In Kali's Country Part 6

"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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 gla.s.ses which invariably lay by her sewing basket.

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

A search followed but no gla.s.ses 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 doc.u.ment 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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.ds," 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 s.n.a.t.c.h '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 a.s.sail 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.

VII

In Ways Mysterious

I

The bare audience room of old Boyle Avenue Church was almost empty; only a few of those who had been present at the afternoon service still lingered, one little knot by the door, another near the altar rail. This is not the church where the real Europeans meet to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, you know, nor is it even one of the wors.h.i.+pping places of the semi-European population of Bombay. It is the oldest building of our mission property and belongs to our native church. It is, therefore, all the church home to-day that three separate congregations can boast, our Marathi, Gujarati, and Hindustani congregations.

It is a big, barn-like building situated in a thickly populated part of the city which, just now, is largely occupied by Parsis. But although it is old and bare and far away from most of our native converts, they travel the long distances from their various quarters and attend its services faithfully.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I have a beautiful wife, as fair as your own, Sahib"]

I tell you my heart glowed that afternoon as I sat upon the platform and saw that room filled to overflowing. Not only were the wooden benches crowded, but people sat in the aisles and stood around the walls. Our Sunday afternoon congregation is usually just the Marathis only, and does not occupy more than a third of the room, but this day it was a union service of all our people to be conducted in two languages only, as the Marathi and Hindustani languages are near enough alike to be intelligible to both. And why was this great meeting held? That was what thrilled me I suppose and broke me all up so that when it came my turn to speak, I really just couldn't and stood there like a big baby and cried. But the folk were kind to me and joined me in my tears and when all I could falter was, "Good-bye, G.o.d bless you all!" they just fell upon their knees and such prayers went up for my speedy restoration to health and return to India that by the time we rose from our knees I felt better already.

They did not ask me to say anything more from the platform, but at the close of the service men, women, and children gathered about me for a last personal word. You see my health had failed because of the climate of Northwest India and because of the burdens that each of our missionaries has to bear (this isn't complaint, but just fact) and so I had been ordered home. That part wasn't bad, for the prospects of seeing home again, that meant America, looked pretty good to me! Think of seeing a snow-bank after the one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade in which I had scorched for years! Think of drinking cool, unboiled water right from the tap, and all you wanted of it! Think of being able to eat fresh, uncooked vegetables without fear of cholera! Think of being able to do all those things which are so delectable at home but so foolhardy in India! The going home part was all right but the part that wasn't all right---- It's hard to talk about that part. The doctors said that I probably could never go back to India! Never go back to India again! Never go back to the people and work I loved! I tell you it took all the manhood I had to meet that blow with a smiling face and turn the other cheek.

But I started to tell you, not about myself at all, but about Shama Bhana. As I sat on the platform that afternoon I singled out his face among those of the men standing by the windows at the right nearest the altar. Shama Bhana is a Brahmin and when I have said that I have told you that he is a man of proud, distinguished appearance and with an intellectual capacity of the highest order that India boasts. I have neglected to say that Shama Bhana is a rich Brahmin.

I had known this man for several years and we were good friends. I had talked religion with him by the hour and I felt that he believed in Christ and in our faith. But I had never been able to bring him one inch, as it seemed to me, towards forsaking his old faith and accepting ours publicly. As I saw his face there that afternoon and knew that he had come to say good-bye to me, perhaps forever, I longed to hear him confess Christ before I left India. I longed to know that he had thrown his wonderful powers upon the side of our warfare in that country where his influence would be so great.

The meeting came to an end at last and the crowd that had gathered to say good-bye to the sahib and to wish him "G.o.dspeed" had done so and were gone to their homes, all but two little companies of people still gathered in the church, as I have said before.

In all my farewells I kept my eye on Shama Bhana and I noticed that he was still in the little group by the door. Finally I managed to separate myself from the company near the altar rail and started towards the door. Shama Bhana did not come to meet me but I saw him step a little aside from the others as if giving me a chance to speak to him privately. I availed myself of the opportunity at once.

I went directly to him, holding out my hand, and, Brahmin though he was, he took it, his eyes full of tears.

"Sahib, it breaks our hearts to have you go," he said simply.

"Shama Bhana," I replied, "it breaks my heart to go without having heard you confess the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour."