Ch. 26: Burtran and Bimi

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