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Mowgli - Stories from the Jungle Books · Mowgli - Stories from the Jungle Books

• 0:00
  Night song in the jungle. It was seven o'clock on a very warm evening
• 0:07
  in the sea one hills when Father Wulf woke up from his day's rest,
• 0:12
  scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to
• 0:17
  get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her
• 0:21
  big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon
• 0:26
  shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. Ah, said
• 0:31
  father Wolf, it is time to hunt again. He was going to spring
• 0:36
  down hill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined,
• 0:41
  good luck go with you, o chief of the wolves, and good
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  luck and strong white teeth go with noble children, that they may never forget
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  the hungry in this world. It was the jackal Tobaki, the dish liquor,
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  and the wolves of India despised Tabaki because he runs about making mischief and
• 1:02
  telling tales and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish heaps.
• 1:07
  But they are afraid of him too, because Tobaki, more than anyone else
• 1:11
  in the jungle, is apt to go mad. And then he forgets that
• 1:15
  he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs through the forest, biting everything
• 1:21
  in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tobaki goes mad,
• 1:26
  For madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature.
• 1:30
  We call it hydrophobia, but they call it dewanie the madness and run enter
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  then, and look, said father wolf stiffly. But there is no food
• 1:42
  here for a wolf, no, said Tobaki, But for so mean a
• 1:47
  person as myself. A dry bone is a good feast. Who are we
• 1:52
  the gilder log the jackal people to pick and choose? He scuttled to the
• 1:57
  back of the cave, where he found the bone of a buck with some
• 2:00
  meat on it, and sat cracking the end merrily. All thanks for this
• 2:06
  good meal, he said, licking his lips. How beautiful are the noble
• 2:09
  children? How large are their eyes? And so young too? Indeed,
• 2:15
  indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kings are men from the
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  beginning. Now Tobaki knew as well as anyone else that there is nothing so
• 2:25
  unlucky as to compliment children to their faces. It pleased him to see mother
• 2:31
  and father Wolf look uncomfortable. Tobaki sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that
• 2:38
  he had made. And then he said, spitefully, Sharr Khan, the
• 2:43
  big one has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for
• 2:47
  the next moon, so he has told me. Sharr Khan was the tiger
• 2:53
  who lived near the Waingunga River, twenty miles away. He has no right,
• 2:58
  father Wolf, began angry. By the law of the jungle. He
• 3:01
  has no right to change his quarters without due warning. He will frighten every
• 3:07
  head of game within ten miles, and I I have to kill for two
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  these days. His mother did not call him lungry, the lame one for
• 3:15
  nothing, said mother Wolf quietly. He has been lame in one foot from
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  his berth. That is why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers
• 3:25
  of the Wanganga are angry with him, and he has come here to make
• 3:30
  our villagers angry. They will scour the jungle for him when he is far
• 3:34
  away, and we and our children must run when the grass is set alight.
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  Indeed, we are very grateful to share Khan. Shall I tell him
• 3:45
  of your gratitude, said Toabaki. Out snapped Father Wolf out and hunt with
• 3:51
  thy master. Thou hast done harm enough for one night, I go,
• 3:55
  said Toabaki quietly. He can hear share Khan below in the thicket, I
• 4:00
  might have saved myself the message. Father Wolf listened, and below, in
• 4:04
  the valley that ran down to a little river, he heard the dry,
• 4:09
  angry, snarly sing song whine of a tiger who was caught nothing and does
• 4:15
  not care if all the jungle knows it. The fool, said father Wolf,
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  to begin a night's work with fat noise? Does he think that our
• 4:24
  buck are like his fat wingunga bullocks? Hush? It is neither bullock nor
• 4:30
  buck he hunts tonight, said mother Wolf. It is man. The wine
• 4:35
  had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter
• 4:41
  of the compass. It was the noise that bewilders wood cutters and gypsies sleeping
• 4:46
  in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the very mouth of the
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  tiger. Man, said father Wolf, showing all his white teeth. Faugh,
• 4:56
  are there not enough beetles and frogs in the tanks that he must eat?
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  Man? And on our ground? Two, the law of the jungle,
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  which never orders anything without a reason forbids every beast to eat man,
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  except when he is killing, to show his children how to kill, and
• 5:14
  then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe. The
• 5:17
  real reason for this is that man killing means sooner or later the arrival of
• 5:24
  white men on elephants with guns and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets
• 5:29
  and torches. Then everybody in the jungle suffers. The reasons the beasts give
• 5:34
  among themselves is that man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things,
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  and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him, they say. And it is
• 5:44
  true that man eaters become mangy and lose their teeth. The purr grew louder
• 5:51
  and ended in the full throated are of a tiger's charge. Then there was
• 5:57
  a howl, and untiger's howl from sharr Khan. He has missed, said
• 6:02
  mother wolf, what is it? Father Wulf ran out a few paces and
• 6:06
  heard sharr Khan muttering and mumbling savagely as he tumbled about in the scrub.
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  The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutter's camp fire,
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  and has burned his feet said father Wulf, with a grunt to Baki
• 6:20
  is with him? Something is coming up hill, said mother Wolf, twitching
• 6:27
  one ear. Get ready. The bushes rustled a little in the thicket,
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  and Father Wulf dropped with his haunches under him, ready for his leap.
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  Then, if you had been watching, you would have seen the most wonderful
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  thing in the world. The wolf checked in mid spring. He made his
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  bound before he saw what it was he was jumping at, and then he
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  tried to stop himself. The result was that he shot up straight into the
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  air for four or five feet, landing almost where he left ground. Man
• 6:59
  he snapped a man's cub. Look Directly in front of him, holding on
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  by a low branch, stood a naked brown baby who could just walk as
• 7:10
  soft and as dimpled a little adam as ever came to a wolf's cave at
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  night. He looked up into Father Wolf's face and laughed. Is that a
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  man's cub, said Mother Wolf. I have never seen one bring it here.
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  A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs, can, if necessary,
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  mouth an egg without breaking it. And though Father Wolf's jaws closed right on
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  the child's back, not a tooth even scratched the skin as he laid it
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  down among the cubs. How little, how naked, and how bold,
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  said Mother Wolf softly. The baby was pushing his way between the cubs to
• 7:49
  get close to the warm hide. A hi, he's taking his meal with
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  the others, and so this is a man's cub. Now was there a
• 8:00
  wolf that could boast a man's cub among her children? I have heard now
• 8:05
  and again of such a thing, but never in our pack or in my
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  time, said Father Wolf. He is altogether without hair, and I could
• 8:13
  kill him with a touch of my foot. But see he looks up and
• 8:18
  is not afraid. The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave
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  for Sherr Khan's great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance. Tobaki
• 8:28
  behind him was squeaking, my lord, my lord, it went in here.
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  Sharr Khan does us great honor, said Father Wolf, but his eyes
• 8:37
  were very angry. What does sharr Khan need my quarry? A man's cub
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  went this way, said sharr Khan. Its parents have run off, Give
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  it to me. Sharr Khan had jumped at a woodcutter's campfire, as Father
• 8:52
  Wolf had said, and was furious from the pain of his burnt feet.
• 8:58
  But Father Wolf knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a
• 9:01
  tiger to come in by. Even where he was, sharr Khan's shoulders and
• 9:05
  fore paws were cramped for want of room, as a man's would be if
• 9:09
  he tried to fight in a barrel. The wolves are a free people,
• 9:15
  said Father Wolf. They take orders from the head of the pack and not
• 9:18
  from any striped cattle killer. The man's cub is ours to kill if we
• 9:24
  choose, Ye choose, and ye do not choose. What talk is this
• 9:30
  of choosing by the bull that I killed? Am I to stand nosing into
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  your dog's din for my fair dues? It is I sher Khan who speak.
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  The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear
• 9:46
  of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes like two green moons in the
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  darkness, facing the blazing eyes of sharr Khan. And it is I Rakshah,
• 9:56
  the demon who answers. The man's ubub is mine, lungreen, mine
• 10:01
  to me. He shall not be killed. He shall live, to run
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  with the pack and to hunt with the pack, and in the end,
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  look, you hunter of little naked cubs, frog eater, fish killer,
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  he shall hunt thee Now get hints or by the sambor that I killed,
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  I eat no stark cattle back. Thou goest to thy mother burned beast of
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  the jungle, lamer than ever thou camest into the world go. Father Wolf
• 10:35
  looked on, amazed. He had almost forgotten the days when he won Mother
• 10:41
  Wolf in fair fight from five other wolves, when she ran in the pack
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  and was not called the demon for a compliment's sake. Sherr Khan might have
• 10:50
  faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother Wolf, for
• 10:54
  he knew that where he was, she had all the advantage of the ground
• 11:00
  and would fight to the death. So he backed out of the cave,
• 11:03
  mouth growling, and when he was clear, he shouted, each dog barks
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  in his own yard. We shall see what the pack will say to this
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  fostering of man cubs. The cub is mine, and to my teeth he
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  will come in the end, o bush tailed thieves. Mother Wolf threw herself
• 11:24
  down, panting among the cubs, and Father Wolf said to her gravely,
• 11:30
  shir Khan speaks this much truth the cub must be shown to the pack.
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  Wilt thou still keep him? Mother? Keep him, she gasped. He
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  came naked by night, alone and very hungry, Yet he was not afraid.
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  Look, he has pushed one of my babes to one side already,
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  and that lame butcher would have killed him and would have run off to the
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  waning Gunga, while the villagers here hunted through all our lairs in revenge.
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  Keep him, assuredly, I will keep him. Lie still, little frog,
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  O thou Mowgli. For Mowgli the frog, I will call thee.
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  The time will come when thou wilt hunt Sharkhan as he has hunted thee.
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  But what will our pack say? Said father wolf? The law of the
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  jungle lays down very clearly that any wolf may, when he marries withdraw from
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  the pack he belongs to. But as soon as his cubs are old enough
• 12:26
  to stand on their feet, he must bring them to pack council, which
• 12:31
  is generally held once a moth at full moon, in order that the other
• 12:35
  wolves may identify them. After that inspection, the cubs are free to run
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  where they please, and until they have killed their first book, no excuse
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  is accepted. If a grown wolf of the pack kills one of them,
• 12:48
  the punishment is death where the murderer can be found. And if you think
• 12:52
  for a minute, you will see that this must be so. Father Wolf
• 12:56
  waited till his cubs could run a little, and then on the light of
• 13:00
  the pack meeting, took them and Mowgli and Mother Wolf to the Council Rock,
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  a hilltop covered with stones and boulders where a hundred wolves could hide.
• 13:09
  Bukila, the great gray lone wolf, who led all the pack by strength
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  and cunning, lay out at full length on his rock, and below him
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  sat forty or more wolves of every size and color, from badger colored veterans
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  who could handle a buck alone to young black three year olds who thought they
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  could. The lone wolf had led them for a year now. He had
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  fallen twice into a wolf trap in his youth, and once he had been
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  beaten and left for dead, so he knew the manners and customs of men.
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  There was very little talking at the rock. The cubs tumbled over each
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  other in the center of the circle where their mothers and fathers sat, And
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  now and again a senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look
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  at him carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet. Sometimes a
• 14:01
  mother would push her cub far out into the moonlight to be sure that he
• 14:05
  was not overlooked. Aquila, from his rock would cry, ye know the
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  law, Ye know the law, Look well, o wolves, And the
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  anxious mothers would take up the call, look look well, o wolves at
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  last, and Mother Wolf's neck bristles lifted as the time came. Father Wolf
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  pushed Mowgli the frog as they called him, into the center, where he
• 14:30
  sat, laughing and playing with some pebbles that glistened in the moonlight. Akila
• 14:35
  never raised his head from his paws, but went on with his monotonous cry,
• 14:39
  look well. A muffled roar came up from behind the rocks, the
• 14:45
  voice of Sher Khan, crying, the cob is mine? Mine to me?
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  What have the free people to do with a man's cub? Akila never
• 14:54
  even twitched his ears. All he said was, look well, o wolf,
• 15:00
  wolves, What have the free people to do with the orders of any
• 15:03
  save the free people? Look well? There was a chorus of deep growls,
• 15:09
  and the young wolf, in his fourth year, flung back sher Khan's
• 15:13
  question to Akila, what have the free people to do with a man's cub?
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  Now? The law of the jungle lays down that if there is any
• 15:20
  dispute as to the right of a cub to be accepted by the pack,
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  he must be spoken for by at least two members of the pack who are
• 15:30
  not his father and mother. Who speaks for this cub, said Aquila.
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  Among the free people who speaks? There was no answer, and mother Wolf
• 15:41
  got ready for what she knew would be her last fight if things came to
• 15:46
  fighting. Then the only other creature who was allowed at the pack council Balu,
• 15:52
  the sleepy brown bear, who teaches the wolf cubs the law of the
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  jungle. Old Balu, who can come and go with he pleases, because
• 16:00
  he eats only nuts and roots and honey, rows upon his hind quarters and
• 16:06
  grunted the man's cub. The man's cub, he said, I speak for
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  the man's cub. There is no harm in a man's cub. I have
• 16:15
  no gift of words, but I speak the truth. Let him run with
• 16:21
  the pack and be entered with the others. I myself will teach him.
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  We need yet another said, Aquila Bellu has spoken, and he is our
• 16:30
  teacher for the young cubs. Who speaks besides Balou, A black shadow dropped
• 16:37
  down into the circle. It was Bagheira, the black panther, inky black
• 16:42
  all over, but with the panther markings showing up in certain lights, like
• 16:47
  the pattern of water silk. Everybody knew Bagheerra, and nobody cared to cross
• 16:53
  his path, for he was as cunning as the baki, as bold as
• 16:59
  the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had
• 17:03
  a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin
• 17:08
  softer than down. Oh a Kuila, and ye free people, he heard,
• 17:15
  I have no right in your assembly. But the law of the jungle
• 17:19
  says that if there is a doubt which is not a killing matter in regard
• 17:23
  to a new cub, the life of that cub may be bought at a
• 17:27
  price, And the law does not say who may or may not pay that
• 17:32
  price. Am I right? Good? Good? Said the young wolves who
• 17:37
  are always hungry. Listen to Baghira. The cub can be bought for a
• 17:41
  price. It is the law. Knowing that I have no right to speak
• 17:45
  here, I ask your leave speak, then cried twenty voices. To kill
• 17:52
  a naked cub is shame. Besides, he may make better sport for you
• 17:57
  when he has grown. Balu has spoken in his behalf. Now to Balu's
• 18:03
  word, I will add one bull and a fat one newly killed, not
• 18:08
  half a mile from here, if he will accept the man's cub according to
• 18:12
  the law. Is it difficult? There was a clamor of scores of voices
• 18:18
  saying, what matter. He will die in the winter rains, he will
• 18:22
  scorch in the sun. What harm can a naked frog do us? Let
• 18:26
  him run with the pack? Where is the bull? Baghira let him be
• 18:30
  accepted, and then came Akila's deep bay, crying, look well, look
• 18:36
  well, o wolves. Mowgli was still deeply interested in the pebbles, and
• 18:41
  he did not notice when the wolves came and looked at him one by one.
• 18:45
  At last they all went down the hill for the dead bull, and
• 18:49
  only Aquila, Bagheerra, Balu, and Mowgli's own wolves were left. Sharr
• 18:56
  Khan roared still in the night, for he was very angry that Mowgli had
• 19:00
  not been handed over to him. Hi roar well, said Bagheerra under his
• 19:06
  whiskers, For the time will come when this naked thing will make thee roar
• 19:11
  to another tune. Or I know nothing of man. It is well done,
• 19:18
  said Akila. Men and their cubs are very wise. He may be
• 19:22
  a help in time, truly a help in time of need. For none
• 19:27
  can hope to lead the pack forever, said Bagheira. Aquila said nothing.
• 19:33
  He was thinking of the time that comes to every leader of every pack,
• 19:37
  when his strength goes from him and he gets feebler and feebler, till at
• 19:41
  last he is killed by the wolves, and a new leader comes up to
• 19:45
  be killed in his turn. Take him away, he said to Father Wolf,
• 19:51
  and train him as befits, one of the free people. And that
• 19:56
  is how Mowgli was entered into the seOne world, peck for the price of
• 20:00
  a bull, and on Ballow's good word. Now you must be content to
• 20:06
  skip ten our leven whole years and only guess at all the wonderful life that
• 20:11
  Moldy led among the wolves, because if it were written out, it would
• 20:15
  fill ever so many books. He grew up with the cubs, though they
• 20:21
  of course were grown wolves, almost before he was a child, and father
• 20:26
  Wolf taught him his business and the meaning of things in the jungle, till
• 20:30
  every rustle in the grass, every breath of the warm night air, every
• 20:34
  note of the owls above his head, every scratch of a bat's claws as
• 20:40
  it roosted for a while in a tree, and every splash of every little
• 20:45
  fish jumping in a pool meant just as much to him as the work of
• 20:49
  his office means to a businessman. When he was not learning, he sat
• 20:55
  out in the sun and slept and ate, and went to sleep again.
• 20:59
  When he fell dirty or hot, he swam in the forest pools, and
• 21:03
  when he wanted honey, Bellew told him that honey and nuts were just as
• 21:07
  pleasant to eat as raw meat. He climbed up for it, and that
• 21:11
  Boghra showed him how to do. Boghira would lie out on a branch and
• 21:18
  call, come along, little brother, and get first. Mowgli would cling
• 21:22
  like the sloth, but afterward he would fling himself through the branches almost as
• 21:26
  boldly as the gray ape. He took his place at the council rock too,
• 21:32
  when the pack met, and there he discovered that if he stared hard
• 21:36
  at any wolf, the wolf would be forced to drop his eyes, and
• 21:40
  so he used to stare for fun. At other times he would pick the
• 21:44
  long thorns out of the paths of his friends, for wolves suffered terribly from
• 21:48
  thorns and burrs in their coats. He would go down the hillside into the
• 21:52
  cultivated lands by night and look very curiously at the villagers in their huts.
• 21:59
  But he had a mistrust of men because Bagheerra showed him a square box with
• 22:03
  a drop gate so cunningly hidden in the jungle that he nearly walked into it,
• 22:10
  and told him that it was a trap. He loved better than anything
• 22:15
  else to go with Baghira into the dark, warm heart of the forest to
• 22:19
  sleep all through the drowsy day and at night see how Bogherra did his killing.
• 22:26
  Baghira killed right and left as he felt hungry, and so did Mowgli,
• 22:32
  with one exception. As soon as he was old enough to understand things,
• 22:37
  Bagheerra told him that he must never touch cattle, because he had been
• 22:41
  bought into the pack at the price of a bull's life. All the jungle
• 22:47
  is fine, said Bagheira, and thou canst kill everything that thou art strong
• 22:52
  enough to kill, but for the sake of the bull that bought thee,
• 22:56
  thou must never kill or eat any cattle, young or old. That is
• 23:00
  the law of the jungle. Mowgli obeyed faithfully, and he grew and grew
• 23:07
  strong, as a boy must grow who does not know that he is learning
• 23:11
  any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of except things
• 23:15
  to eat. Mother Wulf told him once or twice that sharr Khan was not
• 23:22
  a creature to be trusted, and that some day he must kill sharr Khan.
• 23:26
  But though a young wolf would have remembered that advice every hour, Mowgli
• 23:32
  forgot it because he was only a boy. Though he would have called himself
• 23:36
  a wolf if he had been able to speak in any human tongue. Sharr
• 23:41
  Khan was always crossing his path in the jungle. For as Akila grew older
• 23:45
  and feebler, the lame tiger had come to be great friends with the younger
• 23:51
  wolves of the pack who followed him for scraps, a thing Akilah would never
• 23:56
  have allowed. If he had dared to push his authority to the proper bounds,
• 24:00
  then Sherr Khan would flatter them, and wonder that such fine young hunters
• 24:04
  were content to be led by a dying wolf in a man's cub. They
• 24:10
  tell me, sharr Khan would say that a counsel, ye dare not look
• 24:15
  him between the eyes, and the young wolves would growl and bristle. Bagheira,
• 24:21
  who had eyes and ears everywhere, knew something of this, and once
• 24:26
  or twice he told Mowgli in so many words, that sharr Khan would kill
• 24:30
  him some day. Mowgli would laugh in answer, I have the pack,
• 24:34
  and I have thee, and Baloo, though he is so lazy, might
• 24:38
  strike a blow or two for my sake. Why should I be afraid.
• 24:42
  It was one very warm day that a new notion came to Baghira, born
• 24:48
  of something that he had heard. Perhaps Ikey the porcupine had told him.
• 24:52
  But he said to Mowgli when they were deep in the jungle, as the
• 24:56
  boy lay with his head on Baghira's beautiful black se little brother, how often
• 25:02
  have I told thee that sharr Khan is thy enemy? As many times as
• 25:07
  there are nuts on that palm, said Mowgli, who naturally could not count.
• 25:11
  What of it? I am sleepy Baghira, and sharr Khan is our
• 25:15
  long tail and loud talk like Mao the peacock. But this is no time
• 25:21
  for sleeping. Baloo knows it, I know it, the pack knows it,
• 25:26
  and even the foolish, foolish dear no Tobaki has told thee too.
• 25:32
  Oh, said Mowgli. Tobaki came to me not long ago with some rude
• 25:37
  talk that I was a naked man's cub and not fit to dig pig nuts.
• 25:41
  But I caught Tobaki by the tail and swung him twice against the palm
• 25:45
  tree to teach him better manners. That was foolishness, for though Tobaki is
• 25:52
  a mischief maker, he would have told thee of something that concerned THEE closely.
• 25:56
  Hope in those eyes, little brother pir Khan, dare not kill thee
• 26:00
  in the jungle. But remember Akila is very old, and soon the day
• 26:07
  comes when he cannot kill his buck, and then he will be leader no
• 26:11
  more. Many of the wolves that looked thee over when thou wst brought to
• 26:15
  the council first are old too. And the young wolves believe, as sharr
• 26:22
  Khan has taught them, that a man cub has no place with the pack.
• 26:26
  In a little time, thou wilt be a man. And what is
• 26:30
  a man that he should not run with his brothers, said Mowgli. I
• 26:33
  was born in the jungle. I have obeyed the law of the jungle.
• 26:37
  And there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a
• 26:41
  thorn. Surely they are my brothers. By Hiras stretched himself at full length
• 26:48
  and half shut his eyes, little brother said he feel under my jaw.
• 26:53
  Mowgli put up his strong brown hand, and just under by Hira's silky where
• 27:00
  the giant rolling muscles were all hid by the glossy hair, he came upon
• 27:04
  a little ball spot. There is no one in the jungle that knows that
• 27:10
  I Baghira carry that bark the mark of a collar. And yet, little
• 27:15
  brother, I was born among men, and it was among men that my
• 27:19
  mother died in the cages of the king's palace at ou Depour. It was
• 27:26
  because of this that I paid the price for thee at the council, when
• 27:29
  thou wast a little naked cub. Yes, I too was born among men.
• 27:34
  I had never seen the jungle. They fed me behind bars from an
• 27:40
  iron pan, till one night I felt that I was by Hira the panther,
• 27:45
  and no man's plaything. And I broke the silly lock with one blow
• 27:48
  of my paw and came away. And because I had learned the ways of
• 27:53
  men, I became more terrible in the jungle than Sher Khan. Is it
• 27:59
  not so, yes, said Mowgli. All the jungle fear bagheera, all
• 28:03
  except Mowgli. Oh, thou art a man's cub, said the black panther,
• 28:08
  very tenderly. And even as I returned to my jungle, So thou
• 28:12
  must go back to men at last, to the men who are thy brothers.
• 28:17
  If thou art not killed in the council. But why, but why
• 28:22
  should any wish to kill me, said Mowgli. Look at me, said
• 28:26
  Bakheierra, and Mowgli looked at him steadily between the eyes. The big panther
• 28:32
  turned his head away in half a minute. That is why, he said,
• 28:36
  shifting his paw on the leaves. Not even I can look THEE between
• 28:40
  the eyes. And I was born among men, and I love THEE,
• 28:44
  little brother. The others they hate THEE because their eyes cannot meet thine,
• 28:48
  because thou art wise, because thou hast pulled out thorns from their feet,
• 28:53
  because thou art a man. I did not know these things, said Mowgli
• 29:00
  sullenly, and he frowned under his heavy black eyebrows. What is the law
• 29:06
  of the jungle? Strike first, and then give tongue by thy very carelessness.
• 29:11
  They know that thou art a man, But be wise. It is
• 29:15
  in my heart that when Akila misses his next kill, and at each hunt
• 29:21
  it costs him more to pin the buck, the pack will turn against him
• 29:25
  and against thee. They will hold a jungle council at the rock. And
• 29:30
  then and then I have it, said Baghira, leaping up. Go thou
• 29:36
  down quickly to the men's huts in the valley, and take some of the
• 29:40
  red flower which they grow there, so that when the time comes thou mayest
• 29:45
  have even a stronger friend than I or Balou, or those of the pact
• 29:48
  that love thee. Get the red flower. By the red flower. Bakhuibra
• 29:55
  meant fire. Only No creature in the jungle will call fire by its popper
• 30:00
  name. Every beast lives in the deadly fear of it, and invents a
• 30:04
  hundred ways of describing it. The red flower, said Mowgli, that grows
• 30:10
  outside their huts in the twilight. I will get some. There speaks the
• 30:15
  man's cub, said Bakhira, proudly. Remember that it grows in little pots.
• 30:19
  Get one swiftly, and keep it by thee for time of need.
• 30:23
  Good, said Mowgli. I go, but art thou sure, o,
• 30:27
  my Baghira. He slipped his arm around the splendid neck and looked deep into
• 30:33
  the big eyes. Art thou sure that all this is Sharrkhan's doing? By
• 30:38
  the broken lock that freed me, I am sure, little brother. Then
• 30:44
  by the bull that bought me. I will pay sharr Khan full tail for
• 30:48
  this. And it may be a little over, said Mowgli, and he
• 30:51
  bounded away. That is a man, That is all a man, said
• 30:56
  Baghbra to himself, lying down again, O, sharr Khan never was a
• 31:03
  blacker hunting than that frog hunt of thine. Ten years ago. Mowgli was
• 31:07
  far and far through the forest, running hard, and his heart was hot
• 31:12
  in him. He came to the cave as the evening mist rose, and
• 31:17
  drew breath and looked down the valley. The cubs were out, but mother
• 31:22
  Wulf, at the back of the cave knew by his breathing that something was
• 31:26
  troubling her frog. What is it, sun, she said, some bat's
• 31:30
  chatter of sharr Khan. He called back, I hunt among the plowed fields
• 31:36
  to night, and he plunged downward through the bushes to the stream at the
• 31:41
  bottom of the valley. There he checked for He heard the yell of the
• 31:45
  pack hunting, heard the bellows of a hunted sombur, and the snort as
• 31:49
  the buck turned at bay. Then there were wicked, bitter howls from the
• 31:53
  young wolves. Akila Akila, let the lone wolf show his strength room and
• 32:00
  for the leader of the pack, sprang Akilla, the lone wolf must have
• 32:05
  sprung and missed his hold, for Mowgli heard the snap of his teeth,
• 32:09
  and then a yelp as the sambir knocked him over with his forefoot. He
• 32:15
  did not wait for anything more, but dashed on, and the yells grew
• 32:19
  fainter behind him as he ran into the crop lands where the villagers lived.
• 32:23
  By Hero spoke truth. He panted as he nestled down in some cattle fodder
• 32:29
  by the window of a hut. Tomorrow is one day, both for Akilah
• 32:32
  and for me. Then he pressed his face close to the window and watched
• 32:37
  the fire on the hearth. He saw the husbandman's wife get up and feed
• 32:43
  it in the night with black lumps. And when the morning came and the
• 32:46
  mists were all white and cold, he saw the man's child pick up a
• 32:51
  wicker pot plastered inside with earth, fill it with lumps of red hot charcoal,
• 32:55
  and put it under his blanket and go out to tend the howls.
• 33:00
  And the byre is that all, said Mowgli. If a cub can do
• 33:05
  it, there is nothing to fear. So he strode round the corner and
• 33:07
  met the boy, took the pot from his hand, and disappeared into the
• 33:13
  mist, while the boy howled with fear. They are very like me,
• 33:17
  said Mowgli, blowing into the pot as he had seen the woman do.
• 33:22
  This thing will die if I do not give it things to eat. And
• 33:24
  he dropped twigs and dried bark on the red stuff. Half Way up the
• 33:30
  hill he met Baghira, with the morning dew shining like moonstones on his coat.
• 33:36
  Arkila has missed, said the panther. They would have killed him last
• 33:39
  night, but they needed thee also. They were looking for thee on the
• 33:43
  hill. I was among the plowed lands. I am ready see Mowgli held
• 33:47
  up the fire pot. Good now I have seen men thrust a dry branch
• 33:53
  into that stuff, and presently the red flower blossomed at the end of it.
• 33:59
  Art thou not afraid? No, why should I fear? I remember
• 34:04
  now, if it is not a dream, how before I was a wolf.
• 34:07
  I lay beside the red flower, and it was warm and pleasant.
• 34:13
  All that day Mowgli sat in the cave, tending his firepot and dipping dry
• 34:17
  branches into it to see how they looked. He found a branch that satisfied
• 34:22
  him, and in the evening, when Tobaki came to the cave and told
• 34:27
  him rudely enough that he was wanted at the council rock, he laughed till
• 34:30
  Tobaki ran away. Then Mowgli went to the council still laughing. Akila,
• 34:37
  the lone wolf, lay by the side of the rock as a sign that
• 34:42
  the leadership of the pack was open, and shar Khan, with his following
• 34:45
  of scrap fed wolves, walked to and fro openly, being flattered. Baghira
• 34:52
  lay close to Mogli, and the firepot was between Mowgli's knees. When they
• 34:58
  were all gathered together, shared Khan began to speak, a thing he would
• 35:01
  never have dared to do when Akila was in his prime. He has no
• 35:07
  right, whispered Bakhira. Say so, he is a dog's son. He
• 35:12
  will be frightened. Mowgli sprang to his feet. Free people, he cried,
• 35:17
  does sher Khan lead the pack? What has a tiger to do with
• 35:21
  our leadership? Seeing that the leadership is yet open, and being asked to
• 35:27
  speak, sharr Khan began by whom said, Mowgli, are we all jackals
• 35:32
  to fawn on this cattle? Butcher? The leadership of the pack is with
• 35:37
  the pack alone. There were yells of silence. Thou Man's cub let him
• 35:42
  speak. He has kept our law. And at last the seniors of the
• 35:45
  pack thundered, let the dead wolf speak when a leader of the pack has
• 35:51
  missed his kill. He has called the dead wolf as long as he lives,
• 35:54
  which is not long. Akila raised his old head wearily. Free people,
• 36:01
  and ye two jackals of Sharr Khan. For twelve seasons I have led
• 36:07
  ye to and from the kill, and in all that time no one has
• 36:12
  been trapped or maimed. Now I have missed my kill. Ye know how
• 36:16
  that plot was made. Ye know how he brought me up to an untried
• 36:21
  buck to make my weakness known. It was cleverly done. Your right is
• 36:27
  to kill me here on the council rock. Now therefore I ask who comes
• 36:31
  to make an end of the lone wolf, For it is my right,
• 36:35
  by the law of the jungle, that ye come one by one. There
• 36:39
  was a long hush, for no single wolf cared to fight Akila to the
• 36:45
  death. Then Sherr Khan roared, Bah, what have we to do with
• 36:50
  this toothless fool? He is doomed to die. It is the man cub
• 36:54
  who has lived too long free people. He was my meat from the first.
• 37:00
  Give him to me. I am weary of this man wolf folly.
• 37:06
  He has troubled the jungle for ten seasons. Give me the man Cub,
• 37:10
  or I will hunt here always and not give you one bone. He is
• 37:16
  a man, a man's child, and from the marrow of my bones I
• 37:22
  hate him. Then more than half of the pack yelled, Amen, Amen,
• 37:28
  what has a man to do with us? Let him go to his
• 37:30
  own place and turn all the people of the villages against us. Clamored sharr
• 37:37
  Khan, No, give him to me. He is a man, and
• 37:40
  none of us can look him between the eyes. Aquilah lifted his head again
• 37:45
  and said, he has eaten our food, he has slept with us,
• 37:50
  he has driven game for us. He has broken no word of the law
• 37:53
  of the jungle. Also, I paid for him with the bull when he
• 37:58
  was accepted. The worth of a bull is little, but Baghira's honor is
• 38:02
  something that he will perhaps fight for, said Baghira in his gentlest voice.
• 38:08
  A bull paid ten years ago. The pack snarled, what do we care
• 38:14
  for bones ten years old? Or for a pledge? Said Baghira, his
• 38:19
  white teeth bared under his lip. Well are ye call the free people?
• 38:24
  No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle, howled sharr Khan.
• 38:29
  Give him to me. He is our brother in all but blood,
• 38:34
  Akila went on, and ye would kill him here in truth, I have
• 38:37
  lived too long. Some of ye are eaters of cattle, and others.
• 38:43
  I have heard that under sharr Khan's teaching, ye go by dark night and
• 38:46
  snatch children from the villager's doorstep. Therefore I know ye to be cowards,
• 38:52
  and it is to cowards I speak. It is certain that I must die,
• 38:58
  and my life is of no worth, or I would offer that in
• 39:00
  the man Cub's place, but for the sake of the honor of the pack.
• 39:05
  A little matter that by being without a leader, ye have forgotten.
• 39:08
  I promise that if ye let the man Cub go to his own place,
• 39:14
  I will not, when my time comes to die, bear one tooth against
• 39:20
  ye, I will die without fighting. That will at least save the pack
• 39:25
  three lives. More I cannot do. But if ye will, I can
• 39:30
  save ye the shame that comes of killing a brother against whom there is no
• 39:35
  fault, A brother spoken far and bought into the pack. According to the
• 39:39
  law of the jungle. He is a man. A man a man snarled
• 39:45
  the pack, and most of the wolves began to gather round Sharrkhan, whose
• 39:51
  tale was beginning to switch. Now the business is in thy hands, said
• 39:55
  Bakheer to Mowgli. We can do no more except fight. Mowgli stood upright
• 40:01
  the fire pot in his hands. Then he stretched out his arms and yawned
• 40:07
  in the face of the council. But he was furious with rage and sorrow,
• 40:13
  for wolf like the wolves have never told him how they hated him.
• 40:17
  Listen you, he cried, there is no need for this dog's jabber.
• 40:22
  Ye have told me so often tonight that I am a man, and indeed
• 40:28
  I would have been a wolf with you to my life's end. That I
• 40:30
  feel your words are true. So I do not call ye my brothers any
• 40:36
  more but sog dogs, as a man would. What ye will do and
• 40:42
  what ye will not do is not yours to say that matter is with me,
• 40:46
  and that we may see the matter more plainly, I the man,
• 40:51
  have brought here a little of the red flower, which ye dogs fear.
• 40:58
  He flung the fire pop on the ground, and some of the red coals
• 41:00
  lit a tuft of dried moss that flared up. As all the council drew
• 41:06
  back in terror before the leaping flames, Mowgli thrust his dead branch into the
• 41:10
  fire till the twigs lit and crackled, and whirled it above his head among
• 41:15
  the cowering wolves. Thou Art, the master, said, Bakhira in an
• 41:20
  undertone, save Aquila from the death. He was ever thy friend. Aquila,
• 41:27
  the grim old wolf, who had never asked for mercy in his life,
• 41:30
  gave one piteous look at Mowgli as the boy stood all naked, his
• 41:36
  long black hair tossing over his shoulders, in the light of the blazing branch
• 41:40
  that made the shadows jump and quiver. Good, said Mowgli, staring round
• 41:45
  slowly. I see that ye are dogs. I go from you to my
• 41:52
  own people, if they be my own people. The jungle is shut to
• 41:55
  me, and I must forget your talk and your companionship. But I will
• 42:00
  be more merciful than ye are, because I was all but your brother in
• 42:05
  blood. I promise that when I am a man among men, I will
• 42:08
  not betray ye to men as ye have betrayed me. He kicked the fire
• 42:14
  with his foot and the sparks flew up. There shall be no war between
• 42:19
  any of us in the pack. But here is a debt to pay before
• 42:22
  I go. He strode forward to where sharr Khan sat, blinking stupidly at
• 42:28
  the flames, and caught him by the tuft of his chin. By Hero
• 42:32
  followed in case of accidents. Up dog Mowgli cried, up when a man
• 42:37
  speaks, or I will set that coat ablaze. Shirr Khan's ears lay flat
• 42:44
  back on his head, and he shut his eyes. While the blazing branch
• 42:49
  was very near. This cattle killer said he would kill me and the council
• 42:53
  because he had not killed me when I was a cub. Thus, and
• 42:58
  thus then do we beat dogs when we are men. Stir a whisker lungry,
• 43:04
  and I ram the red flower down thy gullet. He beat sharr Khan
• 43:08
  over the head with the branch, and the tiger whimpered and whined in an
• 43:13
  agony of fear. Pah singed, jungle cat. Go now, but remember,
• 43:19
  when next I come to the council rock, as a man should come,
• 43:22
  it will be with sharr Khan's hide on my head. For the rest,
• 43:28
  Akila goes free to live as he pleases. Ye will not kill him,
• 43:31
  because that is not my will, Nor do I think that ye will
• 43:37
  sit here any longer lilling out your tongues as though ye were somebody's instead of
• 43:42
  dogs, whom I drive out. Thus go. The fire was burning furiously
• 43:47
  at the end of the branch, and Mowgli struck right and left round the
• 43:52
  circle, and the wolves ran howling, with the sparks burning their fur.
• 43:57
  At last there were only Aquila Ahira and perhaps ten wolves that had taken Mowgli's
• 44:02
  part. Then something began to hurt Mowgli inside him as he had never been
• 44:08
  hurt in his life before, and he caught his breath and sobbed, and
• 44:14
  the tears ran down his face. What is it? What is it?
• 44:17
  He said? I do not wish to leave the jungle, and I do
• 44:22
  not know what this is. Am I dying? Pakhira, No, little
• 44:27
  brother, that is only tears, such as men use, said Pakhira.
• 44:31
  Now I know thou art a man and a man's cub. No longer the
• 44:36
  jungle is shut, indeed to thee. Henceforward, let them fall, Mowgli.
• 44:39
  They are only tears. So Mowgli sat and cried as though his heart
• 44:45
  would break, and he had never cried in all his life before. Now
• 44:51
  he said, I will go to men, but first I must say farewell
• 44:53
  to my mother. And he went to the cave where she lived with Father
• 44:58
  Wolf, and he cried on while the four cubs howled miserably. Ye will
• 45:04
  not forget me, said Mowgli. Never while we can follow a trail,
• 45:07
  said the cubs. Come to the foot of the hill when thou art a
• 45:10
  mand, and we will talk to thee, and we will come into the
• 45:15
  crop lands to play with thee by night. Come soon, said father Wolf.
• 45:20
  O wise, little frog, come again soon, for we be old,
• 45:23
  thy mother, and I come soon, said Mother Wolf, little naked
• 45:29
  son of mine. For listen, child of man, I love thee more
• 45:32
  than I ever loved my cubs. I will surely come, said Mowgli.
• 45:37
  And when I come, it will be to lay out Sharrkan's hide upon the
• 45:42
  council rock. Do not forget me, Tell them in the jungle never to
• 45:46
  forget me. The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the hillside
• 45:52
  alone to meet those mysterious things that are called men hunting song of the seonee
• 46:01
  pack. As the dawn was breaking, the sombour belled once twice and again,
• 46:07
  and a doe leaped up, and a doe leaped up from the pond
• 46:12
  in the wood with a wild dear sup This I scouting alone beheld once twice
• 46:17
  and again as the dawn was breaking, the sombour belled once twice and again,
• 46:24
  and a wolf stole back, and a wolf stole back to carry the
• 46:29
  word to the waiting pack. And we sought, and we found, and
• 46:32
  we bayed on his track once twice and again. As the dawn was breaking,
• 46:38
  the wolf pack yelled once twice and again. Feet in the jungle that
• 46:44
  leave no mark, eyes that can see in the dark, the dark tongue
• 46:49
  give hung to it. Hark o, hark once twice and again. End
• 46:55
  of story one. Mowgli's brothers cause hunting. His spots are the joy of
• 47:06
  the leopard his horns, or the buffalo's pride. Be clean, for the
• 47:09
  strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide. If ye
• 47:15
  find that the bullock can toss you are the heavy browed sambourg and gore,
• 47:20
  ye need not stop work to inform us. We knew it ten seasons before.
• 47:24
  Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as sister and
• 47:29
  brother. For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the bear
• 47:32
  is their mother. There is none like to me, says the cub,
• 47:37
  in the pride of his earliest kill. But the jungle is large, and
• 47:40
  the cub he is small. Let him think and be still maxims of Ballou.
• 47:50
  All that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of
• 47:53
  the seOne wolf pack or revenged himself on sharr Khan the Tiger. It was
• 47:59
  in the day when Balu was teaching him the law of the jungle. The
• 48:04
  big, serious, old brown bear was delighted to have so quick a pupil.
• 48:08
  For the young wolves will only learn as much of the law of the
• 48:12
  jungle as applies to their own pack and tribe, and run away as soon
• 48:17
  as they can repeat the hunting verse. Feet that make no noise, eyes
• 48:22
  that can see in the dark, ears that can hear the winds in their
• 48:25
  layers, and sharp white teeth. All of these are the marks of our
• 48:30
  brothers, except Tabaki the jackal and the hyena, whom we hate. But
• 48:36
  Mowgli, as a man cub, had to learn a great deal more than
• 48:38
  this. Sometimes Bughira, the black panther would come lounging through the jungle to
• 48:45
  see how his pet was coming on, and would purr with his head against
• 48:50
  a tree while Mowgli recited the day's lesson to Balu. The boy could climb
• 48:55
  almost as well as he could swim, and swim almost as well as he
• 49:00
  could run. So Baloo, the teacher of the law, taught him the
• 49:04
  wood and water laws, how to tell a rotten branch from a sound one,
• 49:08
  how to speak politely to the wild bees when he came upon a hive
• 49:13
  of them fifty feet above ground, what to say to Mang the bat when
• 49:17
  he disturbed him in the branches at midday, and how to warn the water
• 49:22
  snakes in the pools before he splashed down among them. None of the jungle
• 49:28
  people liked to be disturbed, and all are ready to fly at an intruder.
• 49:32
  Then too, Mowgli was taught the stranger's hunting call, which must be
• 49:37
  repeated aloud till it is answered whenever one of the jungle people hunts outside his
• 49:43
  own grounds. It means translated, give me leave to hunt here because I
• 49:49
  am hungry, And the answer is hunt then for food, but not for
• 49:54
  pleasure. All this will show you how much Mowgli had to learn by heart,
• 50:00
  and he grew very tired of saying the same thing over a hundred times.
• 50:06
  But as Balou said to Baghira one day, when Mowgli had been cuffed
• 50:09
  and run off in a temper. A man's cub is a man's cub,
• 50:15
  and he must learn all the law of the jungle. But think how small
• 50:20
  he is, said the black panther, who would have spoiled Mowgli if he
• 50:24
  had had his own way. How can his little head carry all thy long
• 50:29
  talk? Is there anything in the jungle too little to be killed? No?
• 50:36
  That is why I teach him these things, And that is why I
• 50:39
  hit him very softly when he forgets softly. What dost thou know of softness,
• 50:45
  old iron feet? Baghira grunted. His face is all bruised today by
• 50:52
  thy softness. Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me,
• 50:58
  who love him, than that he should come to harm through ignorance. Baloo
• 51:01
  answered very earnestly. I am now teaching him the master words of the jungle
• 51:07
  that shall protect him with the birds and the snake people, and all that
• 51:12
  hunt on four feet except his own pack. He can now claim protection if
• 51:17
  he will only remember the words from all in the jungle. Is not that
• 51:22
  worth a little beating? Well, look to it then that thou dost not
• 51:28
  kill the man cub. He is no tree trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws
• 51:31
  upon. But what are those master words? I am more likely to give
• 51:37
  help than to ask it. Peghira stretched out one paw and admired the steel,
• 51:43
  blue, ripping chisel talons at the end of it. Still I should
• 51:47
  like to know. I will call Mowgli, and he shall save him if
• 51:52
  he will come. Little brother, my head is ringing like a bee tree,
• 51:57
  said a sullen little voice over their heads, and Mowgli slid down a
• 52:01
  tree trunk, very angry and indignant, adding as he reached the ground,
• 52:07
  I come for Bahira, and not for thee. Fat Old Balu, that
• 52:12
  is all one to me, said Balu, though he was hurt and grieved.
• 52:15
  Tell Baghira, then, the master words of the jungle that I have
• 52:20
  taught thee this day, master words for which people said Mowgli, delighted to
• 52:24
  show off. The jungle has many tongues. I know them all a little
• 52:30
  thou knowest, but not much. See Old Baghira. They never thank their
• 52:36
  teacher. Not one small wolfling has ever come back to thank Old Baloo.
• 52:40
  For his teaching. Say the word for the hunting people, then, great
• 52:45
  scholar, we be of one blood. Ye, and I said Mowgli,
• 52:51
  giving the words the bare accent which all the hunting people use. Good.
• 52:55
  Now for the birds, Mowgli repeated, with the kite's whistle at the end
• 53:00
  of the sentence. Now for the snake people, said Bagheira. The answer
• 53:07
  was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mowgli kicked up his feet behind, clapped
• 53:14
  his hands together to applaud himself, and jumped on to Bagheerer's back, where
• 53:19
  he sat sideways, drumming his heels on the glossy skin and making the worst
• 53:24
  faces he can think of at Belloo there there that was worth a little bruise,
• 53:30
  said the brown bear tenderly. Someday thou wilt remember me. Then he
• 53:37
  turned aside to tell Bagheira how he had begged the master words from Hathi,
• 53:43
  the wild elephant, who knows all about these things, and how Huthi had
• 53:47
  taken Mowgli down to a pool to get the snake word from a water snake
• 53:52
  because Bellow could not pronounce it, and how Mowgli was now reasonably safe against
• 53:59
  all acts, said the jungle, because neither snake, bird nor beast would
• 54:04
  hurt him. No one then is to be feared. Balu wound up,
• 54:07
  patting his big furry stomach with pride, except his own tribe, said Bagheira
• 54:15
  unto his breath, and then aloud to Mowgli, have a care for my
• 54:20
  ribs, little brother. What is all this dancing up and down? Mowgli
• 54:24
  had been trying to make himself heard by pulling at Bagheerer's shoulder fur and kicking
• 54:30
  hard. When the two listened to him. He was shouting at the top
• 54:35
  of his voice. And so I shall have a tribe of my own and
• 54:39
  lead them through the branches all day long. What is this new folly,
• 54:45
  little dreamer of dreams, said Bagheira. Yes, and throw branches and dirt
• 54:51
  at old Balu. Mowgli went on, they have promised me this, ah
• 54:57
  Oh. Baloo's big paw sc moked Mowgli off Baghier's back, and as the
• 55:02
  boar lay between the big fore paws, he could see the bear was angry.
• 55:08
  Mowgli said, bealw thou hast been talking with the bandar log the monkey
• 55:15
  people. Mowgli looked at Bagher to see if the panther was angry too,
• 55:21
  and Begher's eyes were as hard as jadestones. Bou hast been with the monkey
• 55:27
  people, the gray apes, the people without a law, the eachers of
• 55:32
  everything that is great shame. When Bellow hurt my head, said Mowgli.
• 55:39
  He was still on his back. I went away, and the gray apes
• 55:43
  came down from the trees and had pity on me. No one else cared.
• 55:47
  He snuffled a little, the pity of the monkey people below, snorted,
• 55:52
  the stillness of the mountain stream, the cool of the summer sun.
• 55:58
  And then man, and then and then they gave me nuts and pleasant things
• 56:04
  to eat. And they they carried me in their arms up to the top
• 56:08
  of the trees and said I was their blood brother, except that I had
• 56:13
  no tail and should be their leader. Someday they have no leader, said
• 56:19
  Baghira. They lie, They have always lied. They were very kind and
• 56:24
  bade me come again. Why have I never been taken among the monkey people?
• 56:30
  They stand on their feet as I do. They do not hit me
• 56:34
  with their hard paws. They play all day. Let me get up,
• 56:38
  bad ballo let me up, I will play with them again. Listen,
• 56:44
  man Cub, said the bear, and his voice rumbled like thunder on a
• 56:49
  hot night. I have taught thee all the laws of the jungle. For
• 56:52
  all the peoples of the jungle, except the monkey people who live in the
• 56:58
  trees, they have no law. They are outcasts. They have no speech
• 57:04
  of their own, but use the stolen words which they overhear when they listen
• 57:08
  and peep and wade up above in the branches. Their way is not our
• 57:14
  way. They are without leaders. They have no remembrance. They boast and
• 57:19
  chatter and pretend that there are a great people about to do great affairs in
• 57:22
  the jungle. But the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter,
• 57:29
  and all is forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with them.
• 57:34
  We do not drink where the monkeys drink. We do not go where the
• 57:37
  monkeys go. We do not hunt where they hunt. We do not die
• 57:42
  where they die. Hast thou ever heard me speak of the band or log
• 57:47
  Till today? No, said Bowgli in a whisper, for the forest was
• 57:52
  very still. Now Ballew had finished. The jungle people put them out of
• 57:58
  their mouths and out of their minds. They are very many, evil,
• 58:04
  dirty, shameless, and they desire, if they have any fixed desire,
• 58:09
  to be noticed by the jungle people. But we do not notice them,
• 58:15
  even when they throw nuts and filth on our heads. He had hardly spoken
• 58:21
  when a shower of nuts and twigs spattered down through the branches, and they
• 58:25
  could hear coughings and howlings and angry jumpings high up in the air among the
• 58:30
  thin branches. The monkey people are forbidden, said Bellew. Forbidden to the
• 58:37
  jungle people, remember, forbidden, said Bakhira. But I still think below
• 58:44
  should have won thee against them. I I how was I to guess he
• 58:50
  would play with such dirt? The monkey people fall, A fresh shower came
• 58:55
  down on their heads, and the two trotted away, taking Mowgli with them.
• 59:01
  What Bellou had to say about the monkeys was perfectly true. They belonged
• 59:06
  to the tree tops, and as beasts, very seldom look up. There
• 59:09
  was no occasion for the monkeys and the jungle people to cross each other's path,
• 59:15
  But whenever they found a sick wolf, for a wounded tiger or bear,
• 59:20
  the monkeys would torment him and throw sticks and nuts at any beast for
• 59:24
  fun and in the hope of being noticed. Then they would howl and shriek
• 59:30
  senseless songs and invite the jungle people to climb up their trees and fight them,
• 59:37
  or they would start furious battles over nothing among themselves and leave the dead
• 59:42
  monkeys where the jungle people could see them. They were always just going to
• 59:46
  have a leader and laws and customs of their own, but they never did
• 59:52
  because their memories would not hold over from day to day, and so they
• 59:55
  compromised things by making up a saying what Bandolor think now, the jungle will
• 1:00:01
  think later, and that comforted them a great deal. None of the beasts
• 1:00:07
  could reach them, but on the other hand, none of the beasts would
• 1:00:10
  notice them, and that was why they were so pleased when Mowgli came to
• 1:00:15
  play with them and they heard how angry Bellow was. They never meant to
• 1:00:21
  do any more. The bandr log never meant anything at all, but one
• 1:00:24
  of them invented what seemed to him a brilliant idea, and he told all
• 1:00:30
  the others that Mowgli would be a useful person to keep in the tribe because
• 1:00:36
  he could weave sticks together for protection from the wind, so if they caught
• 1:00:39
  him they could make him teach them. Of course, Mowgli, as a
• 1:00:45
  woodcutter's child, inherited all sorts of instincts and used to make little huts of
• 1:00:51
  fallen branches without thinking how he came to do it. The monkey people watching
• 1:00:55
  in the trees considered his play most wonderful. This time. They said they
• 1:01:01
  were really going to have a leader and become the wisest people in the jungle,
• 1:01:07
  so wise that everyone else would notice and envy them. Therefore, they
• 1:01:13
  followed Baloo and Bughira and Mowgli through the jungle very quietly till it was time
• 1:01:19
  for the midday nap, and Mowgli, who was very much ashamed of himself,
• 1:01:23
  slept between the panther and the bear, resolving to have no more to
• 1:01:29
  do with the monkey people. The next thing he remembered was feeling hands on
• 1:01:35
  his legs and arms, hard strong little hands, and then a swash of
• 1:01:40
  branches in his face, and then he was staring down through the swaying boughs
• 1:01:45
  as Balo woke the jungle with his deep cries, and Beghira bounded up the
• 1:01:51
  trunk, with every tooth bared. The bandr Log howled with triumph and scuffled
• 1:01:57
  away to the upper branches, where Baghir dared not follow, shouting he has
• 1:02:01
  noticed us, Paghira has noticed us. All the jungle people admire us for
• 1:02:07
  our skill and our cunning. Then they began their flight. And the flight
• 1:02:13
  of the monkey people through tree land is one of the things nobody can describe.
• 1:02:19
  They have their regular roads and crossroads, up hills and downhills, all
• 1:02:23
  laid out from fifty to seventy or one hundred feet above the ground, and
• 1:02:28
  by these they can travel even at night if necessary. Two of the strongest
• 1:02:34
  monkeys caught Mowgli under the arms and swung off with him through the tree tops
• 1:02:38
  twenty feet at a bound. Had they been alone, they could have gone
• 1:02:44
  twice as fast, but the boy's weight held them back. Sick and giddy
• 1:02:49
  as Mowgli was, he could not help enjoying the wild rush, though the
• 1:02:53
  glimpses of earth far down below frightened him, and the terrible check and jerk
• 1:02:59
  at the end of the swaying over nothing but empty air brought his heart between
• 1:03:02
  his teeth. His escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the
• 1:03:07
  thinnest, topmost branches crackle and bind under them, and then with a cough
• 1:03:14
  and a whoop, would fling themselves into the air outward and downward, and
• 1:03:19
  bring up, hanging by their hands or their feet, to the lower limbs
• 1:03:22
  of the next tree. Sometimes he could see from miles and miles across the
• 1:03:28
  still green jungle, as a man on the top of a mast can see
• 1:03:31
  from miles across the sea. And then the branches and leaves would lash him
• 1:03:36
  across the face, and he and his two guards would be almost down to
• 1:03:40
  earth again. So, bounding and crashing and whooping and yelling, the whole
• 1:03:45
  tribe of bandor logs swept along the tree roads, with Mowgli their prisoner.
• 1:03:52
  For a time he was afraid of being dropped. Then he grew angry,
• 1:03:55
  but knew better than to struggle, And then he began to think. The
• 1:04:01
  first thing was to send back word to Balu and Baghira, for at the
• 1:04:06
  pace the monkeys were going, he knew his friends would be left far behind.
• 1:04:12
  It was useless to look down, for he could only see the top
• 1:04:15
  sides of the branches, so he stared upward and saw far away in the
• 1:04:20
  blue Ron the kite, balancing and wheeling as he kept watch over the jungle,
• 1:04:27
  waiting for things to die. Ron saw that the monkeys were carrying something,
• 1:04:32
  and dropped a few hundred yards to find out whether their load was good
• 1:04:36
  to eat. He whistled with surprise when he saw Mowgli being dragged up to
• 1:04:43
  a tree top, and heard him give the kite call for we be of
• 1:04:46
  one blood, thou and I. The waves of the branches closed over the
• 1:04:51
  boy, but Ron balanced away to the next tree in time to see the
• 1:04:57
  little brown face come up again. Mark my trail, Mowgli shouted, tell
• 1:05:02
  Balu of the seonee pack, and by hera of the council rock in whose
• 1:05:09
  name brother Ron had never seen Mowgli before, though of course he had heard
• 1:05:13
  of him. Mowgli the frog man cub. They call me, mark my
• 1:05:17
  trail. The last words were shrieked as he was being swung through the air,
• 1:05:24
  but Ron nodded and rose up till he looked no bigger than a speck
• 1:05:29
  of dust. And there he hung, watching with his telescope eyes the swaying
• 1:05:34
  of the tree tops as Mowgli's escort whirled along. They never go for he
• 1:05:42
  said, with a chuckle. They never do what they set out to do,
• 1:05:45
  always pecking at new things. Are the bandar log this time? If
• 1:05:50
  I have any eyesight, they have pecked down trouble for themselves. For Balu
• 1:05:56
  is no fledgling, and by hirak, can I know kill more than goats?
• 1:06:02
  So he rocked his wings, his feet gathered up under him, and
• 1:06:08
  waited. Meantime, Balou and Bogheira were furious with rage and grief. Boghira
• 1:06:15
  climbed as he had never climbed before, but the thin branches broke beneath his
• 1:06:19
  weight, and he slipped down, his claws full of bark. Why didst
• 1:06:26
  thou not warn the man cub, he roared to poor Bellew, who had
• 1:06:30
  set off at a clumsy trot in the hope of overtaking the monkeys. What
• 1:06:34
  was the use of half slaying with blows if thou didst not warn him?
• 1:06:40
  Haste, oh, haste, we may catch them. Yet Bellu panted at
• 1:06:45
  that speed it would not tire a wounded cow. Teacher of the law,
• 1:06:49
  cub beater a mile of that rolling to and fro would burst thee open.
• 1:06:56
  Sit still and think, make a plan. This is no time for chasing.
• 1:07:00
  They may drop him if we follow too close, Harula who they may
• 1:07:06
  have dropped him already being tired of carrying him. Who can trust the bandar
• 1:07:12
  log Put dead bats on my head, give me black bones to eat.
• 1:07:17
  Row me into the hives of the wild bees that I may be stung to
• 1:07:21
  death, and bury me with the hyaena, For I am most miserable of
• 1:07:27
  bears. Rul hala la oh ha oh Mowgli, Mowgli. Why did I
• 1:07:33
  not warn thee against the monkey folk instead of breaking thy head? Now perhaps
• 1:07:40
  I may have knocked the day's lesson out of his mind, and he will
• 1:07:44
  be alone in the jungle without the master words. Bellew clasped his paws over
• 1:07:49
  his ears and rolled to and fro, moaning. At least he gave me
• 1:07:56
  all the words correctly a little time ago, said bagheerrae impatiently, Baloo,
• 1:08:00
  thou hast neither memory nor respect. What would the jungle think if I,
• 1:08:05
  the black panther, curled myself up like Ikey the porcupine and howled. What
• 1:08:12
  do I care? What the jungle thinks he may be dead by now,
• 1:08:17
  unless and until they drop him from the branches in sport or kill him out
• 1:08:21
  of idleness. I have no fear for the man cub. He is wise
• 1:08:27
  and well taught, and above all he has the eyes that make the jungle
• 1:08:30
  people afraid. But and it is a great evil. He is in the
• 1:08:36
  power of the band or Log, And they, because they live in trees,
• 1:08:42
  have no fear of any of our people. Baghira licked one forepaw thoughtfully
• 1:08:48
  fool that I am, Oh fat brown root digging fool that I am,
• 1:08:55
  said balow uncarling himself with a jerk. It is true what haugh they?
• 1:09:00
  The wild elephant says to each his own fear, And they the bandarlog fear
• 1:09:05
  ca the rock snake. He can climb as well as they can. He
• 1:09:10
  steals the young monkeys in the night. The whisper of his name makes their
• 1:09:14
  wicked tales cold. Let us go to Carr. What will he do for
• 1:09:19
  us? He is not of our tribe, of being footless and with most
• 1:09:25
  evil eyes, said Bagheira. He is very old and very cunning. Above
• 1:09:30
  all, he is always hungry, said balw hopefully promise him many goats.
• 1:09:36
  He sleeps for a full month after he has once eaten. He may be
• 1:09:41
  asleep now, And even were he awake, what if he would rather kill
• 1:09:44
  his own goats? Bagheira, who did not know much about kar, was
• 1:09:48
  naturally suspicious. Then in that case, thou and I, together, old
• 1:09:54
  hunter, must make him see reason. Here Balu rubbed his faded brown shoulder
• 1:10:00
  against the panther, and they went off to look for Ka the rock python.
• 1:10:05
  They found him stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun,
• 1:10:10
  admiring his beautiful new coat, for he had been in retirement for the last
• 1:10:15
  ten days, changing his skin, and now he was very splendid, darting
• 1:10:19
  his big, blunt nosed head along the ground and twisting the thirty feet of
• 1:10:25
  his body into fantastic knots and curves, and licking his lips as he thought
• 1:10:30
  of his dinner to come. He has not eaten, said Bellew with a
• 1:10:34
  grunt of relief, as soon as he saw the beautifully mottled brown and yellow
• 1:10:40
  jacket. Be careful of Bogheira. He is always a little blind after he
• 1:10:45
  has changed his skin, and very quick to strike. Kaw was not a
• 1:10:49
  poisoned snake. In fact, he rather despised the poisoned snakes as cowards.
• 1:10:56
  But his streath lay in his hug, and when he had once lapped his
• 1:11:00
  huge carals round anybody, there was no more to be said. Good hunting,
• 1:11:06
  cried Bellew, sitting up on his haunches. Like all snakes of his
• 1:11:11
  breed, Ka was rather deaf and did not hear the call at first.
• 1:11:15
  Then he curled up, ready for any accident. His head lowered. Good
• 1:11:21
  hunting for us all, he answered, O Ho, baloo, what dost
• 1:11:28
  thou do here? Good hunting? Bogher? One of us at least needs
• 1:11:32
  food. Is there any news of game? Afoot a doe now or even
• 1:11:36
  a young buck? I am as empty as it dried. Well, we
• 1:11:42
  are hunting, said Bellew carelessly. He knew that you must not hurry Kaw.
• 1:11:47
  He is too big. Give me permission to come with you, said
• 1:11:53
  Ka. A blow more or less is nothing to thee boghra or baloo.
• 1:11:59
  But I I have to wait and wait for days in a wood path,
• 1:12:03
  and climb half a night on the mere chance of a young ape pshaw.
• 1:12:09
  The branches are not what they were when I was young, rotten twigs and
• 1:12:14
  dry boughs, are they all? Maybe thy great weight has something to do
• 1:12:18
  with the matter, said Bellew. I am a fair length. A fair
• 1:12:24
  length, said Ka, with a little pride. But for all that,
• 1:12:28
  it is the fault of this new grown timber. I came very near to
• 1:12:31
  falling on my last hunt, very near, indeed, and the noise of
• 1:12:35
  my slipping, for my tail was not tight wrapped around the tree waked the
• 1:12:40
  manderlog. And they call me most evil names, footless, yellow earthworm,
• 1:12:46
  said Baghira under his whiskers, as though he were trying to remember something.
• 1:12:53
  They call me that, said Ka, something of that kind. It was
• 1:12:58
  that they shouted to us last moon, but we never noticed them. They
• 1:13:01
  will say anything, even that thou hast lost all thy teeth and wilt not
• 1:13:08
  face anything bigger than a kid, because they are indeed shameless, these band
• 1:13:13
  door log, because thou art afraid of the he goat's horns. Bagheerra went
• 1:13:18
  on sweetly. Now a snake, especially a wary old python like caw,
• 1:13:26
  very seldom shows that he is angry. But Baloo and Bagheira could see the
• 1:13:31
  big swallowing muscles on either side of Kaa's throat, ripple and bulge. The
• 1:13:40
  band dor Log have shifted their grounds, he said quietly. When I came
• 1:13:45
  up into the sun today, I heard them whooping among the tree tops.
• 1:13:50
  It it is the band door Log that we follow now, said Balw,
• 1:13:56
  But the words stuck in his throat, for that was the first time,
• 1:14:00
  it is memory that one of the jungle people had owned to being interested in
• 1:14:03
  the doings of the monkeys. Beud doubt, then, it is no small
• 1:14:10
  thing that takes two such hunters leaders in their own jungle. I am certain
• 1:14:15
  on the trail of the bandar Log, Ka replied courteously, as he swelled
• 1:14:19
  with curiosity. Indeed, Bellew began, I am no more than the old
• 1:14:26
  and sometimes very foolish teacher of the law to the seOne wolf cubs and Baghira.
• 1:14:31
  Here is Bagheira, said the black panther, and his jaws shut with
• 1:14:38
  a snap, for he did not believe in being humble. The trouble is
• 1:14:42
  this Kar, those nutstealers and pickers of palm leaves have stolen away our man
• 1:14:47
  cub, of whom thou hast perhaps heard. I heard some news from Ikey.
• 1:14:54
  His quills make him presumptuous of a man thing that was entered into a
• 1:14:59
  wolf pack. I did not believe Ikey is full of stories half heard and
• 1:15:03
  very badly told. But it is true. He is such a man cub
• 1:15:09
  as never was, said Balu, the best and wisest and boldest of man
• 1:15:13
  cubs, my own pupil, who shall make the name of Balu famous through
• 1:15:17
  all the jungles? And besides I we love him, kat, said Ka,
• 1:15:26
  weaving his head to and fro. I also have known what love is.
• 1:15:30
  There are tales I could tell that that need a clear night when we
• 1:15:34
  are all well fed, to praise properly, said Bakhira quickly. Our man
• 1:15:40
  cub is in the hands of the bunder log now, and we know that
• 1:15:44
  of all the jungle people, they fear Kaw alone, they fear me alone.
• 1:15:50
  They have good reason, said Ka, chattering foolish, vain, vain,
• 1:15:57
  foolish chattering of the monkeys. But a man thing in their hands is
• 1:16:00
  in no good luck. They grow tired of the nuts, they pick and
• 1:16:04
  throw them down. They carry a branch half a day, meaning to do
• 1:16:09
  great things with it, and then they snap it into That man thing is
• 1:16:14
  not to be envied. They called me also yellow fish? Was it not?
• 1:16:19
  Worm worm? Earthworm, said Baghira, as well as other things which
• 1:16:26
  I cannot now say for shame. We must remind them to speak well of
• 1:16:31
  their master esp We must help their wondering memories. Now whither went they with
• 1:16:38
  the cub? The jungle alone knows toward the sunset, I believe, said
• 1:16:43
  Balu. We have thought that thou wouldst know. K I how I take
• 1:16:49
  them when they come in my way. But I do not hunt the bandr
• 1:16:53
  logs or frogs, our green scum on a water hole for that matter.
• 1:16:59
  Well up, up, up, helloo, Hello, Hello, look up
• 1:17:03
  bello the sea one wolf pack. Bellu looked up to see where the voice
• 1:17:08
  came from, and there was Ron the kite, sweeping down with the sun
• 1:17:13
  shining on the upturned flanges of his wings. It was near Rod's bedtime,
• 1:17:17
  but he had ranged all over the jungle looking for the bear and had missed
• 1:17:23
  him in the thick foliage. What is it? Said bellew, I have
• 1:17:27
  seen Mowgli among the bander log, He bade me tell you. I watched
• 1:17:31
  the bander log have taken him beyond the river to the monkey city. To
• 1:17:35
  the Cold Lairs. They may stay there for a night, or ten nights,
• 1:17:41
  or an hour. I have told the bats to watch through the dark
• 1:17:44
  time. That is my message. Good hunting all you below, full gorge
• 1:17:49
  and a deep sleep to you, Ron, cried Bagheira. I will remember
• 1:17:54
  thee in my next kill, and put aside the head for thee alone,
• 1:17:58
  O best of kites, it is nothing, it is nothing. The boy
• 1:18:01
  held the master word. I could have done no less, and Ron circled
• 1:18:06
  up again to his roost. He has not forgotten to use his tongue,
• 1:18:12
  said Bellew, with a chuckle of pride. To think of one so young
• 1:18:15
  remembering the master word for the birds to while he was being pulled across trees.
• 1:18:21
  It was most firmly driven into him, said Bagheera. But I am
• 1:18:27
  proud of him. And now we must go to the Cold Lairs. They
• 1:18:31
  all knew where that place was, but few of the jungle people ever went
• 1:18:35
  there, because what they called the Cold Lairs was an old, deserted city,
• 1:18:42
  lost and buried in the jungle. And beasts seldom use a place that
• 1:18:45
  men have once used. The wild boar will, but the hunting tribes do
• 1:18:50
  not. Besides The monkeys lived there as much as they could be said to
• 1:18:55
  live anywhere, and no self respecting animal would come with an eye shot of
• 1:19:00
  it, except in times of drought, when the half ruined tanks and reservoirs
• 1:19:03
  held a little water. It is a half night's journey at full speed,
• 1:19:09
  said Baghira, and Baloo looked very serious. I will go as fast as
• 1:19:14
  I can, he said anxiously. We dare not wait for thee follow Balou.
• 1:19:18
  We must go on the quick foot Ka and I feet are no feet.
• 1:19:25
  I can keep abreast of all thy four, said Ka shortly. Balou
• 1:19:30
  made one effort to hurry, but had to sit down panting, and so
• 1:19:33
  they left him to come on later. While Baghira hurried forward at the quick
• 1:19:39
  panther canter, Ka said nothing but strive as Baghira might. The huge rock
• 1:19:45
  Python held level with him. When they came to a hill stream, Baghira
• 1:19:50
  gained because he bounded across, while Kaa swam his head and two feet of
• 1:19:56
  his neck, clearing the water. But on level ground, Ka made up
• 1:20:00
  the distance by the broken lock that freed me, said Bakhira. When twilight
• 1:20:04
  had fallen, Thou art no slow gore I am hungry, said Ka.
• 1:20:11
  Besides, they call me speckled frog worm, earthworm, and yellow to boot.
• 1:20:17
  All one let us go on, and Ka seemed to pour himself along
• 1:20:24
  the ground, finding the sharpest road with his steady eyes, and keeping to
• 1:20:30
  it. In the coal layers. The monkey people were not thinking of Mowgli's
• 1:20:34
  friends at all. They had brought the boy to the lost city and were
• 1:20:40
  very much pleased with themselves for the time. Mogli had never seen an Indian
• 1:20:45
  city before, and though this was almost a heap of ruins, it seemed
• 1:20:50
  very wonderful and splendid. Some king had built it long ago on a little
• 1:20:56
  hill. You could still trace the stone causeways that let up to the ruined
• 1:21:00
  gates, where the last splinters of wood hung to the worn, rusted hinges.
• 1:21:05
  Trees had grown into and out of the walls. The battlements were tumbled
• 1:21:11
  down and decayed, and wild creepers hung out of the windows of the towers
• 1:21:15
  on the walls in bushy hanging clumps. A great roofless palace ground the hill,
• 1:21:21
  and the marble of the courtyards and the fountains was split and stained with
• 1:21:27
  red and green, and the very cobblestones in the courtyard where the king's elephants
• 1:21:31
  used to live, had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees.
• 1:21:38
  From the palace you could see the rows and rows of roofless houses that
• 1:21:42
  made up the city, looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness, the shapeless
• 1:21:47
  block of stone that had been an idol in the square where four roads met,
• 1:21:53
  the pits and dimples at street corners where the public wells once stood,
• 1:21:58
  and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs sprouting on their sides. The
• 1:22:03
  monkeys called the place their city, and pretended to despise the jungle people because
• 1:22:09
  they lived in the forest, and yet they never knew what the buildings were
• 1:22:13
  made for, nor how to use them. They would sit in circles on
• 1:22:17
  the hall of the King's council chamber and scratch for fleas and pretend to be
• 1:22:23
  men. Or they would run in and out of the roofless houses and collect
• 1:22:26
  pieces of plaster and old bricks in a corner and forget where they had hidden
• 1:22:30
  them, and fight and cry in scuffling crowds, and then break off to
• 1:22:34
  play up and down the terraces of the king's garden, where they would shake
• 1:22:39
  the rose trees and the oranges in sport to see the fruit and flowers fall.
• 1:22:45
  They explored all the passages and dark tunnels in the palace, and the
• 1:22:48
  hundreds of little dark rooms, but they never remembered what they had seen and
• 1:22:54
  what they had not, and so drifted about in ones and twos or crowds,
• 1:22:59
  telling each other rather that they were doing as men did. They drank
• 1:23:02
  at the tanks and made the water all muddy, and then they fought over
• 1:23:06
  it, and then they would all rush together in mobs and shout. There
• 1:23:11
  was no one in the jungle so wise and good and clever and strong and
• 1:23:15
  gentle as the bandar log. Then all would begin again, till they grew
• 1:23:21
  tired of the city and went back to the treetops, hoping the jungle people
• 1:23:26
  would notice them. Mowgli, who had been trained under the law of the
• 1:23:30
  jungle, did not like or understand this kind of life. The monkeys dragged
• 1:23:35
  him into the coal layers late in the afternoon, and instead of going to
• 1:23:41
  sleep as Mowgli would have done after a long journey, they joined hands and
• 1:23:45
  danced about and sang their foolish songs. One of the monkeys made a speech
• 1:23:49
  and told his companions that Mowgli's capture marked a new thing in the history of
• 1:23:56
  the bander log, for Mogli was going to show them how to weaves sticks
• 1:24:00
  and canes together as a protection against rain and cold. Mowgli picked up some
• 1:24:05
  creepers and began to work them in and out, and the monkeys try to
• 1:24:10
  imitate, but in a very few minutes they lost interest and began to pull
• 1:24:14
  their friend's tails or jump up and down on all fours, coughing. I
• 1:24:18
  wish to eat, said Mowgli. I am a stranger in this part of
• 1:24:23
  the jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt here.
• 1:24:26
  Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild papaws, but
• 1:24:31
  they fell to fighting on the road, and it was too much trouble to
• 1:24:35
  go back with what was left of the fruit. Mowgli was sore and angry
• 1:24:40
  as well as hungry, and he roamed through the empty city, giving these
• 1:24:44
  stranger's hunting call from time to time, but no one answered him, and
• 1:24:48
  Mowgli felt that he had reached a very bad place. Indeed, all that
• 1:24:54
  Ballew has said about the bandar Log is true, he thought to himself.
• 1:25:00
  They have no law, no hunting call, and no leaders, nothing but
• 1:25:03
  foolish words and a little picking thievish hands. So if I am starved or
• 1:25:10
  killed here, it will be all my own fault. But I must try
• 1:25:14
  to return to my own jungle. Baloo will surely beat me, but that
• 1:25:17
  is better than chasing silly rose leaves with the Banderlog. No sooner had he
• 1:25:25
  walked to the city wall than the monkeys pulled him back, telling him that
• 1:25:29
  he did not know how happy he was, and pinching him to make him
• 1:25:32
  grateful. He set his teeth and said nothing, but went with the shouting
• 1:25:38
  monkeys to a terrace above the red sandstone reservoirs that were half full of rain
• 1:25:43
  water. There was a ruined summer house of white marble in the center of
• 1:25:47
  the terrace, built for queens dead a hundred years ago. The domed roof
• 1:25:53
  had fallen in and blocked up the underground passage from the palace by which the
• 1:25:58
  queens used to enter, but the walls were made of screens of marble tracery,
• 1:26:02
  beautiful milk white fretwork set with agates and Cornelians and jasper and lappislazuli,
• 1:26:10
  And as the moon came up behind the hill, it shone through the open
• 1:26:15
  work, casting shadows on the ground like black velvet embroidery. Sore, sleepy
• 1:26:21
  and hungry as he was, Mowgli could not help laughing when the bandr Log
• 1:26:27
  began twenty at a time to tell him how great and wise and strong and
• 1:26:32
  gentle they were, and how foolish he was to wish to leave them.
• 1:26:36
  We are great, we are free, We you are wonderful. We are
• 1:26:43
  the most wonderful people in all the jungle. We all say so, and
• 1:26:46
  so it must be true, they shouted. Now, as you are a
• 1:26:49
  new listener and can carry our words back to the jungle people so that they
• 1:26:55
  may notice us in future, we will tell you all about our most excellent
• 1:27:00
  cells. Mowgli made no objection, and the monkeys gathered by hundreds and hundreds
• 1:27:06
  on the terrace to listen to their own speakers singing the praises of the bandar
• 1:27:13
  Log, And whenever a speaker stopped for want of breath, they would all
• 1:27:17
  shout together, this is true, we all say so. Mowgli nodded and
• 1:27:24
  blinked and said yes when they asked him a question, and his head spun
• 1:27:29
  with the noise. Tobaki the jackal must have bitten all these people, he
• 1:27:33
  said to himself, And now they have madness. Certainly this is dewanee,
• 1:27:39
  the madness. Do they never go to sleep? Now there is a cloud
• 1:27:44
  coming to cover that moon. If it were only a big enough cloud,
• 1:27:47
  I might try to run away in the darkness, But I am tired.
• 1:27:54
  That same cloud was being watched by two good friends in the ruined ditch below
• 1:27:59
  the city wall. Far Boghira and Ka, knowing well how dangerous the monkey
• 1:28:04
  people were in large numbers, did not wish to run any risks. The
• 1:28:10
  monkeys never fight unless they are a hundred to one, and few in the
• 1:28:13
  jungle care for those odds. I will go to the west wall, Ka
• 1:28:17
  whispered, and come down swiftly, with the slope of the ground in my
• 1:28:23
  favor. They will not throw themselves upon my back in their hundreds. But
• 1:28:28
  I know it, said Bogheira, would that Balu were here. But we
• 1:28:32
  must do what we can. When that cloud covers the moon, I shall
• 1:28:36
  go to the terrace. They hold some sort of council there over the boy.
• 1:28:43
  Good hunting, said Ka grimly, and glided away to the west wall.
• 1:28:48
  That happened to be the least ruined of any and the big snake was
• 1:28:53
  delayed a while before he could find a way up the stones. The cloud
• 1:28:58
  hid the moon, and as Mogli wondered what would come next, he heard
• 1:29:02
  Boghira's light feet on the terrace. The black panther had raced up the slope
• 1:29:09
  almost without a sound, and was striking. He knew better than to waste
• 1:29:13
  time in biting right and left. Among the monkeys who were seated round Mogli
• 1:29:17
  in circles fifty and sixty deep, there was a howl of fright and rage.
• 1:29:24
  And then as Boghira tripped on the rolling, kicking bodies beneath him,
• 1:29:29
  a monkey shouted, there was only one here, Kill him. Kill.
• 1:29:32
  A scuffling mass of monkeys, biting, scratching, tearing and pulling closed over
• 1:29:40
  bug Hira, while five or six laid hold of Mogli, dragged him up
• 1:29:44
  the wall of the summer house, and pushed him through the hole of the
• 1:29:47
  broken dome. A man trained boy would have been badly bruised, for the
• 1:29:53
  fall was a good fifteen feet, but Mowgli fell as Bellou had taught him
• 1:29:58
  to fall, and landed on his feet. Stay there, shouted the monkeys,
• 1:30:02
  till we have killed thy friends, and later we will play with thee.
• 1:30:06
  If the poison people leave thee alive, we be of one blood.
• 1:30:13
  Ye, and I said Mowgli, quickly giving the snake's call. He could
• 1:30:17
  hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish all round him, and gave the call
• 1:30:21
  a second time to make sure. Even so down hoods all said a half
• 1:30:29
  dozen low voices. Every ruin in India becomes sooner or later a dwelling place
• 1:30:34
  of snakes. And the old summer house was alive with Cobra's stand still,
• 1:30:42
  little brother, for thy feet may do us harm. Mowgli stood as quietly
• 1:30:47
  as he could, peering through the open work and listening to the furious den
• 1:30:53
  of the fight round the black panther, the yells and chatterings and scufflings,
• 1:30:58
  and Bughira's deep horse cough as he backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under
• 1:31:03
  the heaps of his enemies for the first time since he was born Bagheera was
• 1:31:11
  fighting for his life. Ballou must be at hand. Bagheerro would not have
• 1:31:16
  come alone, Mowgli thought, and then he called aloud to the tank Bagheira,
• 1:31:23
  Roll to the water tanks, roll and plunge. Get to the water
• 1:31:29
  Bagheira heard, and the cry that told him Mowgli was safe gave him new
• 1:31:33
  courage. He worked his way desperately, inch by inch, straight for the
• 1:31:40
  reservoirs, halting in silence. Then from the ruined wall nearest the jungle rose
• 1:31:46
  up the rumbling war shout of Balou. The old bear had done his best,
• 1:31:53
  but he could not come before Bogghira. He shouted, I am here,
• 1:31:59
  I climb, I haste. Oh the stone slip under my feet,
• 1:32:05
  Wait my coming o, most infamous bunderlog. He panted up the terrace,
• 1:32:12
  only to disappear to the head in a wave of monkeys. But he threw
• 1:32:16
  himself squarely on his haunches and spreading out his fore paws, hugged as many
• 1:32:24
  as he could hold, and then began to hit with a regular bat bat
• 1:32:28
  bat like the flipping strokes of a paddle wheel. A crash and a splash
• 1:32:33
  told Mowgli that Bagheira had fought his way to the tank, where the monkeys
• 1:32:38
  could not follow. The panther lay gasping for breath, his head just out
• 1:32:43
  of the water, while the monkeys stood three deep on the red steps,
• 1:32:47
  dancing up and down with rage, ready to spring upon him from all sides
• 1:32:53
  if he came out to help Baloo. It was then that Baghira lifted up
• 1:32:58
  his dripping chin and in despair, gave the snake's call for protection. We
• 1:33:03
  be of one blood, ye and I, for he believed that Ka had
• 1:33:08
  turned tail at the last minute. Even Balu, half smothered under the monkeys
• 1:33:13
  on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling as he heard the
• 1:33:16
  black panther asking for help. Ka had only just worked his way over the
• 1:33:24
  west wall, landing with a wrench that dislodged a coping stone into the ditch.
• 1:33:30
  He had no intention of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled
• 1:33:34
  and uncoiled himself once or twice to be sure that every foot of his long
• 1:33:40
  body was in working order. All that while the fight with Balu went on
• 1:33:45
  and the monkeys yelled in the tank round Bagheira and Mang the bat flying to
• 1:33:50
  and fro, carried the news of the great battle over the jungle till even
• 1:33:55
  Hathi the wild elephant trumpeted and far away, scared battered. Bands of the
• 1:34:00
  monkey folk woke and came leaping along the tree roads to help their comrades in
• 1:34:05
  the cold layers, and the noise of the fight roused all the day birds
• 1:34:10
  from miles around. Then Kaw came straight, quickly and anxious to kill.
• 1:34:17
  The fighting strength of a python is in the driving blow of his head,
• 1:34:23
  backed by all the strength and weight of his body. If you can imagine
• 1:34:28
  a lance, or a battering ram, or a hammer weighing nearly half a
• 1:34:31
  ton, driven by a cool, quiet mind living in the middle of it,
• 1:34:38
  you can roughly imagine what Ka was like when he fought. A python
• 1:34:43
  four or five feet long can knock a man down if he hits him fairly
• 1:34:46
  in the chest, and Kaw was thirty feet long. As you know.
• 1:34:53
  His first stroke was delivered into the heart of the crowd round Balu. It
• 1:34:59
  was sent home with shut mouth, in silence, and there was no need
• 1:35:02
  of a second. The monkeys scattered with cries of Kaw it is Kaw run
• 1:35:09
  run. Generations of monkeys have been scared into good behavior by the stories their
• 1:35:15
  elders told him. Of Ka, the night thief, who could slip along
• 1:35:20
  the branches as quietly as moss grows, and steal away the strongest monkey that
• 1:35:27
  ever lived, Of old Ka, who could make himself look so like a
• 1:35:31
  dead branch or a rotten stump, that the wisest were deceived till the branch
• 1:35:38
  caught them. Ka was everything that the monkeys feared in the jungle, for
• 1:35:44
  none of them knew the limits of his power. None of them could look
• 1:35:46
  him in the face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug.
• 1:35:53
  And so they ran, stammering with terror, to the walls and the
• 1:35:57
  roofs of the houses, and bellowed to a deep breath of relief. His
• 1:36:01
  fur was much thicker than Bagheera's, but he had suffered sorely in the fight.
• 1:36:08
  Then Kah opened his mouth for the first time and spoke one long,
• 1:36:14
  hissing word, and the far away monkeys, hurrying to the defense of the
• 1:36:19
  coal airs, stayed where they were, cowering till the loaded branches bent and
• 1:36:26
  crackled under them. The monkeys on the walls and the empty houses stopped their
• 1:36:30
  cries, and in the stillness that fell upon the city, Mowgli heard Bagheira
• 1:36:35
  shaking his wet sides as he came from the tank. Then the clamor broke
• 1:36:42
  out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls. They clung around the
• 1:36:46
  necks of the big stone idols and shrieked as they skipped along the battlements,
• 1:36:51
  while Mowgli, dancing in the summer house, put his eye to the screenwork
• 1:36:57
  and hooted owl fashion between his front teeth to show his derision and contempt.
• 1:37:03
  Get the man cup out of that trap. I can do no more,
• 1:37:06
  Baghira gasped, Let us take the man, come and go. They may
• 1:37:11
  attack again. They will not move till I order them. Stay you so
• 1:37:18
  kast and the city was silent once more. I could not come before,
• 1:37:25
  brother, But I think I heard thee call. This was to Baghira.
• 1:37:30
  I I may have cried out in the battle, Baghira answered, Bellou art
• 1:37:34
  thou hurt. I am not sure they did not pull me into a hundred
• 1:37:40
  little bearlings, said Balu, gravely, shaking one leg after the other.
• 1:37:45
  Oh I am sore, kaw we owe thee. I think our lives Bagkhira
• 1:37:49
  and I no matter where is the man ling here in the trap, I
• 1:37:56
  cannot climb out, cried Mowgli. The kurr of the broken dome was above
• 1:38:00
  his head. Take him away. He dances like Mao the peacock. He
• 1:38:06
  will crush our young, said the cobras inside. Ha said ka with a
• 1:38:12
  chuckle. He has friends everywhere this manling. Stand back, Manling, and
• 1:38:16
  hide you o poison people. I break down the wall. Kaa looked carefully
• 1:38:24
  till he found a discolored crack in the marble tracery showing a weak spot,
• 1:38:28
  made two or three light taps with his head to get the distance, and
• 1:38:32
  then, lifting up six feet of his body clear of the ground, sent
• 1:38:39
  home half a dozen full power smashing blows nose first. The screen work broke
• 1:38:45
  and fell away in a cloud of dust and rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through
• 1:38:49
  the opening and flung himself between Balu and Bagheira and arm around each big neck.
• 1:38:58
  Art Thou hurt, said Balu, hucking him softly. I am sore,
• 1:39:02
  hungry and not a little bruised. But oh they handled ye grievously.
• 1:39:08
  My brothers, ye bleed others, also said Baghira, licking his lips and
• 1:39:14
  looking at the monkey dead on the terrace and round the tank. It is
• 1:39:17
  nothing, It is nothing. If thou art safe, Oh, my pride
• 1:39:21
  of all little frogs, whimpered balw of that we shall judge. Later,
• 1:39:27
  said Baghira, in a dry voice, that Mowgli did not at all like.
• 1:39:31
  But here is Kaw, to whom we owe the battle, and thou
• 1:39:34
  owest thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli. Mowgli turned
• 1:39:41
  and saw the great python's head swaying a foot above his own. So this
• 1:39:46
  is the manling, said ka. Very soft is his skin, and he
• 1:39:51
  is not unlike the bandar log. Have a care, Manling, that I
• 1:39:56
  do not mistake thee for a monkey. Some twilight, I have newly changed
• 1:40:00
  my coat. We be one blood, thou and I. Mowgli answered,
• 1:40:05
  I take my life from thee to night. My kill shall be thy kill.
• 1:40:10
  If ever thou art hungry, O kaw all, thanks, little brother,
• 1:40:15
  said Kath, though his eyes twinkled. And what may so bold a
• 1:40:19
  hunter kill? I ask that I may follow when next he goes abroad.
• 1:40:25
  I kill nothing. I am too little, but I drive goats towards such
• 1:40:29
  as can use them. When thou art empty, come to me and see
• 1:40:32
  if I speak the truth. I have some skill in these, he held
• 1:40:36
  out his hands. And if ever thou art in a trap, I may
• 1:40:41
  pay the debt which I owe to thee, to Baghira and to Balu.
• 1:40:45
  Here, good hunting to ye all my masters, well, said growled Baloo,
• 1:40:50
  for Mowgli had returned. Thanks very prettily. The python dropped his head
• 1:40:56
  lightly for a minute on Mowgli's shoulder. Hey, brave heart, and a
• 1:41:00
  courteous tongue, said he. They shall carry thee far through the jungle,
• 1:41:06
  manling, But now go hence quickly with thy friends, go and sleep,
• 1:41:12
  for the moon sets and what follows. It is not well that thou shouldst
• 1:41:17
  see. The moon was sinking behind the hills, and the lines of trembling
• 1:41:24
  monkeys huddled together on the walls and battlements look like ragged, shaggy fringes of
• 1:41:29
  things below. Went down to the tank for a drink, and Boghira began
• 1:41:34
  to put his fur in order. As Kaw glided out into the center of
• 1:41:39
  the terrace, and brought his jaws together with a ringing snap that drew all
• 1:41:44
  the monkey's eyes upon him. The moon sets, he said, is there
• 1:41:49
  yet light enough to see? From the walls? Came a moan, like
• 1:41:54
  the wind in the tree tops. We see, O Kaw Good, now
• 1:42:00
  begins the dance, the dance of the hunger of Kaw. Sit still and
• 1:42:06
  watch. He turned twice or thrice in a big circle, weaving his head
• 1:42:12
  from right to left. Then he began making loops and figures of eight with
• 1:42:15
  his body, and soft oozy triangles that melted into squares and five sided figures
• 1:42:24
  and coiled mounds, never resting, never hurrying, and never stopping his low
• 1:42:30
  humming song. It grew darker and darker, till at last the dragging,
• 1:42:35
  shifting coils disappeared, but they could hear the rustle of the scales. Baloo
• 1:42:43
  and Bagheira stood still, a stone growling in their throats, their neck hair
• 1:42:47
  bristling, and Mowgli watched and wondered. Banderlog said the voice of ka at
• 1:42:54
  last, can ye stir foot or hand without my order? Speak? Without
• 1:43:00
  thy order? We cannot stir hand or foot? O Kaw Good, come,
• 1:43:06
  all one pace nearer to me. The lines of the monkeys swayed forward
• 1:43:12
  helplessly, and Balu and Baghira took one stiff step forward with them nearer,
• 1:43:19
  hissed Ka, and they all moved again. Mowgli laid his hands on Balu
• 1:43:25
  and Baghira to get them away, and the two great beasts started as though
• 1:43:30
  they had been waked from a dream. Keep thy hand on my shoulder,
• 1:43:34
  Baghierra whispered, keep it there, or I must go back, must go
• 1:43:39
  back to Kaw. Hah, It is only old Ka making circles on the
• 1:43:44
  dust, said Mowgli. Let us go, and the three slipped off through
• 1:43:47
  a gap in the walls to the jungle. Ooh, said Balu when he
• 1:43:53
  stood under the still trees again. Never more will I make an ally of
• 1:43:58
  Kaw, And he shook himself all over. He knows more than we,
• 1:44:02
  said Baghira, trembling. In a little time, had I stayed, I
• 1:44:06
  should have walked down his throat. Many will walk by that road before the
• 1:44:13
  moon rises again, said bealw He will have good hunting after his own fashion.
• 1:44:19
  But what was the meaning of it all, said Mowgli, who did
• 1:44:23
  not know anything of a python's power of fascination. I saw no more than
• 1:44:28
  a big snake making foolish circles till the dark came, and his nose was
• 1:44:32
  all sore. Mowgli, said Baghira angrily. His nose was sore on thy
• 1:44:40
  account, as my ears and sides and paws, and Balu's neck and shoulders
• 1:44:45
  are bitten on thy account. Neither Balu nor Baghira will be able to hunt
• 1:44:51
  with pleasure for many days. It is nothing, said Balu. We have
• 1:44:57
  the man cub again. True, but but he has cost us heavily in
• 1:45:00
  time which might have been spent in good hunting, in wounds, in hair,
• 1:45:05
  I am half plucked along my back, and the last of all in
• 1:45:10
  honor. For remember, Mowgli, I who am the black panther, was
• 1:45:15
  forced to call upon Ka for protection, and Bellow and I were both made
• 1:45:20
  stupid as little birds by the hunger dance. All this man cub came of
• 1:45:28
  thy playing with the band our log. True, it is true, said
• 1:45:33
  Mowgli sorrowfully. I am an evil man cub, and my stomach is sad
• 1:45:39
  in me muh what says the law of the jungle? Balou Belu did not
• 1:45:45
  wish to bring Mowgli into any more trouble, but he could not tamper with
• 1:45:48
  the law, so he mumbled, sorrow never stays punishment. But remember Bagheira,
• 1:45:55
  he is very little. I will remember, but he has done me
• 1:46:00
  chief and blows must be dealt. Now, Mowgli, hast thou anything to
• 1:46:04
  say nothing I did wrong? Baloo, and thou are wounded. It is
• 1:46:11
  just Bagheerra gave him half a dozen love taps. From a panther's point of
• 1:46:15
  view, they would hardly have waked one of his own cubs, But for
• 1:46:19
  a seven year old boy, they amounted to a severe beating as you could
• 1:46:24
  wish to avoid. When it was all over, Mowgli sneezed and picked himself
• 1:46:30
  up without a word. Now said Bagheira, Jump on my back, little
• 1:46:35
  brother, and we will go home. One of the beauties of jungle law
• 1:46:41
  is that punishment settles all scores. There is no nagging. Afterward, Mowgli
• 1:46:46
  laid his head down on Bagheera's back and slept so deeply that he never waked
• 1:46:51
  when he was put down in the home cave and of cause, hunting by
• 1:47:00
  Rudyard Kipling, tiger, tiger. What of the hunting hunter? Bold brother?
• 1:47:08
  The watch was long and cold? What of the quarry ye went to
• 1:47:12
  kill? Brother? He crops in the jungle? Still, where is the
• 1:47:16
  power that made your pride? Brother? It ebbs from my flank and side?
• 1:47:21
  Where is the haste that ye hurry by? Brother? I go to
• 1:47:26
  my lair to die. Now we must go back to the first tale.
• 1:47:31
  When Mowgli left the wolf's cave after the fight with the pack at the council
• 1:47:35
  Rock, he went down to the plowed lands where the villagers lived. But
• 1:47:40
  he would not stop there because it was too near to the jungle, and
• 1:47:45
  he knew that he had made at least one bad enemy at the council So
• 1:47:48
  he hurried on, keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley,
• 1:47:53
  and followed it at a steady jog trot for nearly twenty miles till he came
• 1:47:58
  to a country that he did not know. The valley opened out into a
• 1:48:02
  great plain, dotted over with rocks and cut up by ravines. At one
• 1:48:08
  end stood a little village, and at the other the thick jungle came down
• 1:48:12
  in a sweep to the grazing grounds and stopped there as though it had been
• 1:48:16
  cut off with a hoe. All over the plain cattle and buffaloes were grazing,
• 1:48:24
  And when the little boys in charge of the herds saw Mowgli, they
• 1:48:27
  shouted and ran away, and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian
• 1:48:32
  village barked. Mowgli walked on for he was feeling hungry. And when he
• 1:48:38
  came to the village gate, he saw the big thorn bush that was drawn
• 1:48:43
  up before the gate at twilight, pushed to one side. Huh, he
• 1:48:47
  said, for he had come across more than one such barrier in his night
• 1:48:51
  rambles after things to eat. So men are afraid of the people of the
• 1:48:56
  jungle. Here also, he sat down by the gate, and when a
• 1:49:00
  man came out, he stood up, opened his mouth and pointed down it
• 1:49:04
  to show that he wanted food. The man stared and ran back up the
• 1:49:09
  one street of the village, shouting for the priest, who was a big,
• 1:49:13
  fat man dressed in white with a red and yellow mark on his forehead.
• 1:49:17
  The priest came to the gate and with him at least a hundred people,
• 1:49:21
  who stared and talked and shouted and pointed at Mowgli. They have no
• 1:49:28
  manners these men folk, said Mowgli to himself. Only the gray ape would
• 1:49:32
  behave as they do. So he threw back his long hair and frowned at
• 1:49:38
  the crowd. What is there to be afraid of, said the priest.
• 1:49:43
  Look at the marks on his arms and legs. They are the bites of
• 1:49:45
  wolves. He is but a wolf child run away from the jungle. Of
• 1:49:50
  course, in playing together the cubs that often nipped Mowgli harder than they intended,
• 1:49:57
  and there were white scars all over his arms and legs. But he
• 1:50:00
  would have been the last person in the world to call these bites, for
• 1:50:05
  he knew what real biting meant. R R said, two or three women
• 1:50:12
  together to be bitten by wolves, Poor child, he is a handsome boy.
• 1:50:17
  He has eyes like red fire. By my honor, Messua, he
• 1:50:23
  is not unlike thy boy that was taken by the tiger. Let me look,
• 1:50:28
  said a woman with heavy copper rings on her wrists and ankles, and
• 1:50:31
  she peered at Mowgli under the palm of her hand. Indeed he is not.
• 1:50:36
  He is thinner, but he has the very look of my boy.
• 1:50:42
  The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to
• 1:50:45
  the richest villager in the place. So he looked up at the sky for
• 1:50:49
  a minute and said, solemnly, what the jungle has taken, the jungle
• 1:50:56
  has restored. Take the boy into thy house, my sister, and forget
• 1:51:00
  not to honor the priest who sees so far into the lives of men.
• 1:51:05
  By the bull that bought me, said Mowgli to himself. But all this
• 1:51:10
  talking is like another looking over by the pack. Well, if I'm a
• 1:51:14
  man, a man, I must become. The crowd parted as the woman
• 1:51:19
  beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there was a red lacquered bedstead, a
• 1:51:24
  great earthen grain chest with funny raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper
• 1:51:29
  cooking pots, an image of a Hindoo god in a little alcove, and
• 1:51:33
  on the wall a real looking glass, such as they sell at the county
• 1:51:39
  fairs. She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and
• 1:51:43
  then she laid her hand on his head and looked into his eyes, for
• 1:51:47
  she thought perhaps that he might be her real son, come back from the
• 1:51:51
  jungle where the tiger had taken him. So she said, Nahu, oh
• 1:51:57
  Nahu. Mowgli did not show that he knew the name. Doth thou not
• 1:52:01
  remember the day when I gave thee thy new shoes? She touched his foot,
• 1:52:06
  and it was almost as hard as horn. No, she said sorrowfully,
• 1:52:13
  those feet have never worn shoes. But thou art very like my Nathu,
• 1:52:18
  and thou shalt be my son. Mowgli was uneasy because he had never
• 1:52:25
  been under a roof before. But as he looked at the thatch, he
• 1:52:29
  saw that he could tear it out any time if he wanted to get away,
• 1:52:32
  and that the window had no fastenings. What is the good of a
• 1:52:38
  man, he said to himself at last, if he does not understand man's
• 1:52:42
  talk. Now, I am as silly and dumb as a man would be
• 1:52:45
  with us in the jungle. I must speak their talk. It was not
• 1:52:50
  for fun that he had learned while he was with the wolves to imitate the
• 1:52:55
  challenge of bucks in the jungle and the grunt of a little wild pig.
• 1:53:00
  So as soon as Missua pronounced a word, Mowgli would imitate it almost perfectly,
• 1:53:05
  and before dark he had learned the names of many things in the hut.
• 1:53:11
  There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep under anything
• 1:53:15
  that looked so like a panther trap as that hut. And when they shut
• 1:53:19
  the door, he went through the window. Give him his will, said
• 1:53:25
  Missua's husband. Remember he can never till now have slept on a bed.
• 1:53:30
  If he is indeed sent in the place of our son, he will not
• 1:53:33
  run away. So Mowgli stretched himself in some long, clean grass at the
• 1:53:39
  edge of the field. But before he had closed his eyes, a soft
• 1:53:44
  gray nose poked him under the chin. Pew, said gray brother. He
• 1:53:49
  was the eldest of mother Wolf's cubs. This is a poor reward for following
• 1:53:56
  thee twenty miles. Thou smellest of wood, smoke and cattle altogether like a
• 1:54:00
  man. Already, wake, little brother, I bring news. Are all
• 1:54:06
  well in the jungle, said Mowgli, hugging him, All except the wolves
• 1:54:12
  that were burned with the red flower. Now listen. Sharr Khan has gone
• 1:54:15
  away to hunt far off till his coat grows again, for he is badly
• 1:54:20
  singed. When he returns, he swears that he will lay thy bones in
• 1:54:26
  the waning gungam. There are two words to that. I also have made
• 1:54:30
  a little promise. But news is always good. I am tired tonight,
• 1:54:35
  very tired with new things, gray brother. But bring me the news.
• 1:54:40
  Always. Thou wilt not forget that thou art a wolf. Men will not
• 1:54:44
  make THEE forget, said gray brother, anxiously. Never, I will always
• 1:54:49
  remember that I love THEE and all in our cave. But also I will
• 1:54:54
  always remember that I have been cast out of the pack, and that thou
• 1:55:00
  mayest be cast out of another pack. Men are only men, little brother,
• 1:55:03
  and their talk is like the talk of frogs in a pond. When
• 1:55:08
  I come down here again, I will wait for THEE in the bamboos at
• 1:55:12
  the edge of the grazing ground. For three months after that night, Mowgli
• 1:55:17
  hardly ever left the village gate. He was so busy learning the ways and
• 1:55:23
  customs of men. First he had to wear a cloth round him, which
• 1:55:27
  annoyed him horribly, And then he had to learn about money, which he
• 1:55:31
  did not in the least understand, and about plowing, of which he did
• 1:55:35
  not see the use. Then the little children in the village made him very
• 1:55:40
  angry. Luckily, the law of the jungle had taught him to keep his
• 1:55:45
  temper forming the jungle, life and food depend on keeping your temper. And
• 1:55:49
  when they made fun of him because he would not play games or fly kites,
• 1:55:54
  or because he mispronounced some word, only the knowledge that it was unsportsman
• 1:56:00
  like to kill little naked cubs kept him from picking them up and breaking them
• 1:56:03
  in two. He did not know his own strength, in the least in
• 1:56:09
  the jungle, he knew he was weak compared with the beasts. But in
• 1:56:13
  the village people said that he was as strong as a bull. And Mowgli
• 1:56:18
  had not the faintest idea of the difference that cast makes between man and man.
• 1:56:24
  When the potter's donkey slipped in the clay pit, Mowgli hauled it out
• 1:56:28
  by the tail and helped to stack the pots for their journey to the market
• 1:56:31
  at Kanhawara. That was very shocking too, for the potter is a low
• 1:56:38
  caste man, and his donkey is worse. When the priest scolded him,
• 1:56:43
  Mowgli threatened to put him on the donkey too, and the priest told Missua's
• 1:56:47
  husband that Mowgli had better beset to work as soon as possible, and the
• 1:56:51
  village had man told Mowgli that he would have to go out with the buffaloes
• 1:56:57
  next day, and heard them while they grew raised. No one was more
• 1:57:01
  pleased than Mowgli. And that night, because he had been appointed a servant
• 1:57:06
  of the village, as it were, he went off to a circle that
• 1:57:10
  met every evening on a masonry platform under a great fig tree. It was
• 1:57:15
  the village club, and the headman and the watchman, and the barber,
• 1:57:19
  who knew all the gossip of the village, and old Buldeo, the village
• 1:57:24
  hunter, who had a tower musket, met and smoked. The monkeys sat
• 1:57:30
  and talked in the upper branches. And there was a hole under the platform
• 1:57:33
  where a cobra lived, and he had his little platter of milk every night
• 1:57:39
  because he was sacred. And the old men sat around the tree and talked
• 1:57:44
  and pulled at the big hookaus the water pipes till far into the night.
• 1:57:49
  They told wonderful tales of gods and men and ghosts, and Buldeo told even
• 1:57:55
  more wonderful ones of the ways of the beasts in the jungle, till the
• 1:58:00
  eyes of the children sitting outside the circle bulged out of their heads. Most
• 1:58:05
  of the tails were about animals, for the jungle was always at their door.
• 1:58:11
  The deer in the wild pig grubbed up their crops, and now and
• 1:58:15
  again the tiger carried off a man at twilight within sight of the village gates.
• 1:58:20
  Mowgli, who naturally knew something about what they were talking of, had
• 1:58:26
  to cover his face not to show that he was laughing. While Bulldeo,
• 1:58:30
  the tower musket across his knees, climbed on from one wonderful story to another,
• 1:58:35
  and Mowgli's shoulders shook. Buldeo was explaining how the tiger that had carried
• 1:58:43
  away Messusa's son was a ghost tiger, and his body was inhabited by the
• 1:58:47
  ghost of a wicked old money lender who had died some years ago. And
• 1:58:54
  I know that this is true, he said, because poor Undas always limped
• 1:58:59
  from the blow that he got in the riot when his account books were burned.
• 1:59:03
  And the tiger that I speak of he limps too, while the tracks
• 1:59:06
  of his pads are unequal. True, True, that must be the truth,
• 1:59:12
  said the graybeards, nodding together. Are all these tales such cobwebs and
• 1:59:17
  moon talk, said Mowgli. That tiger limps because he was born lame,
• 1:59:23
  as every one knows. To talk of the soul of a money lender and
• 1:59:27
  a beast that never had the courage of a jackal is child's talk. Buldeo
• 1:59:31
  was speechless with surprise for a moment, and the headman stared, Oh,
• 1:59:38
  it is the jungle, brat, is it? Said Buldeo. If thou
• 1:59:42
  art so wise, better bring his hide to Kanhuara, for the government has
• 1:59:46
  set a hundred rupees on his life. Better still talk not when thy elders
• 1:59:51
  speak. Mowgli rose to go. All the evening I have laid here listening,
• 1:59:58
  he called back over his shoulder, And except once or twice, Buldeo
• 2:00:02
  has not said one word of truth concerning the jungle which is at his ferry
• 2:00:08
  doors. How then shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins
• 2:00:13
  which he says he has seen. It is full time that boy went to
• 2:00:16
  herding, said the headman, while Buldeo puffed and snorted at Mowgli's impertinence.
• 2:00:25
  The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle
• 2:00:29
  and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning and bring them back at night.
• 2:00:32
  The very cattle that would trample a white man to death allow themselves to
• 2:00:38
  be banged and bullied and shouted at by children that hardly come up to their
• 2:00:42
  noses. So long as the boys keep with the herds, they are safe.
• 2:00:47
  For Not even the tiger will charge a mob of cattle, but if
• 2:00:51
  they straggle to pick flowers or hunt lizards, they are sometimes carried off.
• 2:00:58
  Mowgli went through the village street in the dawn, sitting on the back of
• 2:01:01
  Rama, the great herd bull. The slaty blue buffaloes, with their long,
• 2:01:06
  backward sweeping horns and savage eyes, rose out of their buyers one by
• 2:01:12
  one and followed him, and Mowgli made it very clear to the children with
• 2:01:16
  him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes with a long polished
• 2:01:21
  bamboo and told Kamya, one of the boys, to graze the cattle by
• 2:01:27
  themselves while he went on with the buffaloes, and to be very careful not
• 2:01:31
  to stray away from the herd. An Indian grazing ground is all rocks,
• 2:01:38
  and scrub and tussocks and little ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear.
• 2:01:44
  The buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie
• 2:01:48
  wallowing and basking in the warm mud for hours. Mowgli drove them on to
• 2:01:54
  the edge of the plain where the Wanganga came out of the jungle. Then
• 2:01:58
  he dropped from Rama's trotted off to a bamboo clump and found Gray brother.
• 2:02:03
  Ah, said Gray brother, I have waited here very many days. What
• 2:02:09
  is the meaning of this cattle herding work? It is in order, said
• 2:02:14
  Mowgli. I am a village heard for a while. What news of Sharr
• 2:02:17
  Khan. He has come back to this country and has waited here a long
• 2:02:21
  time for thee. Now he has gone off again, for the game is
• 2:02:25
  scarce, But he means to kill thee. Very good, said Mowgli.
• 2:02:31
  So long as he is away, do thou or one of the four brothers
• 2:02:35
  sit on that rock so that I can see thee as I come out of
• 2:02:39
  the village. When he comes back, wait for me in the ravine by
• 2:02:43
  the de hoc tree in the center of the plain. We need not walk
• 2:02:47
  into Sharr Khan's mouth. Then Mowgli picked out a shady place and lay down
• 2:02:54
  and slept while the buffaloes grazed round him. Herding in India is one of
• 2:03:00
  the laziest things in the world. The cattle move and crunch and lie down
• 2:03:04
  and move on again, and they do not even low. They only grunt.
• 2:03:10
  And the buffaloes very seldom say anything but get down into the muddy pools,
• 2:03:15
  one after another, and work their way into the mud till only their
• 2:03:18
  noses and staring China blue eyes show above the surface. And then they lie
• 2:03:25
  like logs. The sun makes the rocks dance in the heat. And the
• 2:03:30
  herd children heard one kite never anymore, whistling almost out of sight overhead.
• 2:03:36
  And they know that if they died, or a cow died, that kite
• 2:03:41
  would sweep down, and the next kite miles away would see him drop and
• 2:03:45
  follow, and the next and the next, and almost before they were dead,
• 2:03:49
  there would be a score of hungry heights come out of nowhere. Then
• 2:03:55
  they sleep and wake and sleep again, and weave little baskets of dried grass
• 2:04:00
  and put grasshoppers in them, or catch two praying mantises and make them fight,
• 2:04:04
  or string a necklace of red and black jungle nuts, or watch a
• 2:04:10
  lizard basking on a rock, or a snake hunting a frog near the wallows.
• 2:04:15
  Then they sing long, long songs, with odd native quavers at the
• 2:04:19
  end of them, and the day seems longer than most people's whole lives.
• 2:04:25
  And perhaps they make a mud castle with mud figures of men and horses and
• 2:04:30
  buffaloes, and put reeds into the men's hands, and pretend that they are
• 2:04:34
  kings and the figures are their armies, or that they are gods to be
• 2:04:39
  worshiped. Then evening comes, and the children call, and the buffaloes lumber
• 2:04:44
  out of the sticky mud, with noises like gunshots going off, one after
• 2:04:49
  the other, and they all string across the gray plain back to the twinkling
• 2:04:54
  village lights. Day after day, Mowgli would lead the buffaloes out to their
• 2:05:00
  wallows, and day after day he would see gray brothers back a mile and
• 2:05:04
  a half across the plain, so he knew that sharr Khan had not come
• 2:05:09
  back. And day after day he would lie on the grass, listening to
• 2:05:13
  the noises round him and dreaming of old days in the jungle. If Shari
• 2:05:18
  Khan had made a false step with his lame paw up in the jungles by
• 2:05:21
  the Waing gunga Mowgli would have heard him in those long still mornings. At
• 2:05:29
  last a day came when he did not see Gray Brother at the signal place,
• 2:05:32
  and he laughed and headed the buffaloes for the ravine by the Dahak tree,
• 2:05:36
  which was all covered with gold and red flowers. There sat Gray Brother,
• 2:05:43
  every bristle on his back lifted. He has hidden for a month to
• 2:05:46
  throw Thee off thy guard. He crossed the ranges last night with Tobaki hot
• 2:05:51
  foot on thy trail, said the wolf, panting. Mowgli frowned. I
• 2:05:57
  am not afraid of Sharr Khan, but to Bakhi is very cunning. Have
• 2:06:02
  no fear, said Gray Brother, licking his lips a little. I met
• 2:06:06
  Tabaki in the dawn. Now he is telling all his wisdom to the kites.
• 2:06:12
  But he told me everything before I broke his back. Sharr Khan's plan
• 2:06:16
  is to wait for Thee at the village gate this evening, for Thee and
• 2:06:20
  for no one else. He is lying up now in the big dry ravine
• 2:06:26
  of the Waingunga. Has he eaten to day? Or does he haunt empty?
• 2:06:30
  Said Mowgli, For the answer meant life and death to him. He
• 2:06:33
  killed at dawn a pig, and he has drunk too, Remember, Sherr
• 2:06:39
  Khan could never fast, even for the sake of revenge. Oh fool,
• 2:06:45
  fool, what a cub's cub? It is eaten and drunk too. And
• 2:06:49
  he thinks that I shall wait till he has slept. Now where does he
• 2:06:54
  lie up? If there were but ten of us, we might pull him
• 2:06:58
  down as he lies. These buffaloes will not charge unless they wind him,
• 2:07:02
  and I cannot speak their language. Can we get behind his track so that
• 2:07:06
  they may smell it? He swam far down the Waygunga to cut that off,
• 2:07:12
  said Gray brother Tobaki told him that I know he would never have thought
• 2:07:16
  of it alone. Mowgli stood with his finger in his mouth, thinking,
• 2:07:23
  the big ravine of the waing Gunga that opens out on the plain not half
• 2:07:28
  a mile from here. I can take the herd round through the jungle to
• 2:07:31
  the head of the ravine and then sweep down. But he would slink out
• 2:07:36
  at the foot. We must block that end. Gray brother, canst thou
• 2:07:42
  cut the herd in two for me? Not I perhaps, But I have
• 2:07:45
  brought a wise helper. Gray brother trotted off and dropped into a hole.
• 2:07:51
  Then there lifted up a huge gray head that Mowgli knew well, and the
• 2:07:57
  hot air was filled with the most cry of all the jungle, the hunting
• 2:08:03
  howl of a wolf. At midday Aquila, Aquila, said Mowgli, clapping
• 2:08:07
  his hands. I might have known that thou wouldst not forget me. We
• 2:08:11
  have a big work in hand. Cut the herd in two, Aquila.
• 2:08:16
  Keep the cows and calves together, and the bulls and the plow buffaloes by
• 2:08:20
  themselves. The two wolves ran ladies chain fashion in and out of the herd,
• 2:08:26
  which snorted and threw up its head and separated into two clumps. In
• 2:08:31
  one, the cow buffaloes stood with their calves in the center and glared and
• 2:08:37
  pawed, ready if a wolf would only stay still, to charge down and
• 2:08:41
  trample the life out of him. In the other, the bulls and the
• 2:08:46
  young bulls snorted and stamped, But though they looked more imposing, they were
• 2:08:50
  much less dangerous, for they had no calves to protect, no six men
• 2:08:54
  could have divided the herds so neatly. What orders to Tequila, they are
• 2:09:01
  trying to join again, Mowgli slipped on to Rama's back. Drive the bulls
• 2:09:05
  away to the left, Tequila, gray brother, when we are gone,
• 2:09:09
  hold the cows together and drive them to the foot of the ravine. How
• 2:09:15
  far, said Gray Brother, panting and snapping. Till the sides are higher
• 2:09:20
  than Sherr Khan can jump, shouted Mowgli. Keep them there till we come
• 2:09:24
  down. The bulls swept off as Aquila bayed and Gray brothers stopped in front
• 2:09:30
  of the cows. They charged down on him, and he ran just before
• 2:09:33
  them to the foot of the ravine. As Akuila drove the bulls far to
• 2:09:37
  the left. Well done, Another charge and they are fairly started. Careful
• 2:09:43
  now, careful, Aquila. A snap too much and the bulls will charge.
• 2:09:48
  Hojah, this is wilder work than driving black buck? Didst thou think
• 2:09:52
  these creatures could move so swiftly? Mowgli called, I have hunted these too
• 2:10:00
  in my time, gasped Aequila in the dust. Shall I turn them into
• 2:10:03
  the jungle? I turned swiftly turned them. Rama is mad with rage.
• 2:10:11
  Oh if I could only tell him what I need of him today. The
• 2:10:13
  bulls were turned to the right this time and crashed into the standing thicket.
• 2:10:20
  The other herd children, watching with the cattle half a mile away, hurried
• 2:10:24
  to the village as fast as their legs could carry them, crying that the
• 2:10:26
  buffaloes had gone mad and run away. But Mowgli's plan was simple enough.
• 2:10:33
  All he wanted to do was to make a big circle uphill and get at
• 2:10:37
  the head of the ravine, and then take the bulls down it and catch
• 2:10:41
  sharr Khan between the bulls and the cows, for he knew that after a
• 2:10:46
  meal and a full drink, Sherr Khan would not be in any condition to
• 2:10:50
  fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine. He was soothing the
• 2:10:54
  buffaloes now by voice, and Aequila had dropped far to the only whimpering once
• 2:11:01
  or twice to hurry the rear guard. It was a long, long circle,
• 2:11:05
  for they did not wish to get too near the ravine and give sharr
• 2:11:09
  Khan warning. At last, Mowgli rounded up the bewildered herd at the head
• 2:11:15
  of the ravine, on a grassy patch that sloped steeply down to the ravine
• 2:11:20
  itself. From that height you could see across the tops of the trees down
• 2:11:24
  to the plain below. But what Mowgli looked at was the size of the
• 2:11:28
  ravine, and he saw with a great satisfaction that they ran nearly straight up
• 2:11:33
  and down, while the vines and creepers that hung over them would give no
• 2:11:39
  foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out. Let them breathe, Akuila,
• 2:11:43
  he said, holding up his hand. They have not winded him yet.
• 2:11:48
  Let them breathe. I must tell sharr Khan, who comes, We
• 2:11:52
  have him in the trap. He put his hands to his mouth and shouted
• 2:11:56
  down the ravine. It was all almost like shouting down a tunnel, and
• 2:12:01
  the echoes jumped from rock to rock. After a long time, there came
• 2:12:07
  back the drawling, sleepy snarl of a full fed tiger just wakened. Who
• 2:12:13
  galls, said sharr Khan, And a splendid peacock fluttered up out of the
• 2:12:18
  ravine, screeching, Ai Mawgli, cattle thief, it is time to come
• 2:12:26
  to the council. Rock down, hurry them down, Akuila, down,
• 2:12:28
  Rama down. The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope,
• 2:12:35
  but Akila gave tongue in the full hunting yell, and they pitched over,
• 2:12:39
  one after the other, just as steamers shoot rabbits. The sand and
• 2:12:43
  stones spurt it up round them. Once started, there was no chance of
• 2:12:50
  stopping, and before they were fairly in the bed of the ravine, Rama
• 2:12:54
  winded sharr Khan and bellowed. Ha Ha said, Mowgli on his back,
• 2:13:01
  now thou knowest, and the torrent of black horns, foaming muzzles, and
• 2:13:07
  staring eyes whirled down the ravine, just as boulders go down in flood time.
• 2:13:13
  The weaker buffaloes being shouldered out to the sides of the ravine, where
• 2:13:16
  they tore through the creepers. They knew what the business was before them.
• 2:13:22
  The terrible charge of the buffalo heard against which no tiger can hope to stand.
• 2:13:28
  Sharr Khan heard the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up and lumbered
• 2:13:33
  down the ravine, looking from side to side for some way of escape,
• 2:13:37
  But the walls of the ravine were straight up, and he had to hold
• 2:13:41
  on heavy with his dinner and his drink, willing to do anything rather than
• 2:13:46
  fight, the herds splashed through the pool he had just left, bellowing till
• 2:13:52
  the narrow cut rang. Mowgli heard an answering below from the foot of the
• 2:13:58
  ravine, saw Sharrkhan turn the tiger knew if the worst came to the worst,
• 2:14:03
  it was better to meet the bulls than the cows with their calves.
• 2:14:07
  And then Rama tripped, stumbled, and went on over something soft, and
• 2:14:11
  with the bulls at his heels, crashed full into the other herd, while
• 2:14:16
  the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their feet by the shock of the meeting.
• 2:14:22
  That charge carried both herds out into the plain, gorrying and stamping and
• 2:14:28
  snorting. Mowgli watched his time and slipped off Rama's neck, laying about him
• 2:14:33
  right and left with his stick. Quick, Aquila, break them up,
• 2:14:37
  scatter them, or they will be fighting one another. Drive them away.
• 2:14:41
  Akila, hi, Rama, hey, hey hai, my children. Softly,
• 2:14:45
  now, softly, it is all over. Akila and gray brother ran
• 2:14:50
  to and fro nipping the buffalo's legs, and though the herd wheeled once to
• 2:14:56
  charge up the ravine again, Mowgli managed to turn Rama and the others followed
• 2:15:01
  him to the wallows. Sharr Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead,
• 2:15:07
  and the kites were coming for him already. Brothers, that was a
• 2:15:11
  dog's death. Feeling for the knife he always carried in a sheath round his
• 2:15:16
  neck now that he lived with men, but he would never have shown fight.
• 2:15:22
  His hide will look well on the council rock. We must get to
• 2:15:26
  work swiftly. A boy trained among men would never have dreamed of skinning a
• 2:15:31
  ten foot tiger alone. But Mowgli knew better than any one else how an
• 2:15:37
  animal's skin is fitted on, and how it can be taken off. But
• 2:15:41
  it was hard work, and Mowgli slashed and tore and grunted for an hour
• 2:15:48
  while the wolves lolled out their tongues or came forward and tugged as he ordered
• 2:15:52
  them. Presently, a hand fell on his shoulder, and looking up,
• 2:15:56
  he saw Buldeo with the tower musket. The children had told the village about
• 2:16:01
  the buffalo stampede, and Buldeo went out angrily, only too anxious to correct
• 2:16:07
  Mowgli for not taking better care of the herd. The wolves dropped out of
• 2:16:11
  sight soon as they saw the man coming. What is this folly, said
• 2:16:16
  Buldeo angrily, to think that thou canst skin a tiger? Where did the
• 2:16:22
  buffaloes kill him? It is the lame tiger too, and there is a
• 2:16:26
  hundred rupees on his head. Well, well, we will overlook thy letting
• 2:16:31
  the herd run off, and perhaps I will give thee one of the rupees
• 2:16:37
  of the reward when I have taken the skin to Kanhiwara. He fumbled in
• 2:16:41
  his waistcloth for flint and steel, and stooped down to singe sher Khan's whiskers.
• 2:16:48
  Most native hunters always singe a tiger's whiskers to prevent his ghost from haunting
• 2:16:52
  them. Huh, said Mowgli half to himself, as he ripped back the
• 2:16:56
  skin of a forepaw. So thou wilt take the high to Kanhawara for the
• 2:17:01
  reward and perhaps give me one rupee Now it is in my mind that I
• 2:17:07
  need the skin for my own use. He o, man, take away
• 2:17:11
  that fire. What talk is this to the chief hunter of the village.
• 2:17:16
  Thy luck and the stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped thee to this kill.
• 2:17:20
  The tiger has just fed or he would have gone twenty miles by this time.
• 2:17:24
  Thou canst not even skin him properly, little beggar brat, And forsooth
• 2:17:31
  I Buldeo must be told not to send his whiskers Mowgli. I will not
• 2:17:37
  give thee one hona of the reward, but only a very big beating.
• 2:17:41
  Leave the carcass by the bull that bought me, said Mowgli, who was
• 2:17:46
  trying to get at the shoulder. Must I stay babbling to an old ape
• 2:17:52
  all noon? Here? Akila? This man plagues me. Buldeo, who
• 2:17:56
  was stooping over sharr Khan's head, found himself sprawling on the grass with a
• 2:18:01
  gray wolf standing over him, while Mowgli went on skinning as though he were
• 2:18:05
  alone in all India. Yes, he said between his teeth, thou art
• 2:18:13
  altogether right, Buldeo, Thou wilt never give me one honor of the reward.
• 2:18:18
  There is an old war between this lame tiger and myself, a very
• 2:18:22
  old war, and I have won to do Buldeo justice. If he had
• 2:18:30
  been ten years younger, he would have taken his chance with Aquila, had
• 2:18:33
  he met the wolf in the woods. But a wolf who obeyed the ardors
• 2:18:37
  of this boy, who had private wars with man eating tigers was not a
• 2:18:43
  common animal. It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind, thought Buldeo,
• 2:18:50
  and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would protect him. He
• 2:18:54
  lay still as still, expecting every minute to see Mowgli turn into a tiger
• 2:19:01
  too. Maherussia, great King, he said at last, in a husky
• 2:19:05
  whisper. Yes, said Mowgli, without turning his head, chuckling a little.
• 2:19:11
  I am an old man. I did not know that thou wast anything
• 2:19:15
  more than a herd's boy. May I rise up and go away? Or
• 2:19:18
  wilt thy servant tear me to pieces? Go and peace? Go with thee
• 2:19:24
  only another time. Do not meddle with my game. Let him go,
• 2:19:28
  aguilam. Buldeo hobbled away to the village as fast as he could, looking
• 2:19:35
  back over his shoulder in case Mowgli should change into something terrible. When he
• 2:19:41
  got to the village, he told a tale of magic and enchantment and sorcery
• 2:19:46
  that made the priest look very grave. Mowgli went on with his work,
• 2:19:50
  but it was nearly twilight before he and the wolves had drawn the Great gay
• 2:19:56
  skin clear of the body. Now we must tie this and take the buffaloes
• 2:20:01
  home. Help me hurt them, Aquila. The herd rounded up in the
• 2:20:05
  misty twilight, and when they got near the village, Mowgli saw lights and
• 2:20:09
  heard the conscies and bells in the temple blowing and banging. Half the village
• 2:20:15
  seemed to be waiting for him by the gate. That is because I have
• 2:20:18
  killed the sharr Khan, he said to himself. But a shower of stones
• 2:20:24
  whistled about his ears, and the villagers shouted, sorcerer, wolf sprat,
• 2:20:31
  jungle demon, go away, get hints quickly, or the priest will turn
• 2:20:35
  thee into a wolf again. Shoot buldeo, shoot the old tower musket went
• 2:20:43
  off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed in pain. More sorcery,
• 2:20:48
  shouted the villagers. He can turn bullets. Bulldeo. That was thy
• 2:20:52
  buffalo. Now what is this, said Mowgli, bewildered, as the stones
• 2:20:56
  flew thicker. They are not unlike the back these brothers of thine, said
• 2:21:01
  Aquila, sitting down composedly. It is in my head that if bullets mean
• 2:21:07
  anything, they would cast thee out wolf. Wolf's cub. Go away,
• 2:21:13
  shouted the priest, waving a sprig of the sacred tool seat plant again.
• 2:21:18
  Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because
• 2:21:22
  I am a wolf. Let us go, Aquila, a woman it was.
• 2:21:28
  Basua ran across to the herd and cried, O, my son,
• 2:21:31
  my son. They say, thou art a sorcerer who can turn himself into
• 2:21:35
  a beast at will I do not believe. But go away, or they
• 2:21:39
  will kill thee Buldeo, says thou art a wizard. But I know that
• 2:21:43
  thou hast avenged Nathoo's death. Come back, Masuah, shouted the crowd.
• 2:21:50
  Com back, or we will stone thee. Mowgli laughed a little, short,
• 2:21:56
  ugly laugh for a stone that hit him in the mouth. Run back,
• 2:22:01
  Massua, this is one of the foolish tales they tell under the big
• 2:22:05
  tree at dusk. I have at least paid for thy son's life. Farewell
• 2:22:09
  and run quickly, for I shall send the herd in more swiftly than their
• 2:22:13
  brick bets. I am no wizard, Massua, farewell now once more,
• 2:22:20
  Rakuila, he cried, bring the herd in. The buffaloes were anxious enough
• 2:22:24
  to get to the village. They hardly needed Akila's yell, but charged through
• 2:22:30
  the gate like a whirlwind, scattering the crowd right and left. Keep count,
• 2:22:35
  shouted Mowgli, scornfully. It may be that I have stolen one of
• 2:22:39
  them. Keep count, for I will do your hurting no more. Fare
• 2:22:45
  you well, children of men, and thank Massua that I do not come
• 2:22:50
  in with my wolves and hunt you up and down your street. He turned
• 2:22:54
  on his heel and walked away with the lone wolf, and as he looked
• 2:22:58
  up at the stars, he felt happy. No more sleeping in traps for
• 2:23:03
  me, Akila, Let us get Sharrkhan's skin and go away. No,
• 2:23:07
  we will not hurt the village, for Massua was kind to me. When
• 2:23:13
  the moon rose over the plain, making it look all milky, the horrified
• 2:23:18
  villagers saw Mowgli with two wolves at his heels and a bundle on his head,
• 2:23:24
  trotting across at the steady wolf's trot that eats up the long miles like
• 2:23:28
  fire. Then they banged the temple bells and blew the conscience louder than ever,
• 2:23:33
  and Masua cried and Buldeo embroadered. The story of his adventures in the
• 2:23:39
  jungle till he ended by saying that Akilah stood up on his hind legs and
• 2:23:45
  talked like a man. The moon was just going down when Mowgli and the
• 2:23:50
  two wolves came to the hill of the council Rock, and they stopped at
• 2:23:54
  Mother Wolf's cave. They have cast me out from the man pack, mother
• 2:23:58
  shouted Mowgli. But I come with the hide of sharr Khan to keep my
• 2:24:03
  word. Mother Wolf walked stiffly from the cave with the cubs behind her,
• 2:24:09
  and her eyes glowed as she saw the skin. I told him on that
• 2:24:13
  day, when he crammed his head and shoulders into this cave, hunting for
• 2:24:18
  thy life, little frog, I told him that the hunter would be the
• 2:24:24
  hunted. It is well done, little brother, It is well done,
• 2:24:30
  said a deep voice in the thicket. We are lonely in the jungle without
• 2:24:33
  thee and Bagheira came running to Mogli's bare feet. They clambered up the council
• 2:24:39
  rock together and Mowgli spread the skin out on the flat stone where Akila used
• 2:24:45
  to sit and pegged it down with four slivers of bamboo, and Aquila lay
• 2:24:50
  down upon it and called the old call to the council. Look, look
• 2:24:56
  well, o wolves, exactly as he had called when Mowgli was first brought
• 2:25:01
  there. Ever since Akuila had been deposed, the pack had been without a
• 2:25:07
  leader, hunting and fighting at their own pleasure. But they answered the call
• 2:25:11
  from habit. And some of them were lame from the traps they had fallen
• 2:25:15
  into, and some limped from shot wounds, and some were mangy from eating
• 2:25:20
  bad food, and many were missing. But they came to the council rock
• 2:25:26
  all that were left of them, and saw sherr khans striped hide on the
• 2:25:30
  rock, and the huge claws dangling at the end of the empty dangling feet.
• 2:25:35
  It was then that Mowgli made up a song that came up into his
• 2:25:39
  throat all by itself, and he shouted it aloud, leaping up and down
• 2:25:45
  on the rattling skin and beating time with his heels till he had no more
• 2:25:50
  breath left, while Gray Brother and Akila howled between the verses. Look wellow
• 2:25:58
  wolves, have I kept my wordd said Mowgli, and the wolves bade yes,
• 2:26:03
  and one tattered wolf howled, lead us again, O Aquila. Lead
• 2:26:07
  us again, o man cub, for we be sick of this lawlessness,
• 2:26:11
  and we would be the free people once more. Nay, purred Bagheira.
• 2:26:18
  That may not be. When ye are full fed, the madness may come
• 2:26:22
  upon you again. Not for nothing, or ye call the free people.
• 2:26:26
  Ye fought for freedom and it is yours. Eat it o wolves. Man
• 2:26:33
  pack and wolf pack have cast me out, said Mowgli. Now I will
• 2:26:37
  hunt alone in the jungle, and we will hunt with thee, said the
• 2:26:43
  four cubs. So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the
• 2:26:46
  jungle from that day on. But he was not always alone because years afterward
• 2:26:52
  he became a man and married. But that is a story for grown ups.
• 2:26:58
  Mowg song that he sang at the Council Rock when he danced on sher
• 2:27:03
  Khan's hide, the song that Mowgli I Mogli am singing. Let the jungle
• 2:27:11
  listen to the things I have done, sharr Khan said, he would kill,
• 2:27:16
  would kill at the gates in the twilight. He would kill Mogli.
• 2:27:20
  The frog he ate and he drank drink deep sharr Khan, For when wilt
• 2:27:26
  thou drink again? Sleep and dream of the kill. I am alone of
• 2:27:31
  the grazing grounds. Gray brother, Come to me, Come to me,
• 2:27:35
  lone wolf, for there is big game afoot. Bring up the great bull
• 2:27:41
  buffaloes, the blue skinned herd bulls with the angry eyes. Drive them to
• 2:27:46
  and fro as I order, sleepest thou steals. Shar Khan, Wake awake,
• 2:27:52
  here come I and the bulls are behind Rama, the king of the
• 2:27:56
  buffalo, stamped with his foot Water's a the waying ganga. Whither went sharr
• 2:28:01
  Khan. He is not ikey to dig holes, nor mao the peacock that
• 2:28:07
  he should fly. He has not mang the bat to hang in the branches,
• 2:28:11
  little bamboos that creaked together. Tell me where he ran? Oh he
• 2:28:16
  is there, Oh he is there. Under the feet of Rama lies the
• 2:28:22
  lame one. Up Sharr Khan, Up and kill. Here is meat.
• 2:28:26
  Break the necks of the bulls. Hush. He is asleep. We will
• 2:28:30
  not wake him, for his strength is very great. The kites have come
• 2:28:33
  down to see it. The black ants have come up to know it.
• 2:28:37
  There is a great assembly in his honor. A la lie. I have
• 2:28:41
  no cloth to wrap me. The kites will see that I am naked.
• 2:28:46
  I am ashamed to meet all these people. Lend me thy coat, Sharr
• 2:28:50
  Khan, lend me the gay striped coat that I may go to the council
• 2:28:54
  rock by the bull that bought me. I made a promise, a little
• 2:28:58
  promise. Only thy coat is lacking before I keep my word with a knife,
• 2:29:03
  with the knife that men use, with the knife of the hunter,
• 2:29:07
  I will stoop down for my gift waters of the Wangannga. Sharr Khan gives
• 2:29:13
  me his coat for the love that he bears me. Pull gray brother,
• 2:29:18
  pull Akilah heavy is the hide of Sharr Khan. The men pack are angry.
• 2:29:24
  They throw stones and talk child's talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let
• 2:29:28
  me run away through the night, through the hot night. Run swiftly with
• 2:29:33
  me, my brothers. We will leave the lights of the village and go
• 2:29:37
  to the low moon waters of the Wangunga. The man pack have cast me
• 2:29:43
  out. I did them no harm, but they were afraid of me.
• 2:29:46
  Why wolf pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is shut
• 2:29:50
  to me, and the village gates are shut. Why as mang flies between
• 2:29:56
  the beasts and birds, so fly I between the village In the jungle.
• 2:30:01
  Why I dance on the hide of sharr Khan, But my heart is very
• 2:30:05
  heavy. My mouth is cut and wounded with the stones from the village,
• 2:30:09
  But my heart is very light because I have come back to the jungle.
• 2:30:15
  Why these two things fight together in me as the snakes fight in the spring.
• 2:30:20
  The water comes out of my eyes, Yet I laugh while it falls.
• 2:30:24
  Why I am two mowglis, But the hide of sharr Khan is under
• 2:30:31
  my feet. All the jungle knows that I have killed sharr Khan. Look
• 2:30:37
  look wellow wolves aie. My heart is heavy with the things that I do
• 2:30:41
  not understand. And of tiger Tiger by Rudyard Kibling Mowgli's song that he sang
• 2:30:52
  at the Council Rock when he danced on sharr Khan's hide, The song of
• 2:31:01
  Mogli. I Mowgli am singing. Let the jungle listen to the things I
• 2:31:07
  have done. Shar Khan said he would kill, would kill at the gates
• 2:31:11
  in the twilight, he would kill Moguli. The frog he ate, and
• 2:31:16
  he drank drink deep Sharr Khan. For when wilt thou drink again, sleep
• 2:31:24
  and dream of the kill. I am alone on the grazing grounds. Gray
• 2:31:30
  brother, come to me. Come to me, lone wolf, for there
• 2:31:33
  is big game afoot. Bring up the great bull buffaloes, the blue skinned
• 2:31:39
  herd bulls with the angry eyes. Drive them to and fro as I order
• 2:31:45
  sleepst thou still, shar Khan, wake awake. Here come I and the
• 2:31:52
  bulls are behind Rama, the king of the buffaloes, stamped with his foot
• 2:31:58
  waters of the Wango god. Whether with sharr Khan. He is not icky
• 2:32:03
  to dig holes, nor mao the peacock that he should fly. He is
• 2:32:09
  not mang the bat to hang in the branches, little bamboos that creak together.
• 2:32:15
  Tell me where he ran? Oh? Here he is, Oh,
• 2:32:20
  he is there. Under the feet of Rama lies the lame one. Up
• 2:32:26
  shar Khan, up and kill. Here is meat. Break the necks of
• 2:32:30
  the bulls. Hush. He is asleep. We will not wake him,
• 2:32:35
  for his strength is very great. The kites have come down to see it.
• 2:32:41
  The black ants have come up to know it. There is a great
• 2:32:45
  assembly in his honor. Allah lie, I have no cloth to wrap me.
• 2:32:50
  The kites will see that I am naked. I am ashamed to meet
• 2:32:54
  all these people. Lend me thy coat. Sharr Khan lend me thy gay
• 2:33:00
  striped coat that I may go to the council rock by the bull that bought
• 2:33:05
  me. I made a promise, a little promise. Only thy coat is
• 2:33:09
  lacking. Before I keep my word with a knife, with a knife that
• 2:33:15
  men use, with the knife of the hunter, I will stoop down for
• 2:33:18
  my gift waters of the Wayne Gunga. Sharr Khan gives me his coat for
• 2:33:24
  the love that he bears me. Pole gray, brother, pole Akila heavy
• 2:33:31
  is the hide of sharr Khan. The man pack are angry. They throw
• 2:33:37
  stones and talk child's talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let me run away
• 2:33:43
  through the night, through the hot night. Run swiftly with me, my
• 2:33:48
  brothers. We will leave the lights of the village and go to the low
• 2:33:52
  moon waters of the Wayne Gunga. The man pack have cast me out.
• 2:33:58
  I did them harm, but they were afraid of me. Why wolf pack,
• 2:34:05
  ye have cast me out too. The jungle is shut to me,
• 2:34:09
  and the village gates are shut. Why as mang flies between the beasts and
• 2:34:15
  birds, so fly I between the village and the jungle. Why I dance
• 2:34:24
  on the hide of Sheher Khan. But my heart is very heavy. My
• 2:34:28
  mouth is cut and wounded with the stones from the village, But my heart
• 2:34:33
  is very light because I have come back to the jungle. Why these two
• 2:34:39
  things fight together in me as the snakes fight in the spring. The water
• 2:34:45
  comes out of my eyes. Yet I laugh while it falls. Why I
• 2:34:52
  am two mowglis. But the hide of sharr Khan is under my feet.
• 2:34:58
  All the uncle knows that I have killed sher Khan. Look look well,
• 2:35:05
  o wolves. Ahay. My heart is heavy with the things that I do
• 2:35:11
  not understand. End of Mowgli's Song by Rudyard Kipling. How fear came?
• 2:35:26
  The stream is shrunk, the pool is dry, and we be comrades.
• 2:35:31
  Thou and I with fevered jowl and dusty flank, each jostling each along the
• 2:35:37
  bank. And by one drowthy fear made still for going thought of quest or
• 2:35:43
  kill. Now neat is damn. The fawn may see the lean packwolf is
• 2:35:50
  cowd is he and the tall buck unflinching, Note the fangs that tore his
• 2:35:56
  father's throat. The pools are shrunk, the streams are dry, and we
• 2:36:01
  be playmates. Thou and I till yunder cloud, good hunting, loose the
• 2:36:07
  rain that breaks our water truce. The law of the Jungle, which is
• 2:36:15
  by far the oldest law in the world, has arranged for almost every kind
• 2:36:20
  of accident that may befollow the jungle people till now. Its code is as
• 2:36:24
  perfect as time and custom can make it. If you have read the other
• 2:36:28
  book about Mowgli, you will remember that Mowgli spent a great part of his
• 2:36:33
  life in the seOne wolf pack learning the law from Balu the brown Bear.
• 2:36:39
  And it was Balu who told him, when the boy grew impatient of the
• 2:36:43
  constant arders, that the law was like the giant creeper, because it dropped
• 2:36:50
  across everyone's back and no one could escape. When thou hast lived as long
• 2:36:56
  as I have little brother, we'll see how all the jungle obeys at least
• 2:37:03
  one law, and that will be no pleasant sight, said Balu. This
• 2:37:09
  talk went in at one ear and out at the other. For a boy
• 2:37:15
  who spends his life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till it actually
• 2:37:20
  stares him in the face. But one year Balu's words came true, and
• 2:37:26
  Mowgli saw all the jungle working under the law It began when the winter rains
• 2:37:33
  failed almost entirely, and Iki the porcupine, meeting Mowgli in a bamboo thicket,
• 2:37:41
  told him that the wild yams were drying up. Now everybody knows that
• 2:37:46
  Iki is ridiculously fastidious in his choice of food, and will lea nothing but
• 2:37:52
  the very best and ripest. So Mowgli laughed and said, what is that
• 2:37:56
  to me? Not much now, said Ikey, rattling his quills in a
• 2:38:03
  stiff, uncomfortable way. But later we shall see. Is there any more
• 2:38:09
  diving into the deep rock pool below the bee rocks, little brother, No,
• 2:38:16
  the foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish to
• 2:38:20
  break my head, said Mowgli, who in those days was quite sure that
• 2:38:24
  he knew as much as any five of the jungle people put together. That
• 2:38:28
  is thy loss, a small crack might let in some wisdom. Iki ducked
• 2:38:35
  quickly to prevent Mogli from pulling his nose bristles, and Mowgli told Bellu what
• 2:38:41
  Ikey had said. Bellu looked very grave and mumbled half to himself. If
• 2:38:48
  I were alone, I would change my hunting grounds now before the others began
• 2:38:52
  to think, and yet hunting among strangers in zinn fighting, and they might
• 2:38:58
  hurt the man. We must wait and see how the moah blooms that year.
