diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/35997.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/35997.txt | 6226 |
1 files changed, 6226 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/35997.txt b/old/35997.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b51612e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/35997.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6226 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The jungle book, by Rudyard Kipling + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The jungle book + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Release Date: April 30, 2011 [EBook #35997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JUNGLE BOOK *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + THE JUNGLE BOOK + + + + + [Illustration: Rudyard Kipling] + + + + +[Illustration: "LITTLE TOOMAI LAID HIMSELF DOWN CLOSE TO THE GREAT NECK +LEST A SWINGING BOUGH SHOULD SWEEP HIM TO THE GROUND." (SEE PAGE 246.)] + + + + + THE + JUNGLE BOOK + + + BY + RUDYARD KIPLING + + + [Illustration] + + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1910 + + + + + Copyright 1893, 1894, by + RUDYARD KIPLING + Copyright, 1894, by + HARPER and BROTHERS + Copyright 1893, 1894, by + THE CENTURY CO. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + MOWGLI'S BROTHERS 1 + + HUNTING-SONG OF THE SEEONEE PACK 42 + + KAA'S HUNTING 47 + + ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDAR-LOG 89 + + "TIGER! TIGER!" 93 + + MOWGLI'S SONG 131 + + THE WHITE SEAL 137 + + LUKANNON 170 + + "RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI" 175 + + DARZEE'S CHAUNT 212 + + TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS 217 + + SHIV AND THE GRASSHOPPER 261 + + HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS 265 + + PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP ANIMALS 300 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + "LITTLE TOOMAI LAID HIMSELF DOWN CLOSE TO THE + GREAT NECK, LEST A SWINGING BOUGH SHOULD + SWEEP HIM TO THE GROUND" FRONTISPIECE + + "'GOOD LUCK GO WITH YOU, O CHIEF OF THE + WOLVES'" 5 + + "THE TIGER'S ROAR FILLED THE CAVE WITH THUNDER" 11 + + THE MEETING AT THE COUNCIL ROCK 17 + + "BAGHEERA WOULD LIE OUT ON A BRANCH AND CALL, + 'COME ALONG, LITTLE BROTHER'" 23 + + "'WAKE, LITTLE BROTHER; I BRING NEWS'" 99 + + "'ARE ALL THESE TALES SUCH COBWEBS AND MOON-TALK?' + SAID MOWGLI" 105 + + "BULDEO LAY AS STILL, AS STILL, EXPECTING EVERY MINUTE + TO SEE MOWGLI TURN INTO A TIGER, TOO" 121 + + "WHEN THE MOON ROSE OVER THE PLAIN THE VILLAGERS + SAW MOWGLI TROTTING ACROSS, WITH TWO + WOLVES AT HIS HEELS" 126 + + "THEY CLAMBERED UP ON THE COUNCIL ROCK TOGETHER, + AND MOWGLI SPREAD THE SKIN OUT ON + THE FLAT STONE" 129 + + "TEN FATHOMS DEEP" 146 + + "THEY WERE ALL AWAKE AND STARING IN EVERY DIRECTION + BUT THE RIGHT ONE" 154 + + "HE HAD FOUND SEA COW AT LAST" 162 + + "RIKKI-TIKKI LOOKED DOWN BETWEEN THE BOY'S COLLAR + AND NECK" 177 + + "HE PUT HIS NOSE INTO THE INK" 178 + + "RIKKI-TIKKI WAS AWAKE ON THE PILLOW" 179 + + "HE CAME TO BREAKFAST RIDING ON TEDDY'S SHOULDER" 180 + + "'WE ARE VERY MISERABLE,' SAID DARZEE" 181 + + "'I AM NAG,' SAID THE COBRA: 'LOOK, AND BE AFRAID.' + BUT AT THE BOTTOM OF HIS COLD HEART _HE_ WAS + AFRAID" 183 + + "HE JUMPED UP IN THE AIR, AND JUST UNDER HIM + WHIZZED BY THE HEAD OF NAGAINA" 187 + + "IN THE DARK HE RAN UP AGAINST CHUCHUNDRA, + THE MUSKRAT" 192 + + "THEN RIKKI-TIKKI WAS BATTERED TO AND FRO AS + A RAT IS SHAKEN BY A DOG" 197 + + DARZEE'S WIFE PRETENDS TO HAVE A BROKEN WING 201 + + "NAGAINA FLEW DOWN THE PATH WITH RIKKI-TIKKI + BEHIND HER" 207 + + "IT IS ALL OVER" 210 + + "KALA NAG WAS THE BEST-LOVED ELEPHANT IN THE + SERVICE" 219 + + "'HE IS AFRAID OF ME,' SAID LITTLE TOOMAI, AND + HE MADE KALA NAG LIFT UP HIS FEET ONE + AFTER THE OTHER" 223 + + "HE WOULD GET HIS TORCH AND WAVE IT, AND YELL + WITH THE BEST" 229 + + "'NOT GREEN CORN, PROTECTOR OF THE POOR,--MELONS,' + SAID LITTLE TOOMAI" 235 + + "LITTLE TOOMAI LOOKED DOWN UPON SCORES AND + SCORES OF BROAD BACKS" 251 + + "'TO TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS. BARRAO!'" 259 + + "A CAMEL HAD BLUNDERED INTO MY TENT" 267 + + "'ANYBODY CAN BE FORGIVEN FOR BEING SCARED IN THE + NIGHT,' SAID THE TROOP-HORSE" 275 + + "'THE MAN WAS LYING ON THE GROUND, AND I + STRETCHED MYSELF NOT TO TREAD ON HIM, AND + HE SLASHED UP AT ME'" 279 + + "THEN I HEARD AN OLD, GRIZZLED, LONG-HAIRED CENTRAL + ASIAN CHIEF ASKING QUESTIONS OF A NATIVE + OFFICER" 297 + + + + + THE JUNGLE BOOK + + + Now Rann, the Kite, brings home the night + That Mang, the Bat, sets free-- + The herds are shut in byre and hut, + For loosed till dawn are we. + This is the hour of pride and power, + Talon and tush and claw. + Oh, hear the call!--Good hunting all + That keep the Jungle Law! + + _Night-Song in the Jungle._ + + + + + [Illustration] + + MOWGLI'S BROTHERS + + +IT was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when +Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and +spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling +in the tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her +four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the +cave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf, "it is time to +hunt again"; and he was going to spring downhill when a little shadow +with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with +you, O Chief of the Wolves; and good luck and strong white teeth go with +the noble children, that they may never forget the hungry in this +world." + + [Illustration: "'GOOD LUCK GO WITH YOU, O CHIEF OF THE WOLVES.'"] + +It was the jackal--Tabaqui, the Dish-licker--and the wolves of India +despise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, and telling +tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village +rubbish-heaps. They are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than +any one else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he forgets that +he was ever afraid of any one, and runs through the forest biting +everything in his way. Even the tiger hides when little Tabaqui goes +mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild +creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it _dewanee_--the +madness--and run. + +"Enter, then, and look," said Father Wolf, stiffly; "but there is no +food here." + +"For a wolf, no," said Tabaqui; "but for so mean a person as myself a +dry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log [the Jackal People], +to pick and choose?" He scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found +the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat cracking the end +merrily. + +"All thanks for this good meal," he said, licking his lips. "How +beautiful are the noble children! How large are their eyes! And so +young too! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of +kings are men from the beginning." + +Now, Tabaqui knew as well as any one else that there is nothing so +unlucky as to compliment children to their faces; and it pleased him to +see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable. + +Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and then +he said spitefully: + +"Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting-grounds. He will hunt +among these hills during the next moon, so he has told me." + +Shere Khan was the tiger who lived near the Waingunga River, twenty +miles away. + +"He has no right!" Father Wolf began angrily. "By the Law of the Jungle +he has no right to change his quarters without fair warning. He will +frighten every head of game within ten miles; and I--I have to kill for +two, these days." + +"His mother did not call him Lungri [the Lame One] for nothing," said +Mother Wolf, quietly. "He has been lame in one foot from his birth. That +is why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers of the Waingunga are +angry with him, and he has come here to make _our_ villagers angry. +They will scour the jungle for him when he is far away, and we and our +children must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed, we are very +grateful to Shere Khan!" + +"Shall I tell him of your gratitude?" said Tabaqui. + +"Out!" snapped Father Wolf. "Out, and hunt with thy master. Thou hast +done harm enough for one night." + +"I go," said Tabaqui, quietly. "Ye can hear Shere Khan below in the +thickets. I might have saved myself the message." + +Father Wolf listened, and in the dark valley that ran down to a little +river, he heard the dry, angry, snarly, singsong whine of a tiger who +has caught nothing and does not care if all the jungle knows it. + +"The fool!" said Father Wolf. "To begin a night's work with that noise! +Does he think that our buck are like his fat Waingunga bullocks?" + +"H'sh! It is neither bullock nor buck that he hunts to-night," said +Mother Wolf; "it is Man." The whine had changed to a sort of humming +purr that seemed to roll from every quarter of the compass. It was the +noise that bewilders wood-cutters, and gipsies sleeping in the open, +and makes them run sometimes into the very mouth of the tiger. + +"Man!" said Father Wolf, showing all his white teeth. "Faugh! Are there +not enough beetles and frogs in the tanks that he must eat Man--and on +our ground too!" + +The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, +forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show his +children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting-grounds +of his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man-killing +means, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on elephants, with +guns, and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then +everybody in the jungle suffers. The reason the beasts give among +themselves is that Man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living +things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say too--and it is +true--that man-eaters become mangy, and lose their teeth. + +The purr grew louder, and ended in the full-throated "Aaarh!" of the +tiger's charge. + +Then there was a howl--an untigerish howl--from Shere Khan. "He has +missed," said Mother Wolf. "What is it?" + +Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan muttering and +mumbling savagely, as he tumbled about in the scrub. + +"The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a wood-cutters' +camp-fire, so he has burned his feet," said Father Wolf, with a grunt. +"Tabaqui is with him." + +"Something is coming uphill," said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear. "Get +ready." + +The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with +his haunches under him, ready for his leap. Then, if you had been +watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world--the +wolf checked in mid-spring. He made his bound before he saw what it was +he was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself. The result was +that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing +almost where he left ground. + +"Man!" he snapped. "A man's cub. Look!" + +Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked +brown baby who could just walk--as soft and as dimpled a little thing as +ever came to a wolf's cave at night. He looked up into Father Wolf's +face and laughed. + +"Is that a man's cub?" said Mother Wolf. "I have never seen one. Bring +it here." + +A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mouth an +egg without breaking it, and though Father Wolf's jaws closed right on +the child's back not a tooth even scratched the skin, as he laid it down +among the cubs. + +"How little! How naked, and--how bold!" said Mother Wolf, softly. The +baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm hide. +"Ahai! He is taking his meal with the others. And so this is a man's +cub. Now, was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man's cub among +her children?" + +"I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our pack or in +my time," said Father Wolf. "He is altogether without hair, and I could +kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is not +afraid." + +The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Shere Khan's +great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance. Tabaqui, +behind him, was squeaking: "My Lord, my Lord, it went in here!" + +"Shere Khan does us great honor," said Father Wolf, but his eyes were +very angry. "What does Shere Khan need?" + +"My quarry. A man's cub went this way," said Shere Khan. "Its parents +have run off. Give it to me." + +Shere Khan had jumped at a wood-cutter's camp-fire, as Father Wolf had +said, and was furious from the pain of his burned feet. But