“Ha! he’s gone, Ailie!” cried Glynn, in a tone of disappointment, as he put fresh priming into the pan of his piece. “We must be careful in walking here, it seems. This wretched old musket! Lucky for us that our lives did not depend on it. I wonder if it was a poisonous serpent?”
“Perhaps it was,” said Ailie, with a look of deep solemnity, as she took her companion’s left hand, and trotted along by his side. “Are not all serpents poisonous?”
“Oh dear, no. Why, there are some kinds that are quite harmless. But as I don’t know which are and which are not, we must look upon all as enemies until we become more knowing.”
Presently they came to the mouth of a river—one of those sluggish streams on the African coast, which suggest the idea of malaria and the whole family of low fevers. It glided through a mangrove swamp, where the tree seemed to be standing on their roots, which served the purpose of stilts to keep them out of the mud. The river was oily, and sluggish, and hot-looking, and its mud-banks were slimy and liquid, so that it was not easy to say whether the water of the river was mud, or the mud on the bank was water. It was a place that made one involuntarily think of creeping monsters, and crawling objects, and slimy things!
“Look! oh! oh! such a darling pet!” exclaimed Ailie, as they stood near the banks of this river wondering what monster would first cleave the muddy waters, and raise its hideous head. She pointed to the bough of a dead tree near which they stood, and on which sat the “darling pet” referred to. It was a very small monkey with white whiskers; a dumpy little thing, that looked at them with an expression of surprise quite equal in intensity to their own.
Seeing that it was discovered, the “darling pet” opened its little mouth, and uttered a succession of “Ohs!” that rendered Ailie’s exclamations quite insignificant by comparison. They were sharp and short, and rapidly uttered, while, at the same time, two rows of most formidable teeth were bared, along with the gums that held them.
At this Ailie and her companion burst into a fit of irrepressible laughter, whereupon the “darling pet” put itself into such a passion—grinned, and coughed, and gasped, and shook the tree, and writhed, and glared, to such an extent that Glynn said he thought it would burst, and Ailie agreed that it was very likely. Finding that this terrible display of fury had no effect on the strangers, the “darling pet” gave utterance to a farewell shriek of passion, and, bounding nimbly into the woods, disappeared.
“Oh, what a funny beast,” said Ailie, sitting down on a stone, and drying her eyes, which had filled with tears from excessive laughter.
“Indeed it was,” said Glynn. “It’s my opinion that a monkey is the funniest beast in the world.”
“No, Glynn; a kitten’s funnier,” said Ailie, with a degree of emphasis that showed she had considered the subject well, and had fully made up her mind in regard to it long ago. “I think a kitten’s the very funniest beast in all the whole world.”