• 2:39:05
  The moa tree that Belu was so fond of never flowered. The greeny,
• 2:39:13
  cream colored waxy blossoms were heat killed before they were born, and only
• 2:39:18
  a few bad smelling petals came down when he stood on his hind legs and
• 2:39:22
  shook the tree. Then, inch by inch, the untempered heat crept into
• 2:39:28
  the heart of the jungle, turning it yellow, brown, and at last
• 2:39:33
  black. The greengross in the sides of the ravine burned up to broken wires
• 2:39:39
  and curled films of dead stuff. The hidden pools sank down and caked over,
• 2:39:46
  keeping the last least foot bark on their edges as if it had been
• 2:39:52
  cast in iron. The juicy stem creepers fell away from the trees they clung
• 2:39:56
  to and died at their feet. The bamboos withered, clanking when the hot
• 2:40:03
  winds blew, and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in the jungle till
• 2:40:07
  they were as bare and as hot as the quivering blue boulders in the bed
• 2:40:13
  of the stream. The birds and the monkey people went north early in the
• 2:40:18
  year, for they knew what was coming. And the deer and the wild
• 2:40:22
  pig broke far away to the perished fields of the villages, dying sometimes before
• 2:40:28
  the eyes of men too weak to kill them. Chiel the kite stayed and
• 2:40:33
  grew fat, for there was a great deal of carrion, and evening after
• 2:40:37
  evening he brought the news to the beasts, too weak to force their way
• 2:40:41
  to fresh hunting grounds, that the sun was killing the jungle for three days
• 2:40:48
  flight in every direction. Mowgli, who had never known what real hunger meant,
• 2:40:54
  fell back on stale honey. Three years old, scraped out of deserted
• 2:40:58
  rockhives, honey black as a slow and dusty with dried sugar. He hunted
• 2:41:05
  too for deep boring grubs under the bark of the trees, and robbed the
• 2:41:11
  wasp of their new broods. All the game in the jungle was no more
• 2:41:16
  than skin and bone and Bogheira could kill thrice in a night and hardly get
• 2:41:22
  a full meal. But the want of water was the worst, for though
• 2:41:28
  the jungle people drink seldom, they must drink deep, and the heat went
• 2:41:35
  on and on and sucked up all the moisture, till at last the main
• 2:41:39
  channel of the Waining Gunga was the only stream that carried a trickle of water
• 2:41:43
  between its dead banks. And when Huffy, the wild elephant who lives for
• 2:41:48
  a hundred years and more, saw a long, lean, blue ridge of
• 2:41:54
  rock show dry in the very center of the stream, he knew that he
• 2:41:58
  was looking at the peace. And then and there he lifted up his trunk
• 2:42:03
  and proclaimed the water truce, as his father before him had proclaimed it fifty
• 2:42:09
  years ago. The deer, wild pig, and buffalo took up the cry
• 2:42:13
  hoarsely and cheal. The kite flew in great circles far and wide, whistling
• 2:42:20
  and shrieking the warning. By the law of the jungle, it is death
• 2:42:26
  to kill at the drinking places when once the water truce has been declared.
• 2:42:31
  The reason of this is that drinking comes before eating. Everyone in the jungle
• 2:42:37
  can scramble along somehow. When only game is scarce, but water is water,
• 2:42:43
  and when there is but one source of supply, all hunting stops.
• 2:42:48
  While the jungle people go there for their needs. In good seasons, when
• 2:42:54
  water was plentiful, those who came down to drink at the Wayne Gunga are
• 2:42:58
  anywhere else, for the matter, did so at the risk of their lives,
• 2:43:03
  and that risk made no small part of the fascination of the Knight's doings.
• 2:43:07
  To move down so cunningly that never a leaf stirred to wade knee deep
• 2:43:13
  in the roaring shallows that drown all noise from behind, to drink looking backward
• 2:43:20
  over one's shoulder, every mussel ready for the first desperate bound of keen terror
• 2:43:26
  to roll on the sandy margin and return wet, muscled, and well plumped
• 2:43:31
  out to the admiring herd was a thing that all tall, antlered young bucks
• 2:43:37
  took a delight in, precisely because they knew that at any moment Bakhira or
• 2:43:43
  sher Khan might leap upon them and bear them down. But now all that
• 2:43:48
  life and death fun was ended, and the jungle people came up, starved
• 2:43:54
  and weary to the shrunken river. Tiger, bear, deer, buffalo and
• 2:44:00
  pig all together drank the fouled waters and hung above them, too exhausted to
• 2:44:07
  move off. The deer and the pig had tramped all day in search of
• 2:44:11
  something better than dried bark and withered leaves. The buffaloes had found no wallows
• 2:44:18
  to be cool in and no green crops to steal. The snakes had left
• 2:44:22
  the jungle and come down to the river in the hope of finding a stray
• 2:44:26
  frog. They curled round wet stones and never offered to strike when the nose
• 2:44:33
  of a rooting pig dislodged them. The river turtles had long ago been killed
• 2:44:37
  by Boghira cleverest of hunters, and the fish had buried themselves deep in the
• 2:44:43
  dry mud. Only the peace rock lay across the shallows like a long snake,
• 2:44:50
  and the little tired ripples hissed as they dried on its hot side.
• 2:44:56
  It was here that Mowgli cameightly for the cool and the companionship. The most
• 2:45:03
  hungry of his enemies would hardly have cared for the boy. Then. His
• 2:45:07
  naked hide made him seem more lean and wretched than any of his fellows.
• 2:45:13
  His hair was bleached to tow color by the sun, his ribs stood out
• 2:45:18
  like the ribs of a basket, and the lumps of his knees and elbows,
• 2:45:22
  where he was used to track on all fours, gave his shrunken limbs,
• 2:45:26
  the look of knotted grass stems, but his eye under his matted forelock
• 2:45:33
  was cool and quiet. For Baghira was his adviser in this time of trouble,
• 2:45:39
  and told him to go quietly, hunt slowly, and never on any
• 2:45:43
  account to lose his temper. It is an evil time, said the black
• 2:45:50
  panther, one furnace, hot evening, but it will go if we can
• 2:45:54
  live till the end. Is thy stomach full, man, cub. They're
• 2:46:01
  stuff in my stomach, but I get no good of it, Thank you,
• 2:46:05
  Bakheira. The rains have forgotten us and will never come again. Not
• 2:46:09
  I. We shall see the moha in blossom yet, and the little fawns,
• 2:46:16
  all fat with new grass. Come down to the piece rock and hear
• 2:46:20
  the news on my back, little brother, this is no time to carry
• 2:46:26
  weight. I can still stand alone. But indeed we be no fatted bullocks.
• 2:46:31
  We two. Bakhira looked along his ragged, dusty flank and whispered,
• 2:46:39
  last night I killed a bullock under the yoke. So low was I brought
• 2:46:45
  that I think I should not have dared to spring if he had been loose.
• 2:46:48
  Whoa mowgli laughed. Yes, we be great hunters. Now, said
• 2:46:56
  he, I am very bold to eat grubs. And the two came down
• 2:47:01
  together through the crackling undergrowth to the river bank and the lace work of shoals
• 2:47:07
  that ran out from it in every direction. The water cannot live long,
• 2:47:11
  said Bellow, joining them. Look across yunder our trails, like the roads
• 2:47:18
  of man. On the level plain of the farther bank, the stiff jungle
• 2:47:24
  grass had died, standing, and dying had mummified the beaten tracks of the
• 2:47:30
  deer and the pig, all heading toward the river, had driped that colorless
• 2:47:33
  plain with dusty gullies driven through the ten foot grass. And early as it
• 2:47:39
  was, each long avenue was full of first comers hastening to the water.
• 2:47:46
  You could hear the does and fawns coughing in the snuff like dust. Upstream.
• 2:47:52
  At the bend of the sluggish pool, round the piece rock and warden
• 2:47:56
  of the water truce, stood Haffy the water elephant, with his son's gaunt
• 2:48:01
  and gray in the moonlight, rocking to and fro. Always rocking below him
• 2:48:09
  a little were the vanguard of the deer. Below these again the pig and
• 2:48:13
  the wild buffalo. And on the opposite bank, where the tall trees came
• 2:48:18
  down to the water's edge, was the place set apart for the eaters of
• 2:48:22
  flesh, the tiger, the wolves, the panther, the bear, and
• 2:48:26
  the others. We are under one law, indeed, said Boghira, wading
• 2:48:33
  into the water and looking across at the lines of clicking horns and starting eyes,
• 2:48:39
  where the deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro. Good
• 2:48:45
  hunting, all of you of my blood, he added, lying down at
• 2:48:48
  full lemp, one flank thrust out of the shallows, and then between his
• 2:48:54
  teeth. But for that which is the law, it would be very good
• 2:48:58
  humhunting. The quick spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence, and
• 2:49:05
  a frightened whisper ran among the ranks. The truth remember the truce beeece there,
• 2:49:13
  peace, gurgled Hathi. The wild elephant the truce holes Bogheira, this
• 2:49:20
  is no time to talk of hunting. Who should know better than I,
• 2:49:26
  Bagheira answered, rolling his yellow eyes upstream. I am an eater of turtles,
• 2:49:33
  a fisher of frogs. Nah, would I could get good from chewing
• 2:49:39
  branches? We wish so very greatly bleated a young fawn who had only been
• 2:49:46
  born that spring and did not at all like it. Wretched as the jungle
• 2:49:50
  people were, even Hathi could not help chuckling, while Mowgli, lying on
• 2:49:56
  his elbows in the warm water, laughed aloud and beat up the scum with
• 2:50:00
  his feet. Well spoken little bud horn Bugheira heard when the truce ends,
• 2:50:07
  that shall be remembered in thy favor, and he looked keenly through the darkness
• 2:50:13
  to make sure of recognizing the fawn again. Gradually the talking spread up and
• 2:50:18
  down the drinking places. One could hear the shuffling, snorting pig asking for
• 2:50:24
  more room, the buffaloes grunting among themselves as they lurched out across the sand
• 2:50:30
  bars, and the deer telling pitiful stories of their long foots or wanderings in
• 2:50:35
  quest of food. Now and again they asked some question of the eaters of
• 2:50:41
  flesh across the river. But all the news was bad, and the roaring
• 2:50:46
  hot wind of the jungle came and went between the rocks and the rattling branches,
• 2:50:52
  and scattered twigs and dust on the water. The men, too,
• 2:50:56
  they die beside their plows, said a young sambor I passed three between sunset
• 2:51:03
  and night. They lay still in their bullocks with him. We also shall
• 2:51:07
  lie still in a little. The river has fallen since last night, said
• 2:51:15
  balu oh Hathi. Hast thou ever seen the like of this drought? It
• 2:51:24
  will pass, It will pass, said Hathi, squirting water along his back
• 2:51:30
  and sides. We have one here that cannot endure long, said Baloo,
• 2:51:35
  and he looked toward the boy he loved, I said Mowgli, indignantly,
• 2:51:41
  sitting up in the water. I have no long fur to cover my bones.
• 2:51:46
  But but if thy hide were taken off? Balow Hathi shook all over
• 2:51:52
  at the idea, and Balou said severely, man cub, that is not
• 2:51:58
  seemly to tell a teacher of the law. Never have I been seen without
• 2:52:01
  my hide? Nay I meant no harm Baloo, but only that thou art,
• 2:52:09
  as it were, like a cocoanut in the husk, and I am
• 2:52:13
  the same cocoanut, all naked now that brown husk of thine. Mowgli was
• 2:52:18
  sitting cross legged and explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way, when
• 2:52:24
  Baghira put out a patty paw and pulled him over backwards into the water.
• 2:52:31
  Worse and worse, said the black panther, as the bar rose fluttering.
• 2:52:37
  First, Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a cocoanut.
• 2:52:41
  Be careful that he does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do? And what
• 2:52:46
  is that? Asked Mowgli, off his guard for the minute, though that
• 2:52:48
  is one of the oldest ketches in the jungle, break thy head, said
• 2:52:54
  Bakhira, quietly, pulling him under again. It is not good to make
• 2:53:00
  a gesture of our teacher, said the bear, when Mowgli had been ducked
• 2:53:03
  for the third time. Not good, What would ye have? That naked
• 2:53:11
  thing running to and fro makes a monkey jest of those who have once been
• 2:53:16
  good hunters, and pulls the best of us by the whiskers for sport.
• 2:53:22
  This was sharr Khan, the lame tiger, limping down to the water.
• 2:53:28
  He waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the deer on the
• 2:53:33
  opposite to lap growling. The jungle has become a whelping ground for naked cubs.
• 2:53:39
  Now look at me, man cub. Mowgli looked, stared, rather
• 2:53:46
  as insolently as he knew how, and in a minute sharr Khan turned away
• 2:53:52
  uneasily. Man cub this, and man cub that, he rumbled, going
• 2:53:58
  on with his drink. The cob is neither man nor a cub, or
• 2:54:05
  he would have been afraid. Next season, I shall have to beg his
• 2:54:09
  leave for a drink. Ah that may come too, said Baghira, looking
• 2:54:18
  him steadily between the eyes. That may come too, faugh, sher Khan,
• 2:54:24
  what new shame hast thou brought here? The lame tiger had dipped his
• 2:54:31
  chin and jowl in the water, and dark early streaks were floating from it
• 2:54:35
  downstream. Man, said sharr Khan coolly. I killed an hour since he
• 2:54:46
  went on, hurrying and growling to himself. The line of beasts shook and
• 2:54:52
  wavered to and fro, and a whisper went up that grew to a cry
• 2:54:56
  man man, he has killed me. The man then all looked toward Hathi,
• 2:55:03
  the wild elephant, but he seemed not to hear. Hathi never does
• 2:55:09
  anything till the time comes, and that is one of the reasons why he
• 2:55:13
  lives so long. That's such season as this to kill man was no other
• 2:55:20
  game afoot, said Bakhira, scornfully, drawing himself out of the tainted water
• 2:55:26
  and shaking each paw cat fashion as he did so. I killed for a
• 2:55:33
  choice, not for food. The horrified whisper began again, and Hathi's watchful,
• 2:55:39
  little white eye cocked itself in sharr Khan's direction. For choice, sharr
• 2:55:48
  Khan drawled, Now I come to drink and make me clean again. Is
• 2:55:54
  there any to forbid? Baghira's back began to curve like a bamboo in a
• 2:56:01
  high wind, but Hathi lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly. The kill
• 2:56:09
  was from choice, he asked, And when Hathi asks a question, it
• 2:56:15
  is best to answer. Even so, it was my right and my night.
• 2:56:22
  Thou knowest o Hathi. Shara Khan spoke almost courteously. Yes, I
• 2:56:28
  know, Hathi answered, and after a little silence, hast thou drunk thy
• 2:56:35
  fill for tonight? Yes? Go, then the river is to drink and
• 2:56:43
  not to defile none. But the lame tiger would have so boasted of his
• 2:56:48
  right at the season when when we suffer together, man and jungle people alike,
• 2:56:56
  clean or unclean, get to thy lair, sher Khan. The last
• 2:57:03
  words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi's three sons rolled forward half a
• 2:57:09
  pace, though there was no need. Sharrkhan slunk away, not daring to
• 2:57:15
  growl, for he knew what everyone else knows, that when the last comes
• 2:57:20
  to the last, Hathi is the master of the jungle. What is this
• 2:57:26
  right? Sharrkan speaks of Malgli whispered in Bakhira's ear. To kill man is
• 2:57:33
  always shameful. The law says so, and yet Hathi says, ask him,
• 2:57:39
  I do not know, little brother, right or no right. If
• 2:57:43
  Hathi had not spoken, I would have taught that lame butcher his lesson.
• 2:57:48
  To come to the piece rock fresh from a kill of man, and to
• 2:57:52
  boast of it is a jackal's trek. Besides, he tainted the good water.
• 2:58:00
  Maugli waited for a minute to pick up his courage because no one cared
• 2:58:03
  to address Hathi directly, and then he cried, what is shar Khan's right?
• 2:58:09
  O Hafi? Both banks echoed his words. For all the people of
• 2:58:16
  the jungle are intensely curious, and they had just seen something that none except
• 2:58:20
  Balu, who looked very thoughtful, seemed to understand. It is an old
• 2:58:28
  tale, said Hathi, a tale older than the jungle. Keep silence along
• 2:58:35
  the banks, and I will tell that tale. There was a minute or
• 2:58:41
  two of pushing and shouldering among the pigs and the buffalo, and then the
• 2:58:46
  leaders of the herds grunted one after another. We wait, and Hathi strode
• 2:58:52
  forward till he was nearly knee deep in the pool by the piece rock,
• 2:58:58
  lean and rain and yellow tust. Though he was, he looked what the
• 2:59:03
  jungle knew him to be their master? Ye know, children, He began
• 2:59:11
  that of all things, ye most fear man. And there was a mutter
• 2:59:16
  of agreement. This tale touches thee little brother, said Bakhira to Mowgli,
• 2:59:24
  I I am of the pack, a hunter of the free people. Mowgli
• 2:59:28
  answered, what have I to do with man? And ye do not know
• 2:59:33
  why, ye fear man. Cathy went on, this is the reason in
• 2:59:41
  the beginning of the jungle, and none knew when that was. We of
• 2:59:46
  the jungle walked together, having no fear of one another. In those days
• 2:59:52
  there was no drought, and leaves and flowers and fruit grew on the same
• 2:59:56
  tree. And we ate nothing at all except leaves and flowers and grass and
• 3:00:03
  fruit, and bark I am glad I was not born in those days,
• 3:00:07
  said Baghira. And bark is only good to sharpen claws. And the lord
• 3:00:13
  of the jungle was Fah, the first of the elephants. He drew the
• 3:00:18
  jungle out of deep waters with his trunk, and where he made furrows in
• 3:00:24
  the ground with his tusks, there the rivers ran, and where he struck
• 3:00:30
  with his foot there rose ponds of good water. And when he blew through
• 3:00:35
  his trunk, thus the trees fell. That was the manner in which the
• 3:00:39
  jungle was made by Tha. And so the tale was told to me.
• 3:00:46
  It has not lost fat in the tilling. Baghira whispered, and Mowgli laughed
• 3:00:50
  behind his hand. In those days there was no corn or melons, or
• 3:00:58
  pepper or sugar cane, nor were there any little huts such as ye have
• 3:01:03
  all seen. And the jungle people knew nothing of man, but lived in
• 3:01:07
  the jungle together, making one people. But presently they began to dispute over
• 3:01:13
  their food. Though there was grazing enough for all, they were lazy.
• 3:01:20
  Each wished to eat where he lay, as sometimes we can do now when
• 3:01:24
  the spring rains are good. Thaw, the first of the elephants was busy
• 3:01:30
  making new jungles and leading the rivers in their beds. He could not walk
• 3:01:35
  in all places. Therefore he made the first of the tigers the master and
• 3:01:41
  the judge of the jungle, to whom the jungle people should bring their disputes.
• 3:01:46
  In those days, the first of the tigers ate fruit and grass with
• 3:01:50
  the others. He was as large as I am, and he was very
• 3:01:54
  beautiful in color all over, like the blossom of the yellow creeper. There
• 3:02:01
  was never striped nor bar upon his hide. In those good days, when
• 3:02:05
  this the jungle was new, all the jungle people came before him without fear,
• 3:02:11
  and his word was the law of all the jungle. We were then,
• 3:02:15
  remember ye one people. Yet upon a night there was a dispute between
• 3:02:22
  two bucks, a grazing quarrel such as ye now settle with the horns and
• 3:02:28
  the forefeet. And it is said that as the two spoke together before the
• 3:02:33
  first of the tigers, lying among the flowers, a buck pushed him with
• 3:02:37
  his horns, and the first of the tigers forgot that he was the master
• 3:02:43
  in judge of the jungle, and leaping upon that buck, broke his neck.
• 3:02:48
  Till that night never one of us had died. And the first of
• 3:02:54
  the tigers, seeing what he had done, and being made foolish by the
• 3:02:58
  scent of the blood, ran away into the marshes of the north, and
• 3:03:03
  we of the jungle, left without a judge, fell to fighting among ourselves.
• 3:03:09
  And Tha heard the noise of it and came back. Then some of
• 3:03:13
  us said this, and some of us said that. But he saw the
• 3:03:18
  dead buck among the flowers and asked who had killed, and we of the
• 3:03:22
  jungle would not tell, because the smell of the blood made us foolish.
• 3:03:28
  We ran to and fro in circles, capering and crying out and shaking our
• 3:03:33
  heads. Then Tha gave an order to the trees that hang low, and
• 3:03:39
  said to the trailing creepers of the jungle that they should mark the killer of
• 3:03:43
  the buck, so that he should know him again. And he said,
• 3:03:48
  who will now be master of the jungle people? Then up leaped the gray
• 3:03:54
  ape, who lives in the branches, and said, I will now be
• 3:03:56
  master of the jungle. At this Faugh laughed and said, so be it,
• 3:04:03
  and went away very angry. Children, Ye know the gray ape.
• 3:04:09
  He was then as he is now. At first he made a wise face
• 3:04:15
  for himself. But in a little while he began to scratch and to leap
• 3:04:20
  up and down. And when Tha came back, he found the gray ape
• 3:04:24
  hanging head down from a bow, mocking those who stood below. And they
• 3:04:30
  mocked him again. And so there was no law in the jungle, only
• 3:04:35
  foolish talk and senseless words. Then Tha called us all together and said,
• 3:04:41
  the first of your masters has brought death into the jungle, and the second
• 3:04:48
  shame. Now it is time that there was a law, and a law
• 3:04:52
  that ye must not break. Now ye shall know fear, and when ye
• 3:05:00
  have found him, ye shall know that he is your master, and the
• 3:05:03
  rest shall follow. Then we of the jungle said, what is fear?
• 3:05:11
  And Thaw said seek till ye find. So we went up and down the
• 3:05:18
  jungle seeking for fear. And presently the buffaloes said, Mysa, the leader
• 3:05:24
  of the buffaloes, from their sand bank. Yes, Mysa, it was
• 3:05:30
  the buffaloes. They came back with the news that in a cave in the
• 3:05:35
  jungle sat fear, and that he had no hair and went upon his hind
• 3:05:41
  legs. Then we of the jungle followed the herd till we came to that
• 3:05:46
  cave, and Fear stood at the mouth of it, and he was,
• 3:05:50
  as the buffaloes had said, hairless, and he walked upon his hinder legs.
• 3:05:56
  When he saw us, he cried out, and his voice filled us
• 3:06:00
  with the fear that we have now of that voice when we hear it.
• 3:06:03
  And we ran away, tramping upon and tearing each other, because we were
• 3:06:09
  afraid that night, So it was told to me. We of the jungle
• 3:06:16
  did not lie down together, as used to be our custom, but each
• 3:06:20
  tribe drew off by itself, the pig with the pig, the deer with
• 3:06:26
  the deer, horn to horn, hoof to hoof, like, keeping to
• 3:06:30
  like, and soly shaking in the jungle. Only the first of the tigers
• 3:06:37
  was not with us, for he was still hidden in the marshes of the
• 3:06:41
  north. And when word was brought to him of the thing we had seen
• 3:06:46
  in the cave, he said, I will go to this thing and break
• 3:06:52
  his neck. So he ran all the night till he came to the cave.
• 3:06:56
  But the trees and the creepers on his path, remembering the order that
• 3:07:01
  though had given, let down their branches and marked him as he ran,
• 3:07:07
  drawing their fingers across his back, his flank, his forehead, and his
• 3:07:11
  jowl. Wherever they touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his
• 3:07:16
  yellow hide. And those stripes do his children wear to this day. When
• 3:07:26
  he came to the cave fear, the hairless one put out his hand and
• 3:07:31
  called him the striped one that comes by night. And the first of the
• 3:07:37
  tigers was afraid of the hairless one, and ran back to the swamps howling.
• 3:07:43
  Mowgli chuckled quietly. Here his chin in the water. So loud did
• 3:07:48
  he howl, that Tha heard him, and said, what is the sorrow?
• 3:07:54
  And the first of the tigers, lifting up his muzzle to the new
• 3:07:58
  maid's sky, which is now so old, said give me back my power.
• 3:08:03
  O, though I am made ashamed before all the jungle, and I
• 3:08:09
  have run away from a hairless one, and he has called me a shameful
• 3:08:13
  name. And why, said thought, because I am smeared with the mud
• 3:08:18
  of the marshes, said the first of the tigers. Swim then, and
• 3:08:24
  roll on the wet grass, and if it be mud, it will wash
• 3:08:28
  away, said though. And the first of the tigers swam and rolled and
• 3:08:33
  rolled upon the grass till the jungle ran round and round before his eyes,
• 3:08:39
  but not one little bar upon all his hide was changed, and thou watching
• 3:08:46
  him laughed. Then the first of the tigers said, what have I done
• 3:08:50
  that this comes to me? Tha said, thou hast killed the buck,
• 3:08:58
  and thou hast let death look in the jungle. And with death has come
• 3:09:03
  fear, so that the people of the jungle are afraid of one another,
• 3:09:07
  as thou art afraid of the hairless one. The first of the tigers said,
• 3:09:11
  they will never fear me, for I knew them since the beginning.
• 3:09:16
  Tha said, go and see. And the first of the tigers ran to
• 3:09:22
  and fro, calling aloud to the deer and the pig, and the sambhur
• 3:09:28
  and the porcupine, and all the jungle peoples. And they all ran away
• 3:09:33
  from him, who had been their judge, because they were afraid. Then
• 3:09:37
  the first of the tigers came back, and his pride was broken in him,
• 3:09:43
  and beating his head upon the ground, he tore up the earth with
• 3:09:46
  all his feet and said, remember that I was once the master of the
• 3:09:52
  jungle. Do not forget me, o, Tha, Let my children remember
• 3:09:56
  that I was once without shame fear, And THO said, this much I
• 3:10:05
  will do, because thou and I together saw the jungle made for one night
• 3:10:11
  in each year, it shall be as it was before the buck was killed
• 3:10:16
  for thee and for thy children. In that one night. If ye meet
• 3:10:20
  the hairless One, and his name is Man, ye shall not be afraid
• 3:10:26
  of him, but he shall be afraid of you, as though ye were
• 3:10:31
  judges of the jungle and masters of all things. Show him mercy in that
• 3:10:37
  night of his fear, for thou hast known what fear is. Then the
• 3:10:43
  first of the tigers answered, I am content. But when next he drank,
• 3:10:50
  he saw the black stripes upon his flank and his side, and he
• 3:10:54
  remembered the name that the hairless One had given him, and he was angry.
• 3:11:00
  For a year he lived in the marshes, waiting till Tha should keep
• 3:11:03
  his promise. And upon a night, when the jackal of the moon the
• 3:11:07
  evening star stood clear of the jungle, he felt that his night was upon
• 3:11:15
  him, and he went to that cave to meet the hairless One. Then
• 3:11:20
  it happened as Tha promised, for the hairless One fell down before him and
• 3:11:26
  lay along the ground and the first of the tigers struck him and broke his
• 3:11:31
  back, for he thought that there was but one such thing in the jungle,
• 3:11:35
  and that he had killed Fear. Then, nosing above the kill,
• 3:11:41
  he heard tha coming down from the woods of the north, and presently the
• 3:11:46
  voice of the first of the elephants, which is the voice that we hear
• 3:11:50
  now. The thunder was rolling up and down the dry, scarred hills,
• 3:11:56
  but it brought no rain, only heat lightning that flickered along the riches.
• 3:12:01
  And Hathi went on, that was the voice he heard, and it said,
• 3:12:07
  is this thy mercy? The first of the tigers licked his lips and
• 3:12:13
  said, what matter I have killed Fear? And THO said, oh,
• 3:12:20
  blind and foolish, thou hast untied the feet of death, and he will
• 3:12:28
  follow thy trail till thou diest. Thou hast taught man to kill. The
• 3:12:35
  first of the tigers, standing stiffly to his kill, said he is as
• 3:12:41
  the buck was. There is no fear. Now I will judge the jungle
• 3:12:46
  peoples once more. And Tho said, never again shall the jungle peoples come
• 3:12:52
  to thee. They shall never cross thy trail, nor sleep near thee,
• 3:12:58
  nor follow after thee, nor brows by thy lair. Only Fear shall follow
• 3:13:05
  thee. And with a blow that thou canst not see, he shall bid
• 3:13:09
  thee wait his pleasure. He shall make the ground to open under thy feet,
• 3:13:15
  and the creeper to twist about thy neck, and the tree trunks to
• 3:13:18
  grow together about thee, higher than thou canst leap. And at the last
• 3:13:24
  he shall take thy hide to wrap his cubs when they are cold. Thou
• 3:13:31
  hast shown him no mercy, and none will he show thee. The first
• 3:13:37
  of the tigers was very bold, for his knight was still with him,
• 3:13:39
  and he said, the promise of Tha is the promise of Thaw. He
• 3:13:46
  will not take away my knight. And Tha said, the one knight is
• 3:13:50
  thine, as I have said, But there is a price to pay.
• 3:13:56
  Thou hast taught man to kill, and he is no slow learner. The
• 3:14:03
  first of the tigers said, he is here under my foot and his back
• 3:14:09
  is broken. Let the jungle know I have killed Fear. Then Tha laughed
• 3:14:16
  and said, thou hast killed one of many. But thou thyself shalt tell
• 3:14:22
  the jungle, for thy night is ended. So the day came and from
• 3:14:28
  the mouth of the cave went out another hairless one, and he saw the
• 3:14:33
  kill in the path, and the first of the tigers above it, And
• 3:14:37
  he took a pointed stick. They throw a thing that cuts. Now,
• 3:14:41
  said Ikey, rustling down the bank. For Ikey was considered uncommonly good eating
• 3:14:46
  by the gons. They called him who Igu, And he knew something of
• 3:14:50
  the wicked little gandhi ax that whirls across a clearing like a dragonfly. It
• 3:14:58
  was a pointed dick, such as they put in the foot of a pit
• 3:15:01
  trap, said Hathi, And throwing it, he struck the first of the
• 3:15:07
  tigers deep in the flank. Thus it happened as Tha said, for the
• 3:15:13
  first of the tigers ran howling up and down the jungle till he tore out
• 3:15:18
  the stick. And all the jungle knew that the hairless one could strike from
• 3:15:22
  far off, and they feared more than before. So it came about that
• 3:15:28
  the first of the tigers taught the hairless one to kill. And ye know
• 3:15:35
  what harm that has since done to all our peoples. Through the noose and
• 3:15:41
  the pitfall, and the hidden trap, and the flying stick, and the
• 3:15:45
  stinging fly that comes out of white smoke, Hathi meant, the rifle and
• 3:15:50
  the red flower that drives us into the open. Yet for one night in
• 3:15:56
  the year, the hairless one fears the tiger, as Tha promised. And
• 3:16:01
  never has the tiger given him cause to be less afraid. Where he finds
• 3:16:07
  him, there he kills him, remembering how the first of the tigers was
• 3:16:13
  made ashamed for the rest. Fear walks up and down the jungle by day
• 3:16:20
  and by night. Ah he Aho, said the deer, thinking of what
• 3:16:26
  it all meant to them. And only when there is one great fear overall,
• 3:16:31
  as there is now, can we of the jungle lay aside our little
• 3:16:35
  fears and meet together in one place as we do now. For one night
• 3:16:41
  only does man fear the tiger, said Mowgli. For one night only,
• 3:16:46
  said Hathi. But I but we, but all the jungle knows that Sharrkan
• 3:16:52
  kills man twice and thrice in a moon. Even so then he springs from
• 3:16:58
  behind and turns his head aside as he strikes, for he is full of
• 3:17:03
  fear. If man looked at him, he would run. But on his
• 3:17:09
  one night he goes openly down to the village. He walks between the houses
• 3:17:13
  and thrusts his head into the doorway, and the men fall on their faces,
• 3:17:18
  and there he does his kill, one kill in that night, Oh,
• 3:17:26
  said Mowgli to himself, rolling over in the water. Now I see
• 3:17:31
  why it was sharr Khan made me look at him. He got no good
• 3:17:35
  of it, for he could not hold his eyes steady. And I certainly
• 3:17:41
  did not fall down at his feet. But then I am not a man
• 3:17:45
  being of the free people, said Baghira, deep in his furry throat.
• 3:17:50
  Does the tiger know his night? Never till the jackal of the moon stands
• 3:17:56
  clear of the evening mist. Sometimes it falls in the dry summer, and
• 3:18:01
  sometimes in the wet rains. This one night of the tiger. But for
• 3:18:07
  the first of the tigers, this would never have been, nor would any
• 3:18:11
  of us have known fear. The deer grunted sorrowfully, and bog Heerer's lips
• 3:18:18
  curled in a wicked smile. Do men know this tale? Said he?
• 3:18:26
  None know it except the tigers and we the elephants, the children of thought.
• 3:18:31
  Now ye by the pools have heard it, and I have spoken.
• 3:18:35
  Hathi dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not wish
• 3:18:41
  to talk. But but but said Mowgli, turning to Balu. Why did
• 3:18:46
  not the first of the tigers continue to eat grass and leaves and trees?
• 3:18:50
  He did but break the buck's neck? He did not eat what led him
• 3:18:54
  to the hot meat. The trees and the creepers marked him, little brother,
• 3:19:00
  and made him the striped thing that we see. Never again would he
• 3:19:05
  eat their fruit. But from that day he revenged himself upon the deer and
• 3:19:09
  the others, the eaters of grass, said Balu. Then thou knowest the
• 3:19:16
  tail? A? Why have I never heard? Because the jungle is full
• 3:19:22
  of such tails. If I made a beginning, there would never be an
• 3:19:26
  end to them. Let go, my ear, little brother, end of
• 3:19:33
  how fear came letting in the jungle. Veil them, cover them, wall
• 3:19:41
  them round, blossom and creeper and weed. Let us forget the sight of
• 3:19:48
  the sound, the smell, and the touch of the breed, fat,
• 3:19:52
  black ash. By the ultrastone, here is the whitefoot rain, and the
• 3:19:58
  does bring forth in the fields on sown, and none shall affright them again.
• 3:20:03
  And the blind walls crumble, unknown or thrown, and none shall inhabit
• 3:20:09
  again. You will remember if you have read the tales in the first Jungle
• 3:20:16
  Book, that after Mowgli had pinned sharr Khan's hide to the council rock,
• 3:20:22
  he told as many as were left of the seOne pack that henceforth he would
• 3:20:28
  hunt in the jungle alone, And the four children of Mother and Father Wolf
• 3:20:33
  said that they would hunt with him. But it is not easy to change
• 3:20:37
  one's life all in a minute, particularly in the jungle. The first thing
• 3:20:43
  Mowgli did when the disorderly pack had slunk off was to go to the home
• 3:20:48
  cave and sleep for a day and a night. Then he told Mother Wolf
• 3:20:54
  and Father Wolf as much as they could understand of his adventures among men.
• 3:20:58
  And when he made the morning sun flicker up and down the blade of his
• 3:21:03
  skinny knife, the same he has skinned to share Khan with, they said
• 3:21:07
  he had learned something. Then Akila and Gray Brother had to explain their share
• 3:21:13
  of the great buffalo drive in the ravine, and balw toiled up the hill
• 3:21:18
  to hear all about it, and Bagheira scratched himself all over with pure delight
• 3:21:24
  at the way in which Mowgli had managed his war. It was long after
• 3:21:28
  sunrise but no one dreamed of going to sleep, And from time to time
• 3:21:33
  during the talk, mother Wolf would throw up her head and sniff a deep
• 3:21:39
  snuff of satisfaction as the wind brought her the smell of the tiger skin on
• 3:21:43
  the council rock. But for Akila and Gray brother here, Mowgli said,
• 3:21:50
  at the end, I could have done nothing, oh mother mother, if
• 3:21:54
  thou hast seen the black herd bulls pour down the ravine or hurry through the
• 3:22:01
  gates when the man packed flung stones at me, I am glad I did
• 3:22:05
  not see that last, said Mother Wolf stiffly. It is not my custom
• 3:22:11
  to suffer my cubs to be driven to and fro like jackals. I would
• 3:22:16
  have taken a price from the man pack. But I would have spared the
• 3:22:20
  woman who gave thee the milk. Yes, I would have spared her alone.
• 3:22:24
  Peace peace, Rokshaw, said father Wolf lazily. Our frog has come
• 3:22:31
  back again, so wise that his own father must lick his feet. And
• 3:22:37
  what is a cut more or less of the head. Leave men alone.
• 3:22:43
  Baloo and Bagheera both echoed, leave men alone. Mowgli, his head on
• 3:22:50
  Mother Wolf's side, smiled contentedly, and said that for his own part,
• 3:22:56
  he never wished to see, or hear or smell man again. But what
• 3:23:03
  said Aquila, cocking one ear. But what if men do not leave thee
• 3:23:07
  alone? Little brother, we be five, said gray brother, looking round
• 3:23:15
  at the company and snapping his jaws on the last word. We also might
• 3:23:20
  attend to that hunting, said Bakhira, with a little switch switch of his
• 3:23:24
  tail, looking at Balu. But why think of men now, Aquila?
• 3:23:30
  For this reason, the lone wolf answered, When that yellow thief's hide was
• 3:23:35
  hung up on the rock, I went back along our trail to the village,
• 3:23:39
  stepping in my tracks, turning aside, and laying down to make a
• 3:23:45
  mixed trail in case one should follow us. But when I had fouled the
• 3:23:50
  trail so that I myself hardly knew it again, Mang the bat came hawking
• 3:23:54
  between the trees and hung up above me, said Mang the man pack where
• 3:24:01
  they cast out the man cub hums like a hornet's nest. It was a
• 3:24:07
  big stone that I threw, chuckled Mowgli, who had often amused himself by
• 3:24:11
  throwing ripe papaws into a hornet's nest, and racing off to the nearest pool
• 3:24:16
  before the hornets caught him. I asked of mang what he had seen.
• 3:24:22
  He said, the red flower blossomed at the gate of the village, and
• 3:24:26
  men sat about it carrying guns. Now I know, for I have good
• 3:24:31
  cause. Akuila looked down at the old dry scores on his flank, inside
• 3:24:37
  that men do not carry guns for pleasure. Presently, little brother, a
• 3:24:43
  man with a gun follows our trail, if indeed he be not already on
• 3:24:48
  it. But why should he? Men have cast me out? What more
• 3:24:54
  do they need? Said Mowgli angrily. Thou art a man, little brother,
• 3:25:01
  Aquila returned. It is not for us, the free hunters, to
• 3:25:05
  tell thee what thy brethren do or why he had just time to snatch up
• 3:25:13
  his paw as the skinning knife cut deep into the ground below. Mowgli struck
• 3:25:18
  quicker than an average human eye could follow. But Akila was a wolf,
• 3:25:22
  and even a dog who is very far removed from the wild wolf his ancestor,
• 3:25:28
  can be waked out of deep sleep by a court wheel touching his flank,
• 3:25:33
  and can spring away unharmed before that wheel comes on another time, Mowgli
• 3:25:39
  said quietly returning the knife to its sheath. Speak of the man pack and
• 3:25:45
  of Moguli in two breaths, not one pooh. That is a sharp tooth,
• 3:25:52
  said Akila, snuffling at the blades cut in the earth. But living
• 3:25:58
  with the man pack has spoiled thine little brother. I could have killed the
• 3:26:01
  buck while thou wast striking. Bakhira sprang to his feet, thrust up his
• 3:26:07
  head as far as he could, sniffed, and stiffened through every curve in
• 3:26:13
  his body. Gray brother followed his example, quickly, keeping a little to
• 3:26:20
  his left to get the wind that was blowing from the right. While Aquila
• 3:26:24
  bounded fifty yards upwind and half crouching stiffened to Mowgli looked on enviously. He
• 3:26:33
  could smell things as very few human beings could, but he had never reached
• 3:26:39
  the hair trigger like sensitiveness of a jungle nose, and his three months in
• 3:26:45
  the smoky village has set him back. Sadly, however, he dampened his
• 3:26:50
  finger, rubbed it on his nose, and stood erect to catch the upper
• 3:26:54
  scent, which, though it is the faintest, is the truest man.
• 3:27:01
  Aquila growled, dropping on his haunches. Bool Dao, said Mowgli, sitting
• 3:27:07
  down, He follows our trail, and yonder is the sunlight on his gun.
• 3:27:13
  Look, it was no more than a splash of sunlight for a fraction
• 3:27:18
  of a second on the brass clamps of the old tower musket. But nothing
• 3:27:24
  in the jungle winks with just that flash, except when the clouds race over
• 3:27:28
  the sky. Then a piece of mica, or a little pool, or
• 3:27:33
  even a highly polished leaf will flash like a heliograph. But that day was
• 3:27:39
  cloudless, and still I knew men would follow, said Akilah triumphantly. Not
• 3:27:48
  for nothing have I led the pack. The four cubs said nothing, but
• 3:27:52
  ran down hill on their bellies, melting into the thorn and underbrush as a
• 3:27:58
  mole melts into a lawn. Where go ye? And without word, Mowgli
• 3:28:05
  called, hush, we roll his skull here before midday. Gray brother answered
• 3:28:11
  back back and wait, man does not eat man. Mowgli shrieked, who
• 3:28:18
  was a wolf? But now who drove the knife in me? For thinking
• 3:28:22
  he might be man? Said Aquila, as the four wolves turned back sullenly
• 3:28:26
  and dropped to heel am I to give a reason for all I choose to
• 3:28:31
  do, said Mowgli furiously. That is man. There speaks man bag Hira
• 3:28:41
  muttered under his whiskers. Even so did men talk round the king's cages at
• 3:28:48
  eau deport We of the jungle know that man is wisest of all. If
• 3:28:52
  we trusted our ears, we should know that of all things, he is
• 3:28:58
  most foolish. Raising his voice, he added, the man cub is right
• 3:29:05
  in this. Men hunt in packs to kill one unless we know what the
• 3:29:09
  others will do is bad hunting. Come let us see what this man means
• 3:29:16
  toward us. We will not come, Gray brother, growled, Hunt alone,
• 3:29:22
  little brother. We know our own minds. That skull would have been
• 3:29:28
  ready to bring By now Mowgli had been looking from one to the other of
• 3:29:33
  his friends, his chest heaving and his eyes full of tears. He strode
• 3:29:39
  forward to the wolves, and, dropping on one knee, said, do
• 3:29:43
  I not know my mind? Look at me? They looked uneasily, and
• 3:29:48
  when their eyes wondered, he called them back again and again, till their
• 3:29:54
  hair stood up all over their bodies, and they trembled in every limb,
• 3:29:58
  while Mowgli he stared and stared now, said he of us five, which
• 3:30:05
  is the leader? Thou art leader, little brother, said Gray Brother,
• 3:30:11
  and he licked Mowgli's foot. Follow then, said Mowgli, and the four
• 3:30:16
  followed at his heels, with their tails between their legs. This comes of
• 3:30:22
  living with the man pack, said Baghira, slipping down after them. There
• 3:30:28
  is more in the jungle now than jungle law. Balu, the old bear
• 3:30:33
  said nothing, but he thought many things. Mowgli cut across noiselessly through the
• 3:30:41
  jungle at right angles to Buldeo's path, till parting the undergrowth, he saw
• 3:30:46
  the old man, his musket on his shoulder, running up the trail of
• 3:30:52
  Overnight at a dog trot. You will remember that Mowgli had left the village
• 3:30:58
  with the heavy weight of sharr Khan's raw hide on his shoulders, while Akila
• 3:31:01
  and Gray Brother trotted behind, so that the triple trail was very clearly marked.
• 3:31:09
  Presently, Buldeo came to where Aquila, as you know, had gone
• 3:31:13
  back and mixed it all up. Then he sat down and coughed and grunted,
• 3:31:20
  and made little casts round and about into the jungle to pick it up
• 3:31:24
  again, and all the time, he could have thrown a stone over those
• 3:31:28
  who were watching him. No one can be so silent as a wolf when
• 3:31:33
  he does not care to be heard. And Mowgli, though the wolves thought
• 3:31:37
  he moved very clumsily, could come and go like a shadow. They ringed
• 3:31:45
  the old man as a school of porpoises rang a steamer at full speed.
• 3:31:50
  And as they ringed him, they talked unconcernedly, for their speech began below
• 3:31:54
  the lowest end of the scale that untrained human beings can hear. The other
• 3:32:00
  end is bounded by the high squeak of mang the bat, which very many
• 3:32:03
  people cannot catch at all. From that note, all the bird and bat
• 3:32:09
  and insect talk takes on. This is better than any kill, said Gray
• 3:32:13
  Brother, as Bulldeo stooped and peered and puffed. He looks like a lost
• 3:32:20
  pig in the jungles by the river. What does he say? Bulldeo was
• 3:32:24
  muttering savagely. Mowgli translated. He says that packs of wolves must have danced
• 3:32:31
  round me. He says that he never saw such a trail in his life.
• 3:32:37
  He says he is tired. He will be rusted before he picks it
• 3:32:43
  up. Again, said Baghira coolly, as he slipped round a tree trunk
• 3:32:48
  in the game of blind Man's buff that they were playing. Now, what
• 3:32:52
  does the lean thing do eat or blow smoke out of his mouth? Men
• 3:32:58
  always play with their maus, said Bogli. And the silent trailers saw the
• 3:33:03
  old man fill in light and puff at a water pipe, and they took
• 3:33:09
  good note of the smell of the tobacco, so as to be sure of
• 3:33:13
  Buldeo in the darkest night if necessary. Then a little knot of charcoal burners
• 3:33:20
  came down the path and naturally halted to speak to Buldeo, whose famous a
• 3:33:24
  hunter reached for at least twenty miles round. They all sat down and smoked,
• 3:33:31
  and Baghira and the others came up and watched, while Buldeo began to
• 3:33:35
  tell the story of Mowgli the devil child, from one end to another,
• 3:33:39
  with additions and inventions, how he himself had really killed sharr Khan, and
• 3:33:46
  how Mowgli had turned himself into a wolf and fought with him all the afternoon
• 3:33:52
  and changed into a boy again, and bewitched Buldeo's rifle so that the bullet
• 3:33:58
  turned the corner when he pointed it at Mowgli and killed one of Bulldeo's own
• 3:34:01
  buffaloes. And how the village, knowing him to be the bravest hunter in
• 3:34:07
  SciOne, had sent him out to kill this devil child. But meanwhile the
• 3:34:11
  village had got hold of Messua and her husband, who were undoubtedly the father
• 3:34:16
  and mother of this devil child, and had barricaded them in their own hut,
• 3:34:22
  and presently would torture them to make them confess they were witch and wizard,
• 3:34:26
  and then they would be burned to death. When said the charcoal burners,
• 3:34:31
  because they would very much like to be present at the ceremony, Buldeo
• 3:34:37
  said that nothing would be done till he returned, because the village wished him
• 3:34:41
  to kill the jungle boy first. After that they would dispose of Messua and
• 3:34:46
  her husband and divide their lands and buffaloes among the village. Messua's husband had
• 3:34:52
  some remarkably fine buffaloes too. It was an excellent thing to destroy wizard,
• 3:34:56
  Buldeo thought, and people who who entertained wolf children out of the jungle were
• 3:35:01
  clearly the worst kind of witches. But said the charcoal burners, what would
• 3:35:09
  happen if the English heard of it. The English, they had heard,
• 3:35:11
  were a perfectly mad people who would not let honest farmers kill witches in peace.
• 3:35:20
  Why, said Buldeo, the headman of the village, would report that
• 3:35:24
  Messua and her husband had died of snake bite. That was all arranged,
• 3:35:30
  and the only thing now was to kill the wolf child. They did not
• 3:35:33
  happen to have seen anything of such a creature. The charcoal burners looked round
• 3:35:39
  cautiously and thanked their stars. They had not, but they had no doubt
• 3:35:45
  that so brave a man as Buldeo would find him if anyone could. The
• 3:35:50
  sun was getting rather low, and they had an idea that they would push
• 3:35:54
  on to Buldeo's village and see that wicked witch. Said that though it was
• 3:36:01
  his duty to kill the devil child, he could not think of letting a
• 3:36:05
  party of unarmed men go through the jungle, which might produce the wolf demon
• 3:36:09
  at any minute without his escort. He therefore would accompany them, and if
• 3:36:16
  the sorcerer's child appeared, well, he would show them how the best hunter
• 3:36:22
  in SciOne dealt with such things. The Brahmin, he said, had given
• 3:36:26
  him a charm against the creature that made everything perfectly safe? What says he?