Father Wolf +knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in +by. Even where he was, Shere Khan's shoulders and fore paws were cramped +for want of room, as a man's would be if he tried to fight in a barrel. + +"The Wolves are a free people," said Father Wolf. "They take orders from +the Head of the Pack, and not from any striped cattle-killer. The man's +cub is ours--to kill if we choose." + +"Ye choose and ye do not choose! What talk is this of choosing? By the +Bull that I killed, am I to stand nosing into your dog's den for my fair +dues? It is I, Shere Khan, who speak!" + +The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself +clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons in +the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan. + + [Illustration: "THE TIGER'S ROAR FILLED THE CAVE WITH THUNDER."] + +"And it is I, Raksha [the Demon], who answer. The man's cub is mine, +Lungri--mine to me! He shall not be killed. He shall live to run with +the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of +little naked cubs--frog-eater--fish-killer, he shall hunt _thee_! Now +get hence, or by the Sambhur that I killed (_I_ eat no starved cattle), +back thou goest to thy mother, burned beast of the jungle, lamer than +ever thou camest into the world! Go!" + +Father Wolf looked on amazed. He had almost forgotten the days when he +won Mother Wolf in fair fight from five other wolves, when she ran in +the Pack and was not called the Demon for compliment's sake. Shere Khan +might have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother +Wolf, for he knew that where he was she had all the advantage of the +ground, and would fight to the death. So he backed out of the cave-mouth +growling, and when he was clear he shouted: + +"Each dog barks in his own yard! We will see what the Pack will say to +this fostering of man-cubs. The cub is mine, and to my teeth he will +come in the end, O bush-tailed thieves!" + +Mother Wolf threw herself down panting among the cubs, and Father Wolf +said to her gravely: + +"Shere Khan speaks this much truth. The cub must be shown to the Pack. +Wilt thou still keep him, Mother?" + +"Keep him!" she gasped. "He came naked, by night, alone and very hungry; +yet he was not afraid! Look, he has pushed one of my babes to one side +already. And that lame butcher would have killed him, and would have run +off to the Waingunga while the villagers here hunted through all our +lairs in revenge! Keep him? Assuredly I will keep him. Lie still, little +frog. O thou Mowgli,--for Mowgli, the Frog, I will call thee,--the time +will come when thou wilt hunt Shere Khan as he has hunted thee!" + +"But what will our Pack say?" said Father Wolf. + +The Law of the Jungle lays down very clearly that any wolf may, when he +marries, withdraw from the Pack he belongs to; but as soon as his cubs +are old enough to stand on their feet he must bring them to the Pack +Council, which is generally held once a month at full moon, in order +that the other wolves may identify them. After that inspection the cubs +are free to run where they please, and until they have killed their +first buck no excuse is accepted if a grown wolf of the Pack kills one +of them. The punishment is death where the murderer can be found; and if +you think for a minute you will see that this must be so. + +Father Wolf waited till his cubs could run a little, and then on the +night of the Pack Meeting took them and Mowgli and Mother Wolf to the +Council Rock--a hilltop covered with stones and boulders where a hundred +wolves could hide. Akela, the great gray Lone Wolf, who led all the Pack +by strength and cunning, lay out at full length on his rock, and below +him sat forty or more wolves of every size and color, from +badger-colored veterans who could handle a buck alone, to young black +three-year-olds who thought they could. The Lone Wolf had led them for a +year now. He had fallen twice into a wolf-trap in his youth, and once he +had been beaten and left for dead; so he knew the manners and customs of +men. + + [Illustration: THE MEETING AT THE COUNCIL ROCK.] + +There was very little talking at the Rock. The cubs tumbled over one +another in the center of the circle where their mothers and fathers sat, +and now and again a senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look at +him carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet. Sometimes a +mother would push her cub far out into the moonlight, to be sure that he +had not been overlooked. Akela from his rock would cry: "Ye know the +Law--ye know the Law! Look well, O Wolves!" And the anxious mothers +would take up the call: "Look--look well, O Wolves!" + +At last--and Mother Wolf's neck-bristles lifted as the time came--Father +Wolf pushed "Mowgli, the Frog," as they called him, into the center, +where he sat laughing and playing with some pebbles that glistened in +the moonlight. + +Akela never raised his head from his paws, but went on with the +monotonous cry, "Look well!" A muffled roar came up from behind the +rocks--the voice of Shere Khan crying, "The cub is mine; give him to me. +What have the Free People to do with a man's cub?" + +Akela never even twitched his ears. All he said was, "Look well, O +Wolves! What have the Free People to do with the orders of any save the +Free People? Look well!" + +There was a chorus of deep growls, and a young wolf in his fourth year +flung back Shere Khan's question to Akela: "What have the Free People to +do with a man's cub?" + +Now the Law of the Jungle lays down that if there is any dispute as to +the right of a cub to be accepted by the Pack, he must be spoken for by +at least two members of the Pack who are not his father and mother. + +"Who speaks for this cub?" said Akela. "Among the Free People, who +speaks?" There was no answer, and Mother Wolf got ready for what she +knew would be her last fight, if things came to fighting. + +Then the only other creature who is allowed at the Pack Council--Baloo, +the sleepy brown bear who teaches the wolf cubs the Law of the Jungle; +old Baloo, who can come and go where he pleases because he eats only +nuts and roots and honey--rose up on his hind quarters and grunted. + +"The man's cub--the man's cub?" he said. "_I_ speak for the man's cub. +There is no harm in a man's cub. I have no gift of words, but I speak +the truth. Let him run with the Pack, and be entered with the others. I +myself will teach him." + +"We need yet another," said Akela. "Baloo has spoken, and he is our +teacher for the young cubs. Who speaks besides Baloo?" + +A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera, the Black +Panther, inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing up +in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew +Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path; for he was as cunning as +Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded +elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, +and a skin softer than down. + +"O Akela, and ye, the Free People," he purred, "I have no right in your +assembly; but the Law of the Jungle says that if there is a doubt which +is not a killing matter in regard to a new cub, the life of that cub may +be bought at a price. And the Law does not say who may or may not pay +that price. Am I right?" + +"Good! good!" said the young wolves, who are always hungry. "Listen to +Bagheera. The cub can be bought for a price. It is the Law." + +"Knowing that I have no right to speak here, I ask your leave." + +"Speak then," cried twenty voices. + +"To kill a naked cub is shame. Besides, he may make better sport for you +when he is grown. Baloo has spoken in his behalf. Now to Baloo's word I +will add one bull, and a fat one, newly killed, not half a mile from +here, if ye will accept the man's cub according to the Law. Is it +difficult?" + +There was a clamor of scores of voices, saying: "What matter? He will +die in the winter rains. He will scorch in the sun. What harm can a +naked frog do us? Let him run with the Pack. Where is the bull, +Bagheera? Let him be accepted." And then came Akela's deep bay, crying: +"Look well--look well, O Wolves!" + +Mowgli was still playing with the pebbles, and he did not notice when +the wolves came and looked at him one by one. At last they all went +down the hill for the dead bull, and only Akela, Bagheera, Baloo, and +Mowgli's own wolves were left. Shere Khan roared still in the night, for +he was very angry that Mowgli had not been handed over to him. + +"Ay, roar well," said Bagheera, under his whiskers; "for the time comes +when this naked thing will make thee roar to another tune, or I know +nothing of Man." + +"It was well done," said Akela. "Men and their cubs are very wise. He +may be a help in time." + +"Truly, a help in time of need; for none can hope to lead the Pack +forever," said Bagheera. + +Akela said nothing. He was thinking of the time that comes to every +leader of every pack when his strength goes from him and he gets feebler +and feebler, till at last he is killed by the wolves and a new leader +comes up--to be killed in his turn. + +"Take him away," he said to Father Wolf, "and train him as befits one of +the Free People." + +And that is how Mowgli was entered into the Seeonee wolf-pack for the +price of a bull and on Baloo's good word. + +Now you must be content to skip ten or eleven whole years, and only +guess at all the wonderful life that Mowgli led among the wolves, +because if it were written out it would fill ever so many books. He grew +up with the cubs, though they of course were grown wolves almost before +he was a child, and Father Wolf taught him his business, and the meaning +of things in the jungle, till every rustle in the grass, every breath of +the warm night air, every note of the owls above his head, every scratch +of a bat's claws as it roosted for a while in a tree, and every splash +of every little fish jumping in a pool, meant just as much to him as the +work of his office means to a business man. When he was not learning he +sat out in the sun and slept, and ate, and went to sleep again; when he +felt dirty or hot he swam in the forest pools; and when he wanted honey +(Baloo told him that honey and nuts were just as pleasant to eat as raw +meat) he climbed up for it, and that Bagheera showed him how to do. + +Bagheera would lie out on a branch and call, "Come along, Little +Brother," and at first Mowgli would cling like the sloth, but afterward +he would fling himself through the branches almost as boldly as the gray +ape. He took his place at the Council Rock, too, when the Pack met, +and there he discovered that if he stared hard at any wolf, the wolf +would be forced to drop his eyes, and so he used to stare for fun. + + [Illustration: "BAGHEERA WOULD LIE OUT ON A BRANCH AND CALL, 'COME + ALONG, LITTLE BROTHER.'"] + +At other times he would pick the long thorns out of the pads of his +friends, for wolves suffer terribly from thorns and burs in their coats. +He would go down the hillside into the cultivated lands by night, and +look very curiously at the villagers in their huts, but he had a +mistrust of men because Bagheera showed him a square box with a +drop-gate so cunningly hidden in the jungle that he nearly walked into +it, and told him it was a trap. + +He loved better than anything else to go with Bagheera into the dark +warm heart of the forest, to sleep all through the drowsy day, and at +night see how Bagheera did his killing. Bagheera killed right and left +as he felt hungry, and so did Mowgli--with one exception. As soon as he +was old enough to understand things, Bagheera told him that he must +never touch cattle because he had been bought into the Pack at the price +of a bull's life. "All the jungle is thine," said Bagheera, "and thou +canst kill everything that thou art strong enough to kill; but for the +sake of the bull that bought thee thou must never kill or eat any +cattle young or old. That is the Law of the Jungle." Mowgli obeyed +faithfully. + +And he grew and grew strong as a boy must grow who does not know that he +is learning any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of +except things to eat. + +Mother Wolf told him once or twice that Shere Khan was not a creature to +be trusted, and that some day he must kill Shere Khan; but though a +young wolf would have remembered that advice every hour, Mowgli forgot +it because he was only a boy--though he would have called himself a wolf +if he had been able to speak in any human tongue. + +Shere Khan was always crossing his path in the jungle, for as Akela grew +older and feebler the lame tiger had come to be great friends with the +younger wolves of the Pack, who followed him for scraps, a thing Akela +would never have allowed if he had dared to push his authority to the +proper bounds. Then Shere Khan would flatter them and wonder that such +fine young hunters were content to be led by a dying wolf and a man's +cub. "They tell me," Shere Khan would say, "that at Council ye dare not +look him between the eyes"; and the young wolves would growl and +bristle. + +Bagheera, who had eyes and ears everywhere, knew something of this, and +once or twice he told Mowgli in so many words that Shere Khan would kill +him some day; and Mowgli would laugh and answer: "I have the Pack and I +have thee; and Baloo, though he is so lazy, might strike a blow or two +for my sake. Why should I be afraid?" + +It was one very warm day that a new notion came to Bagheera--born of +something that he had heard. Perhaps Ikki, the Porcupine, had told him; +but he said to Mowgli when they were deep in the jungle, as the boy lay +with his head on Bagheera's beautiful black skin: "Little Brother, how +often have I told thee that Shere Khan is thy enemy?" + +"As many times as there are nuts on that palm," said Mowgli, who, +naturally, could not count. "What of it? I am sleepy, Bagheera, and +Shere Khan is all long tail and loud talk, like Mao, the Peacock." + +"But this is no time for sleeping. Baloo knows it, I know it, the Pack +know it, and even the foolish, foolish deer know. Tabaqui has told thee +too." + +"Ho! ho!" said Mowgli. "Tabaqui came to me not long ago with some rude +talk that I was a naked man's cub, and not fit to dig pig-nuts; but I +caught Tabaqui by the tail and swung him twice against a palm-tree to +teach him better manners." + +"That was foolishness; for though Tabaqui is a mischief-maker, he would +have told thee of something that concerned thee closely. Open those +eyes, Little Brother! Shere Khan dares not kill thee in the jungle for +fear of those that love thee; but remember, Akela is very old, and soon +the day comes when he cannot kill his buck, and then he will be leader +no more. Many of the wolves that looked thee over when thou wast brought +to the Council first are old too, and the young wolves believe, as Shere +Khan has taught them, that a man-cub has no place with the Pack. In a +little time thou wilt be a man." + +"And what is a man that he should not run with his brothers?" said +Mowgli. "I was born in the jungle; I have obeyed the Law of the Jungle; +and there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. +Surely they are my brothers!" + +Bagheera stretched himself at full length and half shut his eyes. +"Little Brother," said he, "feel under my jaw." + +Mowgli put up his strong brown hand, and just under Bagheera's silky +chin, where the giant rolling muscles were all hid by the glossy hair, +he came upon a little bald spot. + +"There is no one in the jungle that knows that I, Bagheera, carry that +mark--the mark of the collar; and yet, Little Brother, I was born among +men, and it was among men that my mother died--in the cages of the +King's Palace at Oodeypore. It was because of this that I paid the price +for thee at the Council when thou wast a little naked cub. Yes, I too +was born among men. I had never seen the jungle. They fed me behind bars +from an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera, the Panther, +and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one blow of my +paw, and came away; and because I had learned the ways of men, I became +more terrible in the jungle than Shere Khan. Is it not so?" + +"Yes," said Mowgli; "all the jungle fear Bagheera--all except Mowgli." + +"Oh, _thou_ art a man's cub," said the Black Panther, very tenderly; +"and even as I returned to my jungle, so thou must go back to men at +last,--to the men who are thy brothers,--if thou art not killed in the +Council." + +"But why--but why should any wish to kill me?" said Mowgli. + +"Look at me," said Bagheera; and Mowgli looked at him steadily between +the eyes. The big panther turned his head away in half a minute. + +"_That_ is why," he said, shifting his paw on the leaves. "Not even I +can look thee between the eyes, and I was born among men, and I love +thee, Little Brother. The others they hate thee because their eyes +cannot meet thine; because thou art wise; because thou hast pulled out +thorns from their feet--because thou art a man." + +"I did not know these things," said Mowgli, sullenly; and he frowned +under his heavy black eyebrows. + +"What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue. By +thy very carelessness they know that thou art a man. But be wise. It is +in my heart that when Akela misses his next kill,--and at each hunt it +costs him more to pin the buck,--the Pack will turn against him and +against thee. They will hold a jungle Council at the Rock, and then--and +then ... I have it!" said Bagheera, leaping up. "Go thou down quickly to +the men's huts in the valley, and take some of the Red Flower which they +grow there, so that when the time comes thou mayest have even a +stronger friend than I or Baloo or those of the Pack that love thee. Get +the Red Flower." + +By Red Flower Bagheera meant fire, only no creature in the jungle will +call fire by its proper name. Every beast lives in deadly fear of it, +and invents a hundred ways of describing it. + +"The Red Flower?" said Mowgli. "That grows outside their huts in the +twilight. I will get some." + +"There speaks the man's cub," said Bagheera, proudly. "Remember that it +grows in little pots. Get one swiftly, and keep it by thee for time of +need." + +"Good!" said Mowgli. "I go. But art thou sure, O my Bagheera"--he +slipped his arm round the splendid neck, and looked deep into the big +eyes--"art thou sure that all this is Shere Khan's doing?" + +"By the Broken Lock that freed me, I am sure, Little Brother." + +"Then, by the Bull that bought me, I will pay Shere Khan full tale for +this, and it may be a little over," said Mowgli; and he bounded away. + +"That is a man. That is all a man," said Bagheera to himself, lying down +again. "Oh, Shere Khan, never was a blacker hunting than that frog-hunt +of thine ten years ago!" + +Mowgli was far and far through the forest, running hard, and his heart +was hot in him. He came to the cave as the evening mist rose, and drew +breath, and looked down the valley. The cubs were out, but Mother Wolf, +at the back of the cave, knew by his breathing that something was +troubling her frog. + +"What is it, Son?" she said. + +"Some bat's chatter of Shere Khan," he called back. "I hunt among the +plowed fields to-night"; and he plunged downward through the bushes, to +the stream at the bottom of the valley. There he checked, for he heard +the yell of the Pack hunting, heard the bellow of a hunted Sambhur, and +the snort as the buck turned at bay. Then there were wicked, bitter +howls from the young wolves: "Akela! Akela! Let the Lone Wolf show his +strength. Room for the leader of our Pack! Spring, Akela!" + +The Lone Wolf must have sprung and missed his hold, for Mowgli heard the +snap of his teeth and then a yelp as the Sambhur knocked him over with +his fore foot. + +He did not wait for anything more, but dashed on; and the yells grew +fainter behind him as he ran into the crop-lands where the villagers +lived. + +"Bagheera spoke truth," he panted, as he nestled down in some +cattle-fodder by the window of a hut. "To-morrow is one day for Akela +and for me." + +Then he pressed his face close to the window and watched the fire on the +hearth. He saw the husbandman's wife get up and feed it in the night +with black lumps; and when the morning came and the mists were all white +and cold, he saw the man's child pick up a wicker pot plastered inside +with earth, fill it with lumps of red-hot charcoal, put it under his +blanket, and go out to tend the cows in the byre. + +"Is that all?" said Mowgli. "If a cub can do it, there is nothing to +fear"; so he strode around the corner and met the boy, took the pot from +his hand, and disappeared into the mist while the boy howled with fear. + +"They are very like me," said Mowgli, blowing into the pot, as he had +seen the woman do. "This thing will die if I do not give it things to +eat"; and he dropped twigs and dried bark on the red stuff. Half-way up +the hill he met Bagheera with the morning dew shining like moonstones on +his coat. + +"Akela has missed," said the panther. "They would have killed him last +night, but they needed thee also. They were looking for thee on the +hill." + +"I was among the plowed lands. I am ready. Look!" Mowgli held up the +fire-pot. + +"Good! Now, I have seen men thrust a dry branch into that stuff, and +presently the Red Flower blossomed at the end of it. Art thou not +afraid?" + +"No. Why should I fear? I remember now--if it is not a dream--how, +before I was a wolf, I lay beside the Red Flower, and it was warm and +pleasant." + +All that day Mowgli sat in the cave tending his fire-pot and dipping dry +branches into it to see how they looked. He found a branch that +satisfied him, and in the evening when Tabaqui came to the cave and told +him, rudely enough, that he was wanted at the Council Rock, he laughed +till Tabaqui ran away. Then Mowgli went to the Council, still laughing. + +Akela the Lone Wolf lay by the side of his rock as a sign that the +leadership of the Pack was open, and Shere Khan with his following of +scrap-fed wolves walked to and fro openly, being flattered. Bagheera lay +close to Mowgli, and the fire-pot was between Mowgli's knees. When they +were all gathered together, Shere Khan began to speak--a thing he would +never have dared to do when Akela was in his prime. + +"He has no right," whispered Bagheera. "Say so. He is a dog's son. He +will be frightened." + +Mowgli sprang to his feet. "Free People," he cried, "does Shere Khan +lead the Pack? What has a tiger to do with our leadership?" + +"Seeing that the leadership is yet open, and being asked to speak--" +Shere Khan began. + +"By whom?" said Mowgli. "Are we _all_ jackals, to fawn on this +cattle-butcher? The leadership of the Pack is with the Pack alone." + +There were yells of "Silence, thou man's cub!" "Let him speak; he has +kept our law!" And at last the seniors of the Pack thundered: "Let the +Dead Wolf speak!" + +When a leader of the Pack has missed his kill, he is called the Dead +Wolf as long as he lives, which is not long, as a rule. + +Akela raised his old head wearily: + +"Free People, and ye too, jackals of Shere Khan, for twelve seasons I +have led ye to and from the kill, and in all that time not one has been +trapped or maimed. Now I have missed my kill. Ye know how that plot was +made. Ye know how ye brought me up to an untried buck to make my +weakness known. It was cleverly done. Your right is to kill me here on +the Council Rock now. Therefore I ask, 'Who comes to make an end of the +Lone Wolf?' For it is my right, by the Law of the Jungle, that ye come +one by one." + +There was a long hush, for no single wolf cared to fight Akela to the +death. Then Shere Khan roared: "Bah! What have we to do with this +toothless fool? He is doomed to die! It is the man-cub who has lived too +long. Free People, he was my meat from the first. Give him to me. I am +weary of this man-wolf folly. He has troubled the jungle for ten +seasons. Give me the man-cub, or I will hunt here always, and not give +you one bone! He is a man--a man's child, and from the marrow of my +bones I hate him!" + +Then more than half the Pack yelled: "A man--a man! What has a man to do +with us? Let him go to his own place." + +"And turn all the people of the villages against us?" snarled Shere +Khan. "No; give him to me. He is a man, and none of us can look him +between the eyes." + +Akela lifted his head again, and said: "He has eaten our food; he has +slept with us; he has driven game for us; he has broken no word of the +Law of the Jungle." + +"Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a +bull is little, but Bagheera's honor is something that he will perhaps +fight for," said Bagheera in his gentlest voice. + +"A bull paid ten years ago!" the Pack snarled. "What do we care for +bones ten years old?" + +"Or for a pledge?" said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under his lip. +"Well are ye called the Free People!" + +"No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle!" roared Shere Khan. +"Give him to me." + +"He is our brother in all but blood," Akela went on; "and ye would kill +him here. In truth, I have lived too long. Some of ye are eaters of +cattle, and of others I have heard that, under Shere Khan's teaching, ye +go by dark night and snatch children from the villager's doorstep. +Therefore I know ye to be cowards, and it is to cowards I speak. It is +certain that I must die, and my life is of no worth, or I would offer +that in the man-cub's place. But for the sake of the Honor of the +Pack,--a little matter that, by being without a leader, ye have +forgotten,--I promise that if ye let the man-cub go to his own place, I +will not, when my time comes to die, bare one tooth against ye. I will +die without fighting. That will at least save the Pack three lives. More +I cannot do; but, if ye will, I can save ye the shame that comes of +killing a brother against whom there is no fault--a brother spoken for +and bought into the Pack according to the Law of the Jungle." + +"He is a man--a man--a man!" snarled the Pack; and most of the wolves +began to gather round Shere Khan, whose tail was beginning to switch. + +"Now the business is in thy hands," said Bagheera to Mowgli. "_We_ can +do no more except fight." + +Mowgli stood upright--the fire-pot in his hands. Then he stretched out +his arms, and yawned in the face of the Council; but he was furious with +rage and sorrow, for, wolf-like, the wolves had never told him how they +hated him. + +"Listen, you!" he cried. "There is no need for this dog's jabber. Ye +have told me so often to-night that I am a man (though indeed I would +have been a wolf with you to my life's end) that I feel your words are +true. So I do not call ye my brothers any more, but _sag_ [dogs], as a +man should. What ye will do, and what ye will not do, is not yours to +say. That matter is with _me_; and that we may see the matter more +plainly, I, the man, have brought here a little of the Red Flower which +ye, dogs, fear." + +He flung the fire-pot on the ground, and some of the red coals lit a +tuft of dried moss that flared up as all the Council drew back in terror +before the leaping flames. + +Mowgli thrust his dead branch into the fire till the twigs lit and +crackled, and whirled it above his head among the cowering wolves. + +"Thou art the master," said Bagheera, in an undertone. "Save Akela from +the death. He was ever thy friend." + +Akela, the grim old wolf who had never asked for mercy in his life, gave +one piteous look at Mowgli as the boy stood all naked, his long black +hair tossing over his shoulders in the light of the blazing branch that +made the shadows jump and quiver. + +"Good!" said Mowgli, staring around slowly, and thrusting out his lower +lip. "I see that ye are dogs. I go from you to my own people--if they be +my own people. The jungle is shut to me, and I must forget your talk and +your companionship; but I will be more merciful than ye are. Because I +was all but your brother in blood, I promise that when I am a man among +men I will not betray ye to men as ye have betrayed me." He kicked the +fire with his foot, and the sparks flew up. "There shall be no war +between any of us and the Pack. But here is a debt to pay before I go." +He strode forward to where Shere Khan sat blinking stupidly at the +flames, and caught him by the tuft on his chin. Bagheera followed close, +in case of accidents. "Up, dog!" Mowgli cried. "Up, when a man speaks, +or I will set that coat ablaze!" + +Shere Khan's ears lay flat back on his head, and he shut his eyes, for +the blazing branch was very near. + +"This cattle-killer said he would kill me in the Council because he had +not killed me when I was a cub. Thus and thus, then, do we beat dogs +when we are men! Stir a whisker, Lungri, and I ram the Red Flower down +thy gullet!" He beat Shere Khan over the head with the branch, and the +tiger whimpered and whined in an agony of fear. + +"Pah! Singed jungle-cat--go now! But remember when next I come to the +Council Rock, as a man should come, it will be with Shere Khan's hide on +my head. For the rest, Akela goes free to live as he pleases. Ye will +_not_ kill him, because that is not my will. Nor do I think that ye will +sit here any longer, lolling out your tongues as though ye were +somebodies, instead of dogs whom I drive out--thus! Go!" + +The fire was burning furiously at the end of the branch, and Mowgli +struck right and left round the circle, and the wolves ran howling with +the sparks burning their fur. At last there were only Akela, Bagheera, +and perhaps ten wolves that had taken Mowgli's part. Then something +began to hurt Mowgli inside him, as he had never been hurt in his life +before, and he caught his breath and sobbed, and the tears ran down his +face. + +"What is it? What is it?" he said. "I do not wish to leave the jungle, +and I do not know what this is. Am I dying, Bagheera?" + +"No, Little Brother. Those are only tears such as men use," said +Bagheera. "Now I know thou art a man, and a man's cub no longer. The +jungle is shut indeed to thee henceforward. Let them fall, Mowgli; they +are only tears." So Mowgli sat and cried as though his heart would +break; and he had never cried in all his life before. + +"Now," he said, "I will go to men. But first I must say farewell to my +mother"; and he went to the cave where she lived with Father Wolf, and +he cried on her coat, while the four cubs howled miserably. + +"Ye will not forget me?" said Mowgli. + +"Never while we can follow a trail," said the cubs. "Come to the foot of +the hill when thou art a man, and we will talk to thee; and we will come +into the crop-lands to play with thee by night." + +"Come soon!" said Father Wolf. "Oh, wise little Frog, come again soon; +for we be old, thy mother and I." + +"Come soon," said Mother Wolf, "little naked son of mine; for, listen, +child of man, I loved thee more than ever I loved my cubs." + +"I will surely come," said Mowgli; "and when I come it will be to lay +out Shere Khan's hide upon the Council Rock. Do not forget me! Tell them +in the jungle never to forget me!" + +The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the hillside alone +to the crops to meet those mysterious things that are called men. + + + HUNTING-SONG OF THE SEEONEE PACK + + As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled + Once, twice, and again! + And a doe leaped up--and a doe leaped up + From the pond in the wood where the wild deer sup. + This I, scouting alone, beheld, + Once, twice, and again! + + As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled + Once, twice, and again! + And a wolf stole back--and a wolf stole back + To carry the word to the waiting Pack; + And we sought and we found and we bayed on his track + Once, twice, and again! + + As the dawn was breaking the Wolf-pack yelled + Once, twice, and again! + Feet in the jungle that leave no mark! + Eyes that can see in the dark--the dark! + Tongue--give tongue to it! Hark! O Hark! + Once, twice, and again! + + + + + KAA'S HUNTING + + + His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the + Buffalo's pride-- + Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss + of his hide. + + If ye find that the Bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed + Sambhur can gore; + Ye need not stop work to inform us: we knew it ten seasons + before. + + Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister + and Brother, + For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is + their mother. + + "There is none like to me!" says the Cub in the pride of his + earliest kill; + But the Jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think + and be still. + + _Maxims of Baloo._ + + + [Illustration] + + KAA'S HUNTING + + +ALL that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of +the Seeonee wolf-pack. It was in the days when Baloo was teaching him +the Law of the Jungle. The big, serious, old brown bear was delighted to +have so quick a pupil, for the young wolves will only learn as much of +the Law of the Jungle as applies to their own pack and tribe, and run +away as soon as they can repeat the Hunting Verse: "Feet that make no +noise; eyes that can see in the dark; ears that can hear the winds in +their lairs, and sharp white teeth--all these things are the marks of +our brothers except Tabaqui and the Hyena, whom we hate." But Mowgli, as +a man-cub, had to learn a great deal more than this. Sometimes Bagheera, +the Black Panther, would come lounging through the jungle to see how his +pet was getting on, and would purr with his head against a tree while +Mowgli recited the day's lesson to Baloo. The boy could climb almost as +well as he could swim, and swim almost as well as he could run; so +Baloo, the Teacher of the Law, taught him the Wood and Water laws: how +to tell a rotten branch from a sound one; how to speak politely to the +wild bees when he came upon a hive of them fifty feet aboveground; what +to say to Mang, the Bat, when he disturbed him in the branches at +midday; and how to warn the water-snakes in the pools before he splashed +down among them. None of the Jungle People like being disturbed, and all +are very ready to fly at an intruder. Then, too, Mowgli was taught the +Strangers' Hunting Call, which must be repeated aloud till it is +answered, whenever one of the Jungle People hunts outside his own +grounds. It means, translated: "Give me leave to hunt here because I am +hungry"; and the answer is: "Hunt, then, for food, but not for +pleasure." + +All this will show you how much Mowgli had to learn by heart, and he +grew very tired of repeating the same thing a hundred times; but, as +Baloo said to Bagheera one day when Mowgli had been cuffed and had run +off in a temper: "A man's cub is a man's cub, and he must learn _all_ +the Law of the Jungle." + +"But think how small he is," said the Black Panther, who would have +spoiled Mowgli if he had had his own way. "How can his little head carry +all thy long talk?" + +"Is there anything in the jungle too little to be killed? No. That is +why I teach him these things, and that is why I hit him, very softly, +when he forgets." + +"Softly! What dost thou know of softness, old Iron-feet?" Bagheera +grunted. "His face is all bruised to-day by thy--softness. Ugh!" + +"Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me who love him than +that he should come to harm through ignorance," Baloo answered, very +earnestly. "I am now teaching him the Master Words of the Jungle that +shall protect him with the Birds and the Snake People, and all that hunt +on four feet, except his own pack. He can now claim protection, if he +will only remember the Words, from all in the jungle. Is not that worth +a little beating?" + +"Well, look to it then that thou dost not kill the man-cub. He is no +tree-trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon. But what are those Master +Words? I am more likely to give help than to ask it"--Bagheera stretched +out one paw and admired the steel-blue ripping-chisel talons at the end +of it--"Still I should like to know." + +"I will call Mowgli and he shall say them--if he will. Come, Little +Brother!" + +"My head is ringing like a bee-tree," said a sullen voice over their +heads, and Mowgli slid down a tree-trunk, very angry and indignant, +adding, as he reached the ground: "I come for Bagheera and not for +_thee_, fat old Baloo!" + +"That is all one to me," said Baloo, though he was hurt and grieved. +"Tell Bagheera, then, the Master Words of the Jungle that I have taught +thee this day." + +"Master Words for which people?" said Mowgli, delighted to show off. +"The jungle has many tongues. _I_ know them all." + +"A little thou knowest, but not much. See, O Bagheera, they never thank +their teacher! Not one small wolfling has come back to thank old Baloo +for his teachings. Say the Word for the Hunting People, then,--great +scholar!" + +"We be of one blood, ye and I," said Mowgli, giving the words the Bear +accent which all the Hunting People of the Jungle use. + +"Good! Now for the Birds." + +Mowgli repeated, with the Kite's whistle at the end of the sentence. + +"Now for the Snake People," said Bagheera. + +The answer was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mowgli kicked up his +feet behind, clapped his hands together to applaud himself, and jumped +on Bagheera's back, where he sat sideways, drumming with his heels on +the glossy skin and making the worst faces that he could think of at +Baloo. + +"There--there! That was worth a little bruise," said the Brown Bear, +tenderly. "Some day thou wilt remember me." Then he turned aside to tell +Bagheera how he had begged the Master Words from Hathi, the Wild +Elephant, who knows all about these things, and how Hathi had taken +Mowgli down to a pool to get the Snake Word from a water-snake, because +Baloo could not pronounce it, and how Mowgli was now reasonably safe +against all accidents in the jungle, because neither snake, bird, nor +beast would hurt him. + +"No one then is to be feared," Baloo wound up, patting his big furry +stomach with pride. + +"Except his own tribe," said Bagheera, under his breath; and then aloud +to Mowgli: "Have a care for my ribs, Little Brother! What is all this +dancing up and down?" + +Mowgli had been trying to make himself heard by pulling at Bagheera's +shoulder-fur and kicking hard. When the two listened to him he was +shouting at the top of his voice: "And _so_ I shall have a tribe of my +own, and lead them through the branches all day long." + +"What is this new folly, little dreamer of dreams?" said Bagheera. + +"Yes, and throw branches and dirt at old Baloo," Mowgli went on. "They +have promised me this, ah!" + +"Whoof!" Baloo's big paw scooped Mowgli off Bagheera's back, and as the +boy lay between the big fore paws he could see the bear was angry. + +"Mowgli," said Baloo, "thou hast been talking with the Bandar-log--the +Monkey People." + +Mowgli looked at Bagheera to see if the panther was angry too, and +Bagheera's eyes were as hard as jade-stones. + +"Thou hast been with the Monkey People--the gray apes--the people +without a Law--the eaters of everything. That is great shame." + +"When Baloo hurt my head," said Mowgli (he was still down on his back), +"I went away, and the gray apes came down from the trees and had pity on +me. No one else cared." He snuffled a little. + +"The pity of the Monkey People!" Baloo snorted. + +"The stillness of the mountain stream! The cool of the summer sun! And +then, man-cub?" + +"And then--and then they gave me nuts and pleasant things to eat, and +they--they carried me in their arms up to the top of the trees and said +I was their blood-brother, except that I had no tail, and should be +their leader some day." + +"They have _no_ leader," said Bagheera. "They lie. They have always +lied." + +"They were very kind, and bade me come again. Why have I never been +taken among the Monkey People? They stand on their feet as I do. They do +not hit me with hard paws. They play all day. Let me get up! Bad Baloo, +let me up! I will go play with them again." + +"Listen, man-cub," said the bear, and his voice rumbled like thunder on +a hot night. "I have taught thee all the Law of the Jungle for all the +Peoples of the Jungle--except the Monkey Folk who live in the trees. +They have no Law. They are outcastes. They have no speech of their own, +but use the stolen words which they overhear when they listen and peep +and wait up above in the branches. Their way is not our way. They are +without leaders. They have no remembrance. They boast and chatter and +pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in the +jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter, and all +is forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not +drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go; we do +not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die. Hast thou ever +heard me speak of the Bandar-log till to-day?" + +"No," said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still now that +Baloo had finished. + +"The Jungle People put them out of their mouths and out of their minds. +They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless, and they desire, if they +have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the Jungle People. But we do +_not_ notice them even when they throw nuts and filth on our heads." + +He had hardly spoken when a shower of nuts and twigs spattered down +through the branches; and they could hear coughings and howlings and +angry jumpings high up in the air among the thin branches. + +"The Monkey People are forbidden," said Baloo, "forbidden to the Jungle +People. Remember." + +"Forbidden," said Bagheera; "but I still think Baloo should have warned +thee against them." + +"I--I? How was I to guess he would play with such dirt. The Monkey +People! Faugh!" + +A fresh shower came down on their heads, and the two trotted away, +taking Mowgli with them. What Baloo had said about the monkeys was +perfectly true. They belonged to the tree-tops, and as beasts very +seldom look up, there was no occasion for the monkeys and the Jungle +People to cross one another's path. But whenever they found a sick wolf, +or a wounded tiger or bear, the monkeys would torment him, and would +throw sticks and nuts at any beast for fun and in the hope of being +noticed. Then they would howl and shriek senseless songs, and invite the +Jungle People to climb up their trees and fight them, or would start +furious battles over nothing among themselves, and leave the dead +monkeys where the Jungle People could see them. + +They were always just going to have a leader and laws and customs of +their own, but they never did, because their memories would not hold +over from day to day, and so they settled things by making up a saying: +"What the Bandar-log think now the Jungle will think later"; and that +comforted them a great deal. None of the beasts could reach them, but on +the other hand none of the beasts would notice them, and that was why +they were so pleased when Mowgli came to play with them, and when they +heard how angry Baloo was. + +They never meant to do any more,--the Bandar-log never mean anything at +all,--but one of them invented what seemed to him a brilliant idea, and +he told all the others that Mowgli would be a useful person to keep in +the tribe, because he could weave sticks together for protection from +the wind; so, if they caught him, they could make him teach them. Of +course Mowgli, as a wood-cutter's child, inherited all sorts of +instincts, and used to make little play-huts of fallen branches without +thinking how he came to do it. The Monkey People, watching in the trees, +considered these huts most wonderful. This time, they said, they were +really going to have a leader and become the wisest people in the +jungle--so wise that every one else would notice and envy them. +Therefore they followed Baloo and Bagheera and Mowgli through the jungle +very quietly till it was time for the midday nap, and Mowgli, who was +very much ashamed of himself, slept between the panther and the bear, +resolving to have no more to do with the Monkey People. + +The next thing he remembered was feeling hands on his legs and +arms,--hard, strong little hands,--and then a swash of branches in his +face; and then he was staring down through the swaying boughs as Baloo +woke the jungle with his deep cries and Bagheera bounded up the trunk +with every tooth bared. The Bandar-log howled with triumph, and scuffled +away to the upper branches where Bagheera dared not follow, shouting: +"He has noticed us! Bagheera has noticed us! All the Jungle People +admire us for our skill and our cunning!" Then they began their flight; +and the flight of the Monkey People through tree-land is one of the +things nobody can describe. They have their regular roads and +cross-roads, uphills and downhills, all laid out from fifty to seventy +or a hundred feet aboveground, and by these they can travel even at +night if necessary. + +Two of the strongest monkeys caught Mowgli under the arms and swung off +with him through the tree-tops, twenty feet at a bound. Had they been +alone they could have gone twice as fast, but the boy's weight held them +back. Sick and giddy as Mowgli was he could not help enjoying the wild +rush, though the glimpses of earth far down below frightened him, and +the terrible check and jerk at the end of the swing over nothing but +empty air brought his heart between his teeth. + +His escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the weak topmost +branches crackle and bend under them, and, then, with a cough and a +whoop, would fling themselves into the air outward and downward, and +bring up hanging by their hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the +next tree. Sometimes he could see for miles and miles over the still +green jungle, as a man on the top of a mast can see for miles across the +sea, and then the branches and leaves would lash him across the face, +and he and his two guards would be almost down to earth again. + +So bounding and crashing and whooping and yelling, the whole tribe of +Bandar-log swept along the tree-roads with Mowgli their prisoner. + +For a time he was afraid of being dropped; then he grew angry, but he +knew better than to struggle; and then he began to think. The first +thing was to send back word to Baloo and Bagheera, for, at the pace the +monkeys were going, he knew his friends would be left far behind. It +was useless to look down, for he could see only the top sides of the +branches, so he stared upward and saw, far away in the blue, Rann, the +Kite, balancing and wheeling as he kept watch over the jungle waiting +for things to die. Rann noticed that the monkeys were carrying +something, and dropped a few hundred yards to find out whether their +load was good to eat. He whistled with surprise when he saw Mowgli being +dragged up to a tree-top, and heard him give the Kite call for "We be of +one blood, thou and I." The waves of the branches closed over the boy, +but Rann balanced away to the next tree in time to see the little brown +face come up again. "Mark my trail!" Mowgli shouted. "Tell Baloo of the +Seeonee Pack, and Bagheera of the Council Rock." + +"In whose name, Brother?" Rann had never seen Mowgli before, though of +course he had heard of him. + +"Mowgli, the Frog. Man-cub they call me! Mark my tra--il!" + +The last words were shrieked as he was being swung through the air, but +Rann nodded, and rose up till he looked no bigger than a speck of dust, +and there he hung, watching with his telescope eyes the swaying of the +tree-tops as Mowgli's escort whirled along. + +"They never go far," he said, with a chuckle. "They never do what they +set out to do. Always pecking at new things are the Bandar-log. This +time, if I have any eyesight, they have pecked down trouble for +themselves, for Baloo is no fledgling and Bagheera can, as I know, kill +more than goats." + +Then he rocked on his wings, his feet gathered up under him, and waited. + +Meanwhile, Baloo and Bagheera were furious with rage and grief. Bagheera +climbed as he had never climbed before, but the branches broke beneath +his weight, and he slipped down, his claws full of bark. + +"Why didst thou not warn the man-cub!" he roared to poor Baloo, who had +set off at a clumsy trot in the hope of overtaking the monkeys. "What +was the use of half slaying him with blows if thou didst not warn him?" + +"Haste! O haste! We--we may catch them yet!" Baloo panted. + +"At that speed! It would not tire a wounded cow. Teacher of the Law, +cub-beater--a mile of that rolling to and fro would burst thee open. Sit +still and think! Make a plan. This is no time for chasing. They may drop +him if we follow too close." + +"_Arrula! Whoo!_ They may have dropped him already, being tired of +carrying him. Who can trust the Bandar-log? Put dead bats on my head! +Give me black bones to eat! Roll me into the hives of the wild bees that +I may be stung to death, and bury me with the hyena; for I am the most +miserable of bears! _Arulala! Wahooa!