“I think it’s because they can see the ocean from the top of the hill,” returned one monkey. “I can smell the salt air. I remember it; for once, years ago, a troop of monkeys of which I was one, came down to the seashore. It smells now just as it did then.”
“But why should the black men be glad to get to the ocean?” asked Chunky.
“I can tell you why,” growled the lion. “It means they have come safely through the jungle with us animals, and do not have to march and carry us any more. I know, for I heard a lion friend of my father’s tell about it. He was caught and carried through the jungle to the sea, ready to be put on a big floating house and sent across the ocean. But he got away and ran back into the jungle.
“And now they are going to take us away. I’m not going! I’m going to break out of my cage!” and once more the lion roared and tried to break loose, but he could not.
“Quiet! Quiet!” said the white hunter in a gentle voice, but the lion roared, and would not be still.
“You are very silly,” said Chunky. “You can’t get out, and you may as well make the best of it. Being in a circus may not be so bad. Tum Tum liked it.”
“But I am not Tum Tum!” roared the lion, and he would not be quiet until they gave him a lot of meat. When he chewed on that he could not very well roar.
It was the sight of the ocean that had made the black men shout so joyfully, and soon Chunky, in his cage, was carried down to a spot from which he could see what, at first, he thought was a big river. But it was the sea, not a river.
“I think we’ll give the hippos a bath,” said the head white hunter to his men, though the animals, of course, did not know what he was saying. “The hippos like lots of water,” went on the man, “and they haven’t had a chance to get a good soaking since we caught them. Take their cages down to the ocean and dip them in, but don’t let the animals out.”
Chunky, Short Tooth and Gimpy did not know what was going to happen to them when they found themselves being lifted up again and carried forward. But they soon found out.