“No good will come of it,” said an observant ape, who remembered his gallantries to others, and who was aware that he seized every pretext to ingratiate himself with a susceptible female ape. His bravery, however, had made him a favorite among the women, although his gallantry had much to do with it. He was a Simian “Masher,” and twice got his head pounded by male apes who did not like his attentions to their female friends.
This ape was charged with starting out for the child, not because he wanted it, but because he wanted the mother, and because he hoped that his bravery would be rewarded with her love. Thus are the motives of apes, like those of men, impugned from jealousy, and our greatest warriors are traduced by their rivals. No pains were spared to suggest these suspicions to the woman herself, especially by another ape who had loved her, and had likewise started for her child and come back unsuccessful. These two male apes finally came together, and when one charged the other with cowardice, and was charged in turn with “spooniness,” they came to blows, or rather scratches, and would have killed each other had not the woman interposed.
“There is not much difference between you in virtue,” she said, “and whoever brings back my child shall be thought the braver.”
“Will you give up that ape if I bring back your child?” asked the new-comer.
“Yes, but I will stay with him till then for having brought this one,” was her reply.
The ape departed at this rebuff, divided in his thoughts between the purpose of recovering the child and that of punishing his rival for his insolence and his success.
CHAPTER XI.
