or being beaten by chains," murmured Hathi.

"Yes, the taking was simple enough; but if Baba had not cried, the Men would have killed me, I think."

"And that was how you came to Lower Burma?" asked Sa'-zada.

"Yes," answered Hamadryad, "this man who made music with the hollow stick took me with him, and at every place where there were any of his fellows he brought me forth from the basket, and made me dance to his music. That was what he called it – dance."

"Why didn't you bite him?" queried Rattler, making his tail rattles sing in anger.

"He pulled out my fangs," declared Hamadryad.

"He-he," sneered Magh; "now surely it is a great lie, this wondrous tale of Cobra's, for in his mouth are the very fangs he says the black-faced player of music pulled."

"Most wise Ape," said Hamadryad, ironically, "what your big head, like unto a Jack fruit, does not understand, is a lie, forsooth. Even though my teeth were pulled three times, they would grow again; but you do not know that – therefore it is a lie. Even now, behind these that you see, and perhaps yet may feel if you keep on, are others waiting the time when these may be broken. Was it not Hathi said some wise animal arranged all these things for us?"

"Sa'-zada says it is God," interrupted Hathi.

"This man made me fight with a Mongoos, that those of his kind might laugh."

"What is a Mongoos?" queried Magh.

"Our natural enemy," answered King Cobra, "just as Fleas and other Vermin are yours. But I killed the squeaky little beast with one drive of my head – broke his back. At Ramree a Sahib bought me from the black man."

"That was the Sahib who sent you here, I fancy," suggested Sa'-zada.

"Perhaps. At any rate he seemed fond of Snakes of my kind, for he put me in a box wherein was one of my family. But he should have known more about our manner of life, for he nearly starved us through ignorance of our taste. He puts Rats and Frogs, and Birds and such Vermin as that in, with never so much as a Green-Tree-Snake. The yellow-faced Burmans used to come in front of our cage and touch us up with sticks until my nose was skinned with striking at them and hitting the bars.

"Our getting something to eat was a pure accident. One night this Sahib stepped on a Snake – a young Rock Snake, which had curled up in the path for the warmth of the hot earth. 'Oh, ho!' said the Sahib, bringing this new Snake to our cage, 'you are looking for trouble, little Samp (snake). Let us see how you get on in there,' and he threw him in our box, expecting to see a fight."

"And did he?" queried Magh.

"Hiz-z-z-za! I should say so. My mate and I fought half an hour before we settled who was to eat the visitor."

"You two Comrades fought over it?" asked Mooswa.

"Yes; that is our way. Two Snakes cannot eat one – how else should we settle the question? we were both hungry. Why, one day my mate flew at me, and I could see in his eye that he meant eating me, and in self-defence I was forced to put him out of the way of mischief, but the Sahib pulled us apart.

"But if I hated the Yellow Men who came to my cage, I liked the Mem-Sahib (white lady). I think it was her voice. Hiz-z, hiz-z, hiz-z! It was as soft as the song the man had brought forth from the hollow stick. Sometimes I would hear her voice-song near my box, and it would put me to sleep; only, of course, I had to keep one eye open lest my mate would try to eat me – "

"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 shivered 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 appetite 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 passed 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 fashion, and the silly creatures with their ribbed faces, always coughing a hoarse 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.

"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, rushing 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

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.

"That is quite true," declared Mor, the Peacock; "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 Cockatoo, 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."

Cockatoo 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 Cockatoo; 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 amusement."

"Scratch my head!" cried Cockatoo; "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 Cockatoo, "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 fishing, you should have seen my mother. When the sea had gone back from the shore 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 shore. 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.