"Then the monkeys said: 'It is not good to have fire, for the men see it and come and kill us.' So now the monkeys steal when the men are not looking, and eat the food uncooked in the trees at night."
Randall made only one comment. He asked Monga where the monkeys got their tails from. But Monga admitted that he did not know.
Randall had now finished his skinning, and had made the usual neat little parcels; Monga brought the box and carefully packed them in with the rest.
The travelling box was quite full!
A few days later Randall developed black-water fever and died. We carried his body back to the Station and buried him at the foot of a large baobab tree. The natives for many miles round attended.
When all was over, and Randall's successor was on his way to take charge of the district, Monga came to me and reminded me that there were some monkey skins in the travelling box to be packed away in the large tin-lined case. As he knew more of his master's strange hobby than I did, he did the packing whilst I looked on.
When the last skin had been transferred I realised that the case was quite full, and would not have held another one. This, I remember, struck me as being uncanny. Between us we soldered up the tin lining and nailed on the lid of the case.
Then Monga looked at me for instructions. This set me thinking. Why on earth did Randall collect monkeys? I examined the lids of the cases and found his name and home address neatly painted on each. Clearly, therefore, he had intended to take them home. But this did not explain why he had collected them. I thought of the shabby little black note-book, so went into the house and looked through it. All I could gather was that Randall had collected three hundred and eighty right-armed and one hundred and twenty left-armed skins. Five hundred wretched monkeys—and what for? And why not two hundred and fifty right arms and two hundred and fifty left; or why not all right or all left?
I went back to where Monga stood by the cases, and asked him why his master had collected the monkeys. He seemed surprised at my question; it apparently never occurred to him to inquire into the why and the wherefore of any of his master's acts. He seems to have accepted all his master did or said as a matter of course.