I know that breed.
The orang-outang in the big iron cage lashed to the
sheep-pen began the discussion. The night was
stiflingly hot, and as I and Hans Breitmann, the big-beamed
German, passed him, dragging our bedding to the fore-peak
of the steamer, he roused himself and chattered obscenely.
He had been caught somewhere in the Malayan Archipelago,
and was going to England to be exhibited at a shilling
a head. For four days he had struggled, yelled,
and wrenched at the heavy bars of his prison without
ceasing, and had nearly slain a lascar, incautious
enough to come within reach of the great hairy paw.
‘It would be well for you, mine friend, if you
was a liddle seasick,’ said Hans Breitmann,
pausing by the cage.’ You haf too much Ego
in your Cosmos.’
The orang-outang’s arm slid out negligently
from between the bars. No one would have believed
that it would make a sudden snakelike rush at the
German’s breast. The thin silk of the sleeping-suit
tore out; Hans stepped back unconcernedly to pluck
a banana from a bunch hanging close to one of the
boats.
‘Too much Ego,’ said he, peeling the fruit
and offering it to the caged devil, who was rending
the silk to tatters.
Then we laid out our bedding in the bows among the
sleeping Lascars, to catch any breeze that the pace
of the ship might give us. The sea was like smoky
oil, except where it turned to fire under our forefoot
and whirled back into the dark in smears of dull flame.
There was a thunderstorm some miles away; we could
see the glimmer of the lightning. The ship’s
cow, distressed by the heat and the smell of the ape-beast
in the cage, lowed unhappily from time to time in
exactly the same key as that in which the look-out
man answered the hourly call from the bridge.
The trampling tune of the engines was very distinct,
and the jarring of the ash-lift, as it was tipped
into the sea, hurt the procession of hushed noise.
Hans lay down by my side and lighted a good-night cigar.
This was naturally the beginning of conversation.
He owned a voice as soothing as the wash of the sea,
and stores of experiences as vast as the sea itself;
for his business in life was to wander up and down
the world, collecting orchids and wild beasts and
ethnological specimens for German and American dealers.
I watched the glowing end of his cigar wax and wane
in the gloom, as the sentences rose and fell, till
I was nearly asleep. The orang-outang, troubled
by some dream of the forests of his freedom, began
to yell like a soul in purgatory, and to pluck madly
at the bars of the cage.
‘If he was out now dere would not be much of
us left hereabout,’ said Hans lazily. ’He
screams goot. See, now, how I shall tame him when
he stops himself.’
There was a pause in the outcry, and from Hans’
mouth came an imitation of a snake’s hiss, so
perfect that I almost sprang to my feet. The
sustained murderous sound ran along the deck, and the
wrenching at the bars ceased. The orang-outang
was quaking in an ecstasy of pure terror.
