The whole thing was monstrous. I could not send the wretched things to his people at home. They would think him mad, as perhaps he was as regards his hobby, but no saner man ever lived so far as anything else was concerned.
Then I had an inspiration. I ordered a large hole to be dug at the foot of another tree, which stood about a hundred yards from that under which Randall's grave lay. Into this hole I had the three cases carried, and the earth shovelled back. Monga didn't disapprove, or, if he did, he made no protest. I think he took the whole thing as a matter of course, as was his way.
I never found out, nor can I imagine, why Randall collected the heads and shoulders of five hundred monkeys—three hundred and eighty with right arms and one hundred and twenty with left arms attached.
Someone reading this story may guess or may know. For myself, I frankly admit defeat.
THE RAILWAY CONTRACTOR.
Bositi had returned to his village after six years' absence. Most of the time he had spent on the railway construction, where the work was heavy and the pay light. In physique he was improved almost beyond recognition.
The large blue-and-yellow tin box which he carried on his head contained the miscellaneous goods upon which he had spent some of his wages. Much of his money had gone in drink, more in gambling.
After Bositi had been away two years the headman and elders presumed his death. So, too, did his wife; she married again, and had presented her new husband with two children.