• 3:36:33
  What says he? What says he? The wolfs repeated every few minutes,
• 3:36:37
  and Mowgli translated until he came to the witch part of the story,
• 3:36:41
  which was a little beyond him. And then he said that the man and
• 3:36:46
  woman who had been so kind to him were trapped? Does man trap man?
• 3:36:52
  Said Bagheira, So he says, I cannot understand the talk. They
• 3:36:58
  are all mad together. What have Massua and her man to do with me
• 3:37:03
  that they should be put in a trap? And what is all this talk
• 3:37:05
  about the red flower? I must look to this. Whatever they would do
• 3:37:11
  to Bessua, they will not do till Budale returns. And so Mowgli thought
• 3:37:18
  hard, with his fingers playing round the haft of the skinny knife, while
• 3:37:24
  Bulldaloe and the charcoal burners went off very valiantly in single file. I am
• 3:37:30
  going hot foot back to the man pack, Mowgli said at last, And
• 3:37:35
  those said gray brother, looking hungrily after the brown backs of the charcoal burners,
• 3:37:43
  sing them home, said Mowgli with a grin. I do not wish
• 3:37:46
  them to be at the village gates till it is dark. Can ye hold
• 3:37:50
  them, gray brother bared his teeth in contempt. We can head them round
• 3:37:58
  and round in circles, like tell the goats. If I know men that
• 3:38:03
  I do not need sing to them a little lest they be lonely on the
• 3:38:07
  road. And gray brother, the song need not be of the sweetest.
• 3:38:13
  Go with them, Bagkhira, and help make that song. When the night
• 3:38:18
  is shut down, meet me by the village. Gray brother knows the place.
• 3:38:24
  It is no light hunting to work for a man cub. When shall
• 3:38:28
  I sleep? Said Bakhira, yawning, though his eyes showed that he was
• 3:38:33
  delighted with the amusement me to sing to naked men, But let us try.
• 3:38:41
  He lowered his head so that the sound would travel, and cried a
• 3:38:45
  long, long, good hunting a midnight call in the afternoon, which was
• 3:38:50
  quite awful enough to begin with. Mowgli heard it rumble and rise and fall
• 3:38:58
  and die off in a creepy sort of whine behind him, and laughed to
• 3:39:03
  himself. As he ran through the jungle, he could see the charcoal burners
• 3:39:07
  huddled in a knot. Old Buldeo's gun barrel waving like a banana leaf to
• 3:39:13
  every point of the compass at once. Then Gray Brother gave the Yalahai yalaha
• 3:39:20
  call for the buck driving. When the pack drives the nilghahai the big blue
• 3:39:26
  cow before them, and it seemed to come from the very ends of the
• 3:39:28
  earth, nearer and nearer and nearer, till it ended in a shriek,
• 3:39:35
  snapped off shart. The other three answered till even Mowgli could have vowed that
• 3:39:41
  the full pack was in full cry. And then they all broke into the
• 3:39:46
  magnificent morning song of the jungle, with every turn and flourish and grace.
• 3:39:52
  Note that a deep mouthed wolf of the pack knows this is a rough rendering
• 3:39:58
  of the song, but you must imagine what it sounds like when it breaks
• 3:40:01
  the afternoon hush of the jungle. One moment past our bodies cast no shadow
• 3:40:09
  on the plane, Now clear and black, they stride our track, and
• 3:40:13
  we run home again in morning hush. Each rock and bush stands hard and
• 3:40:20
  high and raw. Then give the call good rest to all that keep the
• 3:40:26
  jungle law. Now horn and pelt, our people's melt in covert to abide,
• 3:40:35
  now crouched and still to cave and hill. Our jungle barons glide,
• 3:40:41
  now stark and plane man's oxen strain that draw the new yoked plow now striped
• 3:40:48
  and dread. The dawn is red above the lit tallao. Ho get to
• 3:40:54
  lair. The sun's a flair behind the breathing grass and reeking through the young
• 3:41:01
  bamboo. The warning whispers pass by day, mate strange the woods. We
• 3:41:07
  range with blinking eyes, we scan, while down the skies the wild duck
• 3:41:13
  cries the day, the day to man. The dew is dried, that
• 3:41:18
  drenched our hide, or washed about our way, And where we drink the
• 3:41:22
  puddled bank is crisping into clay. The traitor dark gives up each mark of
• 3:41:30
  stretched and hooded claw. Then hear the call good rest to all that keep
• 3:41:37
  the jungle law. But no translation can give the effect of it, or
• 3:41:43
  the yelping scorn the fore through into every word of it. As they heard
• 3:41:48
  the trees crash, when the men hastily climbed up into the branches, and
• 3:41:52
  Bulldale began repeating incantations and charms. Then they lay down and slept far.
• 3:42:00
  Like all who lived by their own exertions, they were of a methodical cast
• 3:42:03
  of mind, and no one can work well without sleep. Meanwhile, Mowgli
• 3:42:09
  was putting the miles behind him, nine to the hour, swinging on,
• 3:42:15
  delighted to find himself so fit after all his cramped months among men. The
• 3:42:20
  one idea in his head was to get Messua and her husband out of the
• 3:42:24
  trap, whatever it was, for he had a natural mistrust of traps.
• 3:42:31
  Later on, he promised himself he would pay his debts to the village at
• 3:42:35
  large. It was twilight when he saw the well remembered grazing grounds and the
• 3:42:41
  hok tree, where Gray Brother had waited for him on the morning that he
• 3:42:45
  killed sharr Khan. Angry as he was at the whole breed and community of
• 3:42:52
  man, something jumped up in his throat and made him catch his breath.
• 3:42:56
  When he looked at the village roofs, he noticed that everyone had come in
• 3:43:01
  from the fields unusually early, and that instead of getting to their evening cooking,
• 3:43:07
  they gathered in a crowd under the village tree and chattered and shouted.
• 3:43:13
  Men must always be making traps for men, or they are not content,
• 3:43:18
  said Mowgli. Last night, it was Mowgli, But that night seems many
• 3:43:24
  rains ago. Tonight, it is Messua and her man tomorrow, and for
• 3:43:30
  many nights after it will be Mowgli's turn again. He crept along outside the
• 3:43:37
  wall till he came to Messua's hut and looked through the window into the room.
• 3:43:43
  There lay Massa, gagged and bound hand and foot, breathing hard and
• 3:43:50
  groaning. Her husband was tied to the gaily painted bedstead. The door of
• 3:43:56
  the hut that opened into the street was shut fast, and three or four
• 3:44:00
  people were sitting with their backs to it. Mowgli knew the manners and customs
• 3:44:05
  of the village very fairly. He argued that so long as they could eat
• 3:44:11
  and talk and smoke, they would not do anything else. But as soon
• 3:44:16
  as they had fed, they would begin to be dangerous. Bulldeo would be
• 3:44:22
  coming in before long, and if his escort had done its duty, Buldeo
• 3:44:26
  would have a very interesting tale to tell. So he went in through the
• 3:44:31
  window, and, stooping over, the man and the woman cut their thongs,
• 3:44:35
  pulling out the gags, and looked round the hut for some milk.
• 3:44:39
  Massua was half wild with pain and fear. She had been beaten and stoned
• 3:44:46
  all the morning and Mowgli put his hand over her mouth just in time to
• 3:44:50
  stop a scream. Her husband was only bewildered and angry, and sat picking
• 3:44:56
  dust and things out of his torn beard. I knew, I knew he
• 3:45:01
  would come, missus, sobbed at last. Now do I know that he
• 3:45:07
  is my son? And she hugged Mowgli to her heart. Up to that
• 3:45:13
  time, Mowgli had been perfectly steady, but now he began to tremble all
• 3:45:18
  over, and that surprised him immensely. Why are these thongs? Why have
• 3:45:24
  they tied thee? He asked, after a pause, to be put to
• 3:45:28
  the death for making a son of thee? What else? Said the man?
• 3:45:33
  Sullenly look I bleed. Messua said nothing. But it was at her
• 3:45:39
  wounds that Mowgli looked, and they heard him grit his teeth when he saw
• 3:45:45
  the blood. Whose work is this? Said he? There is a price
• 3:45:50
  to pay the work of all the village. I was too rich, I
• 3:45:54
  had too many cattle. Therefore she and I are witches because we gave thee
• 3:46:00
  shelter. I do not understand. Let Massua tell the tale. I gave
• 3:46:05
  thee milk Nathu dost thou remember, Massu said timidly, because thou wast my
• 3:46:13
  son whom the tiger took, and because I loved thee very dearly. They
• 3:46:18
  said that I was thy mother, the mother of a devil, and therefore
• 3:46:22
  worthy of death. And what is a devil? Said Mowgli, death I
• 3:46:30
  have seen. The man looked up gloomily, but Massua laughed. See.
• 3:46:35
  She said to her husband, I knew, I said that he was no
• 3:46:39
  sorcerer. He is my son, my son, son or sorcerer. What
• 3:46:46
  good will that do us? The man answered, we be as dead already.
• 3:46:52
  Yonder is the road to the jungle. Mowgli pointed through the window.
• 3:46:56
  Your hands and feet are free. Go now. We do not know the
• 3:47:01
  jungle, my son, as as thou knowest Massieua began. I do not
• 3:47:05
  think that I could walk for and the men and women would be upon our
• 3:47:11
  backs and drag us here again, said the husband. HM said Mowgli,
• 3:47:18
  and he tickled the palm of his hand with the tip of his skinny knife.
• 3:47:22
  I have no wish to do harm to any one of this village yet,
• 3:47:28
  but I do not think they will stay thee in a little while,
• 3:47:33
  they will have much else to think upon. Ah. He lifted his head
• 3:47:37
  and listened to shouting and tramping outside. So they have let Buldeo come home
• 3:47:43
  at last. He was sent out this morning to kill thee. Basua cried,
• 3:47:48
  didst thou meet him? Yes, we I met him. He has
• 3:47:54
  a tale to tell, and while he is telling it, there is time
• 3:47:58
  to do much. But first I will learn what they mean. Think where
• 3:48:03
  ye could go and tell me when I come back. He bounded through the
• 3:48:09
  window and ran along again outside the wall of the village till he came with
• 3:48:13
  an earshot of the crowd round the peepool tree. Buldeo was lying on the
• 3:48:18
  ground, coughing and groaning, and everyone was asking him questions. His hair
• 3:48:24
  had fallen about his shoulders, his hands and legs were skinned from climbing up
• 3:48:30
  trees, and he could hardly speak, but he felt the importance of his
• 3:48:35
  position keenly. From time to time he said something about devils and singing devils
• 3:48:41
  and magic enchantment, just to give the crowd a taste of what was coming.
• 3:48:46
  Then he called for water. Bah said Mowgli chatter, chatter, talk
• 3:48:52
  talk. Men are blood brothers of the bunderlog. Now he must wash his
• 3:48:58
  mouth with water. Now he must blow smoke. And when all that is
• 3:49:03
  done, he has still his story to tell. They are very wise people
• 3:49:09
  men. They leave no one to guard Messua till their ears are stuffed with
• 3:49:15
  Buldeo's tails. And I grow as lazy as they. He shook himself and
• 3:49:22
  glided back to the hut. Just as he was at the window, he
• 3:49:26
  felt a touch on his foot. Mother said he for he knew that tongue.
• 3:49:31
  Well, what dost thou hear? I heard my children singing through the
• 3:49:35
  woods, and I followed the one I loved best, little frog. I
• 3:49:39
  have a desire to see that woman who gave thee milk, said mother Wolf.
• 3:49:43
  All wet with the dew, they have bound and mean to kill her.
• 3:49:48
  I have cut those ties, and she goes with her man through the
• 3:49:52
  jungle. I also will follow. I am old, but not yet toothless.
• 3:50:00
  The wolf reared herself up on end and looked through the window into the
• 3:50:03
  dark of the hut. In a minute, she dropped noiselessly, and all
• 3:50:09
  she said was I gave thee thy first milk. But Baghira speaks the truth.
• 3:50:16
  Man goes to man at the last, maybe, said Mowgli, with
• 3:50:22
  a very unpleasant look on his face. But tonight I am very far from
• 3:50:26
  that trail. Wait here. But do not let her see thou wast never
• 3:50:31
  afraid of me, little frog, said mother Wolf, backing into the high
• 3:50:37
  grass and blotting herself out as she knew how. And now said Mowgli cheerfully,
• 3:50:43
  as he swung into the hut again. They are all sitting around Buldeo,
• 3:50:48
  who was saying that which did not happen. When his talk is finished,
• 3:50:54
  they say they will assuredly come here with the red with fire and burn
• 3:50:58
  you both. And then I have spoken to my man, said Messua.
• 3:51:05
  Kanhiwara is thirty miles from here. But at Kanhiwara we may find the English.
• 3:51:09
  And what pack are they said Mowgli. I do not know. They
• 3:51:16
  be white, and it is said that they govern all the land and do
• 3:51:20
  not suffer people to burn or beat each other without witnesses. If we can
• 3:51:24
  get thither to night, we live, otherwise we die. Live. Then
• 3:51:31
  no man passes the gates to night. But what does he do? Messua's
• 3:51:37
  husband was on his hands and knees, digging up the earth in one corner
• 3:51:41
  of the hut. It is his little money, said Massua. We can
• 3:51:46
  take nothing else. Ah, yes, the stuff that passes from hand to
• 3:51:52
  hand and never grows warmer. Do they need it outside this place? Also
• 3:51:58
  said Mowgli the man, and stared angrily. He is a fool and no
• 3:52:03
  devil, he muttered. With the money, I can buy a horse.
• 3:52:07
  We are two bruised to walk far, and the village will follow us in
• 3:52:11
  an hour. I say they will not follow till I choose. But the
• 3:52:18
  horse is well thought of, for Masua is tired. Her husband stood up
• 3:52:22
  and nodded the last of the rupees into his waistcloth. Mowgli helped Masua through
• 3:52:28
  the window, and the cool night air revived her. But the jungle in
• 3:52:33
  the starlight looked very dark and terrible. Ye know the trail to Kanhiwara,
• 3:52:39
  Mowgli whispered. They nodded, good. Remember now not to be afraid,
• 3:52:48
  and there is no need to go quickly. Only only there may be some
• 3:52:52
  small singing in the jungle behind you. And before think you, we would
• 3:52:58
  have risked all night in the jungle through anything less than fear of burning.
• 3:53:03
  It is better to be killed by beasts than by men, said Missua's husband.
• 3:53:07
  But Masiua looked at Mowgli and smiled. I say, Mowgli went on
• 3:53:13
  just as though he were baloo, repeating an old jungle law for the hundredth
• 3:53:20
  time to a foolish cub. I say that not a tooth in the jungle
• 3:53:26
  is bared against you, not a foot in the jungle is lifted against you.
• 3:53:31
  Neither man nor beast shall stay you till ye come with an eye shot
• 3:53:35
  of kanhiwara. There will be a watch about you. He turned quickly to
• 3:53:41
  Massua, saying he does not believe, But thou wilt believe. Ay,
• 3:53:46
  surely, my son man ghosts are wolf of the jungle. I believe he
• 3:53:54
  will be afraid when he hears my people singing. Thou wilt know and understand.
• 3:54:00
  Go now and slowly, for there is no need of any haste.
• 3:54:03
  The gates are shut. Masua flung herself sobbing at Mowgli's feet, but he
• 3:54:11
  lifted her very quickly with a shiver. Then she hung about his neck and
• 3:54:16
  called him every name of blessing she could think of. But her husband looked
• 3:54:20
  enviously across his fields, and said, if we reach Kanhiwara and I get
• 3:54:28
  the ear of the English, I will bring such a lawsuit against the Brahmin
• 3:54:31
  and Old Buldeo and the others as shall eat the village to the bone.
• 3:54:37
  They shall pay me twice over for my crops untilled and my buffaloes unfed.
• 3:54:43
  I will have a great justice. Mowgli laughed, humph, I do not
• 3:54:50
  know what justice is. But come next rains and see what is left.
• 3:54:58
  They went off toward the jungle, and mother Wolf leaped from her place of
• 3:55:01
  hiding. Follow said Mowgli, and looked to it that all the jungle knows
• 3:55:07
  these two are safe. Give tongue a little, I would call Baghira.
• 3:55:13
  The long low howl rose and fell, and Mowgli saw Messua's husband flinch and
• 3:55:20
  turn half minded to run back to the hut. Go on, Mowgli called,
• 3:55:26
  cheerfully. I said there might be singing. The call will follow up
• 3:55:31
  to Kanhiwara. It is favor of the jungle. Massua urged her husband forward,
• 3:55:39
  and the darkness of the jungle shut down on them and mother Wolf as
• 3:55:43
  Baghira rose up almost under Mowgli's feet trembling with the light of a knight that
• 3:55:48
  drives the jungle people wild. I am ashamed of thy brother, And he
• 3:55:54
  said, purring, What did they not sing sweetly to Budeo, said Mowgli
• 3:56:01
  too well, Too well, they made even me forget my pride, And
• 3:56:09
  by the broken lock that freed me, I went singing through the jungle as
• 3:56:13
  though I were out wooing in the spring. Didst thou not hear us?
• 3:56:18
  I had other game of foot? Ask Bulldeo if he liked the song?
• 3:56:22
  But where are the four? I do not wish one of the man packed
• 3:56:28
  to leave the gates tonight? What need of the fore? Then said Bagheira,
• 3:56:33
  shifting from foot to foot, his eyes ablaze and purring louder than ever
• 3:56:39
  I can hold them? Little brother? Is it killing? At last?
• 3:56:46
  The singing and the sight of the men climbing up the trees have made me
• 3:56:50
  very ready? What is man that we should care for him? The naked,
• 3:56:54
  brown digger, the hairless and toothless, the eacher of earth? I
• 3:57:01
  have followed him all day. At noon, in the white sunlight, I
• 3:57:05
  herded him as the wolves heard buck. I am Bodhira, Boghira, Bogghira.
• 3:57:15
  As I dance with my shadow, so danced I with those men.
• 3:57:20
  Look, the great panther leaped as a kitten leaps at a dead leaf,
• 3:57:26
  whirling overhead, struck left and right into the empty air that sung under the
• 3:57:31
  strokes, landed noiselessly, and leaped again and again, while the half purr,
• 3:57:37
  half growl gathered head as steam rumbles in a boiler. I am Boghira
• 3:57:45
  in the jungle in the night, and all my strength is in me.
• 3:57:50
  Who shall stay my stroke? Man cub, With one blow of my paw,
• 3:57:56
  I could beat thy head flat as a dead frog in the sun summer
• 3:58:01
  strike, then said Mowgli, in the dialect of the village, not the
• 3:58:07
  talk of the jungle, and the human words brought bag Hero to a full
• 3:58:11
  stop, flung back on haunches that quivered under him, his head just at
• 3:58:16
  the level of Mowgli's. Once more, Mowgli stared as he had stared at
• 3:58:22
  the rebellious cubs, full into the barrel, green eyes, till the red
• 3:58:28
  glare behind their green went out like the light of a lighthouse shut off.
• 3:58:33
  Twenty miles across the sea till the eyes dropped, and the big head with
• 3:58:37
  them dropped lower and lower, and the red rasp of a tongue grated on
• 3:58:43
  Mowgli's instep. Brother, Brother, Brother, the boy whispered, stroking steadily
• 3:58:52
  and lightly from the neck along the heaving back. Be still, be still.
• 3:58:58
  It is the fault of the night, in no fault of thine.
• 3:59:01
  It was the smells of the night, said Bakhira penitently. This air ries
• 3:59:09
  aloud to me. But how dost thou know? Of course, the air
• 3:59:15
  round an Indian village is full of all kinds of smells, and to any
• 3:59:20
  creature who does nearly all his thinking through his nose, smells are as maddening
• 3:59:24
  as music and drugs are to human beings. Mowgli gentled the panther for a
• 3:59:31
  few minutes longer, and he lay down like a cat before a fire,
• 3:59:35
  his paws tucked under his breast and his eyes half shut. Thou art of
• 3:59:41
  the jungle, and not of the jungle, he said at last, And
• 3:59:45
  I am only a black panther, but I love thee little brother. They
• 3:59:52
  are very long at their talk under the tree, Mowgli said, without noticing
• 3:59:54
  the last sentence. Buldeo must have told many tales. They should come soon
• 4:00:01
  to drag the woman and her man out of the trap and put them into
• 4:00:05
  the red flower. They will find that trap sprung. Ho ho, nay,
• 4:00:13
  listen, said Baghira. The fever is out of my blood. Now
• 4:00:18
  let them find me there. Few would leave their houses after meeting me.
• 4:00:26
  It is not the first time I have been in a cage, and I
• 4:00:31
  do not think they will tie me with cords. Ha be wise, then,
• 4:00:35
  said Mowgli, laughing, for he was beginning to feel as reckless as
• 4:00:39
  the panther who had glided into the hut Tah. Baghira grunted. This place
• 4:00:46
  is rank with man, But here is just such a bed as they gave
• 4:00:52
  me to lie upon in the king's cages at aaud deport. Now I lie
• 4:00:56
  down, Mowgli. Heard the strings of the cot crack under the great Brute's
• 4:01:03
  weight. By the broken lock that freed me, they will think they have
• 4:01:09
  caught big game. Come and sit beside me, little brother. We will
• 4:01:15
  give them good hunting together. No, I have another thought in my stomach.
• 4:01:22
  The man pac shall not know what share I have in the sport.
• 4:01:26
  Make thine own hunt. I do not wish to see them be it,
• 4:01:30
  so said Baghira. Ah, now they come. The conference under the peapole
• 4:01:39
  tree had been growing noisier and noisier at the far end of the village.
• 4:01:45
  It broke in wild yells and a rush up the street of men and women,
• 4:01:50
  waving clubs and bamboos and sickles and knives. Buldeo and the Brahmin were
• 4:01:56
  at the head of it, but the mob was close at their heels,
• 4:01:58
  and they cried the witch and the wizard. Let us see if hot coins
• 4:02:03
  will make them confess, burn the hut over their heads. We will teach
• 4:02:09
  them to shelter wolf devils. Nay, beat them first, torches, more
• 4:02:13
  torches, Baldeo, heat the gun barrels. Here was some little difficulty with
• 4:02:20
  the catch of the door. It had been very firmly fastened, but the
• 4:02:24
  crowd tore it away bodily, and the light of the torches streamed into the
• 4:02:28
  room, where, stretched at full length on the bed, his paws crossed
• 4:02:35
  and lightly hung down over one end. Black as the pit and terrible as
• 4:02:39
  a demon, was Boghira. There was one half minute of desperate silence as
• 4:02:48
  the front ranks of the crowd clawed and tore their way back from the threshold,
• 4:02:52
  And in that minute Boghira raised his head and yawned, i elaborately,
• 4:03:01
  carefully and ostentatiously, as he would yawn when he wished to insult an equal.
• 4:03:07
  The fringed lips drew back and up, the red tongue curled, the
• 4:03:13
  lower jaw dropped and dropped till you could see half way down the hot gullet,
• 4:03:18
  and the gigantic dog teeth stood clear to the pit of the gums,
• 4:03:22
  till they rang together upper and under with a snick of steel, faced wards,
• 4:03:28
  shooting home round the edges of a safe Next instant, the street was
• 4:03:35
  empty. Baghira had leaped back through the window and stood at Mowgli's side,
• 4:03:41
  while a yelling, screaming torrent scrambled and tumbled one over another in their panic
• 4:03:46
  haste to get to their own huts. They will not stir till day comes,
• 4:03:54
  said Bakhira quietly. And now and of the afternoon's sleep seemed to have
• 4:04:01
  overtaken the village. But as they listened, they could hear the sound of
• 4:04:05
  heavy grain boxes being dragged over earthen floors. And set down against doors.
• 4:04:13
  Boghira was quite right. The village would not stir till daylight. Mowgli sat
• 4:04:18
  still in thought, and his face grew darker and darker. What have I
• 4:04:26
  done, said Baghira at last, coming to his feet fawning, nothing but
• 4:04:33
  great good, Watch them now till the day I sleep. Mogli ran off
• 4:04:39
  into the jungle and dropped like a dead man across a rock, and slept
• 4:04:43
  and slept the day round and the night back again. When he waked,
• 4:04:48
  Boghira was at his side, and there was a newly killed buck at his
• 4:04:52
  feet. Baghira watched curiously while Mowgli went to work with his skinny knife,
• 4:04:58
  ate drank and turned over with his chin in his hands. The man and
• 4:05:05
  the woman are come safe. With an eye shot of Kanhiwara, Baghira said,
• 4:05:11
  Thy lair mother sent the word back by chill the kite. They found
• 4:05:15
  a horse before midnight of the night. They were freed and went very quickly.
• 4:05:20
  Is not that well? That is well, said Mowgli, and thy
• 4:05:26
  man. Pack in the village did not stir till the sun was high this
• 4:05:30
  morning. Then they ate their food and ran back quickly. To their houses.
• 4:05:35
  Did they by chance see thee? It may have been I was rolling
• 4:05:43
  in the dust before the gate at dawn, and I may have made some
• 4:05:48
  small song to myself. Now, little brother, there is nothing more to
• 4:05:54
  do. Come hunting with me and balow. He has new hives that he
• 4:05:58
  wished to show, and we all desire thee back again as of old.
• 4:06:03
  Take off that look which makes even me afraid. The man and woman will
• 4:06:09
  not be put into the red flower, and all goes well in the jungle.
• 4:06:13
  Is it not true? Let us forget the man pack? They shall
• 4:06:18
  be forgotten in a little while. Where does Hathi feed tonight? Where he
• 4:06:24
  chooses? Who can answer for the silent one? But why what is there
• 4:06:31
  Hathi can do which we cannot bid him? And his three sons come here
• 4:06:37
  to me. But indeed, and truly, little brother, it is not
• 4:06:43
  it is not seemly to say, come and go to Hathi. Remember he
• 4:06:48
  is the master of the jungle. And before the man pack, change the
• 4:06:52
  look on thy face. He taught thee the master words of the jungle.
• 4:06:58
  That is all one. I have a master word for him. Now bid
• 4:07:01
  him come to Mogli the frog, And if he does not hear it first
• 4:07:07
  bid him come because of the sack of the fields of Bhurtpoor. The sack
• 4:07:13
  of the fields of Bhurtpoor. Boghira repeated two or three times to make sure,
• 4:07:18
  I go Hathi, can but be angry at the worst, and I
• 4:07:24
  would give a moon's hunting to hear a master word that compels the silent one.
• 4:07:31
  He went away, leaving Mowgli stabbing furiously with his skinny knife into the
• 4:07:35
  earth. Mowgli had never seen human blood in his life before till he had
• 4:07:41
  seen, and what meant much more to him smelled Massua's blood on the thongs
• 4:07:46
  that bound her. And Massua had been kind to him, and so far
• 4:07:52
  as he knew anything about love, he loved Massua as completely as he hated
• 4:07:58
  the rest of mankind, but deeply as he loathed them their talk, their
• 4:08:03
  cruelty, and their cowardice. Not for anything the jungle had to offer,
• 4:08:07
  could he bring himself to take a human life and have that terrible scent of
• 4:08:13
  blood back again in his nostrils. His plan was simpler, but much more
• 4:08:20
  thorough, and he laughed to himself when he thought that it was one of
• 4:08:24
  old Buldeo's tales told under the people tree in the evening that had put the
• 4:08:28
  idea into his head. It was a master word, Baghira whispered in his
• 4:08:35
  ear. They were feeding by the river, and they obeyed as though they
• 4:08:39
  were bullocks. Look where they come now? Hathi and his three sons had
• 4:08:46
  arrived in their usual way without a sound. The mud of the river was
• 4:08:52
  still fresh on their flanks, and Hathi was thoughtfully chewing the green stem of
• 4:08:56
  a young plant in tree that he had got louged up with his tusks.
• 4:09:03
  But every line in his vast body showed two Bogheira, who could see things
• 4:09:07
  when he came across them, that it was not the master of the jungle
• 4:09:11
  speaking to a man cub, but one who was afraid coming before one who
• 4:09:18
  was not. His three sons rolled side by side behind their father. Mowgli
• 4:09:26
  hardly lifted his head as Hathi gave him good hunting. He kept him swinging
• 4:09:31
  and rocking and shifting from one foot to another for a long time before he
• 4:09:37
  spoke. And when he opened his mouth, it was to Bogherra, not
• 4:09:41
  to the elephants. I will tell a tale that was told to me by
• 4:09:48
  the hunter ye hunted today, said Mowgli. He concerns an elephant, old
• 4:09:54
  and wise, who fell into a trap, and the sharpened stake in the
• 4:09:58
  pit scored him from a little above his heel to the crest of his shoulder,
• 4:10:03
  leaving a white mark. Mowgli threw out his hand, and as Hathi
• 4:10:09
  wheeled, the moonlight showed a long white scar on his lady side, as
• 4:10:13
  though he had been struck with a red hot whip. Men came to take
• 4:10:18
  him from the trap. Mowgli continued, but he broke his ropes, for
• 4:10:24
  he was strong, and went away till his wound was healed. Then came
• 4:10:30
  he, angry by night, to the fields of those hunters. And I
• 4:10:35
  remember now that he had three sons. These things happened many many rains ago,
• 4:10:39
  and very far away among the fields of bhurtpoor. What came to those
• 4:10:46
  fields at the next reaping? Hathi? They were reaped by me and by
• 4:10:52
  my three sons, said Hathi. And to the plowing that follows the reaping,
• 4:10:56
  said Mowgli. There was no plowing, said Hathi. And to the
• 4:11:03
  men that live by the green crops on the ground, said Mogli. They
• 4:11:09
  went away and to the huts in which the men slept, said Mogli.
• 4:11:15
  We tore the roofs to pieces, and the jungles swallowed up the walls,
• 4:11:18
  said Hathi. And what more, said Mowgli. As much good ground as
• 4:11:26
  I can walk over in two nights, from the east to the west,
• 4:11:30
  and from the north to the south, as much as I can walk over
• 4:11:33
  in three nights. The jungle took we let in the jungle upon five villages,
• 4:11:41
  and in those villages and in their lands, the grazing ground and the
• 4:11:45
  soft crop grounds. There is not one man today who takes his food from
• 4:11:50
  the ground that was the sack of the fields of Bhurtpoor, which I and
• 4:11:56
  my three sons did. And now I am man cub. How the news
• 4:12:01
  of it came to thee, said Hathi. A man told me, And
• 4:12:07
  now I see even Buldeo can speak truth. It was well done, Hathi,
• 4:12:11
  with the white mark. But the second time it shall be done better,
• 4:12:16
  for the reason that there is a man to direct Thou knowest the village
• 4:12:22
  of the man pack that casts me out. They are idle, senseless and
• 4:12:26
  cruel. They play with their mouths, and they do not kill the weaker.
• 4:12:31
  For food, but for sport. When they are full fed, they
• 4:12:37
  would throw their own breed into the red flower. This I have seen.
• 4:12:43
  It is not well that they should live here anymore. I hate them.
• 4:12:48
  Kill, then, said the youngest of Hathi's three sons, picking up a
• 4:12:52
  tuft of grass, dusting it against his forelegs and throwing it away, while
• 4:12:58
  his little red eyes glanced furtively from side to side. What good are white
• 4:13:03
  bones to me? Mowgli answered angrily. Am I the cub of a wolf
• 4:13:09
  to play in the sun with a raw head? I have killed sheer Khan
• 4:13:15
  and his hide rots on the council rock, But but I do not know
• 4:13:20
  whither sharr Khan is gone, and my stomach is still empty. Now I
• 4:13:26
  will take that which I can see and touch, let in the jungle upon
• 4:13:31
  that village. Hathi Boghira shivered and cowered down. He could understand if the
• 4:13:39
  worst came to the worst, a quick rush down the village street and a
• 4:13:45
  right and left blow into a crowd, or a crafty killing of men as
• 4:13:48
  they plowed in the twilight. But this scheme for deliberately blotting out an entire
• 4:13:54
  village from the eyes of man and beast frightened him. Now he saw why
• 4:14:01
  Mowgli had called for Hathi. No one but the long lived elephant could plan
• 4:14:07
  and carry through such a war. Let them run as the men ran from
• 4:14:13
  the fields of Bhurtpoor, till we have the rain water for the only plow,
• 4:14:20
  and the noise of the rain on the thick leaves for the pattering of
• 4:14:22
  their spindles. Till Bakhira and I lair in the house of the Brahmin,
• 4:14:28
  and the buck drink at the tank behind the temple. Let in the jungle,
• 4:14:33
  Hathi. But I, but we have no quarrel with them, and
• 4:14:39
  it needs a red rage of great pain. Ere we tear down the places
• 4:14:43
  where men sleep, said Hathi. Doubtfully, are ye the only eaters of
• 4:14:50
  grass in the jungle? Drive in your peoples. Let the deer and the
• 4:14:54
  pig and the niogahi look to it. Ye need never show a hand's breadth
• 4:15:00
  of hide till the fields are naked. Let in the jungle, Hathi,
• 4:15:07
  there will be no killing. My tusks were red at the sock of the
• 4:15:11
  fields of Bhurtpoor, and I would not wake that smell again, Nor I
• 4:15:18
  I do not wish even their bones to lie on the clean earth. Let
• 4:15:22
  them go and find a fresh layer. They cannot stay here. I have
• 4:15:28
  seen and smell the blood of the woman that gave me food, the woman
• 4:15:33
  whom they would have killed. But for me. Only the smell of the
• 4:15:37
  new grass on their doorsteps can take away that smell. It burns in my
• 4:15:43
  mouth. Let in the jungle, hathi Ah said HATI. So did the
• 4:15:52
  scar of the stake burn on my hide till we watched the villages die under
• 4:15:58
  in the spring growth. Now I see thy war shall be our war.
• 4:16:06
  We will let in the jungle. Mowgli had hardly time to catch his breath.
• 4:16:11
  He was shaking all over with rage and hate. Before the place where
• 4:16:17
  the elephants had stood was empty, and Baghira was looking at him with terror.
• 4:16:22
  By the broken lock that freed me, said the black panther. At
• 4:16:26
  last, ort thou the naked thing I spoke for in the pack when all
• 4:16:30
  was young, Master of the jungle. When my strength goes, speak for
• 4:16:37
  me, speak for Ballu, speak for us. All we are cubs before
• 4:16:41
  thee snapped twigs underfoot, fawns that have lost their dough. The idea of
• 4:16:49
  Baghira being a stray fawn upset Mowgli altogether, and he laughed and caught his
• 4:16:56
  breath, and sobbed and laughed again till he had to jump into a pool
• 4:17:00
  to make himself stop. Then he swam round and round, ducking in and
• 4:17:07
  out of the bars of the moonlight, like the frog his namesake. By
• 4:17:11
  this time, Hathi and his three sons had turned each to one point of
• 4:17:15
  the compass and were striding silently down the valleys a mile away. They went
• 4:17:22
  on and on for two days March, that is to say, a long
• 4:17:26
  sixty miles through the jungle, and every step they took and every wave of
• 4:17:32
  their trunks was known and noted and talked over by Mang and Chill and the
• 4:17:37
  monkey people and all the birds. Then they began to feed, and fed
• 4:17:44
  quietly for a week or so. Hathi and his sons are like Ca the
• 4:17:48
  rock python. They never hurry till they have to. At the end of
• 4:17:55
  that time, and none knew who had started it, a rumor went through
• 4:18:00
  the jungle that there was better food and water to be found in such and
• 4:18:03
  such a valley. The pig, who of course will go to the ends
• 4:18:08
  of the earth for a full meal moved first by companies scuffling over the rocks,
• 4:18:14
  and the deer followed with the small wild foxes that live on the dead
• 4:18:18
  and dying of the herds, and the heavy shouldered nilgahi moved parallel with the
• 4:18:23
  deer, and the wild buffaloes of the swamp came after the nilgahi. The
• 4:18:30
  least little thing would have turned the scattered, straggling droves that grazed and sauntered,
• 4:18:36
  and drank and grazed again, but whenever there was an alarm, some
• 4:18:41
  one would rise up and soothe them. At one time it would be Sahi,
• 4:18:45
  the porcupine, full of news of good feed just a little further on,
• 4:18:51
  and another mong would cry cheerily and flap down a glade to show it
• 4:18:56
  was all empty, or bellow his mouth full of roots, which shambled alongside
• 4:19:02
  a wavery line and half frightened, half rumped clumsily back to the proper road.
• 4:19:10
  Very many creatures broke back, or ran away or lost interest, but
• 4:19:14
  very many were left to go forward. At the end of another ten days
• 4:19:18
  or so, the situation was this. The deer and the pig and the
• 4:19:23
  nilgahi were milling around and round in a circle of eight or ten mile radius,
• 4:19:29
  while the eaters of flesh skirmished round its edge. And the center of
• 4:19:33
  that circle was the village, and round the village the crops were ripening,
• 4:19:38
  and in the crops sat men on what they call monk chos, platforms like
• 4:19:44
  pigeon purchase made of sticks at the top of four poles, to scare away
• 4:19:48
  birds and other steelers. Then the deer were coaxed no more. The eaters
• 4:19:55
  of flesh were close behind them and forced them forward and inward. It was
• 4:20:00
  a dark night when Hathi and his three sons slipped down from the jungle and
• 4:20:04
  broke off the poles of the monchaks with their trunks. They fell as a
• 4:20:10
  snapped stalk of hemlock and bloom falls, and the men that tumbled from them
• 4:20:15
  heard the deep gurgling of the elephants in their ears. Then the vanguard of
• 4:20:21
  the bewildered armies of the deer broke down and flooded into the village grazing grounds
• 4:20:26
  and the plowed fields, and the sharp hoofed, rooting wild pigs came with
• 4:20:30
  them. And what the deer left the pig spoiled, and from time to
• 4:20:36
  time an alarm of wolves would shake the herds, and they would rush to
• 4:20:40
  and fro desperately, treading down the young barley and cutting flat the banks of
• 4:20:45
  the irrigating channels. Before the dawn broke, the pressure on the outside of
• 4:20:49
  the circle gave way. At one point, the eaters of flesh had fallen
• 4:20:53
  back and left an open path to the south, and drove upon drove of
• 4:20:59
  buck fled along it. Others who were bolder lay up in the thickets to
• 4:21:03
  finish their meal next night, but the work was practically done. When the
• 4:21:10
  villagers looked in the morning, they saw their crops were lost, and that
• 4:21:15
  meant death if they did not get away, For they lived year in and
• 4:21:19
  year out, as near to starvation as the jungle was near to them.
• 4:21:23
  When the buffaloes were sent to graze, the hungry brutes found that the deer
• 4:21:29
  had cleared the grazing grounds, and so wandered into the jungle and drifted off
• 4:21:33
  with their wild mates. And when twilight fell, the three or four ponies
• 4:21:38
  that belonged to the village lay in their stables with their heads beaten in.
• 4:21:44
  Only Boghira could have given those strokes, and only Boghira would have thought of
• 4:21:49
  insolently dragging the last carcass to the open street. The villagers had no heart
• 4:21:56
  to make fires in the fields that night, so Hathi and his three sons
• 4:22:00
  went gleaning among what was left, and were Hathi gleans, there was no
• 4:22:06
  need to follow. The men decided to live on their stored seed corn until
• 4:22:11
  the rains had fallen, and then to take work as servants till they could
• 4:22:15
  catch up with a lost year. But as the grain dealer was thinking of
• 4:22:19
  his well filled crates of corn and the prices he would levy at the sale
• 4:22:23
  of it, Hathi's sharp tusks were picking out the corner of his mudhouse and
• 4:22:30
  smashing open the big wicker chests leaped with cow dung where the precious stuff lay.
• 4:22:37
  When that last loss was discovered, it was the brahmin's turn to speak.
• 4:22:42
  He had prayed to his own gods without answer. It might be he
• 4:22:47
  said that unconsciously the village had offended some one of the gods of the jungle.
• 4:22:52
  For be undoubt, the jungle was against them. So they sent for
• 4:22:56
  the headman of the nearest tribe of wondering gods, little wise and very black
• 4:23:02
  hunters living in the deep jungle, whose fathers came of the oldest race in
• 4:23:07
  India, the aboriginal owners of the land. They made the god welcome with
• 4:23:14
  what they had, and he stood on one leg, his bow in his
• 4:23:18
  hand, and two or three poisoned arrows stuck through his top knot looking half
• 4:23:22
  afraid and half contemptuously at the anxious villagers and their ruined fields. They wished
• 4:23:30
  to know whether his gods, the old gods, were angry with them,
• 4:23:33
  and what sacrifices should be offered. The gond said nothing, but picked up
• 4:23:41
  a trail of the krilla, the vine that bears the bitter wild gourd,
• 4:23:45
  and laced it to and fro across the temple door in the face of the
• 4:23:48
  staring red Hindu image. Then he pushed with his hand in the open air
• 4:23:55
  along the road to Kanhiwara, and went back to his jungle and watched the
• 4:24:00
  jungle people drifting through it. He knew that when the jungle moves, only
• 4:24:07
  white men can hope to turn it aside. There was no need to ask
• 4:24:12
  his meaning. The wild gourd would grow where they had worshiped their god,
• 4:24:18
  and the sooner they saved themselves, the better but it is hard to tarry
• 4:24:23
  village from its moorings. They stayed on as long as any summer food was
• 4:24:30
  left to them, and they tried to gather nuts in the jungle, But
• 4:24:33
  shadows with glaring eyes watched them and roll before them even at midday, And
• 4:24:40
  when they ran back, afraid to their walls on the tree trunks they had
• 4:24:44
  passed not five minutes before the bark would be stripped and chiseled with the stroke
• 4:24:49
  of some great taloned paw. The more they kept to their village, the
• 4:24:55
  bolder grew the wild things that gamboled and bellowed on the grazing ground by the
• 4:25:00
  Waingunga. They had no time to patch and plaster the rear walls of the
• 4:25:04
  empty buyers that backed onto the jungle. The wild pig trampled them down,
• 4:25:11
  and the knotty rooted vines hurried after them and threw their elbows over the new
• 4:25:15
  one ground, and the coarse grass bristled behind the vines like the lances of
• 4:25:21
  a goblin army. Following a retreat, the unmarried men ran away first and
• 4:25:27
  carried the news far and near that the village was doomed. Who could fight,
• 4:25:33
  they said, against the jungle or the gods of the jungle. When
• 4:25:37
  the very village Cobra had left his hold in the platform under the peapole tree,
• 4:25:42
  so their little commerce with the outside world shrunk, as the trodden paths
• 4:25:48
  across the open grew fewer and fainter. At last, the nightly trumpetings of
• 4:25:53
  Hathi and his three sons ceased to trouble them, for they had no more
• 4:25:59
  to be robbed of the crop on the ground, and the seed in the
• 4:26:03
  ground had been taken. The outlying fields were already losing their shape, and
• 4:26:08
  it was time to throw themselves on the charity of the English. At Kanhiwara
• 4:26:15
  native fashion, they delayed their departure from one day to another till the first
• 4:26:19
  rains caught them, and the unmended roofs let in a flood, and the
• 4:26:23
  grazing ground stood ankle deep, and all life came on with a rush after
• 4:26:29
  the heat of the summer. Then they waded out, men, women and
• 4:26:34
  children through the blinding hot rain of the morning, but turned naturally for one
• 4:26:41
  farewell look at their homes. They heard. As the last burdened family filed
• 4:26:47
  through the gate, a crash of falling beams and thatch. Behind the walls.
• 4:26:53
  They saw a shiny, snaky black trunk lifted for an instant shadowing so
• 4:27:00
  sodden thatch. It disappeared, and there was another crash, followed by a
• 4:27:03
  squeal. Hathi had been plucking off the roofs of the huts as you pluck
• 4:27:08
  water lilies, and a rebounding beam had pricked him. He needed only this
• 4:27:15
  to unchain his full strength. Far, of all things in the jungle,
• 4:27:18
  the wild elephant and raged is the most wantonly destructive. He kicked backward out
• 4:27:26
  of mud wall that crumbled at the stroke, and crumbling melted to yellow mud
• 4:27:30
  under the torrent of rain. Then he wheeled and squealed and tore through the
• 4:27:37
  narrow streets, leaning against the huts right and left, shivering the crazy doors
• 4:27:42
  and crumpling up the eaves, while his three sons raged behind. As they
• 4:27:48
  raged at the sack of the fields of Bhartpourn, the jungle will swallow the
• 4:27:55
  shells, said a quiet voice in the wreckage. It is the outer wall
• 4:27:59
  that mus lie down. And Mowgli, with the reins sluicing over his bare
• 4:28:03
  shoulders and arms, leaped back from a wall that was settling like a tired
• 4:28:08
  buffalo, all in good time, panted hathi, Oh, but my tusks
• 4:28:17
  were red and bhurtpoor to the outer wall children with the head together. Now
• 4:28:26
  the four pushed side by side. The outer wall bulged, split and fell,
• 4:28:33
  and the villagers, dumb with horror, saw the savage, clay streaked
• 4:28:37
  heads of the wreckers in the ragged gap. Then they fled, houseless and
• 4:28:44
  foodless down the valley, as their village shredded and tossed and trampled melted behind
• 4:28:49
  them. A month later the place was a dimpled mound covered with soft green
• 4:28:57
  young stuff, and by the end of the rains there was the roaring jungle
• 4:29:02
  in full blast on the spot that had been on the plow not six months
• 4:29:07
  before end of letting in the jungle, red dog, for our white and
• 4:29:19
  our excellent nights, For the nights of swift running, fair ranging, foreseeing
• 4:29:25
  good hunting, sure cunning, for the smells of the dawning untainted ere dew
• 4:29:30
  has departed, for the rush through the mist and the quarry blinds started.
• 4:29:36
  For the cry of our mates, when the sambor has wheeled and is standing
• 4:29:40
  at bay, For the risk and the riot of night for the sleep at
• 4:29:44
  the layermouth. By day it is met and we go to the fight.
• 4:29:48
  Bay, oh Bay. It was after the letting in of the jungle that
• 4:29:57
  the pleasantest p of Mowgli's life began. He had the good conscience that comes
• 4:30:03
  from paying debts. All the jungle was his friend, and just a little
• 4:30:08
  afraid of him. The things that he did and saw and heard when he
• 4:30:12
  was wandering from one people to another, with or without his four companions,
• 4:30:18
  would make many many stories, each as long as this one, so you
• 4:30:22
  will never be told. How he met the mad elephant of Mandla, who
• 4:30:27
  killed two and twenty bullocks, drawing eleven carts of coin silver to the government
• 4:30:32
  treasury, and scattered the shiny rupees in the dust. How he fought Jakala
• 4:30:37
  the crocodile all one long night in the marshes of the north and broke his
• 4:30:44
  skinny knife on the brute's back plates. How he found a new and longer
• 4:30:48
  knife round the neck of a man who had been killed by a wild boar,
• 4:30:52
  And how he tracked that boar and killed him as fair price for the
• 4:30:56
  knife. How he was caught up once in the Great Famine by the moving
• 4:31:02
  of the deer and nearly crushed to death in the swaying hot herds. How
• 4:31:07
  he saved Hathi the Silent from being once more trapped in a pit with a
• 4:31:11
  steak at the bottom, And how next day he himself fell into a very
• 4:31:18
  cunning leopard trap, And how Hathi broke the thick wooden bars to pieces above
• 4:31:22
  him, how he milked the wild buffaloes in the swamp, and how But
• 4:31:27
  we must tell one tale. At a time, father and mother wolf died,
• 4:31:33
  and Mowgli rolled a big boulder against the mouth of their cave and cried
• 4:31:37
  the death song over them. Balu grew very old and stiff, and even
• 4:31:44
  Boghira, whose nerves were steel and whose muscles were iron, was a shade
• 4:31:49
  slower on the kill than he had been. Akilah turned from gray to milky
• 4:31:56
  white with pure age. His ribs struck out, and he walked as though
• 4:32:00
  he had been made of wood, and Mowgli killed for him. But the
• 4:32:04
  young wolves, the children of the disbanded seonee pack, throve and increased,
• 4:32:11
  and when there were about forty of them, masterless, full voiced, clean
• 4:32:17
  footed five year olds, Aquila told them that they ought to gather themselves together
• 4:32:22
  and follow the law and run under one head, as befitted the free people.
