"Well, I declare!" exclaimed the sailor who had brought Mappo downstairs in the ship to see Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. "You two animals seem to get along fine together!"
And indeed Mappo and Tum Tum were the best of friends at once. Elephants and monkeys very seldom quarrel, and they live together in peace, even in the jungle, and do not fight, and bite and scratch, as some wild beasts do.
"Hello!" said Mappo to Tum Tum, as the little monkey sat on the elephant's back. "Hello!"
"Hello yourself!" answered Tum Tum, and his voice was deep and rumbling, away down in his long nose or trunk, while Mappo's was chattery and shrill, as a monkey's voice always is.
"Well, where did you come from?" asked Mappo. "I've often seen you, or some elephant friends of yours in the jungle. How did you get on this ship with the other animals? You don't mean to say that the hunter men caught you—you, a great big strong elephant, do you?"
"That's just what they did, Mappo," said Tum Tum, and the sailor, looking at the two animals, did not know they were telling secrets to each other.
"I'll just leave 'em together a while," said the sailor. "I don't believe the monkey will run away, and, as he's getting homesick, it may make him feel better to be with the elephant a while."
Mappo was indeed getting homesick for the jungle, and for his folks, but when he saw Tum Tum, he felt much better.
"How did they catch you?" asked the monkey, as the sailor went up on deck, while Mappo and the elephant stayed down in the lower part of the ship, where it was nice and warm, talking to one another.
"Oh, the hunters made a big, strong fence in the jungle," said Tum Tum. "They left one opening in it, and then they began to drive us elephants along toward it. We did not know what was happening until it was too late, and at last we were caught fast in a sort of big trap, and could not get out."