Tchack! said the monkey; and the hand was going and coming calmly enough now, and almost without a sound.
“Humph!” grunted Stan. “My fault, I suppose. Thought I was going to take away its food;” and he stood rubbing his wrist gently where it had been bruised against the bamboo bar, and watched the monkey’s hands till the last grain had been cleared out of the pot, which was released and allowed to fall over upon its side.
“Finished?” said Stan, good-humouredly now, for the pain had passed away.
Tchack!
The sound—cry, ejaculation, whatever it may be called—was evidently a reply, and as it was uttered the hand came out towards the prisoner once more.
“Why, you hungry brute!” said Stan. “No more. All gone,” he cried; and he stooped down to take away the pot.
It was incautiously done, and in an instant the animal’s fingers had closed round his hand tightly. For the moment Stan was about to obey his natural instinct and tear his hand away, but it struck him that the grasp was not meant inimically, and that even if it were he must be the stronger of the two, and could prevent his strange adversary from dragging his arm sufficiently through the bars to make use of its teeth. So he stood fast, and found that, in place of tearing hard and trying to drag the hand it had secured through the bars, it was contenting itself with pressing the hand firmly and nestling its own fingers within his grasp, as if the sensation were satisfactory and it enjoyed the proximity of a companion.
“Want to be friends?” said the lad quietly.
Snar-r-r-r-r! went the animal savagely, snatching its hand away, and with one bound leaping to the other side of its cage.
The reason was made plain the next moment. Its hearing was the keener, and it first heard approaching footsteps.