• 4:32:29
  This was not a question in which Mowgli concerned himself, for as he
• 4:32:33
  said, he had eaten sour fruit, and he knew the tree it hung
• 4:32:37
  from. But when Faul, son of Fauna, his father was the great
• 4:32:42
  tracker in the days of Aequila's headship, fought his way to the leadership of
• 4:32:48
  the pack according to the jungle law, and the old calls and songs began
• 4:32:52
  to ring under the stars. Once more, Mowgli came to the council rock.
• 4:32:56
  For memory's sake, he chose to speak. The pack waited till he
• 4:33:02
  had finished, and he sat at Akila's side on the rock above fail.
• 4:33:07
  Those were days of good hunting and good sleeping. No stranger cared to break
• 4:33:14
  into the jungles that belonged to Mowgli's people, as they called the pack,
• 4:33:18
  and the young wolves grew fat and strong, and there were many cubs to
• 4:33:23
  bring to the looking over. Mowgli always attended a looking over, remembering the
• 4:33:30
  night when a black panther bought a naked brown baby into the pack, and
• 4:33:36
  a long call look, look wellow wolves made his heart flutter. Otherwise he
• 4:33:44
  would be far away in the jungle with his four brothers, tasting, touching,
• 4:33:48
  seeing and feeling new things. One twilight, when he was trotting leisurely
• 4:33:56
  across the ranges to give Akila the half of a buck that he killed,
• 4:34:00
  while the four jogged behind him, sparring a little and tumbling one another over
• 4:34:04
  for joy of being alive, he heard a cry that had never been heard
• 4:34:11
  since the bad days of Sherr Khan. It was what they called in the
• 4:34:15
  jungle the feel, a hideous kind of shriek that the jackal gives when he
• 4:34:22
  is hunting behind a tiger, or when there is a big killing a foot.
• 4:34:29
  If you can imagine a mixture of hate, triumph, fear and despair
• 4:34:33
  with a kind of leer running through it, you will get some notion of
• 4:34:38
  the feel that rose and sank and wavered and quavered far away across the Waingunga,
• 4:34:45
  the four stopped at once, bristling and growling. Mowgli's hand went to
• 4:34:52
  his knife, and he checked the blood in his face, his eyebrows knotted.
• 4:34:57
  There is no striped one dare kill here? He said that is not
• 4:35:03
  the cry of the forerunner, answered gray brother, it is some great killing.
• 4:35:10
  Listen. It broke out again, half sobbing and half chuckling, just
• 4:35:15
  as though the jackal had soft human lips. Then Mowgli drew deep breath and
• 4:35:22
  ran to the council rock, overtaking on his way. Hurrying wolves of the
• 4:35:26
  pack, Feyo and Akila were on the rock together, and below them,
• 4:35:32
  every nerve strained sat the others. The mothers and the cubs were cantering off
• 4:35:38
  to their lairs, For when the field cries, it is no time for
• 4:35:44
  weak things to be abroad. They could hear nothing except the waying Gunga rushing
• 4:35:51
  and gurgling in the dark, and the light evening winds among the tree tops,
• 4:35:56
  till suddenly, across the river a wolf called. It was no wolf
• 4:36:02
  of the pack, for they were all at the rock. The note changed
• 4:36:07
  to a long, despairing bay, and dolay, it said, do lay,
• 4:36:15
  dolay, do lay. They heard tired feet on the rocks, and
• 4:36:22
  a gaunt wolf, streaked with red on his flanks, his right forepaw useless
• 4:36:27
  and his jaws white with foam, flung himself into the circle and lay gasping
• 4:36:33
  at Mowgli's feet. Good hunting under whose headship, said Fao, gravely good
• 4:36:41
  hunting. One tola am i was the answer. He meant that he was
• 4:36:48
  a solitary wolf, fending for himself, his mate and his cubs in some
• 4:36:53
  lonely lair, as do many wolves in the south. One tola means an
• 4:37:00
  outlier, one who lies out from any pack. Then he panted, and
• 4:37:04
  they could see his heart beats, shake him backward and forward? What moves,
• 4:37:11
  said Fao, For that is the question all the jungle asks. After
• 4:37:17
  the field cries the dolay, the dolay of the decon, red dog,
• 4:37:26
  the killer. They came north from the south, saying the decon was empty
• 4:37:30
  and killing out by the way. When this moon was new, there were
• 4:37:36
  four to me, my mate and three cubs. She would teach them to
• 4:37:41
  kill on the grass plains, hiding to drive the buck as we do who
• 4:37:45
  are of the open. At midnight I heard them together, full tongue,
• 4:37:49
  on the trail at the dawn wind. I found them stiff in the grass.
• 4:37:56
  Four free people. Four when this moon was new. Then I thought
• 4:38:03
  my blood right and found the dolay. How many said Mowgli quickly the pack
• 4:38:11
  growled deep in their throats. I do not know three of them will kill
• 4:38:18
  no more. But at the last they drove me like the buck on my
• 4:38:23
  three legs. They drove me. Look, free people. He thrust out
• 4:38:29
  his mangled fore foot, all dark with dried blood. There were cruel bites
• 4:38:33
  low down on his side, and his throat was torn and worried. Eat,
• 4:38:40
  said Akila, rising up from the meat Mowgli had brought him, and
• 4:38:45
  the outlier flung himself on it. This shall be no loss, he said
• 4:38:49
  humbly, when he had taken off the first edge of his hunger. Give
• 4:38:53
  me a little strength, free people, and I also will kill. My
• 4:39:00
  layer is empty that was full when this moon was new, and the blood
• 4:39:04
  debt is not all paid. Fao heard his teeth crack on a harchbone and
• 4:39:11
  grunted approvingly. We shall need those jaws, said he. Were their cubs
• 4:39:18
  with the Dolay Nay nay red hunters, all grown dogs of their pack,
• 4:39:26
  heavy and strong for all that they eat lizards in the Decon. What wan
• 4:39:30
  Tola had said meant that the Dolay, the red hunting dog of the Decon
• 4:39:37
  was moving to kill, and the pack knew well that even the tiger will
• 4:39:41
  surrender a new kill to the Dolay. They drive straight through the jungle,
• 4:39:48
  and what they meet they pull down and tear to pieces. Though they are
• 4:39:53
  not as big nor have as cunning as the wolf, they are very strong
• 4:39:59
  and very numerous. The Dolay, for instance, do not begin to call
• 4:40:04
  themselves a pack till they are a hundred strong, whereas forty wolves make a
• 4:40:10
  very fair pack. Indeed, Mowgli's wonderings had taken him to the edge of
• 4:40:15
  the high grassy downs of the Deccan, and he had seen the fearless dolts
• 4:40:22
  sleeping and playing and scratching themselves in the little hollows and tussocks that they use
• 4:40:27
  for layers. He despised and hated them because they did not smell like the
• 4:40:33
  free people, because they did not live in caves, and above all,
• 4:40:38
  because they had hair between their toes while he and his friends were clean footed.
• 4:40:45
  But he knew, for Hathi had told him what a terrible thing a
• 4:40:51
  doley hunting pack was. Even Hathi moves aside from their line and until they
• 4:40:57
  are killed or till game is scarce they will go forward. Aquila knew something
• 4:41:03
  of the Dolays too, for he said to Mowgli quietly, it is better
• 4:41:10
  to die in a full pack than leaderless and alone. This is good hunting
• 4:41:15
  and my last. But as men live, thou hast very many more nights
• 4:41:21
  and days. Little brother, go north and lie down, and if an
• 4:41:25
  he lived after the Dolay has gone by, he shall bring thee word of
• 4:41:30
  the fight. Ah, said Mowgli quite gravely. Must I go to the
• 4:41:37
  marshes and catch little fish and sleep in a tree, Or must I ask
• 4:41:41
  help of the bunderlog and crack nuts while the pack fight below? It is
• 4:41:48
  to the death, said Aquila. Thou hast never met the Dolay, the
• 4:41:55
  red killer, even the striped one. Oh ah, oh ah, said
• 4:42:00
  Mowgli, petting lee. I have killed one striped ape, And sure am
• 4:42:07
  I in my stomach that sher Khan would have left his own mate for meat
• 4:42:11
  to the Dolay if he had winded a pack across three ranges. Listen,
• 4:42:17
  now there was a wolf my father, and there was a wolf my mother.
• 4:42:23
  And there was an old gray wolf not too wise. He is white.
• 4:42:29
  Now was my father and my mother. Therefore I he raised his voice.
• 4:42:36
  I say that when the Dolay come, and if the Dolay come,
• 4:42:41
  Mowgli and the free people are of one skin for that hunting. And I
• 4:42:47
  say, by the bull that bought me, by the bull Baghira paid for
• 4:42:51
  me in the old days, which ye of the pack do not remember.
• 4:42:55
  I say that the trees and the river may hear and hold fast if I
• 4:43:00
  forget. I say that this my knife shall be as a tooth to the
• 4:43:06
  pack. And I do not think it is so blunt. This is my
• 4:43:11
  word which has gone from me. Thou dost not know the dolay man with
• 4:43:19
  a wolf's tongue, said one Tolat. I look only to clear the blood
• 4:43:26
  debt against them. Ere they have me and many pieces. They move slowly,
• 4:43:32
  killing out as they go. But in two days a little strength will
• 4:43:36
  come back to me, and I will turn again for the blood debt.
• 4:43:41
  But for ye free people, my word is that ye go north and eat
• 4:43:47
  but little for a while, till the dolay are gone. There is no
• 4:43:51
  meat in this hunting. Hah. Here, the outlier, said Mowgli with
• 4:43:56
  a laugh. Free people, we must go north and dig lizards and rats
• 4:44:00
  from the bank, lest by any chance we meet the Dolay. He must
• 4:44:07
  kill out our hunting grounds while we lie hid in the north till it please
• 4:44:11
  him to give us our own again. He is a dog, and the
• 4:44:17
  pop of a dog, red, yellow bellied, layerless and haired. Between
• 4:44:22
  every toe. He counts his cubs six and eight at the litter, as
• 4:44:27
  though he were Chickai, the little leaping rat. Surely we must run away,
• 4:44:33
  free people, and beg leave of the peoples of the north for the
• 4:44:38
  offul of dead cattle. You know the saying North are the vermin, South
• 4:44:45
  are the lice. We are the jungle. Choose, ye, oh,
• 4:44:52
  choose. It is good hunting for the pack, for the full pack,
• 4:44:56
  for the layer and the litter, for the the inn kill and the out
• 4:45:00
  kill, for the mate that drives the doe, and the little little cub
• 4:45:06
  within the cave. It is met, It is met, It is met.
• 4:45:15
  The pack answered with one deep, crashing bark that sounded in the night
• 4:45:19
  like a big tree falling. It is met, they cried. Stay with
• 4:45:26
  these, said Mowgli to the four. We shall need every tooth. Feo
• 4:45:30
  and Aquila must make ready the battle. I go to count the dogs.
• 4:45:37
  It is death, wan Tola cried, half rising. What can such a
• 4:45:41
  hairless one do against the red dog, even the striped one? Remember thou
• 4:45:47
  art indeed an outlier, Mowgli calledback, But we will speak when the delis
• 4:45:52
  are dead. Good hunting all. He hurried off into the darkness wild with
• 4:45:59
  excitement, hardly looking where he set foot, And the natural consequence was that
• 4:46:03
  he tripped full length over cause great coils, where the python lay watching a
• 4:46:08
  deer path near the river. Pshah, said Kaw angrily. Is this jungle
• 4:46:15
  work to stamp and tramp an undoing night's hunting? When the gamer moving so
• 4:46:21
  well to the fault was mine, said Mowgli, picking himself up. Indeed,
• 4:46:27
  I was seeking thee flathead. But each time we meet thou art longer
• 4:46:32
  and broader by the length of my arm. There is none like thee in
• 4:46:37
  the jungle, wise, old, strong, and most beautiful. Kaw,
• 4:46:42
  Now, whither does this trail lead? Ka's voice was gentler, not a
• 4:46:49
  moon, since there was a man lying with a knife threw stones at my
• 4:46:53
  head and called me bad little tree cat names because I lay asleep in the
• 4:47:00
  open Aye and turned every driven deer to all the winds, and Mowgli was
• 4:47:06
  hunting, and this same flathead was too deaf to hear his whistle and leave
• 4:47:11
  the deer rose free. Mowgli answered, composedly, sitting down among the painted
• 4:47:17
  coils. Now this same manling comes with soft tickling words to this same flathead,
• 4:47:26
  telling him that he is wise and strong and beautiful. And this same
• 4:47:30
  old flathead believes and makes a place thus for this same stone throwing manling,
• 4:47:38
  And art thou at ease? Now could Baghira give thee so good a resting
• 4:47:44
  place? Cow Head, as usual, made a sort of soft half hammock
• 4:47:49
  of himself under Mowgli's weight. The boy reached out in the darkness and gathered
• 4:47:56
  in the supple cable like neck till ka'shead rested on his shoulder. And then
• 4:48:02
  he told him all that it happened in the jungle that night. Wise,
• 4:48:07
  I may be, said Ka at the end, but deaf I surely am
• 4:48:14
  else. I should have heard the feel small wonder the eaters of grass are
• 4:48:18
  uneasy? How many be the dolay I have not yet seen. I came
• 4:48:26
  hot foot to thee. Thou art older than HATI but o ka here Mowgli
• 4:48:33
  wriggled with sheer joy. It will be good hunting. Few of us will
• 4:48:38
  see another moon. Dost thou strike in this Remember thou art a man,
• 4:48:45
  and remember what pack cast thee out let the wolf look to the dog.
• 4:48:51
  Thou art a man. Last year's nuts are this year's black earth, said
• 4:48:56
  Mowgli. It is true that I am a man. But it is in
• 4:49:00
  my stomach that this night I have said that I am a wolf. I
• 4:49:07
  call the river and the trees to remember. I am of the free people.
• 4:49:11
  K till the dolay has gone by, free people, caw grunted,
• 4:49:19
  free thieves, And thou hast tied thyself into the death. Not for the
• 4:49:23
  sake of the memory of the dead wolves. This is no good hunting.
• 4:49:30
  It is my word which I have spoken. The trees know, the river
• 4:49:34
  knows. Till the doley have gone by. My word comes not back to
• 4:49:40
  me. Sh This changes all trails. I have thought to take thee away
• 4:49:47
  with me to the northern marshes. But the word, even the word of
• 4:49:51
  a little naked, hairless manling, is the word. Now. I caw
• 4:49:57
  say, think well, flat, lest thou tie thyself into the death.
• 4:50:02
  Not also, I need no word from thee, for well I know be
• 4:50:07
  it so? Then, said k I will give no word. But what
• 4:50:11
  is in thy stomach to do? When the dole come, they must swim
• 4:50:17
  the wayne gunga. I thought to meet them with my knife in the shallows,
• 4:50:21
  the pack behind me, and so, stabbing and thrusting we a little
• 4:50:26
  might turn them downstream or cool their throats. The dole do not turn,
• 4:50:32
  and their throats are hot. Said car. There will be neither manling nor
• 4:50:37
  wolf cub when that hunting is done, but only dry bones. A la
• 4:50:45
  la. If we die, we die, it will be most good hunting.
• 4:50:49
  But my stomach is young, and I have not seen many rains.
• 4:50:55
  I am not wise nor strong. Hast thou a better plan, cau.
• 4:51:00
  I have seen a hundred and a hundred reins. Her Hathi cast his milk
• 4:51:07
  tushes. My trail was big in the dust by the first egg. I
• 4:51:11
  am older than many trees, and I have seen all that the jungle has
• 4:51:18
  done. But this is new hunting, said Mowgli. Never before have the
• 4:51:23
  doleet crossed our trail. What is has been, what will be is no
• 4:51:30
  more than a forgotten year, striking backward, Be still while I count those
• 4:51:36
  my ears For a long hour, Mowgli lay back among the coils while Kaw,
• 4:51:45
  his head motionless on the ground, thought of all that he had seen
• 4:51:49
  and known since the day he came from the egg. The light seemed to
• 4:51:55
  go out of his eyes and leave them like stale opals. And now again
• 4:52:00
  he made little stiff passes with his head right and left, as though he
• 4:52:04
  were hunting. In his sleep, Mowgli dozed quietly, for he knew that
• 4:52:10
  there is nothing like sleep before hunting, and he was trained to take it
• 4:52:15
  at any hour of the day or night. Then he felt CAUs back grow
• 4:52:21
  bigger and broader below him, as the huge python puffed himself out, hissing
• 4:52:26
  with the noise of a sword drawn from a steel scabbard. I have seen
• 4:52:33
  all the dead seasons, Ka said at last, and the great trees,
• 4:52:37
  and the old elephants, and the rocks that were bare and sharp pointed.
• 4:52:44
  Ere the moss grew art. Thou still alive, manling It is only a
• 4:52:49
  little after moonset, said Mowgli. I do not understand ash I am again
• 4:52:56
  Kaw. I knew it was but a little time. I'm now we will
• 4:53:02
  go to the river and I will show thee what is to be done against
• 4:53:06
  the dolay. He turned straight as an arrow, for the main stream of
• 4:53:12
  the waing Gunga plunged in a little above the pool that hid the piece rock.
• 4:53:18
  Mowgli at his side. Nay, do not swim, I go swiftly
• 4:53:23
  my back, little brother. Mowgli tucked his left arm round Kaw's neck,
• 4:53:30
  dropped his right close to his body, and straightened his feet. Then Ka
• 4:53:36
  breasted the current as he alone could, and the ripple of the checked water
• 4:53:41
  stood up in a frill round Mogli's neck, and his feet were waved to
• 4:53:45
  and fro in the eddy under the python's lashing sides. A mile or two
• 4:53:51
  above the piece rock, the Waingunga narrows between a gorge of marble rocks from
• 4:53:56
  eighty to one hundred feet high, and the current runs like a mill race
• 4:54:02
  between them and overall manner of ugly stones. But Mogli did not trouble his
• 4:54:07
  head about the water. A little water in the world could have given him
• 4:54:11
  a moment's sphear. He was looking at the gorge on either side, and
• 4:54:15
  sniffing uneasily, for there was a sweetish sour smell in the air, very
• 4:54:22
  light, the smell of a big ant hill on a hot day. Instinctively,
• 4:54:27
  he lowered himself in the water, only raising his head to breathe from
• 4:54:33
  time to time. And Ka came to anchor with a double twist of his
• 4:54:37
  tail round a sunken rock, holding mogli in the hollow of a coil,
• 4:54:41
  while the water raced on. This is the place of death, said the
• 4:54:47
  boy. Why do we come here? They sleep? Said Kah. Hathi
• 4:54:55
  will not turn aside for the striped one. Yet Hathi and the stripe one
• 4:55:00
  together turn aside for the dolay and the dolay, they say, turn aside
• 4:55:06
  for nothing. And yet for whom do the little people of the rocks turn
• 4:55:11
  aside? Tell me master of the jungle? Who is the master of the
• 4:55:17
  jungle? These mowgli whispered, It is the place of death. Let us
• 4:55:25
  go, nay, look well, for they are asleep. It is as
• 4:55:30
  it was when I was not the length of thy arm. The split and
• 4:55:37
  weather worn rocks of the gorge of the Wayning Gunga had been used since the
• 4:55:42
  beginning of the jungle by the little people of the rocks, the busy,
• 4:55:48
  furious black wild bees of India, and as Mowgli knew well, all trails
• 4:55:55
  turned off half a mile before they reached the gorge. For centuries the little
• 4:56:02
  people had hived and swarmed from cleft to cleft, and swarmed again, staining
• 4:56:08
  the white marble with stale honey, and made their combs tall and deep in
• 4:56:14
  the dark of the inner caves, where neither man nor beast, nor fire
• 4:56:18
  nor water had ever touched them. The length of the gorge on both sides
• 4:56:26
  was hung, as it were, with black, shimmery velvet curtains, and
• 4:56:30
  Mowgli sank as he looked for. Those were the clotted millions of the sleeping
• 4:56:36
  bees. There were other lumps and festoons, and things like decayed tree trunks
• 4:56:42
  studded on the face of the rock, the old pomes of past years or
• 4:56:48
  new cities built in the shadow of the windless gorge, and huge masses of
• 4:56:52
  spongy rotted trash had rolled down and stuck among the trees and creepers that clung
• 4:57:00
  to the rock face. As he listened, he heard more than once the
• 4:57:04
  rustle and slide of a honey coated comb, turning over or failing away somewhere
• 4:57:11
  in the dark galleries. Then a booming of angry wings, and the sullen
• 4:57:17
  drip drip of the wasted honey guttering along till it lipped over some ledge in
• 4:57:22
  the open air, and sluggishly trickled down on the twigs. There was a
• 4:57:29
  tiny little beach not five feet broad, on one side of the river,
• 4:57:33
  and that was piled high with a rubbish of uncounted years. There were dead
• 4:57:40
  bees, drones, sweepings, and stale combs, and wings of marauding moths
• 4:57:45
  that had strayed in after honey, all tumbled in smooth piles of the finest
• 4:57:52
  black dust. The mere sharp smell of it was enough to frighten anything that
• 4:57:57
  had no wings and knew where the little people were. Ka moved upstream again
• 4:58:06
  till he came to a sandy bar at the head of the gorge. Here
• 4:58:11
  is the season's kill, said he. Look On the bank lay the skeletons
• 4:58:17
  of a couple of young deer and a buffalo. Mowgli could see that neither
• 4:58:22
  wolf nor jackal had touched the bones, which were laid out naturally. They
• 4:58:29
  came beyond the line. They did not know the law, murmured Mowgli,
• 4:58:33
  and the little people killed him. Let us go where they wake. They
• 4:58:40
  do not wake till the dawn, said Ka, Now I will tell thee.
• 4:58:47
  A hunted buck from the south, many many rains ago, came hither
• 4:58:52
  from the south, not knowing the jungle, a pack on his trail.
• 4:58:56
  Being made blind by fear, he leaped from a bar of the pack,
• 4:59:00
  running by sight, for they were hot and blind on the trail. The
• 4:59:06
  sun was high, and the little people were many and very angry. Many
• 4:59:11
  too were those of the pack who leaped into the waaning Gunga. But they
• 4:59:15
  were dead ere they took water. Those who did not leap died also in
• 4:59:21
  the rocks above. But the buck lived, how because he came first,
• 4:59:30
  running for his life, leaping ere the little people were aware, and was
• 4:59:36
  in the river when they gathered to kill. The pack following was altogether lost
• 4:59:41
  under the weight of the little people. The buck lived, Mowgli repeated slowly.
• 4:59:49
  At least he did not die then, though none waited his coming down
• 4:59:55
  with a strong body to hold him safe against the water. As a a
• 5:00:00
  certain old, fat, deaf yellow flathead would wait for a manling yea,
• 5:00:04
  though there were all the dolleys of the decan on his trail. What is
• 5:00:11
  in thy stomach? O'shead was close to Mowgli's ear, and it was a
• 5:00:17
  little time before the boy answered, It is to pull the very whiskers of
• 5:00:25
  death. But go thou art. Indeed the wisest of all the jungle,
• 5:00:33
  so many have said. Look now, if the dolay follow thee, assuredly
• 5:00:41
  they will follow. Ho Ho, I have many little thorns under my tongue
• 5:00:48
  to prick their hides. If they follow thee, hot and blind, looking
• 5:00:55
  only at thy shoulders. Those who do not die up above will take water,
• 5:01:02
  either here or lower down, for the little people will rise up and
• 5:01:07
  cover them. Now the wayning Gunga is hungry water, and they will have
• 5:01:12
  no car to hold them, but will go down, such as live to
• 5:01:18
  the shallows by the sea ony lairs, and there thy pack may meet them
• 5:01:22
  by the throat. Ha hai ya wahwah. Better could not be till the
• 5:01:32
  rains fall in the dry season. There is now only the little matter of
• 5:01:37
  the run and the leap. I will make me known to the Dolays.
• 5:01:41
  So that they shall follow me very closely. Hast thou seen the rocks above
• 5:01:48
  thee from the landward side, indeed, know that I had forgotten. Go
• 5:01:56
  look it is all rotten, ground, cut and full of holes. One
• 5:02:02
  of thy clumsy feet set down without seeing what in the hunt see? I
• 5:02:07
  leave thee here, and for thy sake only I will carry word to the
• 5:02:12
  pack that they may know where to look for the Dolay. For myself,
• 5:02:18
  I am not of one's skin with any wolf. When Cad disliked an acquaintance,
• 5:02:26
  he could be more unpleasant than any of the jungle people, except perhaps
• 5:02:32
  Boghira. He swam downstream and opposite the rock. He came on Fayo and
• 5:02:40
  Aquila. Listening to the night noises es dogs, He said cheerfully, The
• 5:02:47
  Dolays will come downstream. If ye be not afraid, ye can kill them
• 5:02:52
  in the shallows. When come, they said Fayo, And where is my
• 5:02:59
  man cub? Said Aquila. They come? When they come, said Ka.
• 5:03:06
  Wait, and see as for thy man cub, from whom thou hast
• 5:03:11
  taken a word and so laid him open to death. Thy man Cub is
• 5:03:18
  with me, And if he be not already dead, the fault is none
• 5:03:22
  of thine bleached dog. Wait here for the dolay, and be glad that
• 5:03:27
  the man cub and eye strike on thy side. Kaw flashed upstream again and
• 5:03:34
  moored himself in the middle of the gorge, looking upward at the line of
• 5:03:38
  the cliff. Presently he saw Mowgli's head move against the stars, and then
• 5:03:45
  there was a whiz in the air, the keen clear sloop of a body
• 5:03:52
  falling feet first, and the next minute the boy was at rest again in
• 5:03:56
  the loop of Ka's body. It is no leap by night, said Mowgli
• 5:04:03
  quietly. I have jumped twice as far for sport, but that is an
• 5:04:07
  evil place above low bushes and gullies that go down very deep, all full
• 5:04:15
  of the little people. I have put big stones one above another by the
• 5:04:19
  side of three gullies. These I shall throw down with my feet in running,
• 5:04:25
  and the little people will rise up behind me very angry. That is
• 5:04:32
  man's talk and man's cunning, said Ka. Thou art wise, but the
• 5:04:38
  little people are always angry. Nay, at twilight, all wings near and
• 5:04:45
  far rest for a while. I will play with the dolay at twilight for
• 5:04:51
  the Dolay hunts best by day he follows now one tola's blood trail chield does
• 5:04:59
  not leave a at ox nor the dolay the blood trail, said Kah.
• 5:05:04
  Then I will make him a new blood trail of his own blood if I
• 5:05:10
  can, and give him dirt to eat. Thou wilt stay here ka till
• 5:05:15
  I come again with my dolts. Aye. But what if they kill thee
• 5:05:22
  in the jungle, or the little people kill thee before thou canst sleep down
• 5:05:26
  to the river When tomorrow comes, we will kill for tomorrow, said Mowgli,
• 5:05:32
  quoting a jungle saying, and again, when I am dead, it
• 5:05:37
  is time to sing the death song. Good hunting. K He loosed his
• 5:05:42
  arm from the python's neck and went down the guarge like a log in a
• 5:05:48
  freshet, paddling toward the forebank, where he found slack water and laughing aloud
• 5:05:55
  from sheer happiness. There was nothing Mowgli liked better than, as he himself
• 5:06:00
  said, to pull the whiskers of death and make the jungle know that he
• 5:06:07
  was their overlord. He had often, with Balu's help, robbed bees,
• 5:06:12
  nests and single trees, and he knew that the little people hated the smell
• 5:06:18
  of wild garlic, so he gathered a small bundle of it, tied it
• 5:06:23
  up with a bark string, and then followed one Toller's blood trail as it
• 5:06:27
  ran southerly from the lairs for some five miles, looking at the trees with
• 5:06:33
  his hat on one side and chuckling as he looked. Mowgli the frog Have
• 5:06:38
  I been? Said he to himself, Mowgli the Wolf? Have I said
• 5:06:42
  that? I am? Now Mowgli the ape? Must I be before I
• 5:06:48
  am Mowgli the buck? At the end I shall be Mowgli the man ho
• 5:06:55
  And he slid his thumb along the eighteen inch blade of his knife. One
• 5:07:02
  Tolu's trail, all rank with dark blood spots, ran under a forest of
• 5:07:07
  thick trees that grew close together and stretched away northeastward, gradually growing thinner and
• 5:07:15
  thinner to within two miles of the bee rocks. From the last tree to
• 5:07:21
  the low scrub of the bee rocks was open country where there was hardly cover
• 5:07:26
  enough to hide a wolf. Mowgli trotted along under the trees, judging distances
• 5:07:33
  between branch and branch, occasionally climbing up a tree and taking a trail leap
• 5:07:38
  from one tree to another, till he came to the open ground, which
• 5:07:42
  he studied very carefully for an hour. Then he turned picked up one tollus
• 5:07:48
  trail where he had left it, settled himself in a tree with an out
• 5:07:52
  running branch some eight feet from the ground, and sat still, sharpening his
• 5:07:57
  knife on the sole of his foot and singing to himself. A little before
• 5:08:03
  midday, when the sun was very warm, he heard the patter of feet
• 5:08:08
  and smelt the abominable smell of the Dolay peck as they trotted pitilessly along one
• 5:08:15
  tolu's trail. Seen from above, the red Dolay does not look half the
• 5:08:22
  size of a wolf, but Mowgli knew how strong his feet and jaws were.
• 5:08:29
  He watched the sharp bay head of the leader snuffling along the trail and
• 5:08:33
  gave him good hunting. The brute looked up and his companions halted behind him.
• 5:08:41
  Scores and scores of red dogs with low hung tails, heavy shoulders,
• 5:08:47
  weak quarters, and bloody mouths. The Dolays are a very silent people as
• 5:08:52
  a rule, and they have no manners even in their own jungle. Fully
• 5:08:59
  two two hundred must have gathered below him, but he could see that the
• 5:09:03
  leaders sniffed hungrily on one Tolu's trail and tried to drag the pack forward.
• 5:09:10
  That would never do, or they would be at the layers in broad daylight,
• 5:09:14
  and Mowgli meant to hold them under his tree till dusk. By Whose
• 5:09:19
  leave do ye come here? Said Mowgli. All jungles are our jungle,
• 5:09:26
  was the reply, and the Dolay that gave it bared his white teeth.
• 5:09:33
  Mowgli looked down with a smile and imitated perfectly the sharp chitter chatter of Cheekai,
• 5:09:40
  the leaping rat of the Deccan, meaning the Dolays to understand that he
• 5:09:45
  considered them no better than Chicai. The pack closed up round the tree trunk,
• 5:09:52
  and the leader bathed savagely, calling Mowgli a tree ape. For an
• 5:09:57
  answer, Mogli stretched down one naked leg and wriggled his bare toes just above
• 5:10:06
  the leader's head. That was enough, and more than enough to wake the
• 5:10:11
  pack to stupid rage. Those who have hair between their toes do not care
• 5:10:18
  to be reminded of it, Mowgli caught his foot away as the leader leaped
• 5:10:23
  up and said, sweetly, dog red dog, go back to the deck
• 5:10:29
  in and eat lizards. Go to Cheekai, thy brother, dog, Dog,
• 5:10:33
  red red dog. There is hair between every toe. He twiddled his
• 5:10:40
  toes a second time. Come down, ere, we starve thee out hairless
• 5:10:45
  ape, yelled the pack, and this was exactly what Mowgli wanted. He
• 5:10:52
  laid himself down along the branch, his cheek to the bark, his right
• 5:10:57
  arm free, and there he told the pack what he thought and knew about
• 5:11:03
  them, their manners, their customs, their mates, and their puppies.
• 5:11:10
  There is no speech in the world so rancorous and so stinging as the language
• 5:11:15
  the jungle people use to show scorn and contempt. When you come to think
• 5:11:21
  of it, you will see how this must be. So. As Mowgli
• 5:11:25
  told cop, he had many little thorigns under his tongue, and slowly and
• 5:11:32
  deliberately he drove the dolays from silence to growls, from growls to yells,
• 5:11:38
  and from yells to horse slavery ravings. They tried to answer his taunts,
• 5:11:45
  but a cub might as well have tried to answer Ka in a rage.
• 5:11:51
  And all the while Mowgli's right hand lay crooked at his side, ready for
• 5:11:56
  action, his feet locked round the branch. The big bay leader had leaped
• 5:12:03
  many times in the air, but Mowgli dared not risk a false blow.
• 5:12:08
  At last, made furious beyond his natural strength, he bounded up seven or
• 5:12:15
  eight feet clear of the ground. Then Mowgli's hand shot out like the head
• 5:12:21
  of a tree snake and gripped him by the scruff of his neck, and
• 5:12:26
  the branch shook with the jar as his weight fell back, almost wrenching Mowgli
• 5:12:30
  to the ground, but he never loosed his grip. An inch by inch,
• 5:12:34
  he hauled the beast, hanging like a ground jackal, up on the
• 5:12:40
  branch. With his left hand. He reached for his knife and cut off
• 5:12:45
  the red bushy tail, flinging the doleet back to earth again. That was
• 5:12:52
  all he needed. The pack would not go forward on one toleus trail now
• 5:12:59
  till they had killed Mowgli, or Mowgli had killed them. He saw them
• 5:13:03
  settle down in circles with a quiver of the haunches that meant they were going
• 5:13:10
  to stay, and so he climbed to a higher crotch, settled his back
• 5:13:15
  comfortably, and went to sleep. After three or four hours, he waked
• 5:13:21
  and counted the pack. They were all there, silent, husky and dry,
• 5:13:27
  with eyes of steel. The sun was beginning to sink. In half
• 5:13:33
  an hour the little people of the rocks would be ending their labors. And
• 5:13:37
  as you know, the dolay does not fight best in the twilight. I
• 5:13:44
  did not need such faithful watchers, he said, politely, standing up on
• 5:13:48
  a branch. But I will remember this. Ye be true, dolts,
• 5:13:53
  but to my thinking over much of one kind. For that reason, I
• 5:13:59
  do not get the big lizard eater his tail again. Art thou not pleased,
• 5:14:03
  red dog, I myself will tear out thy stomach, yelled the leader,
• 5:14:10
  scratching at the foot of the tree. Nay, but consider, wise,
• 5:14:15
  rat of the decon. There will now be many litters of little tails
• 5:14:21
  red dogs. Yea with raw red stumps that sting when the sand is hot.
• 5:14:26
  Go home, red dog, and cry that an ape has done this.
• 5:14:33
  Ye will not go. Come then with me, and I will make
• 5:14:37
  you very wise. He moved bunderlog fashion into the next tree, and so
• 5:14:45
  on into the next and the next, the pack following with lifted hungry heads.
• 5:14:52
  Now and then he would pretend to fall, and the pack would tumble
• 5:14:56
  one over the other in their haste to be at the death it. It
• 5:15:00
  was a curious sight, the boy with the knife that shone in the low
• 5:15:03
  sunlight as it sifted through the upper branches, and the silent pack with their
• 5:15:10
  red coats all aflame, huddling and following below. When he came to the
• 5:15:15
  last tree, he took the garlic and rubbed himself all over carefully, and
• 5:15:21
  the dollys yelled with scorn ape with wolf's tongue. Dost thou think to cover
• 5:15:27
  thy scent? They said, We follow to the death. He had slipped
• 5:15:34
  down the tree trunk and headed like the wind and bare feet for the bee
• 5:15:38
  rocks. Before the Dolays saw what he would do, they gave one deep
• 5:15:45
  howl and settled down to the long lobbing canter that can at the last run
• 5:15:52
  down anything that runs. Mowgli knew their pack pace to be much slower than
• 5:15:57
  that of the wolves, or he would never have risks a two mile run.
• 5:16:02
  In full sight, they were sure that the boy was theirs at last,
• 5:16:08
  and he was sure that he held them to play with as he pleased.
• 5:16:14
  All his trouble was to keep them sufficiently hot behind him to prevent their
• 5:16:18
  turning off too soon. He ran cleanly, evenly, and springingly, the
• 5:16:26
  tailless leader not five yards behind him, and the pack trailing out over perhaps
• 5:16:32
  a quarter of a mile of ground, crazy and blind with the rage of
• 5:16:36
  slaughter, so he kept his distance by ear reserving his last effort for the
• 5:16:42
  rush across the bee rocks. The little people had gone to sleep in the
• 5:16:48
  early twilight, for it was not the season of late blossoming flowers. But
• 5:16:53
  as Mowgli's first footfalls rang hollow on the hollow ground, he heard a sound
• 5:17:00
  as though all the earth were humming. Then he ran as he had never
• 5:17:07
  run in his life before. Spurred aside one, two, three of the
• 5:17:12
  piles of stones into the dark, sweet smelling gullies, heard a roar like
• 5:17:18
  the roar of the sea in a cave, saw with the tail of his
• 5:17:22
  eye the air grow dark behind him, saw the current of the waing gunga
• 5:17:29
  far below, and a flat, diamond shaped head, and the water leaped
• 5:17:34
  outward with all his strength, the tailless Dolay snapping at his shoulder in midair,
• 5:17:41
  and dropped feet first to the safety of the river, breathless and triumphant.
• 5:17:48
  There was not a sting upon him, for the smell of the garlic
• 5:17:52
  had checked the little people for just the few seconds that he was among them.
• 5:17:56
  When he rose, cause coiled were steadying him, and things were bounding
• 5:18:03
  over the edge of the cliff, great lumps it seams of clustered bees falling
• 5:18:07
  like plummets. But before any lump touched the water, the bees flew upward,
• 5:18:14
  and the body of a Dolay whirled downstream. Overhead. They could hear
• 5:18:18
  the furious, sharp yells that were drowned in a roar like breakers, the
• 5:18:25
  roar of the wings of the little people of the rocks. Some of the
• 5:18:30
  dollys, too, had fallen into the gullies that communicated with the underground caves,
• 5:18:34
  and there choked and fought and snapped among the tumbled honeycombs, and at
• 5:18:41
  last born up, even when they were dead on the heaving waves of bees
• 5:18:45
  beneath them, shot out of some hole in the river face to roll over
• 5:18:51
  on the black rubbish heaps. There were dollys who had leaped short into the
• 5:18:56
  trees on the cliffs, and the bees blotted out their shape. But the
• 5:19:00
  greater number of them, maddened by the stings, had flung themselves into the
• 5:19:06
  river. And as Kaa said, the waining Gunga was hungry water. Ka
• 5:19:14
  held Moguli fast till the boy had recovered his breath. We may not stay
• 5:19:19
  here, he said. The little people aroused, indeed, come swimming low
• 5:19:27
  and diving as often as he could. Mowgli went down the river knife in
• 5:19:33
  hand, slowly, slowly, said Ka. One tooth does not kill a
• 5:19:41
  hundred unless it be a cobras. And many of the dolts took water swiftly
• 5:19:45
  when they saw the little people rise. The more work for my knife,
• 5:19:49
  then, Phi how the little people follow Mowgli sank again. The face of
• 5:19:57
  the water was blanketed with wild bees, buzzing sullenly and stinging all they found.
• 5:20:06
  Nothing was ever lost by silence, said Ka. No sting could penetrate
• 5:20:11
  his scales. And thou hast all the long night for the hunting. Hear
• 5:20:17
  them howl. Nearly half the pack had seen the trap. Their fellows rushed
• 5:20:23
  into and turning sharp aside, had flung themselves into the water, where the
• 5:20:29
  guards broke down in steep banks. Their cries of rage and their threats against
• 5:20:34
  the tree ape who had brought them to their shame mixed with the yells and
• 5:20:38
  growls of those who had been punished by the little people. To remain ashore
• 5:20:45
  was death, and every dolet knew it. Their pack was swept along the
• 5:20:51
  current down to the deep eddies of the peace Pool, but even there the
• 5:20:56
  angry little people followed and forced them to the water again. Mowgli could hear
• 5:21:00
  the voice of the taleless leader bidding his people hold on and kill out every
• 5:21:07
  wolf in coeone, but he did not waste his time in listening. One
• 5:21:14
  gills in the dark behind us snapped a dolay Here is tainted water. Mogli
• 5:21:21
  had dived forward like an otter, to which a struggling dolay underwater before he
• 5:21:26
  could open his mouth, and dark rings rose as the body plopped up,
• 5:21:32
  turning on its side. The Doleys tried to turn, but the current prevented
• 5:21:38
  them, and the little people darted at the heads and ears, and they
• 5:21:42
  could hear the challenge of the seonee pack, growing louder and deeper in the
• 5:21:47
  gathering darkness. Again Mowgli dived, and again a Dolay went under and rose
• 5:21:53
  dead. And again the clamor broke out at the rear of the pack,
• 5:21:57
  some howling that was best to go ashore, others calling on their leader to
• 5:22:03
  lead them back to the Deccan, and others bidding Mowgli show himself and be
• 5:22:07
  killed. They come to the fight with two stomachs and several voices, said,
• 5:22:14
  Kah, The rest is with thy brethren below yonder the little people go
• 5:22:19
  back to sleep. They have chased us far. Now I too turn back,
• 5:22:26
  for I am not of one's skin with any wolf. Good hunting,
• 5:22:30
  little brother, and remember the dolay bites low a wolf came running along the
• 5:22:37
  bank on three legs, leaping up and down, laying his head sideways close
• 5:22:44
  to the ground, hunching his back, and breaking high into the air,
• 5:22:48
  as though he were playing with his cubs. It was one Tola, the
• 5:22:53
  outlier, and he said never a word, but continued his horrible sport Beside
• 5:23:00
  the Dolays. They had been long in the water. Now when were swimming
• 5:23:06
  wearily, their coats drenched and heavy, their bushy tails dragging like sponges,
• 5:23:11
  so tired and shaking that they too were silent, watching the pair of blazing
• 5:23:17
  eyes that moved depressed. This is no good hunting, said one panting.
• 5:23:25
  Good hunting, said Mowgli, as he rose boldly at the brute's side and
• 5:23:30
  sent the long knife home behind the shoulder, pushing hard to avoid his dying
• 5:23:36
  snap art Thou there, man cub, said, wantla across the water,
• 5:23:42
  ask of the dead outleer. Bwgli replied, have none come down stream?
• 5:23:48
  I have filled these dogs mouthed with dirt. I have tricked them in the
• 5:23:53
  broad daylight, and their leader lacks his tail. But here be some few
• 5:23:59
  for thee. Still, whither shall I drive them? I will wait,
• 5:24:03
  said wuan Tola. The night is before me. Nearer and nearer came the
• 5:24:10
  bay of the sea. One wolves for the pack. For the full pack,
• 5:24:15
  it is met, and a bend in the river drove the doles forward
• 5:24:21
  among the sands and shoals opposite the lairs. Then they saw their mistake.
• 5:24:27
  They should have landed half a mile higher up and rushed the wolves on dry
• 5:24:32
  ground. Now it was too late. The bank was lined with burning eyes,
• 5:24:38
  and except for the horrible feel that had never stopped since sundown, there
• 5:24:44
  was no sound in the jungle. It seemed as though wan Tola were fawning
• 5:24:49
  on them. To come ashore and turn and take hold, said the leader
• 5:24:53
  of the Dolays. The entire pack flung themselves at the shore, threshing and
• 5:25:00
  squattering through the shoal water till the face of the wang Gunga was all white
• 5:25:06
  and torn, and the great ripples went from side to side like bow waves
• 5:25:11
  from a boat. Mowgli followed the rush, stabbing and slicing as the Dolays,
• 5:25:18
  huddled together rushed up the river beach in one wave. Then the long
• 5:25:23
  fight began, heaving and straining and splitting and scattering and narrowing and broadening along
• 5:25:32
  the red wet sands and over and between the tangle tree roots, and threw
• 5:25:37
  in among the bushes and in and out of the grass clumps. For even
• 5:25:41
  now the Dolays were two to one, but they met wolves fighting for all
• 5:25:48
  that made the pack. And not only the short, high, deep chested
• 5:25:52
  white tusk hunters of the pack, but the anxious eyed Lahenes. The she
• 5:25:57
  wolves of the lair as the safe is, fighting for their litters with here
• 5:26:03
  and there a yearling wolf, his first coat still half wooly, tugging and
• 5:26:07
  grappling by their sides. A wolf, you must know, flies at the
• 5:26:14
  throat or snaps at the flank, while a Dolay, by preference, bites
• 5:26:18
  at the belly. So when the Dolays were struggling out of the water and
• 5:26:22
  had to raise their heads, the odds were with the wolves. On dry
• 5:26:27
  land, the wolves suffered, but in the water are ashore, Mowgli's knife
• 5:26:33
  came and went without ceasing. The four had worried their way to his side.
• 5:26:41
  Gray brother, crouched between the boy's knees, was protecting his stomach,
• 5:26:45
  while the others guarded his back and either side or stood over him, when
• 5:26:49
  the shock of a leaping, yelling Dolay, who had thrown himself full on
• 5:26:53
  the steady blade, bore him down for the rest. It was one tongled
• 5:27:00
  confusion, a locked and swaying mob that moved from right to left and from
• 5:27:06
  left to right along the bank, and also ground round and round slowly on
• 5:27:11
  its own center. Here would be a heaving mound like a water blister in
• 5:27:15
  a whirlpool, which would break like a water blister and throw up four or
• 5:27:21
  five mangled dogs, each striving to get back to the center. Here would
• 5:27:26
  be a single wolf borne down by two or three dolays, laboriously dragging them
• 5:27:33
  forward and sinking the while here a yearling cub would be held up by the
• 5:27:37
  pressure round him, though he had been killed early, while his mother,
• 5:27:41
  crazed with dumb rage, rolled over and over, snapping and passing on,
• 5:27:48
  and in the middle of the thickest press, perhaps one wolf and one dolay
• 5:27:53
  forgetting everything else would be maneuvering for first hold till they were whirled away by
• 5:28:00
  a rush of furious fighters. Once Mowgli passed Akila, a dolay on either
• 5:28:06
  flank, and his all but toothless jaws closed over the loins of a third,
• 5:28:11
  and once he saw fail, his teeth set in the throat of a
• 5:28:15
  doley, tugging the unwilling beast forward till the yearlings could finish him. But
• 5:28:22
  the bulk of the fight was blind, flurry and smother in the dark,
• 5:28:26
  hit, trip and tumble, yelp, groan, and worry, worry,
• 5:28:30
  worry, round him and behind him and above him. As the night wore
• 5:28:37
  on, the quick giddy go round motion increased. The Doleys were cowed and
• 5:28:42
  afraid to attack the stronger wolves, but did not yet dare to run away.
• 5:28:49
  Mowgli felt that the end was coming soon, and contented himself with striking
• 5:28:55
  merely to cripple the yearlings were growing bolder. There was time now and again
• 5:29:00
  to breathe and pass a word to a friend, and the mere flicker of
• 5:29:03
  the knife would sometimes turn a dog aside. The meat is very near the
• 5:29:10
  bone, gray brother yelled. He was bleeding from a score of flesh wounds.
