This demonstration unnerved the monkey. She snatched up the cub still clinging to his unfinished meal, and darted away at breakneck speed. Her show of fright gave courage to the toucans. They immediately took up the pursuit, their white throats flashing a sharp contrast to their black bodies as they hurtled after the fleeing monkey, easily keeping pace with her and nipping her ears and back and tail. At each pinch Myla emitted a scream and increased her speed until she seemed to fly through the branches handicapped though she was by the cub securely tucked under one arm. And Warruk, unable to fathom the new calamity that had befallen him, clung to the half-devoured bird with his teeth and to the monkey with his claws as they skimmed through space until their tormentors gave up the chase and returned to their own affairs.
The hours that followed the loss of her offspring were filled with anguish for Suma. All night long she had lurked in the vicinity of the palm tree; but the frightful spines bristling from the trunk a distance of six inches effectively discouraged her from climbing to the rescue. Her loud demonstrations of rage and grief had given way to a strategy of watchfulness for the opportunity for revenge that must at some time, somehow, present itself, and then, woe to the audacious monkey that had dared incur her wrath. Her punishment should fit the crime.
When the storm that had uprooted the trees forming the windfall cut its wide swath through the forest the ridge of interlocking trunks and branches formed a barrier that most of the ground-inhabiting animals could not cross; also, the broad, open space between the wall of trees on each side was impassable to those dwellers of the treetops lacking wings or too timid to descend from the security of their aerial homes. The monkeys belonged to the latter class.
Here and there, however, where the cut narrowed somewhat the spreading branches of the great trees met overhead forming bridges that were utilized on occasions by the kinkajous, monkeys and other animals in crossing from one section of the jungle to the other.
The supply of fruits on the hill side of the windfall was becoming exhausted. There was no denying that fact, for the depredations of the toucans, trogons, tanagers and hosts of other birds that swarmed through the dripping branches were enough to strip even the most prolific of the fruit-bearers. Most destructive of all were the flocks of parrots; they wasted more than they ate. They plucked the choicest morsels, took one bite and dropped them or, snipping the stems with their shear-like mandibles permitted the nuts or berries to rattle down to the ground. Later, when there were no more to eat, let alone destroy, they complained with raucous screams as they were compelled to satisfy their hunger on leaves and buds.