• 5:29:17
  But the bone is yet to be cracked, said Mowgli. Yahwah,
• 5:29:22
  Thus we do in the jungle. The red blade ran like a flame along
• 5:29:26
  the side of a dolay, whose hind quarters were hidden by the weight of
• 5:29:30
  a clinging wolf. Michael snorted the wolf through his wrinkled nostrils. Leave him
• 5:29:37
  to me. Is thy stomach still empty? Outlier, said Mowgli. One
• 5:29:42
  Tola was fearfully punished, but his grip had paralyzed the Doley, who could
• 5:29:48
  not turn round and reach him by the bull that bought me, said Mowgli
• 5:29:55
  with a bitter lamp. It is the tailless one, and indeed it was
• 5:30:00
  the big bay colored leader. It is not wise to kill cubs and lahinis,
• 5:30:06
  Mowgli went on philosophically, wiping the blood out of his eyes, unless
• 5:30:11
  one has also killed the outleer. And it is in my stomach that this
• 5:30:15
  wan Tola kills thee. A Dolet leaped to his leader's aid, but before
• 5:30:22
  his teeth had found one Tola's flank, Mowgli's knife was in his throat,
• 5:30:26
  and Gray Brother took what was left. And thus we do in the jungle,
• 5:30:33
  said Mowgli. One Tola said not a word. Only his jaws were
• 5:30:38
  closing and closing on the backbone. As his life ebbed. The Dolet shuddered,
• 5:30:45
  his head dropped, and he lay still, and one Tola dropped above
• 5:30:49
  him. Huh, the blood debt is paid, said Mowgli, sing the
• 5:30:56
  song one Tola. He hunts no more, said Gray Brother. And Aquila
• 5:31:03
  too is silent this long time. The bone is cracked, thundered Fao,
• 5:31:11
  son of Feona. They go kill kill out o hunters of the free people.
• 5:31:18
  Dolay after Dolay was slinking away from those dark and bloody sands to the
• 5:31:23
  river, to the thick jungle upstream or downstream. As he saw the road
• 5:31:29
  clear. The debt, the debt, shouted, Mowgli, pay the debt.
• 5:31:36
  They have slain the lone wolf. Let not a dog go. He
• 5:31:42
  was flying to the river, knife in hand to check any dolay who dared
• 5:31:47
  to take water, when from under a mound of nine dead rose Akila's head
• 5:31:53
  and fore quarters, and Mowgli dropped on his knees beside the lone wolf,
• 5:32:00
  said, I not it would be my last fight. Aquila gasped, It
• 5:32:07
  is good hunting, and thou, little brother, I live, having killed
• 5:32:14
  many, even so I die, and I would, I would die by
• 5:32:22
  thee little brother. Mowgli took the terrible scarred head on his knees and put
• 5:32:30
  his arms round the torn neck. It is long since the old days of
• 5:32:36
  sharr Khan and a man cub that rolled naked in the dust. Nay,
• 5:32:41
  nay, I am a wolf. I am of one's skin with the free
• 5:32:45
  people. Mowgli cried, It is no will of mine that I am a
• 5:32:48
  man. Thou art a man, little brother, wolfling of my watching thou
• 5:32:59
  art a man or else the pack had fled before the dolay my life I
• 5:33:04
  owe to THEE. And today thou hast saved the pack, even as once
• 5:33:11
  I save thee, hast thou forgotten. All debts are paid. Now go
• 5:33:19
  to thine own people, I tell THEE again, nigh of my I,
• 5:33:26
  this hunting has ended. Go to thine own people. I will never go.
• 5:33:34
  I hunt alone in the jungle. I have said it. After the
• 5:33:38
  summer comes the rains, and after the rains comes the spring. Go back
• 5:33:47
  before thou art driven? Who will drive me? Mowgli will drive Moguli,
• 5:33:56
  Go back to thy people, go to man. When Mowgli drives Mowgli,
• 5:34:02
  I will go. Mowgli answered, there is no more to say, said
• 5:34:08
  Aquila, little brother, canst thou raise me to my feet? I also
• 5:34:18
  was a leader of the free people. Very carefully and gently, Mowgli lifted
• 5:34:23
  the bodies aside and raised Akila to his feet, both arms round him,
• 5:34:30
  and the lone wolf drew a long breath and began the death song that a
• 5:34:36
  leader of the pack should sing when he dies. It gathered strength as he
• 5:34:41
  went on lifting and lifting and ringing far across the river till it came to
• 5:34:48
  the last good hunting, and Aquila shook himself clear of Mowgli for an instant,
• 5:34:55
  and, leaping into the air, fell backward dead upon his life last
• 5:35:00
  and most terrible kill. Mowgli sat with his head on his knees, careless
• 5:35:07
  of anything else, while the remnant of the flying dollys were being overtaken and
• 5:35:12
  run down by the merciless Lahens. Little by little, the cries died away,
• 5:35:19
  and the wolves returned, limping as their wounds stiffened to take stock of
• 5:35:25
  the losses. Fifteen of the pack, as well as half a dozen Lahenes
• 5:35:32
  lay dead by the river, and of the others not one was unmarked.
• 5:35:37
  And Mowgli sat through it all till the cold daybreak, when FAO's wet red
• 5:35:44
  muzzle was dropped in his hand and Mowgli drew back to show the gaunt body
• 5:35:48
  of Aquila. Good hunting, said Fao, as though Aquila was still alive,
• 5:35:56
  and then over his bitten shoulder to the others, howl dogs, A
• 5:36:02
  wolf has died tonight. But of all the pack of two hundred fighting doles
• 5:36:10
  whose boasts was that all jungles were their jungle, and that no living thing
• 5:36:15
  could stand before them. Not one returned to the Deccan to carry that word.
• 5:36:23
  End of Red Dog, the King's uncles. These are the four that
• 5:36:30
  are never content, that have never been filled since the dews began. Jacala's
• 5:36:37
  mouth and the glut of the kite, and the hands of the ape,
• 5:36:41
  and the eyes of man Jungle saying Ka, the big rock python had changed
• 5:36:49
  his skin for perhaps the two hundredth times since his birth. And Mowgli,
• 5:36:55
  who never forgot that he owed his life to cough or a night's work at
• 5:36:59
  cold layers, which you may perhaps remember, went to congratulate him. Skin
• 5:37:04
  changing always makes a snake moody and depressed till the new skin begins to shine
• 5:37:11
  and look beautiful. Kaw never made fun of Mowgli anymore, but accepted him
• 5:37:17
  as the other jungle people did for the master of the jungle, and brought
• 5:37:22
  him all the news that a python of his size would naturally hear. What
• 5:37:26
  Kaw did not know about the middle jungle, as they call it, the
• 5:37:30
  life that runs close to the earth and under it, the boulder, the
• 5:37:34
  burrow, and the tree bowl, life might have been written upon the smallest
• 5:37:40
  of his scales. That afternoon, Mowgli was sitting in the circle of kaws
• 5:37:45
  great coils, fingering the flaked and broken old skin that lay all looped and
• 5:37:52
  twisted among the rocks. Just as Ka had left it. Ka had very
• 5:37:57
  courteously packed himself under Mowgli's broad, bare shoulders, so that the boy was
• 5:38:03
  really rusting in a living armchair. Even to the scales of the eyes.
• 5:38:08
  It is perfect, said Mowgli under his breath, playing with the old skin.
• 5:38:15
  Strange to see the covering of one's own head at one's own feet.
• 5:38:19
  Ah, but I lock feet, said Ka, And since this is the
• 5:38:25
  custom of all my people, I do not find it strange. Does thy
• 5:38:30
  skin never feel old and harsh? Then go eye and wash flathead? But
• 5:38:36
  it is true. In the great heats, I have wished I could slough
• 5:38:40
  off my skin without pain and run skinless. I wash, and also I
• 5:38:45
  take off my skin. How looks the new coat? Mowgli ran his hand
• 5:38:52
  down the diagonal checkerings of the immense back. The turtle is harder backed,
• 5:38:59
  but not so gay, he said judgmatically. The frog my name bearer is
• 5:39:04
  more gay, but not so hard. It is very beautiful to see,
• 5:39:10
  like the modeling in the mouth of a lily. It needs water. A
• 5:39:15
  new skin never comes to full color before the first bath. Let us go
• 5:39:19
  bathe I will carry thee, said Mowgli, and he stooped down, laughing,
• 5:39:26
  to lift the middle section of Ka's great body, just where the barrel
• 5:39:30
  was thickest. A man might just as well have tried to heave up a
• 5:39:36
  two foot water maine. And Ka lay still, puffing with quiet amusement.
• 5:39:42
  Then the regular evening game began, the boy in the flush of his great
• 5:39:48
  strength, and the python in his sumptuous new skin, standing up one against
• 5:39:53
  the other for a wrestling match, a trial of eye and strength, of
• 5:39:59
  course, could have crushed a dozen Mogulis if he had let himself go,
• 5:40:03
  But he played carefully and never loosed one tenth of his power. Ever since
• 5:40:10
  Mowgli was strong enough to endure a little rough handling, Ka had taught him
• 5:40:14
  this game, and it suppled his limbs as nothing else could. Sometimes Mowgli
• 5:40:19
  would stand lapped almost to his throat in Ka's shifting coils, striving to get
• 5:40:26
  one arm free and catch him by the throat. Then Kaa would give way
• 5:40:30
  limply, and Mowgli, with both quick moving feet, would try to cramp
• 5:40:33
  the purchase of that huge tail as it flung backward, feeling for a rock
• 5:40:38
  or a stump. They were rocked to and fro head to head, each
• 5:40:44
  waiting for his chance, till the beautiful statue like group melted in a whirl
• 5:40:51
  of black and yellow coils and struggling legs and arms to rise up again and
• 5:40:56
  again. Now now, now, oh, said ka making feints with his
• 5:41:02
  head that even Mowgli's quick hand could not turn aside. Look I touch thee
• 5:41:07
  here, little brother, here, and here are thy hands numb? Here
• 5:41:12
  again. The game always ended in one way, with a straight, driving
• 5:41:18
  blow of the head that knocked the boy over and over. Mowgli could never
• 5:41:23
  learn the guard for that lightning lunge, and as Ka said, there was
• 5:41:29
  not the least use in trying good hunting. Kaw grunted at last, and
• 5:41:36
  Mowgli, as usual, was shot away half a dozen yards, gasping and
• 5:41:41
  laughing. He rose with his fingers full of grass, and followed Kaw to
• 5:41:47
  the wise Snake's pet bathing place, a deep, pitchy black pool, surrounded
• 5:41:52
  with rocks and made interesting by sunken tree stumps. The boy slipped in jungle
• 5:41:57
  fashion without a sign, and dived across rose too without a sound, and
• 5:42:03
  turned on his back, his arms behind his head, watching the moon rising
• 5:42:08
  above the rocks and breaking up her reflection in the water with his toes.
• 5:42:14
  Caused Diamond's shaped head cut the pool like a razor, and came out to
• 5:42:18
  rest on Mowgli's shoulder. They lay still, soaking luxuriously in the cool water.
• 5:42:27
  It is very good, said Mowgli, at last, sleepily now in
• 5:42:34
  the man pack at this hour, as I remember, They laid them down
• 5:42:38
  upon hard pieces of wood in the inside of a mud trap, and,
• 5:42:45
  having carefully shut out all the clean winds, drew foul cloth over their heavy
• 5:42:51
  heads, and made evil songs through their noses. It is better in the
• 5:42:56
  jungle. A hurrying slipped down over a rock and drank, gave them good
• 5:43:03
  hunting, and went away. Zoos, said kah as though he had suddenly
• 5:43:10
  remembered something. So the dongle gives thee all that thou hast ever desired,
• 5:43:17
  Little brother, not all, said Mowgli laughing, else there would be a
• 5:43:22
  new and strong Shaarkhan to kill once a moon. Now I could kill with
• 5:43:27
  my own hands, asking no help of buffalo's. And also I have wished
• 5:43:33
  the sun to shine in the middle of the rains, and the rains to
• 5:43:37
  cover the sun in the deep of summer. And also I have never gone
• 5:43:41
  empty, but I wished that I had killed a goat. And also I
• 5:43:45
  have never killed a goat, but I wished it had been buck nor buck,
• 5:43:49
  but I wished it had been nilgahi. But thus do we feel,
• 5:43:53
  all of us? Thou hast no other desire? The big snare demanded,
• 5:44:00
  What more can I wish? I have? The jungle and the favor of
• 5:44:06
  the jungle? Is there more anywhere between sunrise and sunset? Now? The
• 5:44:12
  cobra, said co Be began what cobra? He that went away just now?
• 5:44:18
  Said nothing? He was hunting. It was another hast. Thou many
• 5:44:25
  dealings with the poisoned people. I give them their own path. They carry
• 5:44:30
  death in the four tooth, and that is not good, for they are
• 5:44:34
  so small. But what hood is this? Thou hast spoken with co rolled
• 5:44:41
  slowly in the water like a steamer in a beam sea three or four moons
• 5:44:47
  since, said he, I hunted in cold layers, which place thou hast
• 5:44:52
  not forgotten. And the thing I hunted fled, shrieking past the tanks,
• 5:44:57
  into that house whose side I once broke for the eye sake, and ran
• 5:45:02
  into the ground. But the people of cold lairs do not live in burrows.
• 5:45:08
  Mowgli knew that Ka was telling of the monkey people. This thing was
• 5:45:14
  not living, but seeking to live. Ka replied with a quiver of his
• 5:45:18
  tongue. He ran into a burrow that led veryfore. I followed, and
• 5:45:25
  having killed, I slept. When I waked, I went forward under the
• 5:45:32
  earth, even so, coming at last upon a white hood, a white
• 5:45:37
  cobra, who spoke of things beyond my knowledge, and showed me many things
• 5:45:44
  I had never before seen. New game? Was it good hunting? Mowgli
• 5:45:49
  turned quickly on his side. It was no game, and would have broken
• 5:45:56
  all my teeth. But the white hood said that a man. He spoke
• 5:46:00
  as one that knew the breed, that a man would give the breath under
• 5:46:03
  his ribs for only a sight of those things we will look, said Mowgli.
• 5:46:10
  I now remember that I was once a man. Slowly, slowly,
• 5:46:17
  it was haste killed the yellow snake that ate the sun. We two spoke
• 5:46:22
  together under the earth, and I spoke of thee naming the ass. A
• 5:46:26
  man said, the white Hood, and he is indeed as old as the
• 5:46:32
  jungle. It is long since I have seen a man. Let him come,
• 5:46:37
  and he shall see all these things, for the least of which very
• 5:46:42
  many men would die. That must be a new game. And yet the
• 5:46:49
  poison people do not tell us when game is afoot. They are an unfriendly
• 5:46:53
  folk. It is not game, it is it is. I cannot say
• 5:47:02
  what it is. We will go there. I have never seen a white
• 5:47:07
  hood, and I wish to see the other things. Did he kill them?
• 5:47:12
  They are all dead things, he says, he is the keeper of
• 5:47:17
  them all ah as a wolf stands above meat. He has taken to his
• 5:47:22
  own lair. Let us go. Mowgli swam to bank rolled on the grass
• 5:47:29
  to dry himself, and the two set off for cold Layers, the deserted
• 5:47:34
  city of which you may have heard. Mowgli was not the least afraid of
• 5:47:41
  the monkey people in those days, but the monkey people had the liveliest horror
• 5:47:47
  of Mogli. Their tribes, however, were rating in the jungle, and
• 5:47:51
  so cold layers stood empty and silent in the moonlight. Ka led up to
• 5:47:56
  the ruins of the queen's pavilion, stood on the terrace, slipped over the
• 5:48:02
  rubbish, and dived down the half choked staircase that went underground from the center
• 5:48:07
  of the pavilion. Mowgli gave the snake call we be of one blood,
• 5:48:15
  ye and I, and followed on his hands and knees. They crawled a
• 5:48:19
  long distance down a sloping passage that turned and twisted several times, and at
• 5:48:26
  last came to where the root of some great tree growing thirty feet overhead had
• 5:48:32
  forced out a solid stone in the wall. They crept through the gap and
• 5:48:38
  found themselves in a large vault whose domed roof had been also broken away by
• 5:48:45
  tree roots, so that a few streaks of light dropped down into the darkness.
• 5:48:51
  A safe lair, said Mowgli, rising to his firm feet. But
• 5:48:56
  over four to visit daily. And now what do we say? Am I?
• 5:49:03
  Nothing? Said a voice in the middle of the vault, and Mowgli
• 5:49:07
  saw something white move till little by little there stood up the hugest cobra he
• 5:49:15
  had ever set eyes on a creature nearly eight feet long, and bleached by
• 5:49:19
  being in darkness to an old ivory white. Even the spectacle marks of his
• 5:49:26
  spread hood had faded to a faint yellow. His eyes were as red as
• 5:49:32
  rubies, And altogether he was most wonderful good hunting, said Mowgli, who
• 5:49:38
  carried his manners with his knife, and that never left him. What of
• 5:49:45
  the city, said the white cobra, without answering the greeting, What of
• 5:49:49
  the great the walled city, the city of a hundred elephants and twenty thousand
• 5:49:56
  horses and cattle passed, counting this the city of the king of twenty kings.
• 5:50:03
  I grow deaf here, and it is long since I heard their war
• 5:50:07
  gongs. The jungle is above our heads, said Moakly. I know only
• 5:50:14
  Hathi and his sons. Among elephants, Baghiro has slain all the horses in
• 5:50:18
  one village. And what is a king? I told thee, said Ka
• 5:50:26
  softly to the cobra. I told thee four moons ago that thy city was
• 5:50:32
  not the city, the great city of the forest, whose gates are guarded
• 5:50:38
  by the king's towers can never pass. They builded it before my father's father
• 5:50:47
  came from the egg, and it shall endure when my son's sons are as
• 5:50:52
  white as I. Salom Dhi, son of Tundrabija, son of Vijija,
• 5:51:00
  son of Iyegasuri made it in the days of Papa Rawal, whose cattle are
• 5:51:07
  Ye. It is a lost trail, said Mowgli, turning to kah I
• 5:51:12
  know not his talk, nor I he is very old, father of Cobra's.
• 5:51:19
  There is only the jungle here as it has been since the beginning.
• 5:51:26
  Then who is he? Said the white cobra, sitting down before me,
• 5:51:30
  unafraid, knowing not the name of the king, talking our talk through a
• 5:51:36
  man's lips. Who is he with the knife and the snake's tongue, Mowgli
• 5:51:41
  they call me? Was the answer. I am of the jungle. The
• 5:51:45
  wolves are my people, and Kahir is my brother, father of cobras.
• 5:51:51
  Who art thou? I am the warden of the King's treasure. Kurun Rajah
• 5:51:56
  builded the stone above me in days when my skin was dark, that I
• 5:52:03
  might teach death to those who came to steal. Then they let down the
• 5:52:08
  treasure through the stone, and I heard the song of the Brahmins my master's
• 5:52:18
  hmm, said Mowgli to himself. I have dealt with one Bramin already in
• 5:52:22
  the man pack, and I know what I know. Evil comes here in
• 5:52:27
  a little Five times since I came here has the stone been lifted, but
• 5:52:36
  always to let down more, and never to take away. There are no
• 5:52:41
  riches like these riches, the treasures of a hundred kings. But it is
• 5:52:49
  long and long since the stone was last moved, and I think that my
• 5:52:56
  city has forgotten. There is no city. Look up under our roots of
• 5:53:03
  the great trees tearing the stones apart. Trees and men do not grow together.
• 5:53:10
  Ka insisted twice and thrice have men found their way here? The white
• 5:53:18
  cobra answers savagely, but they never spoke till I came upon them, groping
• 5:53:25
  in the dark. And then they cried only a little. But ye come
• 5:53:30
  with lies man and snake both, and would have me believe the city is
• 5:53:36
  not and that my wardship ends. Little do men change in the years,
• 5:53:45
  But I change never till the stone is lifted and the Brahmins come down,
• 5:53:52
  singing the songs that I know, And feed me with warm milk, and
• 5:53:56
  take me to the light again. I I ay aye, and no other
• 5:54:02
  am the warden of the King's treasure. The city is dead, ye say,
• 5:54:08
  And here are the roots of the trees. Stoop down, then,
• 5:54:14
  and take what ye will. Earth has no treasure like to these man with
• 5:54:21
  the snake's tongue. If thou canst go alive by the way thou hast entered
• 5:54:26
  it, the lesser kings will be thy servants again. The trail is lost,
• 5:54:32
  said Mowgli coolly. Can any jackal have burrowed so deep and bitten this
• 5:54:37
  great white hood? He is surely mad, father of Cobra's I see nothing
• 5:54:44
  here to take away. By the gods of the Sun and moon. It
• 5:54:49
  is the madness of death upon the boy, hissed the cobra. Before thine
• 5:54:55
  eyes close, I will allow thee this favor. Look thou and see what
• 5:55:02
  man has never seen before. They do not well in the jungle, who
• 5:55:08
  speak to Mowgli of favors, said the boy between his teeth. But the
• 5:55:14
  dark change is all as I know. I will look, if that please
• 5:55:18
  thee. He stared with puckered up eyes round the vault, and then lifted
• 5:55:25
  up from the floor a handful of something that glittered. Oh, said he,
• 5:55:32
  This is like the stuff they play with in the man pack, only
• 5:55:36
  this is yellow and the other was brown. He let the gold pieces fall
• 5:55:41
  and move forward. The floor of the vault was buried some five or six
• 5:55:47
  feet deep in coined gold and silver that had burst from the sacks it had
• 5:55:52
  been originally stored in, and in the long years the metal had packed and
• 5:55:57
  settled as sand packs at low tide on it and in it, and rising
• 5:56:03
  through it as wrecks lift through the sand. Were jeweled elephant howdahs of embossed
• 5:56:10
  silver, studded with plates of hammered gold and adorned with carbuncles and turquoises.
• 5:56:17
  There were palanquins and litters for carrying queens, framed and braced with silver and
• 5:56:22
  enamel, with jade handled poles and amber curtain rings. There were golden candlesticks
• 5:56:30
  hung with pierced emeralds that quivered on the branches. There were studded images five
• 5:56:37
  feet high of forgotten gods, silver with jeweled eyes. There were the coats
• 5:56:42
  of mail, gold inlaid on steel and fringed with rotted and blackened seed pearls.
• 5:56:51
  There were helmets crested and beaded with pigeon's blood rubies. There were shields
• 5:56:56
  of lacquer, of tortoises shell and rhinoceros hide, strapped embossed with red gold
• 5:57:02
  and set with emeralds at the edge. There were sheaves of diamond hilted swords,
• 5:57:08
  daggers, and hunting knives. There were golden sacrificial bowls and ladles,
• 5:57:15
  and portable altars of a shape that never sees the light of day. There
• 5:57:19
  were jade cups and bracelets. There were incense burners, combs, and pots
• 5:57:26
  of perfume, henna, and eye powder, all in embossed gold. There
• 5:57:32
  were nose rings, armless headbands, finger rings, and girdles. Past any
• 5:57:37
  counting, there were belts seven fingers, broad of square cut diamonds and rubies,
• 5:57:44
  with wooden boxes shrubbily clamped with iron from which the wood had fallen away
• 5:57:48
  in powder, showing the pile of uncut star sapphires, opals, cat's eyes,
• 5:57:55
  sapphires, rubies, diamonds, emeralds and garnets. Within the white cobra
• 5:58:02
  was right, No mere money would begin to pay the value of this treasure,
• 5:58:07
  the sifted pickings of centuries of war, plunder, trade, and taxation.
• 5:58:12
  The coins alone were priceless, leaving out of count all the precious stones,
• 5:58:18
  and the dead weight of the gold and silver alone might be two or
• 5:58:22
  three hundred tons. Every native ruler in India today, however, poor,
• 5:58:29
  has a horde to which he is always adding. And though once in a
• 5:58:33
  while some enlightened prince may send off forty or fifty bullock cart loads of silver
• 5:58:40
  to be exchanged for government securities, the bulk of them keep their treasure and
• 5:58:45
  the knowledge of it, very closely to themselves. But Mowli naturally did not
• 5:58:51
  understand what these things meant. The knives interested him a little, but they
• 5:58:57
  did not balance so well as his own, and so he dropped them.
• 5:59:02
  At last he found something really fascinating laid on the front of a howdah,
• 5:59:07
  half buried in the coins. It was a three foot uncas or elephant code,
• 5:59:12
  something like a small boat hook. The top was one round shining ruby,
• 5:59:18
  and eight inches of the handle below it were studded with rough turquoises,
• 5:59:23
  close together, giving a most satisfactory grip. Below them was a rim of
• 5:59:30
  jade, with a flower pattern running round it. Only the leaves were emeralds,
• 5:59:34
  and the blossoms were rubies sunk in the cool green stone. The rest
• 5:59:41
  of the handle was a shaft of pure ivory, while the point, the
• 5:59:45
  spike and hook were gold inlaid steel with pictures of elephant catching. And the
• 5:59:52
  pictures attracted Mowgli, who saw that they had something to do with his friend
• 5:59:56
  Hathi, the silent. The white cobra had been following him closely. Is
• 6:00:03
  this not worth dying to behold? He said? Have I not done thee
• 6:00:07
  a great favor? I do not understand, said Mowgli. The things are
• 6:00:15
  hard and cold, and by no means good to eat. But this he
• 6:00:22
  lifted the uncas I desire to take away that I may see it in the
• 6:00:26
  sun. Thou sayest they are all mine? Wilt thou give it to me,
• 6:00:32
  and I will bring thee frogs to eat. Thee white cobra fairly shook
• 6:00:37
  with evil delight. Assuredly I will give it, he said, All that
• 6:00:44
  is here. I will give thee till thou goest away. But I go
• 6:00:49
  now. This place is dark and cold, and I wish to take the
• 6:00:53
  thorn pointed thing to the jungle. Look by thy foot, what is that
• 6:01:00
  there? Mowgli picked up something white and smooth. It is the bone of
• 6:01:06
  a man's head, he said quietly. And here are two more. They
• 6:01:11
  came to take the treasure away many years ago. I spoke to them in
• 6:01:18
  the dark, and they lay still. But what do I need of this
• 6:01:22
  that is called treasure? If thou wilt give me the auncas to take away,
• 6:01:27
  it is good hunting. If not, it is good hunting. Nonetheless,
• 6:01:32
  I do not fight with the poison people. And I was also taught
• 6:01:36
  the master word of thy tribe. There is but one master word here.
• 6:01:42
  It is mine. Pah flung himself forward with blazing eyes. Who bade me
• 6:01:51
  bring the man? He hissed, I surely, The old cobra lisped.
• 6:01:57
  It is long since I have seen man, and this man speaks our tongue.
• 6:02:04
  But there is no talk of killing. How can I go to the
• 6:02:07
  jungle and say that I have led him to his death? Said Kaw.
• 6:02:12
  I talk not of killing till the time. And as to thy going or
• 6:02:18
  not going, there is the hole in the wall. Peace now, thou
• 6:02:25
  fat monkey killer, I have but to touch thy neck, and the jungle
• 6:02:30
  will know thee no longer. Never man came here that went away with the
• 6:02:36
  breath under his ribs. I am the warden of the treasure of the king's
• 6:02:41
  city. But thou white worm of the dark, I tell thee there is
• 6:02:47
  neither king nor city. The jungle is all about us, cried Ka.
• 6:02:53
  There is still the treasure. But this can be done. Wait a while,
• 6:03:00
  Kaw of the rocks, and see the boy. Run. There is
• 6:03:03
  room for great sport here life is good. Run to and fro a while
• 6:03:10
  and makes sport. Boy. Mowgli put his hand on Ka's head quietly.
• 6:03:18
  The white thing has dealt with men of the man pack until now. He
• 6:03:22
  does not know me, he whispered. He has asked for this hunting.
• 6:03:29
  Let him have it. Mowgli had been standing with the Anka's hell point down.
• 6:03:34
  He flung it from him quickly, and it dropped crossways just behind the
• 6:03:40
  great snake's hood, pinning him to the floor. In a flash, Ka's
• 6:03:45
  weight was upon the writhing body, paralyzing it from hood to tail. The
• 6:03:49
  red eyes burned, and the six spare inches of the head struck furiously right
• 6:03:56
  and left. Kill, said Kaw. As Mowgli's hand went to his knife.
• 6:04:03
  No, he said, as he drew the blade. I will never
• 6:04:06
  kill again, save for food. But look you ka. He caught the
• 6:04:11
  snake behind the hood, forced the mouth open with the blade of the knife,
• 6:04:15
  and showed the terrible poison fangs of the upper jaw, lying black and
• 6:04:22
  withered in the gum. The white cobra had outlived his poison as a snake
• 6:04:27
  will fu It is dried up, literally a rotted out tree stump, said
• 6:04:34
  Mowgli, and motioning kaw away, he picked up the uncas, setting the
• 6:04:38
  white cobra free. The King's treasure needs a new warden, he said gravely.
• 6:04:45
  Fugh, thou hast not done well? Run to and fro and make
• 6:04:52
  sport. Tho, I am ashamed, kill me, hissed the white cobra.
• 6:05:00
  There has been too much talk of killing. We will go now.
• 6:05:03
  I take the thorn point to thing. THO, because I have fought and
• 6:05:07
  worsted thee. See then that the thing does not kill thee. At last,
• 6:05:15
  it is death. Remember it is death. There is enough in that
• 6:05:21
  thing to kill the men of all my city. Not long wilt thou hold
• 6:05:26
  it, jungle men, nor he who takes it from thee. They will
• 6:05:33
  kill and kill and kill for its sake. My strength is stried up,
• 6:05:42
  but the acus will do my work. It is death, It is death.
• 6:05:48
  It is death. Mowgli crawled out through the hole into the passage again,
• 6:05:56
  and the last that he saw was the white cobra, striking furiously with
• 6:06:02
  his harmless fangs at the stolid, golden faces of the gods that lay on
• 6:06:06
  the floor, and hissing, it is death. They were glad to get
• 6:06:11
  to the light of day once more, And when they were back in their
• 6:06:15
  own jungle, and Mowgli made the uncas glitter in the morning light, he
• 6:06:19
  was almost as pleased as though he had found a bunch of new flowers to
• 6:06:22
  stick in his hair. Is brighter than Bogriga's eyes, he said delightedly,
• 6:06:29
  as he twirled the ruby. I will show it to him. But what
• 6:06:33
  didst Thou mean when he talked of death? I cannot say I am sorrowful
• 6:06:41
  to my tale's tale that he felt, not thy knife. There is always
• 6:06:45
  evil at cold lairs, above ground or below. But now I am hungry.
• 6:06:52
  Dost thou hunt with me this stone? Said Kaan, No Boghira must
• 6:06:57
  see this thing good hunting. Mogli danced off, flourishing the great uncus and
• 6:07:04
  stopping from time to time to admire it, till he came to that part
• 6:07:08
  of the jungle Boghira chiefly used and found him drinking after a heavy kill.
• 6:07:15
  Mowgli told him all his adventures from beginning to end, and Boghira sniffed at
• 6:07:21
  the aucus between whiles. When Mogli came to the white Kobra's last words,
• 6:07:27
  the panther purred provingly. Then the white hood spoke the thing which is?
• 6:07:33
  Mowgli asked quickly. I was born in the king's cages at Odiepor, and
• 6:07:41
  it is in my stomach that I know some little of man. Very many
• 6:07:47
  men would kill thrice in a night for the sake of that one big red
• 6:07:52
  stone alone. But the stone makes it heavy to the hand. My little
• 6:08:00
  bright knife is better. And see the red stone is not good to eat.
• 6:08:04
  Then why would they kill Mowgli? Go thou and sleep. Thou hast
• 6:08:11
  lived among men, And I remember men kill because they are not hunting for
• 6:08:18
  idleness and pleasure. Wake again, Boghira, For what use was this thorn?
• 6:08:23
  Pointed thing made Boghira half opened his eyes. He was very sleepy,
• 6:08:30
  with a malicious twinkle. It was made by men to thrust into the head
• 6:08:37
  of the sons of Hathi, so that the blood should pour out. I
• 6:08:42
  have seen the like in the streets of Odipor before our cages. That thing
• 6:08:48
  has tasted the blood of many such as Hathi. But why do they thrust
• 6:08:53
  into the heads of elephants to teach them Man's law. Having neither claws nor
• 6:09:02
  teeth, men make these things, and worse, always more blood when I
• 6:09:08
  come near, even to the things the man pack have made, said Mowgli
• 6:09:12
  disgustedly. He was getting a little tired of the weight of the uncas.
• 6:09:18
  If I had known this, I would not have taken it. First it
• 6:09:22
  was Messua's blood on the thongs, and now it is Hathi's. I will
• 6:09:27
  use it no more. Look, the ancas flew sparkling and buried itself point
• 6:09:34
  down, thirty yards away between the trees. So my hands are clean of
• 6:09:41
  death, said Mowgli, rubbing his palms on the fresh moist earth. The
• 6:09:45
  fos said death would follow me. He is old and white and mad,
• 6:09:52
  white are black? Are death? Our life. I am going to sleep,
• 6:09:56
  little brother. I cannot want all night and howl all day, as
• 6:10:02
  do some folk. Bogheira went off to a hunting lair that he knew about
• 6:10:07
  two miles off. Mowgli made an easy way for himself up a convenient tree,
• 6:10:15
  knotted three or four creepers together, and in less time than it takes
• 6:10:18
  to tell, was swinging in a hammock fifty feet above ground. Though he
• 6:10:25
  had no positive objection to strong daylight, Mowgli followed the customs of his friends
• 6:10:30
  and used it as little as he could. When he waked among the very
• 6:10:34
  loud voiced peoples that live in the trees, it was twilight once more,
• 6:10:40
  and he had been dreaming of the beautiful pebbles he had thrown away. At
• 6:10:45
  least I will look at the thing again, he said, and slid down
• 6:10:49
  a creeper to the earth. But Boghira was before him. Mowgli could hear
• 6:10:56
  him snuffling in the half light. Where is the thorn pointed thing, cried
• 6:11:00
  Mowgli. A man has taken it. Here is the trail. Now we
• 6:11:07
  shall see whether the thio spoke truth. If the pointed thing is death.
• 6:11:12
  That man will die. Let us follow kill first, said Baghira. An
• 6:11:19
  empty stomach makes a careless eye. Men go very slowly, and the jungle
• 6:11:25
  is wet enough to hold the lightest mark. They killed as soon as they
• 6:11:30
  could, but it was nearly three hours before they finished their meat and drink,
• 6:11:34
  and buckled down to the trail. The jungle people know that nothing makes
• 6:11:41
  up for being hurried over your meals. Think you the pointed thing will turn
• 6:11:47
  in the man's hand and kill him. Mowgli asked the thoo. Said it
• 6:11:52
  was death. We shall see when we find, said Baghira, trotting with
• 6:11:57
  his head low. It is single foot. He meant that there was only
• 6:12:03
  one man, and the weight of the thing has pressed his heel far into
• 6:12:07
  the ground. Hi, this is as clear as summer lightning, Mowgli answered,
• 6:12:15
  And they fell into the quick, choppy trail, trot in and out
• 6:12:18
  through the checkers of the moonlight, following the marks of those two bare feet.
• 6:12:26
  Now he runs swiftly, said Mowgli. The toes are spread apart.
• 6:12:32
  They went on over some wet ground. Now, why does he turn aside?
• 6:12:37
  Here? Wait, said Boghierra, and flung himself forward with one superb
• 6:12:42
  bound as far as ever he could. The first thing to do when a
• 6:12:48
  trail ceases to explain itself is to cast forward without leaving your own confusing footmarks
• 6:12:55
  on the ground. Bokherra turned as he landed and faced Mowgli, crying.
• 6:13:03
  Here comes another trail to meet him. It is a smaller foot this second
• 6:13:07
  trail, and the toes turn inward. Then Mowgli ran up and looked.
• 6:13:15
  It is the foot of a Gond hunter, he said. Look here.
• 6:13:19
  He dragged his bow on the grass. That is why the first trail turned
• 6:13:23
  aside so quickly. Bigfoot hid from little foot. That is true, said
• 6:13:32
  Baghira. Now, lest by crossing each other's tracks we foul the signs,
• 6:13:38
  let each take one trail. I am Bigfoot, little brother, and thou
• 6:13:42
  art littlefoot thee gond Bagheerra leaped back to the original trail, leaving Mowgli stooping
• 6:13:51
  above the curious narrow track of the wild little man of the woods. Now
• 6:13:57
  said Bakheira, moving step by step along the chain of footprints, I Bigfoot
• 6:14:04
  turn aside here Now I hide me behind a rock and stand still, not
• 6:14:11
  daring to shift my feet, cry thy trail, little brother. Now I,
• 6:14:18
  little foot, come to the rock, said Mowgli, running up his
• 6:14:21
  trail. Now I sit down under the rock, leaning upon my right hand
• 6:14:26
  and resting my bow between my toes. I wait long, for the mark
• 6:14:32
  of my feet is deep here, I also said Bakhira, hidden behind the
• 6:14:37
  rock, I wait, resting the end of the thorn pointed thing upon a
• 6:14:42
  stone. It slips, for here is a scratch upon the stone. Cry
• 6:14:48
  thy trail, A little brother, one, two twigs and a big branch
• 6:14:52
  are broken here, said Mowgli in an undertone. Now how shall I cry
• 6:14:59
  that? Ah? It is plain. Now I littlefoot go away, making
• 6:15:04
  noises and tramplings so that Bigfoot may hear me. He moved away from the
• 6:15:11
  rock, pace by pace among the trees, his voice rising in the distance
• 6:15:15
  as he approached a little cascade. I go far away to where the noise
• 6:15:22
  of falling water covers my noise, And here I wait, cry thy trail,
• 6:15:30
  Baghira Bigfoot. The panther had been casting in every direction to see how
• 6:15:37
  Bigfoot's trail led away from behind the rock. Then he gave tongue, I
• 6:15:44
  come from behind the rock upon my knees dragging the thorn pointed thing. Seeing
• 6:15:49
  no one, I run, I Bigfoot, run swiftly. The trail is
• 6:15:53
  clear. Let each follow his own I run, bogh He swept on along
• 6:16:00
  the clearly marked trail, and Mowgli followed the steps of the gond. For
• 6:16:06
  some time there was silence in the jungle. Where art thou, little Foot,
• 6:16:11
  cried Boghira. Mowgli's voice answered him. Not fifty yards to the right.
• 6:16:18
  Huh, said the panther, with a deep cough. The two run
• 6:16:22
  side by side, drawing nearer. They raced on another half mile, always
• 6:16:27
  keeping about the same distance, till Mowgli, whose head was not so close
• 6:16:33
  to the ground as Bogherras, cried, they have met good hunting. Look
• 6:16:38
  here stood Littlefoot with his knee on a rock, and yonder is big Foot
• 6:16:44
  indeed, not ten yards in front of them, stretched across a pile of
• 6:16:49
  broken rocks lay the body of a villager of the district, A long,
• 6:16:55
  small feathered gawne arrow through his back and breast was the Thuu. So old
• 6:17:02
  and so mad, little brother, said Bakhira gently, here is one death.
• 6:17:07
  At least follow on, But where is the drinker of elephant's blood,
• 6:17:12
  the red eyed thorn, littlefoot has it? Perhaps it is single foot again
• 6:17:18
  now, the single trail of a light man, who had been running quickly
• 6:17:23
  and bearing a burden on his left shoulder, held on round a long,
• 6:17:27
  low spur of dried grass, where each footfall seamed to the sharp eyes of
• 6:17:33
  the trackers marked in hot iron. Neither spoke till the trail ran up to
• 6:17:41
  the ashes of a camp fire hidden in a ravine. Again, said Bakhira,
• 6:17:48
  checking as though he had been turned into stone. The body of a
• 6:17:52
  little wizened gond lay with its feet in the ashes, and Baghira looked wiringly
• 6:18:00
  at Mowgli. That was done with the bamboo, said the boy, after
• 6:18:06
  one glance. I have used such a thing among the buffaloes when I served
• 6:18:11
  in the man pack, the father of Cobra's. I am sorrowful that I
• 6:18:15
  made a jest of him. Knew the breed well as I might have known.
• 6:18:22
  Said I, not that men kill for idleness, Indeed they killed for
• 6:18:27
  the sake of the red and bluestones. Baghira answered, Remember I was in
• 6:18:34
  the king's cages at Oudipoort one, two, three, four tracks, said
• 6:18:41
  Mowgli, stooping over the ashes. Four tracks of men with shot feet.
• 6:18:47
  They do not go so quickly as gons. Now what evil had the little
• 6:18:52
  woodman done to them? See? They talked together, all five standing up,
• 6:18:56
  before they killed him. Baghira, let us go back. My stomach
• 6:19:02
  is heavy in me, and yet it heaves up and down like an oriole's
• 6:19:06
  nest at the end of a branch. It is not good hunting to leave
• 6:19:11
  game afoot, follow, said the panther. Those eight shod feet have not
• 6:19:18
  gone far. No more was said for fully an hour as they worked up
• 6:19:23
  the broad trail of the four men with shod feet. It was clear hot
• 6:19:30
  daylight now, and Boghira said, I smell smoke. Men are always more
• 6:19:37
  ready to eat than to run, Mowgli answered, Trotting in and out between
• 6:19:44
  the low scrub bushes of the new jungle they were exploring. Boghira, a
• 6:19:48
  little to his left, made an indescribable noise in his throat. Hmm,
• 6:19:56
  here is one that has done with feeding, said he. A tumbled bundle
• 6:20:02
  of gay colored clothes lay under a bush and round it was some spilt flour
• 6:20:10
  that was done by the bamboo again, said Mowgli. See that white dust
• 6:20:14
  is what men eat. They have taken the kill from this one. He
• 6:20:18
  carried their food and given him for a kill to chill the kite. It
• 6:20:25
  is the third, said Bakhira. I will go with new big frogs to
• 6:20:33
  the father of cobras and feed him fat. Said Mowgli to himself. The
• 6:20:37
  drinker of elephant's blood is death himself. But still I do not understand follow
• 6:20:45
  said Bakhira. They had not gone half a mile farther when they heard co
• 6:20:52
  the crow singing the death song in the top of a tamarisk, under whose
• 6:20:56
  shade three men were lying a half dead fire smoked in the center of the
• 6:21:03
  circle, under an iron plate which held a blackened and burned cake of unleavened
• 6:21:07
  bread. Close to the fire, and blazing in the sunshine, lay the
• 6:21:12
  ruby and turquoise uncas the thing works quickly, all ends here, said Bakhira.
• 6:21:21
  How did these die? Mowgli, There is no mark on any A
• 6:21:26
  jungle dweller gets to learn by experience, as much as many doctors know of
• 6:21:32
  poisonous plants and berries. Mowgli sniffed the smoke that came up from the fire,
• 6:21:38
  broke off a morsel of the blackened bread, tasted it, and spat
• 6:21:42
  it out again. Apple of death, he coughed. The first must have
• 6:21:48
  made it ready in the food for these who killed him, having first killed
• 6:21:52
  the gond good hunting. Indeed, the kill follows close, said Bakhira.
• 6:22:00
  Apple of death is what the jungle call thorn apple or dhatura, the readiest
• 6:22:07
  poison in all India. What now, said the panther. Must thou and
• 6:22:12
  I kill each other for yonder red eyed slayer? Can it speak? Said
• 6:22:19
  Mowgli in a whisper. Did I do it a wrong when I threw it
• 6:22:23
  away between us two? It can do no wrong, for we do not
• 6:22:27
  desire what men desire. If it be left here, it will assuredly continue
• 6:22:33
  to kill men, one after another, as fast as nuts fall in a
• 6:22:38
  high wind. I have no love to men, but even I would not
• 6:22:44
  have them die six in a night. What matter? They are only men.
• 6:22:48
  They killed one another and were well pleased, said Bakhira. That first
• 6:22:55
  little woodman hunted well. They are cubs none the less, and a cub
• 6:23:00
  will drown itself to bite the moon's light on the water The fault was mine,
• 6:23:06
  said Mowgli, who spoke as though he knew all about everything. I
• 6:23:11
  will never again bring into the jungle strange things, not though they be as
• 6:23:15
  beautiful as flowers. This he handled the uncas gingerly goes back to the father
• 6:23:25
  of Cobras. But first we must sleep, and we cannot sleep near thee
• 6:23:29
  sleepers. Also we must bury him lest he run away and kill another six.
• 6:23:36
  Dig me a hole under that tree. But little brother, said Bakhira,
• 6:23:41
  moving off to the spot. I tell thee it is no fault of
• 6:23:45
  the blood drinker. The trouble is with the men all one, said Mowgli.
• 6:23:51
  Dig the hole deep. When we wake, I will take him up
• 6:23:55
  and carry him back. Two nights later, as the way Cobra sat mourning
• 6:24:00
  in the darkness of the vault, ashamed and robbed and alone, the turquoise
• 6:24:07
  Auncas whirled through the hole in the wall and clashed on the floor of golden
• 6:24:11
  coins. Father of Cobra's, said Mowgli. He was careful to keep the
• 6:24:18
  other side of the wall. Get thee a young and ripe one of thine
• 6:24:22
  own people to help thee guard the king's treasure. So that no man may
• 6:24:26
  come away alive anymore. Aha, it returns. Then I said the thing
• 6:24:33
  was death. How comes it that thou art still alive? The old cobra
• 6:24:40
  mumbled, twining lovingly round the ancus, hacked by the bull that brought me.
• 6:24:47
  I do not know that thing has killed six times in a night.
• 6:24:52
  Let him go out no more. End of the King's uncus. The spring
• 6:25:00
  running Man goes to man, cry the challenge through the jungle. He that
• 6:25:08
  was our brother goes away here now and jud j o ye, people of
• 6:25:14
  the jungle, answer who shall turn him? Who shall stay? Man goes
• 6:25:21
  to man. He is weeping in the jungle. He that was our brother,
• 6:25:25
  sorrows sore. Man goes to Man, Oh, we loved him in
• 6:25:30
  the jungle, to the man trail, where we may not follow more.
• 6:25:38
  The second year, after the great fight with Red Dog and the death of
• 6:25:41
  Aquila, Mowgli must have been nearly seventeen years old. He looked older.
• 6:25:48
  For hard exercise, the best of good eating, and baths whenever he felt
• 6:25:52
  in the least hot or dusty, had given him strength and growth far beyond
• 6:25:56
  his age. He could swing by one hand from a top branch for half
• 6:26:03
  an hour at a time. When he had occasion to look along the tree
• 6:26:06
  roads, he could stop a young buck in mid gallop and throw his sideways
• 6:26:11
  by the head. He could even jerk over the big blue wild boars that
• 6:26:15
  lived in the marshes of the north. The jungle people who used to fear
• 6:26:21
  him for his wits, feared him now for his strength. And when he
• 6:26:26
  moved quietly on his own affairs, the mere whisper of his coming cleared the
• 6:26:30
  woodpaths. And yet the look in his eyes was always gentle, even when
• 6:26:37
  he fought. His eyes never blazed as Boghiras did. They only grew more
• 6:26:44
  and more interested and excited. And that was one of the things that Boghira
• 6:26:49
  himself did not understand. He asked Mowgli about it, and the boy laughed
• 6:26:56
  and said, when I missed the kill, I am angry. I must
• 6:27:00
  go empty for two days. I am very angry. Do not my eyes
• 6:27:04
  talk? Then the mouth is angry, said Boghira. But the eyes say
• 6:27:11
  nothing, hunting, eating, or swimming. It is all one, like
• 6:27:18
  a stone in wet or dry weather. Mogli looked at him lazily from under
• 6:27:23
  his long eyelashes and as usual, the panther's head dropped. Boghira knew his
• 6:27:30
  master. They were laying out far up the side of a hill, overlooking
• 6:27:36
  the wang Gunga, and the morning mists hung below them in bands of white
• 6:27:40
  and green. As the sun rose, it changed into bubbling seas of red
• 6:27:45
  gold churned off and let the low rays stripe the dried grass on which Bogli
• 6:27:51
  and Bogherra were resting. It was the end of the cold weather. The
• 6:27:56
  leaves and the trees looked worn and faded, and there was a dry,
• 6:28:02
  ticking rustle everywhere. When the wind blew, a little leaf tap tap tapped
• 6:28:08
  furiously against a twig, as a single leaf caught in a currant will.
• 6:28:15
  It roused Boghira, for he snuffed the morning air with a deep hollow cough,
• 6:28:21
  threw himself on his back, and struck with his fore paws at the
• 6:28:25
  nodding leaf above. The year turns, he said, The jungle goes forward.
• 6:28:32
  The time of new talk is near. That leaf knows it is very
• 6:28:37
  good. The grass is dry, Mowgli answered, pulling up a tuft even
• 6:28:45
  eye of the spring. That is a little trumpet shaped waxy red flower that
• 6:28:49
  runs in and out among the grasses. Even eye of the spring is shut,
• 6:28:55
  and Bogherra, is it well for the black panther so to lie on
• 6:29:00
  his back and beat with his paws in the air as though he were the
• 6:29:04
  tree cat? All, said Baghiro. He seemed to be thinking of other
• 6:29:11
  things. I say, is it well for the black panther so to mouth
• 6:29:18
  and cough and howl and roll? Remember we be the masters of the jungle
• 6:29:23
  though, And I indeed, yes, I hear man Cub Baghira rolled over
• 6:29:30
  hurriedly and sat up the dust on his ragged black flanks. He was just
• 6:29:37
  casting his winter coat. We be surely the masters of the jungle. Who
• 6:29:41
  is so strong as Mowgli, who so wise? There was a curious drawl
• 6:29:48
  in his voice that made Mowgli turn to see whether, by any chance the
• 6:29:53
  black panther were making fun of him. For the jungle is full of words
• 6:29:57
  that sound like one thing but mean another. I said, we be beyond
• 6:30:03
  question the masters of the jungle. Bog Hero repeated, Have I done wrong?
• 6:30:10
  I did not know that the man Cub no longer lay upon the ground.
• 6:30:14
  Does he flied in? Mowgli sat with his elbows on his knees,
• 6:30:18
  looking out across the valley at the daylight. Somewhere down in the woods below,
• 6:30:25
  a bird was trying over in a husky, reedy voice, the first
• 6:30:29
  few notes of his spring song. It was no more than a shadow of
• 6:30:34
  the liquid tumbling call he would be pouring later. But Boghira heard it.
• 6:30:41
  I said, the time of new talk is near, growled the panther,
• 6:30:45
  switching his tail. I hear, Mowgli, answered bog Hero. Why dost
• 6:30:52
  thou shake all over? The sun is warm? That is farah, the
• 6:30:57
  scarlet woodpecker, said Boghira. He has not forgotten. Now I too must
• 6:31:06
  remember my song. And he began purrying and crooning to himself, HARKing back
• 6:31:11
  dissatisfied. Again and again. There is no game afoot, said Mowgli.
• 6:31:18
  Little brother, or both thine ears stopped. That is no killing word,
• 6:31:25
  but my song that I make ready against the need I had forgotten. I
• 6:31:30
  shall know when the time of new talk is here, because then thou and
• 6:31:34
  the others all run away and leave me alone. Mowgli spoke rather savagely.
• 6:31:41
  But indeed, little brother Boghra began, we do not always, I say
• 6:31:47
  ye do, said Mowgli, shooting out his forefinger angrily. Ye do run
• 6:31:52
  away, And I, who am the master of the jungle, must needs
• 6:31:56
  walk alone. How was it last season when I would gather sugar cane from
• 6:32:00
  the fields of a man pack. I sent a runner. I sent thee
• 6:32:04
  to Hathi, bidding him to come upon such a night and pluck the sweet
• 6:32:10
  grass for me with his trunk. He came only two nights later, said
• 6:32:15
  Bakhira, cowering a little, and of that long sweet grass that pleased thee.
• 6:32:19
  So he gathered more than any man cub could eat in all the knights
• 6:32:23
  of the rains. That was no fault of mine. He did not come
• 6:32:30
  upon the night when I sent him. Word, No, he was trumpeting
• 6:32:34
  and running and roaring through the valleys in the moonlight. His trail was like
• 6:32:38
  the trail of three elephants, for he would not hide among the trees.
• 6:32:44
  He danced in the moonlight before the houses of the man pack. I saw
• 6:32:48
  him, and yet he would not come to me. And I am the
• 6:32:52
  master of the jungle. It was the time of new talk, said the
• 6:32:56
  panther, always very humble. Perhaps little brother thou didst not that time call
• 6:33:03
  him by a master word. Listen to Ferao and be glad. Mowgli's bad
• 6:33:11
  temper seemed to have boiled itself away. He lay back with his head on
• 6:33:15
  his arms, his eyes shut. I do not know, nor do I
• 6:33:22
  care, he said, sleepily. Let us sleep, Baghira. My stomach
• 6:33:26
  is heavy in me. Make me a rest for my head. The panther
• 6:33:32
  lay down again with a sigh, because he could hear Pherah practicing and repracticing
• 6:33:38
  his song against the springtime of new talk. As they say in an Indian
• 6:33:45
  jungle, the season slide one into the other, almost without division. There
• 6:33:52
  seem to be only two, the wet and the dry. But if you
• 6:33:55
  look closely below the torrents of rain and the clouds of char and dust,
• 6:34:00
  you will find all four going round in their regular ring. Spring is the
• 6:34:07
  most wonderful because she has not to cover a clean, bare feel with new
• 6:34:11
  leaves and flowers, but to drive before her and to put away the hanging
• 6:34:17
  on over surviving raffle of half green things which the gentle winter has suffered to
• 6:34:22
  live, and to make the partly dressed, stale earth feel new and young
• 6:34:26
  once more. And this she does so well that there is no spring in
• 6:34:33
  the world like the jungle spring. There is one day when all things are
• 6:34:40
  tired, and the very smells as they drift on the heavy air, are
• 6:34:45
  old and used. One cannot explain this, but it feels so. Then
• 6:34:52
  there is another day to the eye, nothing whatever has changed, when all
• 6:34:56
  the smells are new and delightful, and the whiskers of the jungle people quiver
• 6:35:02
  to their roots, and the winter hair comes away from their sides in long,
• 6:35:07
  draggled locks. Then perhaps a little rain falls, and all the trees
• 6:35:14
  and the bushes, and the bamboos, and the mosses and the juicy leaved
• 6:35:18
  plants wake with the noise of growing that you could almost hear. And under
• 6:35:22
  this noise runs day and night a deep hum that is the noise of the
• 6:35:30
  spring, a vibrating boom, which is neither bees, nor falling water,
• 6:35:37
  nor the wind in treetops, but the purring of the warm, happy world.
• 6:35:44
  Up to this year, Mowgli had always delighted in the turn of seasons.
• 6:35:48
  It was he who generally saw the first eye of the spring, deep
• 6:35:52
  down among the grasses, and the first bank of spring clouds, which are
• 6:35:56
  like nothing else in the jungle. His voice could be heard in all sorts
• 6:36:02
  of wet, star lighted, blossoming places, helping the big frogs through their
• 6:36:07
  choruses, or mocking the little upside down owls that hoot through the white nights.
• 6:36:14
  Like all his people, Spring was the season he chose for his flittings,
• 6:36:19
  moving for the mere joy of rushing through the warm air thirty or forty
• 6:36:25
  or fifty miles between twilight and the morning star, and coming back panting and
• 6:36:30
  laughing and wreathed with strange flowers. The four did not follow him on these
• 6:36:37
  wild ringings of the jungle, but went off to sing songs with other wolves.
• 6:36:44
  The jungle people are very busy in the spring, and Mowgli could hear
• 6:36:48
  them grunting and screaming and whistling. According to their kind. Their voices then
• 6:36:55
  are different from their voices at other times of the year, and that is
• 6:36:59
  one of the reasons why spring in the jungle is called the time of new
• 6:37:03
  talk. But that spring, as he told Boghira, his stomach was changed
• 6:37:10
  in him. Ever since the bamboo shoots turned spotty brown. He had been
• 6:37:15
  looking forward to the morning when the smells should change. But when the morning
• 6:37:22
  came, and more the peacock, blazing in bronze and blue and gold,
• 6:37:27
  cried it aloud all along the misty woods, and Mowgli opened his mouth to
• 6:37:33
  send on the cry. The words choked between his teeth, and a feeling
• 6:37:37
  came over him that began that his toes and ended in his hair, a
• 6:37:44
  feeling of pure unhappiness, so that he looked himself over to be sure he
• 6:37:49
  had not trod on a thorn. Moore cried the new smells. The other
• 6:37:55
  birds took it over, and from the rocks by the Waingunga, he heard
• 6:38:00
  Boghira's hoarse scream, something between the scream of an eagle and the neighing of
• 6:38:07
  a horse. There was a yelling and scattering of bender log in the new
• 6:38:11
  bunting branches above, and there stood Mowgli, his chest filled to answer more,
• 6:38:18
  sinking in little gasps as the breath was driven out of it by this
• 6:38:23
  unhappiness. He stared all round him, but he could see no more than
• 6:38:30
  the mocking band or logs scudding through the trees and mar his tails spread in
• 6:38:37
  full splendor, dancing on the slopes below. The smells have changed screamed,
• 6:38:44
  Moore, good hunting, little brother, Where is thy answer? Little brother,
• 6:38:49
  good hunting? Whistled Chill. The kite and his mate Swooping down together,
• 6:38:56
  the two baffed under Mowgli's nose, so close that ach of downy white
• 6:39:00
  feathers brushed away. A light spring rain, elephant rain they call it,
• 6:39:07
  drove across the jungle in a belt half a mile wide, left the new
• 6:39:11
  leaves wet and nodding behind, and died out in a double rainbow and a
• 6:39:17
  light roll of thunder. The spring hum broke out for a minute and was
• 6:39:22
  silent, but all the jungle folk seemed to be giving tongue at once,
• 6:39:26
  all except Mowgli. I have eaten good food, he said to himself.
• 6:39:34
  I have drunk good water. Nor does my throat burn and grow small as
• 6:39:40
  it did when I bit the blue spotted root that Ooh, the turtle said
• 6:39:44
  was clean food. But my stomach is heavy, and I have given very
• 6:39:49
  bad talk to Boghira and others people of the jungle and my people. Now
• 6:39:56
  to I am hot, and now I am cold. Wow, I am
• 6:40:00
  neither hot nor cold, but angry with that which I cannot see. Oh,
• 6:40:06
  it is time to make a running. Tonight I will cross the ranges.
• 6:40:11
  Yes, I will make a spring, running to the marshes of the
• 6:40:15
  north and back again. I have hunted too easily, too long. The
• 6:40:21
  four shall come with me, for they grow as fat as white grubs.
• 6:40:26
  He called, but never one of the four answered. They were far beyond
• 6:40:32
  earshot, singing over the spring songs the moon and samboor songs with the wolves
• 6:40:38
  of the pack. For in the springtime the jungle people make very little difference
• 6:40:44
  between the day and the night. He gave the sharp barking note, but
• 6:40:48
  his only answer was the mocking mayou of the little spotted tree cat, winding
• 6:40:55
  in and out among the branches for early birds nests. He shook all over
• 6:41:02
  with rage and half drew his knife. Then he became very haughty, though
• 6:41:07
  there was no one to see him, and stalked severely down the hillside,
• 6:41:11
  chin up and eyebrows down. But never a single one of his people asked
• 6:41:18
  him a question, for they were all too busy with their own affairs.
• 6:41:23
  Yes, said Mowgli to himself, though in his heart he knew that he
• 6:41:29
  had no reason. Let the red doley come from the decon or the red
• 6:41:34
  flower dance among the bamboos, and all the jungle runs whining to Mowgli,
• 6:41:41
  calling him great elephant names. But now because eye of the spring is red,
• 6:41:47
  and more forsooth must show his naked legs in some spring dance. The
• 6:41:52
  jungle goes mad as tobaki by the bull that bought me. M I the
• 6:41:57
  master of the jungle, Or am I not be silent? What do ye
• 6:42:03
  hear? A couple of young wolves of the pack were cantering down a path,
• 6:42:07
  looking for open ground in which to fight. You will remember that the
• 6:42:11
  law of the jungle forbids fighting where the pack can see. Their neck bristles
• 6:42:18
  were as stiff as wire, and they bayed furiously. Crouching for the first
• 6:42:22
  grapple. Mowgli leaped forward, caught one outstretched throat in either hand, expecting
• 6:42:30
  to fling the creatures backward, as he had often done in games or pack
• 6:42:33
  hunts. But he had never before interfered with a spring fight. The two
• 6:42:41
  leaped forward and dashed him aside, and without word to waste, rolled over
• 6:42:47
  and over. Close locked. Mowgli was on his feet almost before he fell.
• 6:42:53
  His knife and his white teeth were bared, and at that minute he
• 6:42:57
  would have killed both for no reason but that they were fighting when he wished
• 6:43:03
  them to be quiet, Although every wolf has full right under the law to
• 6:43:07
  fight. He danced around them with lowered shoulders and quivering hand, ready to
• 6:43:14
  send in a double blow when the first flurry of the scuffle should be over.
• 6:43:18
  But while he waited, the streth seemed to ebb from his body.
• 6:43:22
  The knife point lowered, and he sheathed the knife and watched. I have
• 6:43:29
  surely eaten poison, he sighed at last, Since I broke up the council
• 6:43:34
  with the red flower, since I killed sharr Khan, none of the pack
• 6:43:38
  could flame me aside. And these be only tail wolves in the pack,
• 6:43:44
  little hunters. Ah, my strength is gone from me, and presently I
• 6:43:48
  shall die. Oh, Mowgli, why dost thou not kill them both?
• 6:43:55
  The fight went on till one wolf ran away, and Mowgli was left alone
• 6:44:00
  on the torn and bloody ground, looking now at his knife and now at
• 6:44:03
  his legs and arms, while the feeling of unhappiness he had never known before
• 6:44:08
  covered him as water cover as a log. He killed early that evening and
• 6:44:15
  ate but little so as to be in good fettle for his spring running,
• 6:44:21
  and he ate alone because all the jungle people were away, singing or fighting.
• 6:44:26
  It was a perfect white night, as they call it. All green
• 6:44:32
  things seemed to have made him month's growth since the morning. The branch that
• 6:44:37
  was yellow leaved the day before dripped sap. When Mowgli broke it, the
• 6:44:42
  mosses curled deep and warm over his feet. The young grass had no cutting
• 6:44:48
  edges, and all the voices of the jungle boomed like one deep harpstring touched
• 6:44:52
  by the moon, the moon of New Talk, who splashed her light full
• 6:44:59
  on rock and pool, slipped it between trunk and creeper, and sifted it
• 6:45:03
  through a million leaves. Forgetting his unhappiness, Mowgli sang aloud with pure delight
• 6:45:11
  as he settled into his stride. It was more like flying than anything else,
• 6:45:18
  for he had chosen the long downward slope that leads to the northern marshes,
• 6:45:23
  through the heart of the main jungle, where the springy ground deadened the
• 6:45:27
  fall of his feet. A man, taught man would have picked his way
• 6:45:33
  with many stumbles through the cheating moonlight. But Mowgli's muscles, trained by years
• 6:45:41
  of experience bore him up as though he were a feather. When a rotted
• 6:45:45
  log or a hidden stone turned under his foot, he saved himself, never
• 6:45:51
  checking his pace, without effort and without thought. When he tired of ground
• 6:45:56
  going, he threw up his hands monkey face into the nearest creeper, and
• 6:46:02
  seemed to float rather than to climb up into the thin branches. Whence he
• 6:46:07
  would follow a tree road till his mood changed and he shot downward in a
• 6:46:11
  long leafy curve to the levels. Again, there were still hot hollows surrounded
• 6:46:18
  by wet rocks, where he could hardly breathe for the heavy scent of the
• 6:46:22
  night flowers and the bloom along the creeper buds, dark avenues where the moonlight
• 6:46:29
  lay in belts as regular as checkered marbles in a church aisle, thickets where
• 6:46:34
  the wet young growth stood breast high about him and threw its arms round his
• 6:46:38
  waist. And hilltops crowned with broken rock, where he leaped from stone to
• 6:46:45
  stone above the layers of the frightened little foxes. He could hear, very
• 6:46:51
  faint and far off, the chug drug of a boar sharpening his tusks.
• 6:46:56
  On a bowl and would come across the great gray brute all alone, scribing
• 6:47:02
  and rending the bark of a tall tree, his mouth dripping with foam and
• 6:47:07
  his eyes blazing like fire. Or he would turn aside to the sound of
• 6:47:12
  clashing horns and hissing grunts, and dash past a couple of furious sambar,
• 6:47:18
  staggering to and fro with lowered heads striped with blood that showed black in the
• 6:47:23
  moonlight. Or at some rushing ford, he would hear Jakala the crocodile,
• 6:47:30
  bellowing like a bull, or disturb a twined knot of the poisoned people,
• 6:47:34
  but before they could strike, he would be away and across the glistening shingle
• 6:47:40
  and deep in the jungle again. So he ran, sometimes shouting, sometimes
• 6:47:45
  singing to himself, the happiest thing in all the jungle that night, till
• 6:47:51
  the smell of the flowers warned him that he was near the marshes, and
• 6:47:55
  those lay far beyond his farthest hunting grounds. Here again, a man,
• 6:48:02
  trained man would have sunk overhead in three strides, but Mowgli's feet had eyes
• 6:48:07
  in them, and they passed from tussock to tussock and clumped to quaking clump.
• 6:48:14
  Without asking help from the eyes in his head, he ran out to
• 6:48:18
  the middle of the swamp, disturbing the duck as he ran, and sat
• 6:48:22
  down on a moss coated tree trunk lapped in the black water. The marsh
• 6:48:27
  was awake all around him, for in the spring the bird people sleep very
• 6:48:33
  lightly, and companies of them were coming or going the night through. But
• 6:48:37
  no one took any notice of Mowgli sitting among the tall reeds, humming songs
• 6:48:44
  without words, and looking at the soles of his hard brown feet in case
• 6:48:48
  of neglected thorns. All his unhappiness seemed to have been left behind in his
• 6:48:55
  own jungle, and he was just beginning a full throat song when it came
• 6:49:00
  back again, ten times worse than before. This time, Mowgli was frightened.
• 6:49:10
  It is here also, he said, half aloud. It has followed
• 6:49:15
  me, and he looked over his shoulder to see whether the it were not
• 6:49:19
  standing behind him. There is no one here. The night noises of a
• 6:49:26
  marsh went on, but never a bird or beast spoke to him, and
• 6:49:30
  the new feeling of misery grew. I have surely eaten poison. He said,
• 6:49:37
  in an awe stricken voice. It must be that carelessly I have eaten
• 6:49:42
  poison, and my strength is going from me. I was afraid, And
• 6:49:48
  yet it was not I that was afraid. Mowgli was afraid. When the
• 6:49:52
  two wolves fought Akuila, or even fail would have silenced them. Yet Mowgli
• 6:50:00
  was afraid. That is true, sign I have eaten poison. But what
• 6:50:07
  do they care? In the jungle they sing and howl and fight and running
• 6:50:12
  companies under the moon and high. Hi, my I am dying in the
• 6:50:18
  marshes of that poison which I have eaten. He was so sorry for himself
• 6:50:23
  that he nearly wept, and after he went on, they will find me
• 6:50:30
  lying in the black water. Nay, I will go back to my own
• 6:50:36
  jungle, and I will die upon the council rock and Boghira, whom I
• 6:50:41
  love. If he is not screaming in the valley, Boghira, perhaps may
• 6:50:45
  watch by what is left for a little lest chill used me as he used
• 6:50:51
  tequila, A large warm tear splashed down on his knee. And miserable as
• 6:50:59
  he was, Mowgli felt happy that he was so miserable if you can understand
• 6:51:04
  that upside down sort of happiness, as ChIL the kite used. Aquila he
• 6:51:11
  repeated. On the night I saved the pack from red Dog, he was
• 6:51:18
  quiet for a little thinking of the last words of the lone wolf, which
• 6:51:23
  you, of course remember. Now. Achilah said to me many foolish things
• 6:51:29
  before he died. For when we die, our stomach's change, he said,
• 6:51:36
  none the less. I am of the jungle. In his excitement as
• 6:51:41
  he remembered the fight on waing Gunga bank, he shouted the last words aloud,
• 6:51:47
  and a wild buffalo cow among the reeds, sprang to her knees,
• 6:51:51
  snorting. He man Ah said, Mysa, the wild buffalo mogul could hear
• 6:52:00
  him turn in his wallow. That is no man. It is only the
• 6:52:06
  hairless wolf of the sea. One pack on such nights runs he to and
• 6:52:11
  fro huh, said the cow, dropping her head again to grace. I
• 6:52:18
  thought it was man. I say no, Oh, Mowgli, is it
• 6:52:25
  danger? Load Mesa, oh, Mowgli, is it danger? The boy
• 6:52:32
  called back mockingly. That is all Mysa thinks, for is it danger?
• 6:52:38
  But from Mowgli, who goes to and fro in the jungle by night watching.
• 6:52:41
  What do ye care how loud he cries, said the cow, Thus
• 6:52:49
  do they cry? Mysa answered contemptuously, who, having torn up the grass,
• 6:52:56
  know not how to eat it? For less than this, Mowgli groaned
• 6:53:03
  to himself, For less than this, Even last reins I had pricked Mysa
• 6:53:07
  out of his wallow and ridden him through the swamp on a rush halter.
• 6:53:12
  He stretched a hand to break one of the feathery reeds, but drew it
• 6:53:18
  back with a sigh. Mesa went on steadily chewing the cud and the long
• 6:53:23
  grass ripped where the cow grazed. I will not die here, he said
• 6:53:30
  angrily. Mysa, who is of one blood with Jakala and the pig,
• 6:53:34
  would see me. Let us go beyond the swamp and see what comes.
• 6:53:40
  Never have I run such a spring, running hot and cold together up Mowgli.
• 6:53:48
  He could not resist the temptation of stealing across the reeds to Mysa and
• 6:53:53
  pricking him with the point of his knife. The great dripping bull broke out
• 6:53:59
  of his wall like a shell exploding, while Mowlei laughed till he sat down.
• 6:54:04
  Say now that the hairless wolf of the sea. One pack once heard
• 6:54:08
  of thee Mysa, he called wolf thou. The bull snarted stamping in the
• 6:54:15
  mud. All the jungle knows a what's a herder of tame cattle? Such
• 6:54:21
  a man's brat as shouts in the dust by the crops yonder thou of the
• 6:54:26
  jungle, what hunter would have crawled like a snake among the leeches? And
• 6:54:32
  for a muddy jest, A jackal's jest have shamed me before my cow come
• 6:54:38
  to firm ground, and I will ah, I will Mysa frost at the
• 6:54:45
  mouth, for Mysa has nearly the worst temper of anyone in the jungle.
• 6:54:51
  Mowgli watched him puff and blow with eyes that never changed. When he could
• 6:54:56
  make himself heard through the pattering mud, he said, what man pack layer
• 6:55:02
  here by the marshes, Mysa, this is new jungle to me go north,
• 6:55:07
  Then roared the angry bull, for Mowgli had pricked him rather sharply.
• 6:55:14
  It was a naked cowherdz jest, Go and tell them at the village at
• 6:55:18
  the foot of the marsh. The man pack do not love jungle tales,
• 6:55:23
  nor do I think Mysa that a scratch more or less on my hide does
• 6:55:29
  any matter for a council. But I will go and look at this village.
• 6:55:33
  Yes, I will go softly. Now. It is not every night
• 6:55:37
  that the master of the jungle comes to herd thee. He stepped out to
• 6:55:44
  the shivering ground on the edge of the marsh well, knowing that Mysa would
• 6:55:48
  never charge over it, and laughed as he ran. To think of the
• 6:55:52
  bull's anger. My strength is not altogether gone, he said. It may
• 6:55:59
  be that the poison is not to the bone. There is a star sitting
• 6:56:03
  low yonder. He looked at it between his half shut hands, by the
• 6:56:10
  bowl that bought me. It is the red flower, the red flower that
• 6:56:14
  I lay beside before, before I came even to the first seOne pack.
• 6:56:19
  Now that I have seen, I will finish the running. The marsh ended
• 6:56:25
  in a broad plain where a light twinkled. It was a long time since
• 6:56:30
  Mowgli had concerned himself with the doings of men, But this night the glimmer
• 6:56:36
  of the red flower drew him forward. I will look, said he as
• 6:56:41
  I did in the old days, and I will see how far the man
• 6:56:45
  pack has changed, forgetting that he was no longer in his own jungle where
• 6:56:49
  he could do what he pleased. He trod carelessly through the dew loaded grasses
• 6:56:56
  till he came to the hut where the light stood or four yelping dogs gave
• 6:57:00
  tongue, for he was on the outskirts of a village, Ho, said
• 6:57:07
  Mowgli, sitting down noiselessly, after sending back a deep wolf growl that silenced
• 6:57:12
  the curs. What comes, will come, Mowgli? What hast thou to
• 6:57:18
  do any more with the lairs of the man pack? He rubbed his mouth,
• 6:57:23
  remembering where a stone had struck it years ago, when the other man
• 6:57:27
  pack had cast him out. The door of the hut opened, and a
• 6:57:33
  woman stood peering out into the darkness. A child cried, and the woman
• 6:57:37
  said, over her shoulder, sleep. It was but a jackal that waked
• 6:57:41
  the dogs in a little time. Morning comes. Mowgli in the grass began
• 6:57:48
  to shake, as though he had fever. He knew that voice well,
• 6:57:53
  but to make sure, he cried softly, surprised to find how man's talk
• 6:57:59
  came back. Messua, oh, messieur, who calls? Said the woman,
• 6:58:07
  a quiver in her voice. Hast thou forgotten? Said Mowgli. His
• 6:58:14
  throat was dry as he spoke. If it be thou, what name did
• 6:58:21
  I give thee? Say? She had half shut the door, and her
• 6:58:25
  hand was clutching at her breast. Not thu, oh, hey, not
• 6:58:30
  thu, said Mowgli, For as you remember, that was the name Missieua
• 6:58:33
  gave him when he first came to the man Pack. Come, my son,
• 6:58:38
  she called, And Mowgli stepped into the light and looked full at Massur,
• 6:58:45
  the woman who had been good to him and whose life he had saved
• 6:58:48
  from the man pack so long before. She was older and her hair was
• 6:58:55
  gray, but her eyes and her voice had not changed. Womanlike. She
• 6:59:00
  expected to find Mowgli where she had left him, and her eyes traveled upward
• 6:59:04
  in a puzzled way, from his chest to his head that touched the top
• 6:59:08
  of the door. M my son, she stammered, and then sinking to
• 6:59:15
  his feet. But it is no longer my son. It is the gobling
• 6:59:21
  of the woods. A high as he stood in the red light of the
• 6:59:26
  oil lamp, strong, tall and beautiful, his long black hair sweeping over
• 6:59:32
  his shoulders, the knife swinging at his neck, and his head crowned with
• 6:59:36
  a wreath of white jasmine. He might easily have been mistaken for some wild
• 6:59:41
  god of a jungle legend. The child, half asleep on a cot,
• 6:59:47
  sprang up and shrieked aloud with terror. Monsieu turned to soothe him, while
• 6:59:52
  Mowgli stood still, looking at the water jars and the cooking pots, the
• 6:59:56
  grain bin, and all the other human belongings that he found himself, remembering
• 7:00:02
  so well, what wilt thou eat or drink? Masua murmured, this is
• 7:00:07
  all thine. We owe our lives to thee. But art thou him I
• 7:00:14
  called Nathu, or a godling. Indeed I am Nathu, said Mowgli.
• 7:00:22
  I am very far from my own place. I saw this lightning came hither.
• 7:00:26
  I did not know thou what'st here. After we came to Kanhiwara,
• 7:00:33
  Massua said timidly. The English would have helped us against those villagers that sought
• 7:00:38
  to burn us. Rememberest thou. Indeed I have not forgotten. But when
• 7:00:45
  the English law was made ready, we went to the village of those evil
• 7:00:48
  people, and it was no more to be found. That also, I
• 7:00:56
  remember, said Mowgli, with a quiver of his nostril. My man therefore
• 7:01:02
  took service in the fields, and at last, for indeed he was a
• 7:01:06
  strong man. We held our little land here. It is not so rich
• 7:01:10
  as the old village, but we do not need much. We two.
• 7:01:15
  Where is he the man that dug in the dirt when he was afraid on
• 7:01:18
  that night? He is dead a year? And he Mowgli pointed at the
• 7:01:26
  child, my son, that was born two rains ago. If thou art
• 7:01:30
  a godling, give him the favor of the jungle, that he may be
• 7:01:33
  safe among thy people, as we were safe on that night. She lifted
• 7:01:41
  up the child, who, forgetting his fright, reached out to play with
• 7:01:45
  a knife that hung on Mowgli's chest. And Mowgli put the little fingers aside
• 7:01:49
  very carefully. And if thou art not thou whom the tiger carried away,
• 7:01:56
  Masua went on choking. He is then the my younger brother. Give him
• 7:02:02
  an elder brother's blessing. Hi, ma, oh, what do I know
• 7:02:06
  of the thing called a blessing? I am neither a godling nor his brother.
• 7:02:11
  And oh, mother, mother, my heart is heavy in me.
• 7:02:17
  He shivered as he set down the child like enough, said Messua, bustling
• 7:02:22
  among the cooking pots. This comes of running about the marshes by night.
• 7:02:27
  Beyond question, the fever had soaked thee to the marrow. Mowgli smiled a
• 7:02:33
  little at the idea of anything in the jungle hurting him. I will make
• 7:02:37
  a fire, and thou shalt drink warm milk. Put away the jasmine wreathed.
• 7:02:42
  The smell is heavy in so small a place. Mowgli sat down,
• 7:02:48
  muttering, with his face in his hands. All manner of strange feelings that
• 7:02:52
  he had never felt before were running over him, exactly as though he had
• 7:02:57
  been poisoned, and he felt dizzy and a little sick. He drank the
• 7:03:03
  warm milk and long gulps Masiu of patting him on the shoulder from time to
• 7:03:07
  time, not quite sure whether he were her son, Nathu of the long
• 7:03:12
  ago days are some wonderful jungle being, but glad to feel that he was
• 7:03:18
  at least flesh and blood son, she said. At last, Her eyes
• 7:03:23
  were full of pride. Have any told thee that thou art beautiful beyond all
• 7:03:30
  men? Huh, said Mowgli, For naturally he had never heard anything of
• 7:03:34
  the kind, Massieua laughed softly and happily. The look in his face was
• 7:03:41
  enough for her. I am the first. Then it is right, though
• 7:03:45
  it comes seldom that a mother should tell her son these good things. Thou
• 7:03:51
  art very beautiful. Never have I looked upon such a man. Mowgli twisted
• 7:03:59
  his head and tried to see over his own hard shoulder, and Masiua laughed
• 7:04:03
  again, so long that Mowgli, not knowing why, was forced to laugh
• 7:04:07
  with her, and the child ran from one to the other, laughing too.
• 7:04:15
  Nay, thou must not mock thy brother, said Massua, catching him
• 7:04:18
  to her breast. When thou art one half as fair, we will marry
• 7:04:22
  thee to the youngest daughter of a king, and thou shalt ride great elephants.
• 7:04:30
  Mowgli could not understand one word in three of the talk. Here the
• 7:04:34
  warm milk was taking an effect on him after his long run, so he
• 7:04:38
  curled up and in a minute was deep asleep, and Mosieu put the hair
• 7:04:44
  back from his eyes, threw a cloth over him, and was happy jungle
• 7:04:48
  fashion. He slept out the rest of that night and all the next day,
• 7:04:53
  for his instincts, which never wholly slept warned him there was nothing to
• 7:05:00
  He waked at last with a bound that shook the hut, for the cloth
• 7:05:06
  over his face made him dream of traps, and there he stood, his
• 7:05:10
  hand on his knife, the sleep all heavy in his rolling eyes, ready
• 7:05:14
  for any fight. Massua laughed and set the evening meal before him. There
• 7:05:19
  were only a few coarse cakes baked over the smoky fire, some rice,
• 7:05:25
  and a lump of sour preserved tamarinds, just enough to go on with till
• 7:05:30
  he could get to his evening kill. The smell of the dew in the
• 7:05:33
  marshes made him hungry and restless. He wanted to finish his spring running,
• 7:05:40
  but the child insisted on sitting in his arms, and Massua would have it
• 7:05:45
  that his long blue black hair must be combed out, So she sang as
• 7:05:51
  she combed, foolish little baby songs, now calling Mowgli her son, and
• 7:05:56
  now begging him to give some of his jungle power to the child. The
• 7:06:00
  hut door was closed, but Mowgli heard a sound he knew well, and
• 7:06:06
  saw Messua's jaw drop with horror as a great gray paw came under the bottom
• 7:06:11
  of the door, and gray brother outside wind a muffled, penitent whine of
• 7:06:17
  anxiety and fear out and wait, ye would not come when I called,
• 7:06:22
  said Mowgli in jungle talk, without turning his head, and the great gray
• 7:06:27
  paw disappeared. Do not do not bring thy thy servants with thee, said
• 7:06:34
  Massua. I we have always lived at peace with the jungle. It is
• 7:06:40
  peace, said Mowgli, rising, think of that night on the road to
• 7:06:45
  Kanhiwara. There were scores of such folk before thee and behind thee. But
• 7:06:51
  I see that even in springtime, the jungle people do not always forget Mother.
• 7:06:56
  I go. Massua drew aside humbly. He was Indeed, it would
• 7:07:02
  God, she thought. But as his hand was on the door, the
• 7:07:06
  mother in her made her throw her arms round Mowgli's neck again and again.
• 7:07:11
  Come back, she whispered, son or no, son, come back,
• 7:07:15
  for I love thee. Look, he too, grieves. The child was
• 7:07:21
  crying because the man with the shiny knife was going away. Come back again,
• 7:07:26
  Monsieur repeated. By night or by day, this door is never shut
• 7:07:32
  to thee. Mowgli's throat worked as though the cords in it were being pulled,
• 7:07:38
  and his voice seemed to be dragged from it as he answered, I
• 7:07:44
  will surely come back. And now, he said, as he put by
• 7:07:49
  the head of the fawning wolf on the threshold, I have a little cry
• 7:07:53
  against thee Gray brother, Why came ye? Not all four? When I
• 7:07:59
  call? So long? Go? So long ago? It was but last
• 7:08:03
  night I we were singing in the jungle the new songs, for this is
• 7:08:10
  the time of new talk. Rememberest thou, truly, truly, And as
• 7:08:17
  soon as the songs were sung, Gray Brother went on earnestly. I followed
• 7:08:22
  thy trail. I ran from all the others and followed hotfoot. But oh,
• 7:08:27
  little brother, what hast thou done? Eating and sleeping with a man
• 7:08:33
  pack? If ye had come when I called, this had never been said
• 7:08:37
  Mowgli, running much faster. And now what is to be said Gray Brother.
• 7:08:45
  Mowgli was going to answer, when a girl in a white cloth came
• 7:08:49
  down some path that led from the outskirts of the village. Gray Brother dropped
• 7:08:56
  out of sight at once, and Mowgli backed noiselessly into a field of high
• 7:09:00
  springing crops. He could almost have touched her with his hand when the warm
• 7:09:07
  green stalks closed before his face, and he disappeared like a ghost. The
• 7:09:12
  girl screamed, for she thought she had seen a spirit, and then she
• 7:09:17
  gave a deep sigh. Mowgli parted the stalks with his hands and watched her
• 7:09:22
  till she was out of sight. And now I do not know, he
• 7:09:27
  said, sighing in his turn. Why did ye not come when I called
• 7:09:33
  we follow thee? We follow thee? Gray Brother mumbled, licking at Mowgli's
• 7:09:38
  heel. We follow thee always, except in the time of the new talk.
• 7:09:45
  And would ye follow me to the man pack? Mowgli whispered, Did
• 7:09:49
  I not follow thee? On the night our old pack cast thee out?
• 7:09:53
  Who waked thee lying among the crops? I? But again? Have I
• 7:10:00
  do not follow thee tonight? Hi? But again and again, and it
• 7:10:04
  may be again, Gray brother. Gray Brother was silent when he spoke.
• 7:10:11
  He growled to himself. The black one spoke truth, and he said,
• 7:10:21
  man goes to man at the last rockshaw. Our mother said so also Aquila
• 7:10:27
  on the night of Red Dog. Mowgli muttered, so also, says Ka,
• 7:10:33
  who is wiser than us? All what dost thou say, Gray Brother,
• 7:10:40
  They cast thee out once with bad talk, They cut thy mouth with
• 7:10:45
  stones. They sent Budeo to slay thee. They would have thrown thee into
• 7:10:49
  the red flower. Thou and not I hast said that they are evil and
• 7:10:55
  senseless. Thou and not I, I follow my own peace. People,
• 7:11:00
  ditst let in the jungle upon them. Thou and not I didst make song
• 7:11:06
  against them more bitter even than our song against red dog. I ask thee,
• 7:11:11
  what thou sayest They were talking as they ran, Gray Brother cantered on
• 7:11:18
  a while without replying, and then he said, between bound and bound,
• 7:11:22
  as it were, man cub master of the jungle, son of Rockshaw,
• 7:11:29
  Lair Brother, to me, though I forget for a little while in the
• 7:11:33
  spring, thy trail is my trail, Thy lair is my lair. Thy
• 7:11:38
  kill is my kill, and thy death fight is my death fight. I
• 7:11:45
  speak for the three. But what wilt thou say to the jungle that is
• 7:11:52
  well thought? Between the sight and the kill. It is not good to
• 7:11:56
  wait, go before and cry them all to the council. Rock and I
• 7:12:00
  will tell them what is in my stomach. But they may not come in
• 7:12:06
  the time of new talk, they may forget me. Hast Thal then forgotten
• 7:12:10
  nothing, snapped Gray Brother over his shoulder as he laid himself down to gallop,
• 7:12:15
  and Mowgli followed. Thinking, at any other season the news would have
• 7:12:22
  called all the jungle together with bristling necks. But now they were busy hunting
• 7:12:29
  and fighting and killing and singing from one to another. Gray Brother ran,
• 7:12:33
  crying, the Master of the Jungle goes back to Man, come to the
• 7:12:38
  council rock, and the happy, eager people only answered, he will return
• 7:12:45
  in the summer heats the rains will drive him to lair, run and sing
• 7:12:48
  with us, Gray Brother, But the Master of the Jungle goes back to
• 7:12:53
  Man. Gray Brother would repeat, e yaoua is the time of new talk
• 7:13:00
  any less sweet for that, they would reply. So when Mowgli, heavy
• 7:13:07
  hearted, came up through the well remembered rocks to the place where he had
• 7:13:11
  been brought into the council, he found only the four Ballew, who was
• 7:13:15
  nearly blind with age, and the heavy cold blooded Kaw coiled around Aequila's empty
• 7:13:22
  seat. Thy trail ends here, then, Manling said ka, as Mowgli
• 7:13:27
  threw himself down his face in his hands, cry thy cry, we be
• 7:13:34
  of one blood, Thou and I man and snake together. Why did I
• 7:13:41
  not die under red dog? The boy moaned. My strength is gone from
• 7:13:47
  me, and it is not any poison. By night and by day I
• 7:13:51
  hear a double step upon my trail when I turned my head. It is
• 7:13:56
  as though one had hidden himself from me that instant. I go to look
• 7:14:00
  behind the trees, and he is not there. I call, and none
• 7:14:04
  cry again, But it is as though one listened and kept back the answer.
• 7:14:12
  I lie down, but I do not rest. I run the spring
• 7:14:17
  running, but I am not made still. I bathe, but I am
• 7:14:21
  not made cool. The kill sickens me, but I have no heart to
• 7:14:26
  fight except I kill. The red flower is in my body. My bones
• 7:14:32
  are water. And I know not what I know? What need of talk?
• 7:14:40
  Said Baloo, slowly, turning his head to where Mowgli lay. Aquila
• 7:14:45
  by the river said it that Mowgli should drive Mowgli back to the man pack.
• 7:14:52
  I said it. But who listens now to Baalu Bagheira? Where is
• 7:14:57
  Boaghira this night? He knows also it is the law. When we met
• 7:15:04
  at cold lairs, manling, I knew it, said Kaw, turning a
• 7:15:10
  little in his mighty coils. Man goes to man at the last, though
• 7:15:15
  the jungle does not cast him out. The four looked at one another and
• 7:15:21
  at Mowgli, puzzled but obedient. The jungle does not cast me out.
• 7:15:26
  Then Mowgli stammered gray brother, and the three growled furiously, beginning, so
• 7:15:34
  long as we live, none shall dare. But Bellow checked them. I
• 7:15:41
  taught thee the law. It is for me to speak, he said,
• 7:15:45
  And though I cannot now see the rocks before me, I see far,
• 7:15:53
  little frog. Take thine own trail, make thy lair with thine own blood,
• 7:16:00
  and pack and people. But when there is need of foot or tooth
• 7:16:06
  or eye, or a word carried swiftly by night, remember, master of
• 7:16:11
  the jungle, the jungle is thine at call. The middle jungle is thine.
• 7:16:18
  Also said ka, I speak for no small people. Hi, my
• 7:16:25
  my brothers, cried Mowgli, throwing up his arms with a sob. I
• 7:16:30
  know not what I know. I would not go, but I am drawn
• 7:16:34
  by both feet. How shall I leave these knights? Nay? Look up,
• 7:16:41
  little brother Balu repeated, There is no shame in this hunting. When
• 7:16:48
  the honey is eaten, we leave the empty hive, having cast the skin,
• 7:16:55
  said Ka, we may not creep into it afresh. It is the
• 7:16:59
  law. Listen, dearest of all to me, said Balu. There is
• 7:17:06
  neither word nor will here to hold thee back. Look up, Who may
• 7:17:12
  question the master of the jungle. I saw thee playing among the white pebbles
• 7:17:19
  yonder when thou wodst a little frog and Bagheira that bought thee for the price
• 7:17:26
  of a young bull newly killed. Saw thee also of that looking over,
• 7:17:33
  we two only remain for Rokshaw, thy lair mother is dead. With thy
• 7:17:37
  lair father, the old wolf pack is long since dead. Thou knowest whither
• 7:17:45
  shar Khan went and Aquilah died among the dolts, where but for thy wisdom
• 7:17:51
  and strength, thee second seonee pack would also have died. There remains nothing
• 7:17:59
  but o old bones. It is no longer the man cub that asks leeve
• 7:18:04
  of his pack, but the master of the jungle that changes his trail.
• 7:18:11
  Who shall question man in his ways? But Baghira and the bull that bought
• 7:18:18
  me, said Mowgli, I would not. His words were cut short by
• 7:18:22
  a roar and a crash in the thicket below, and Bagheira, light,
• 7:18:27
  strong and terrible as always stood before him. Therefore, he said, stretching
• 7:18:34
  out a dripping right Paw I did not come. It was a long hunt.
• 7:18:41
  But he lies dead in the bushes. Now a bull in his second
• 7:18:45
  year, the bull that frees thee, little brother, All debts are paid
• 7:18:52
  now for the rest. My word is Baloo's word. He licked Mowgli's foot.
• 7:19:00
  Remember bog he Ra loved thee. He cried and bounded away. At
• 7:19:07
  the foot of the hill, he cried again, long and loud. Good
• 7:19:11
  hunting on a new trail, Master of the jungle. Remember bog he Ra
• 7:19:18
  loved thee. Thou hast heard, said Balow. There is no more go
• 7:19:29
  now, but first come to me, o wise little frog, Come to
• 7:19:34
  me. It is hard to cast the skin, said ka as Mowgli sobbed
• 7:19:42
  and sobbed, with his head on the blind bear's side and his arms round
• 7:19:47
  his neck, while Baloo tried feebly to lick his feet. The stars are
• 7:19:52
  thin, said gray brother, snuffling at the dawn wind. Where shall we
• 7:19:57
  lair to day, for from now we followed new trails. And this is
• 7:20:07
  the last of the Mowgli stories. End of the spring running the out song.
• 7:20:18
  This is the song that Mowgli heard behind him in the jungle till he
• 7:20:22
  came to Massua's door again. Ballow, for the sake of him who showed
• 7:20:30
  one wise frog the jungle road. Keep the law the man pack, make
• 7:20:37
  for thy blind old Balow's sake, clean or tainted, hot or stale.
• 7:20:42
  Hold it as it were the trail through the day and through the night,
• 7:20:48
  questing neither left nor right, for the sake of him who loves thee beyond
• 7:20:52
  all else that booths. When thy pack would make thee pain, say Tabaki
• 7:20:57
  sings again, when thy pack would work thee ill, Say sharr Khan is
• 7:21:03
  yet to kill. When the knife is drawn to slay, Keep the law
• 7:21:10
  and go thy way. Root and honey, palm and spaith, guard a
• 7:21:15
  cub from harm and scathe, Wood and water, wind and tree, jungle
• 7:21:21
  favor, go with thee. Caw anger is the egg of fear. Only
• 7:21:32
  lidless eyes are clear. Cobra poison none may leech, even so with cobra
• 7:21:37
  speech open talk, shall call to thee strength, whose mate is courtesy.
• 7:21:45
  Send no lunge beyond thy length. Lend no rotten bow thy strength, gage
• 7:21:51
  the gape with buck or goat, lest thine eye should choke thy throat.
• 7:21:56
  After gorging, wouldst thou sleep? Look the den is hid and deep lest
• 7:22:03
  the wrong by thee forgot, Draw thy killer to the spot east and west,
• 7:22:08
  and north and south, wash thy hide, and close thy mouth.
• 7:22:15
  Pit and rift and blue pool brim, middle jungle, follow him, wood
• 7:22:22
  and water, wind and tree chungle favor. Go with thee boghira in the
• 7:22:33
  cage by life began well, I know the worth of man by the broken
• 7:22:38
  lock that freed man cub, where the man cubs breed scenting dew or starlight
• 7:22:45
  pale. Choose no tangled tree, cat trail, pack our council, hunt
• 7:22:52
  or den cry, No truce with jackalmen. Feed them silence when they say,
• 7:22:59
  come with us an easy way. Feed them silence when they seek help
• 7:23:04
  of thine to hurt the weak. Make no bandar's boast of skill. Hold
• 7:23:11
  thy peace above the kill. Letny call narsong, nor sign turn thee from
• 7:23:17
  thy hunting line, morning mist or twilight clear, serve him Wardens of the
• 7:23:23
  deer, wood and water, wind and tree jungle favor. Go with thee
• 7:23:33
  the three on the trail that thou must tread to the thresholds of our dread,
• 7:23:41
  where the flower blossoms red through the nights. When thou shalt lie prison
• 7:23:47
  from our mother's sky, hearing us, thy loves go by in the dawns,
• 7:23:52
  when thou shalt wake to the toil. Thou canst not break heartsick for
• 7:23:59
  the jungles, say, wood and water, wind and tree wisdom, strength
• 7:24:03
  and courtesy, jungle favor. Go with thee end of the outsong.