_ O Mowgli, Mowgli! Why did I not +warn thee against the Monkey Folk instead of breaking thy head? Now +perhaps I may have knocked the day's lesson out of his mind, and he will +be alone in the jungle without the Master Words!" + +Baloo clasped his paws over his ears and rolled to and fro, moaning. + +"At least he gave me all the Words correctly a little time ago," said +Bagheera, impatiently. "Baloo, thou hast neither memory nor respect. +What would the jungle think if I, the Black Panther, curled myself up +like Ikki, the Porcupine, and howled?" + +"What do I care what the jungle thinks? He may be dead by now." + +"Unless and until they drop him from the branches in sport, or kill him +out of idleness, I have no fear for the man-cub. He is wise and +well-taught, and, above all, he has the eyes that make the Jungle People +afraid. But (and it is a great evil) he is in the power of the +Bandar-log, and they, because they live in trees, have no fear of any of +our people." Bagheera licked his one fore paw thoughtfully. + +"Fool that I am! Oh fat, brown, root-digging fool that I am!" said +Baloo, uncoiling himself with a jerk. "It is true what Hathi, the Wild +Elephant, says: '_To each his own fear_'; and they, the Bandar-log, fear +Kaa, the Rock Snake. He can climb as well as they can. He steals the +young monkeys in the night. The mere whisper of his name makes their +wicked tails cold. Let us go to Kaa." + +"What will he do for us? He is not of our tribe, being footless and with +most evil eyes," said Bagheera. + +"He is very old and very cunning. Above all, he is always hungry," said +Baloo, hopefully. "Promise him many goats." + +"He sleeps for a full month after he has once eaten. He may be asleep +now, and even were he awake, what if he would rather kill his own +goats?" Bagheera, who did not know much about Kaa, was naturally +suspicious. + +"Then in that case, thou and I together, old hunter, may make him see +reason." Here Baloo rubbed his faded brown shoulder against the +panther, and they went off to look for Kaa, the Rock Python. + +They found him stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun, +admiring his beautiful new coat, for he had been in retirement for the +last ten days changing his skin, and now he was very splendid--darting +his big blunt-nosed head along the ground, and twisting the thirty feet +of his body into fantastic knots and curves, and licking his lips as he +thought of his dinner to come. + +"He has not eaten," said Baloo, with a grunt of relief, as soon as he +saw the beautifully mottled brown and yellow jacket. "Be careful, +Bagheera! He is always a little blind after he has changed his skin, and +very quick to strike." + +Kaa was not a poison snake--in fact he rather despised the Poison Snakes +for cowards; but his strength lay in his hug, and when he had once +lapped his huge coils round anybody there was no more to be said. "Good +hunting!" cried Baloo, sitting up on his haunches. Like all snakes of +his breed Kaa was rather deaf, and did not hear the call at first. Then +he curled up ready for any accident, his head lowered. + +"Good hunting for us all," he answered. "Oho, Baloo, what dost thou do +here? Good hunting, Bagheera. One of us at least needs food. Is there +any news of game afoot? A doe now, or even a young buck? I am as empty +as a dried well." + +"We are hunting," said Baloo, carelessly. He knew that you must not +hurry Kaa. He is too big. + +"Give me permission to come with you," said Kaa. "A blow more or less is +nothing to thee, Bagheera or Baloo, but I--I have to wait and wait for +days in a wood path and climb half a night on the mere chance of a young +ape. _Pss naw!_ The branches are not what they were when I was young. +Rotten twigs and dry boughs are they all." + +"Maybe thy great weight has something to do with the matter," said +Baloo. + +"I am a fair length--a fair length," said Kaa, with a little pride. "But +for all that, it is the fault of this new-grown timber. I came very near +to falling on my last hunt,--very near indeed,--and the noise of my +slipping, for my tail was not tight wrapped round the tree, waked the +Bandar-log, and they called me most evil names." + +"'Footless, yellow earthworm,'" said Bagheera under his whiskers, as +though he were trying to remember something. + +"_Sssss!_ Have they ever called me _that_?" said Kaa. + +"Something of that kind it was that they shouted to us last moon, but we +never noticed them. They will say anything--even that thou hast lost all +thy teeth, and dare not face anything bigger than a kid, because (they +are indeed shameless, these Bandar-log)--because thou art afraid of the +he-goats' horns," Bagheera went on sweetly. + +Now a snake, especially a wary old python like Kaa, very seldom shows +that he is angry; but Baloo and Bagheera could see the big swallowing +muscles on either side of Kaa's throat ripple and bulge. + +"The Bandar-log have shifted their grounds," he said, quietly. "When I +came up into the sun today I heard them whooping among the tree-tops." + +"It--it is the Bandar-log that we follow now," said Baloo; but the words +stuck in his throat, for this was the first time in his memory that one +of the Jungle People had owned to being interested in the doings of the +monkeys. + +"Beyond doubt, then, it is no small thing that takes two such +hunters--leaders in their own jungle, I am certain--on the trail of the +Bandar-log," Kaa replied, courteously, as he swelled with curiosity. + +"Indeed," Baloo began, "I am no more than the old, and sometimes very +foolish, Teacher of the Law to the Seeonee wolf-cubs, and Bagheera +here--" + +"Is Bagheera," said the Black Panther, and his jaws shut with a snap, +for he did not believe in being humble. "The trouble is this, Kaa. Those +nut-stealers and pickers of palm-leaves have stolen away our man-cub, of +whom thou hast perhaps heard." + +"I heard some news from Ikki (his quills make him presumptuous) of a +man-thing that was entered into a wolf-pack, but I did not believe. Ikki +is full of stories half heard and very badly told." + +"But it is true. He is such a man-cub as never was," said Baloo. "The +best and wisest and boldest of man-cubs. My own pupil, who shall make +the name of Baloo famous through all the jungles; and besides, +I--we--love him, Kaa." + +"_Ts! Ts!_" said Kaa, shaking his head to and fro. "I also have known +what love is. There are tales I could tell that--" + +"That need a clear night when we are all well fed to praise properly," +said Bagheera, quickly. "Our man-cub is in the hands of the Bandar-log +now, and we know that of all the Jungle People they fear Kaa alone." + +"They fear me alone. They have good reason," said Kaa. "Chattering, +foolish, vain--vain, foolish, and chattering--are the monkeys. But a +man-thing in their hands is in no good luck. They grow tired of the nuts +they pick, and throw them down. They carry a branch half a day, meaning +to do great things with it, and then they snap it in two. That manling +is not to be envied. They called me also--'yellow fish,' was it not?" + +"Worm--worm--earthworm," said Bagheera; "as well as other things which I +cannot now say for shame." + +"We must remind them to speak well of their master. _Aaa-sssh!_ We must +help their wandering memories. Now, whither went they with thy cub?" + +"The jungle alone knows. Toward the sunset, I believe," said Baloo. "We +had thought that thou wouldst know, Kaa." + +"I? How? I take them when they come in my way, but I do not hunt the +Bandar-log--or frogs--or green scum on a water-hole, for that matter." + +"Up, up! Up, up! _Hillo! Illo! Illo!_ Look up, Baloo of the Seeonee Wolf +Pack!" + +Baloo looked up to see where the voice came from, and there was Rann, +the Kite, sweeping down with the sun shining on the upturned flanges of +his wings. It was near Rann's bedtime, but he had ranged all over the +jungle looking for the bear, and missed him in the thick foliage. + +"What is it?" said Baloo. + +"I have seen Mowgli among the Bandar-log. He bade me tell you. I +watched. The Bandar-log have taken him beyond the river to the Monkey +City--to the Cold Lairs. They may stay there for a night, or ten nights, +or an hour. I have told the bats to watch through the dark time. That is +my message. Good hunting, all you below!" + +"Full gorge and a deep sleep to you, Rann!" cried Bagheera. "I will +remember thee in my next kill, and put aside the head for thee alone, O +best of kites!" + +"It is nothing. It is nothing. The boy held the Master Word. I could +have done no less," and Rann circled up again to his roost. + +"He has not forgotten to use his tongue," said Baloo, with a chuckle of +pride. "To think of one so young remembering the Master Word for the +birds while he was being pulled across trees!" + +"It was most firmly driven into him," said Bagheera. "But I am proud of +him, and now we must go to the Cold Lairs." + +They all knew where that place was, but few of the Jungle People ever +went there, because what they called the Cold Lairs was an old deserted +city, lost and buried in the jungle, and beasts seldom use a place that +men have once used. The wild boar will, but the hunting-tribes do not. +Besides, the monkeys lived there as much as they could be said to live +anywhere, and no self-respecting animal would come within eye-shot of it +except in times of drouth, when the half-ruined tanks and reservoirs +held a little water. + +"It is half a night's journey--at full speed," said Bagheera. Baloo +looked very serious. "I will go as fast as I can," he said, anxiously. + +"We dare not wait for thee. Follow, Baloo. We must go on the +quick-foot--Kaa and I." + +"Feet or no feet, I can keep abreast of all thy four," said Kaa, +shortly. + +Baloo made one effort to hurry, but had to sit down panting, and so they +left him to come on later, while Bagheera hurried forward, at the +rocking panther-canter. Kaa said nothing, but, strive as Bagheera might, +the huge Rock Python held level with him. When they came to a +hill-stream, Bagheera gained, because he bounded across while Kaa swam, +his head and two feet of his neck clearing the water, but on level +ground Kaa made up the distance. + +"By the Broken Lock that freed me," said Bagheera, when twilight had +fallen, "thou art no slow-goer." + +"I am hungry," said Kaa. "Besides, they called me speckled frog." + +"Worm--earthworm, and yellow to boot." + +"All one. Let us go on," and Kaa seemed to pour himself along the +ground, finding the shortest road with his steady eyes, and keeping to +it. + +In the Cold Lairs the Monkey People were not thinking of Mowgli's +friends at all. They had brought the boy to the Lost City, and were very +pleased with themselves for the time. Mowgli had never seen an Indian +city before, and though this was almost a heap of ruins it seemed very +wonderful and splendid. Some king had built it long ago on a little +hill. You could still trace the stone causeways that led up to the +ruined gates where the last splinters of wood hung to the worn, rusted +hinges. Trees had grown into and out of the walls; the battlements were +tumbled down and decayed, and wild creepers hung out of the windows of +the towers on the walls in bushy hanging clumps. + +A great roofless palace crowned the hill, and the marble of the +courtyards and the fountains was split and stained with red and green, +and the very cobblestones in the courtyard where the king's elephants +used to live had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees. +From the palace you could see the rows and rows of roofless houses that +made up the city, looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness; +the shapeless block of stone that had been an idol in the square where +four roads met; the pits and dimples at street corners where the public +wells once stood, and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs +sprouting on their sides. + +The monkeys called the place their city, and pretended to despise the +Jungle People because they lived in the forest. And yet they never knew +what the buildings were made for nor how to use them. They would sit in +circles on the hall of the king's council-chamber, and scratch for fleas +and pretend to be men; or they would run in and out of the roofless +houses and collect pieces of plaster and old bricks in a corner, and +forget where they had hidden them, and fight and cry in scuffling +crowds, and then break off to play up and down the terraces of the +king's garden, where they would shake the rose-trees and the oranges in +sport to see the fruit and flowers fall. They explored all the passages +and dark tunnels in the palace and the hundreds of little dark rooms; +but they never remembered what they had seen and what they had not, and +so drifted about in ones and twos or crowds, telling one another that +they were doing as men did. They drank at the tanks and made the water +all muddy, and then they fought over it, and then they would all rush +together in mobs and shout: "There are none in the jungle so wise and +good and clever and strong and gentle as the Bandar-log." Then all would +begin again till they grew tired of the city and went back to the +tree-tops, hoping the Jungle People would notice them. + +Mowgli, who had been trained under the Law of the Jungle, did not like +or understand this kind of life. The monkeys dragged him into the Cold +Lairs late in the afternoon, and instead of going to sleep, as Mowgli +would have done after a long journey, they joined hands and danced about +and sang their foolish songs. + +One of the monkeys made a speech, and told his companions that Mowgli's +capture marked a new thing in the history of the Bandar-log, for Mowgli +was going to show them how to weave sticks and canes together as a +protection against rain and cold. Mowgli picked up some creepers and +began to work them in and out, and the monkeys tried to imitate; but in +a very few minutes they lost interest and began to pull their friends' +tails or jump up and down on all fours, coughing. + +"I want to eat," said Mowgli. "I am a stranger in this part of the +jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt here." + +Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild +pawpaws; but they fell to fighting on the road, and it was too much +trouble to go back with what was left of the fruit. Mowgli was sore and +angry as well as hungry, and he roamed through the empty city giving the +Strangers' Hunting Call from time to time, but no one answered him, and +Mowgli felt that he had reached a very bad place indeed. + +"All that Baloo has said about the Bandar-log is true," he thought to +himself. "They have no Law, no Hunting Call, and no leaders--nothing but +foolish words and little picking, thievish hands. So if I am starved or +killed here, it will be all my own fault. But I must try to return to my +own jungle. Baloo will surely beat me, but that is better than chasing +silly rose-leaves with the Bandar-log." + +But no sooner had he walked to the city wall than the monkeys pulled him +back, telling him that he did not know how happy he was, and pinching +him to make him grateful. He set his teeth and said nothing, but went +with the shouting monkeys to a terrace above the red sandstone +reservoirs that were half full of rain-water. There was a ruined +summer-house of white marble in the center of the terrace, built for +queens dead a hundred years ago. The domed roof had half fallen in and +blocked up the underground passage from the palace by which the queens +used to enter; but the walls were made of screens of marble +tracery--beautiful, milk-white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians +and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up behind the hill it +shone through the openwork, casting shadows on the ground like +black-velvet embroidery. + +Sore, sleepy, and hungry as he was, Mowgli could not help laughing when +the Bandar-log began, twenty at a time, to tell him how great and wise +and strong and gentle they were, and how foolish he was to wish to leave +them. "We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most +wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be +true," they shouted. "Now as you are a new listener and can carry our +words back to the Jungle People so that they may notice us in future, we +will tell you all about our most excellent selves." + +Mowgli made no objection, and the monkeys gathered by hundreds and +hundreds on the terrace to listen to their own speakers singing the +praises of the Bandar-log, and whenever a speaker stopped for want of +breath they would all shout together: "This is true; we all say so." + +Mowgli nodded and blinked, and said "Yes" when they asked him a +question, and his head spun with the noise. "Tabaqui, the Jackal, must +have bitten all these people," he said to himself, "and now they have +the madness. Certainly this is _dewance_--the madness. Do they never go +to sleep? Now there is a cloud coming to cover that moon. If it were +only a big enough cloud I might try to run away in the darkness. But I +am tired." + +That same cloud was being watched by two good friends in the ruined +ditch below the city wall, for Bagheera and Kaa, knowing well how +dangerous the Monkey People were in large numbers, did not wish to run +any risks. The monkeys never fight unless they are a hundred to one, and +few in the jungle care for those odds. + +"I will go to the west wall," Kaa whispered, "and come down swiftly with +the slope of the ground in my favor. They will not throw themselves upon +_my_ back in their hundreds, but--" + +"I know it," said Bagheera. "Would that Baloo were here; but we must do +what we can. When that cloud covers the moon I shall go to the terrace. +They hold some sort of council there over the boy." + +"Good hunting," said Kaa, grimly, and glided away to the west wall. That +happened to be the least ruined of any, and the big snake was delayed a +while before he could find a way up the stones. + +The cloud hid the moon, and as Mowgli wondered what would come next he +heard Bagheera's light feet on the terrace. The Black Panther had raced +up the slope almost without a sound, and was striking--he knew better +than to waste time in biting--right and left among the monkeys, who were +seated round Mowgli in circles fifty and sixty deep. There was a howl of +fright and rage, and then as Bagheera tripped on the rolling, kicking +bodies beneath him, a monkey shouted: "There is only one here! Kill him! +Kill!" A scuffling mass of monkeys, biting, scratching, tearing, and +pulling, closed over Bagheera, while five or six laid hold of Mowgli, +dragged him up the wall of the summer-house, and pushed him through the +hole of the broken dome. A man-trained boy would have been badly +bruised, for the fall was a good ten feet, but Mowgli fell as Baloo had +taught him to fall, and landed light. + +"Stay there," shouted the monkeys, "till we have killed thy friend. +Later we will play with thee, if the Poison People leave thee alive." + +"We be of one blood, ye and I," said Mowgli, quickly giving the Snake's +Call. He could hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish all round him, +and gave the Call a second time to make sure. + +"Down hoods all," said half a dozen low voices. Every old ruin in India +becomes sooner or later a dwelling-place of snakes, and the old +summer-house was alive with cobras. "Stand still, Little Brother, lest +thy feet do us harm." + +Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the openwork and +listening to the furious din of the fight round the Black Panther--the +yells and chatterings and scufflings, and Bagheera's deep, hoarse cough +as he backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under the heaps of his +enemies. For the first time since he was born, Bagheera was fighting for +his life. + +"Baloo must be at hand; Bagheera would not have come alone," Mowgli +thought; and then he called aloud: "To the tank, Bagheera! Roll to the +water-tanks! Roll and plunge! Get to the water!" + +Bagheera heard, and the cry that told him Mowgli was safe gave him new +courage. He worked his way desperately, inch by inch, straight for the +reservoirs, hitting in silence. + +Then from the ruined wall nearest the jungle rose up the rumbling +war-shout of Baloo. The old bear had done his best, but he could not +come before. "Bagheera," he shouted, "I am here! I climb! I haste! +_Ahuwora!_ The stones slip under my feet! Wait my coming, O most +infamous Bandar log!" + +He panted up the terrace only to disappear to the head in a wave of +monkeys, but he threw himself squarely on his haunches, and spreading +out his fore paws, hugged as many as he could hold, and then began to +hit with a regular _bat-bat-bat_, like the flipping strokes of a +paddle-wheel. + +A crash and a splash told Mowgli that Bagheera had fought his way to the +tank, where the monkeys could not follow. The panther lay gasping for +breath, his head just out of water, while the monkeys stood three deep +on the red stone steps, dancing up and down with rage, ready to spring +upon him from all sides if he came out to help Baloo. It was then that +Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin, and in despair gave the Snake's +Call for protection,--"We be of one blood, ye and I,"--for he believed +that Kaa had turned tail at the last minute. Even Baloo, half smothered +under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling +as he heard the big Black Panther asking for help. + +Kaa had only just worked his way over the west wall, landing with a +wrench that dislodged a coping-stone into the ditch. He had no intention +of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled and uncoiled himself +once or twice, to be sure that every foot of his long body was in +working order. + +All that while the fight with Baloo went on, and the monkeys yelled in +the tank round Bagheera, and Mang, the Bat, flying to and fro, carried +the news of the great battle over the jungle, till even Hathi, the Wild +Elephant, trumpeted, and, far away, scattered bands of the Monkey Folk +woke and came leaping along the tree-roads to help their comrades in the +Cold Lairs, and the noise of the fight roused all the day-birds for +miles round. + +Then Kaa came straight, quickly, and anxious to kill. The fighting +strength of a python is in the driving blow of his head, backed by all +the strength and weight of his body. If you can imagine a lance, or a +battering-ram, or a hammer, weighing nearly half a ton driven by a cool, +quiet mind living in the handle of it, you can imagine roughly what Kaa +was like when he fought. A python four or five feet long can knock a man +down if he hits him fairly in the chest, and Kaa was thirty feet long, +as you know. His first stroke was delivered into the heart of the crowd +round Baloo--was sent home with shut mouth in silence, and there was no +need of a second. The monkeys scattered with cries of "Kaa! It is Kaa! +Run! Run!" + +Generations of monkeys had been scared into good behavior by the stories +their elders told them of Kaa, the night-thief, who could slip along the +branches as quietly as moss grows, and steal away the strongest monkey +that ever lived; of old Kaa, who could make himself look so like a dead +branch or a rotten stump that the wisest were deceived till the branch +caught them, and then-- + +Kaa was everything that the monkeys feared in the jungle, for none of +them knew the limits of his power, none of them could look him in the +face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug. And so they ran, +stammering with terror, to the walls and the roofs of the houses, and +Baloo drew a deep breath of relief. His fur was much thicker than +Bagheera's, but he had suffered sorely in the fight. Then Kaa opened his +mouth for the first time and spoke one long hissing word, and the +far-away monkeys, hurrying to the defense of the Cold Lairs, stayed +where they were, cowering, till the loaded branches bent and crackled +under them. The monkeys on the walls and the empty houses stopped their +cries, and in the stillness that fell upon the city Mowgli heard +Bagheera shaking his wet sides as he came up from the tank. + +Then the clamor broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls; +they clung round the necks of the big stone idols and shrieked as they +skipped along the battlements; while Mowgli, dancing in the +summer-house, put his eye to the screenwork and hooted owl-fashion +between his front teeth, to show his derision and contempt. + +"Get the man-cub out of that trap; I can do no more," Bagheera gasped. +"Let us take the man-cub and go. They may attack again." + +"They will not move till I order them. Stay you sssso!" Kaa hissed, and +the city was silent once more. "I could not come before, Brother, but I +_think_ I heard thee call"--this was to Bagheera. + +"I--I may have cried out in the battle," Bagheera answered. "Baloo, art +thou hurt?" + +"I am not sure that they have not pulled me into a hundred little +bearlings," said Baloo, gravely shaking one leg after the other. "Wow! I +am sore. Kaa, we owe thee, I think, our lives--Bagheera and I." + +"No matter. Where is the manling?" + +"Here, in a trap. I cannot climb out," cried Mowgli. The curve of the +broken dome was above his head. + +"Take him away. He dances like Mao, the Peacock. He will crush our +young," said the cobras inside. + +"Hah!" said Kaa, with a chuckle, "he has friends everywhere, this +manling. Stand back, Manling; and hide you, O Poison People. I break +down the wall." + +Kaa looked carefully till he found a discolored crack in the marble +tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head +to get the distance, and then lifting up six feet of his body clear of +the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power, smashing blows, +nose-first. The screenwork broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and +rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through the opening and flung himself between +Baloo and Bagheera--an arm round each big neck. + +"Art thou hurt?" said Baloo, hugging him softly. + +"I am sore, hungry, and not a little bruised; but, oh, they have handled +ye grievously, my Brothers! Ye bleed." + +"Others also," said Bagheera, licking his lips and looking at the +monkey-dead on the terrace and round the tank. + +"It is nothing, it is nothing if thou art safe, O my pride of all little +frogs!" whimpered Baloo. + +"Of that we shall judge later," said Bagheera, in a dry voice that +Mowgli did not at all like. "But here is Kaa, to whom we owe the battle +and thou owest thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli." + +Mowgli turned and saw the great python's head swaying a foot above his +own. + +"So this is the manling," said Kaa. "Very soft is his skin, and he is +not so unlike the Bandar-log. Have a care, Manling, that I do not +mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my +coat." + +"We be of one blood, thou and I," Mowgli answered. "I take my life from +thee, to-night. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O +Kaa." + +"All thanks, Little Brother," said Kaa, though his eyes twinkled. "And +what may so bold a hunter kill? I ask that I may follow when next he +goes abroad." + +"I kill nothing,--I am too little,--but I drive goats toward such as can +use them. When thou art empty come to me and see if I speak the truth. I +have some skill in these [he held out his hands], and if ever thou art +in a trap, I may pay the debt which I owe to thee, to Bagheera, and to +Baloo, here. Good hunting to ye all, my masters." + +"Well said," growled Baloo, for Mowgli had returned thanks very +prettily. The python dropped his head lightly for a minute on Mowgli's +shoulder. "A brave heart and a courteous tongue," said he. "They shall +carry thee far through the jungle, Manling. But now go hence quickly +with thy friends. Go and sleep, for the moon sets, and what follows it +is not well that thou shouldst see." + +The moon was sinking behind the hills and the lines of trembling monkeys +huddled together on the walls and battlements looked like ragged, shaky +fringes of things. Baloo went down to the tank for a drink, and Bagheera +began to put his fur in order, as Kaa glided out into the center of the +terrace and brought his jaws together with a ringing snap that drew all +the monkeys' eyes upon him. + +"The moon sets," he said. "Is there yet light to see?" + +From the walls came a moan like the wind in the tree-tops: "We see, O +Kaa!" + +"Good! Begins now the Dance--the Dance of the Hunger of Kaa. Sit still +and watch." + +He turned twice or thrice in a big circle, weaving his head from right +to left. Then he began making loops and figures of eight with his body, +and soft, oozy triangles that melted into squares and five-sided +figures, and coiled mounds, never resting, never hurrying, and never +stopping his low, humming song. It grew darker and darker, till at last +the dragging, shifting coils disappeared, but they could hear the rustle +of the scales. + +Baloo and Bagheera stood still as stone, growling in their throats, +their neck-hair bristling, and Mowgli watched and wondered. + +"Bandar-log," said the voice of Kaa at last, "can ye stir foot or hand +without my order? Speak!" + +"Without thy order we cannot stir foot or hand, O Kaa!" + +"Good! Come all one pace nearer to me." + +The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and +Bagheera took one stiff step forward with them. + +"Nearer!" hissed Kaa, and they all moved again. + +Mowgli laid his hands on Baloo and Bagheera to get them away, and the +two great beasts started as though they had been waked from a dream. + +"Keep thy hand on my shoulder," Bagheera whispered. "Keep it there, or I +must go back--must go back to Kaa. _Aah!_" + +"It is only old Kaa making circles on the dust," said Mowgli; "let us +go"; and the three slipped off through a gap in the walls to the jungle. + +"_Whoof!_" said Baloo, when he stood under the still trees again. "Never +more will I make an ally of Kaa," and he shook himself all over. + +"He knows more than we," said Bagheera, trembling. "In a little time, +had I stayed, I should have walked down his throat." + +"Many will walk that road before the moon rises again," said Baloo. "He +will have good hunting--after his own fashion." + +"But what was the meaning of it all?" said Mowgli, who did not know +anything of a python's powers of fascination. "I saw no more than a big +snake making foolish circles till the dark came. And his nose was all +sore. Ho! Ho!" + +"Mowgli," said Bagheera, angrily, "his nose was sore on _thy_ account; +as my ears and sides and paws, and Baloo's neck and shoulders are bitten +on _thy_ account. Neither Baloo nor Bagheera will be able to hunt with +pleasure for many days." + +"It is nothing," said Baloo; "we have the man-cub again." + +"True; but he has cost us most heavily in time which might have been +spent in good hunting, in wounds, in hair,--I am half plucked along my +back,--and last of all, in honor. For, remember, Mowgli, I, who am the +Black Panther, was forced to call upon Kaa for protection, and Baloo and +I were both made stupid as little birds by the Hunger-Dance. All this, +Man-cub, came of thy playing with the Bandar-log." + +"True; it is true," said Mowgli, sorrowfully. "I am an evil man-cub, and +my stomach is sad in me." + +"_Mf!_ What says the Law of the Jungle, Baloo?" + +Baloo did not wish to bring Mowgli into any more trouble, but he could +not tamper with the Law, so he mumbled, "Sorrow never stays punishment. +But remember, Bagheera, he is very little." + +"I will remember; but he has done mischief; and blows must be dealt now. +Mowgli, hast thou anything to say?" + +"Nothing. I did wrong. Baloo and thou art wounded. It is just." + +Bagheera gave him half a dozen love-taps; from a panther's point of view +they would hardly have waked one of his own cubs, but for a seven +year-old boy they amounted to as severe a beating as you could wish to +avoid. When it was all over Mowgli sneezed, and picked himself up +without a word. + +"Now," said Bagheera, "jump on my back, Little Brother, and we will go +home." + +One of the beauties of Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores. +There is no nagging afterward. + +Mowgli laid his head down on Bagheera's back and slept so deeply that he +never waked when he was put down by Mother Wolf's side in the +home-cave. + + + ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDAR-LOG + + Here we go in a flung festoon, + Half-way up to the jealous moon! + Don't you envy our pranceful bands? + Don't you wish you had extra hands? + Wouldn't you like if your tails were--_so_-- + Curved in the shape of a Cupid's bow? + Now you're angry, but--never mind, + _Brother, thy tail hangs down behind_! + + Here we sit in a branchy row, + Thinking of beautiful things we know; + Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do, + All complete, in a minute or two-- + Something noble and grand and good, + Won by merely wishing we could. + Now we're going to--never mind, + _Brother, thy tail hangs down behind_! + + All the talk we ever have heard + Uttered by bat or beast or bird-- + Hide or fin or scale or feather-- + Jabber it quickly and all together! + Excellent! Wonderful! Once again! + Now we are talking just like men. + Let's pretend we are ... never mind, + _Brother, thy tail hangs down behind_! + This is the way of the Monkey-kind. + + _Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through + the pines, + That rocket by where, light and high, the wild-grape + swings. + By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we + make, + Be sure, be sure, we're going to do some splendid + things!_ + + + + + "TIGER! TIGER!" + + + What of the hunting, hunter bold? + _Brother, the watch was long and cold._ + What of the quarry ye went to kill? + _Brother, he crops in the jungle still._ + Where is the power that made your pride? + _Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side._ + Where is the haste that ye hurry by? + _Brother, I go to my lair--to die._ + + + [Illustration] + + "TIGER! TIGER!" + + +NOW we must go back to the last tale but one. When Mowgli left the +wolf's cave after the fight with the Pack at the Council Rock, he went +down to the plowed lands where the villagers lived, but he would not +stop there because it was too near to the jungle, and he knew that he +had made at least one bad enemy at the Council. So he hurried on, +keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley, and followed it at a +steady jog-trot for nearly twenty miles, till he came to a country that +he did not know. The valley opened out into a great plain dotted over +with rocks and cut up by ravines. At one end stood a little village, and +at the other the thick jungle came down in a sweep to the +grazing-grounds, and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a +hoe. All over the plain, cattle and buffaloes were grazing, and when the +little boys in charge of the herds saw Mowgli they shouted and ran away, +and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian village barked. +Mowgli walked on, for he was feeling hungry, and when he came to the +village gate he saw the big thorn-bush that was drawn up before the gate +at twilight, pushed to one side. + +"Umph!" he said, for he had come across more than one such barricade in +his night rambles after things to eat. "So men are afraid of the People +of the Jungle here also." He sat down by the gate, and when a man came +out he stood up, opened his mouth, and pointed down it to show that he +wanted food. The man stared, and ran back up the one street of the +village shouting for the priest, who was a big, fat man dressed in +white, with a red and yellow mark on his forehead. The priest came to +the gate, and with him at least a hundred people, who stared and talked +and shouted and pointed at Mowgli. + +"They have no manners, these Men Folk," said Mowgli to himself. "Only +the gray ape would behave as they do." So he threw back his long hair +and frowned at the crowd. + +"What is there to be afraid of?" said the priest. "Look at the marks on +his arms and legs. They are the bites of wolves. He is but a wolf-child +run away from the jungle." + +Of course, in playing together, the cubs had often nipped Mowgli harder +than they intended, and there were white scars all over his arms and +legs. But he would have been the last person in the world to call these +bites; for he knew what real biting meant. + +"_Arre! Arre!_" said two or three women together. "To be bitten by +wolves, poor child! He is a handsome boy. He has eyes like red fire. By +my honor, Messua, he is not unlike thy boy that was taken by the tiger." + +"Let me look," said a woman with heavy copper rings on her wrists and +ankles, and she peered at Mowgli under the palm of her hand. "Indeed he +is not. He is thinner, but he has the very look of my boy." + +The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the +richest villager in the place. So he looked up at the sky for a minute, +and said solemnly: "What the jungle has taken the jungle has restored. +Take the boy into thy house, my sister, and forget not to honor the +priest who sees so far into the lives of men." + +"By the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli to himself, "but all this +talking is like another looking-over by the Pack! Well, if I am a man, a +man I must become." + +The crowd parted as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there +was a red lacquered bedstead, a great earthen grain-chest with curious +raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking-pots, an image of a +Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking-glass, such +as they sell at the country fairs. + +She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and then she laid her +hand on his head and looked into his eyes; for she thought perhaps that +he might be her real son come back from the jungle where the tiger had +taken him. So she said: "Nathoo, O Nathoo!" Mowgli did not show that he +knew the name. "Dost thou not remember the day when I gave thee thy new +shoes?" She touched his foot, and it was almost as hard as horn. "No," +she said, sorrowfully; "those feet have never worn shoes, but thou art +very like my Nathoo, and thou shalt be my son." + +Mowgli was uneasy, because he had never been under a roof before; but +as he looked at the thatch, he saw that he could tear it out any time if +he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings. "What is +the good of a man," he said to himself at last, "if he does not +understand man's talk? Now I am as silly and dumb as a man would be with +us in the jungle. I must learn their talk." + +It was not for fun that he had learned while he was with the wolves to +imitate the challenge of bucks in the jungle and the grunt of the little +wild pig. So as soon as Messua pronounced a word Mowgli would imitate it +almost perfectly, and before dark he had learned the names of many +things in the hut. + +There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep under +anything that looked so like a panther-trap as that hut, and when they +shut the door he went through the window. "Give him his will," said +Messua's husband. "Remember he can never till now have slept on a bed. +If he is indeed sent in the place of our son he will not run away." + +So Mowgli stretched himself in some long, clean grass at the edge of the +field, but before he had closed his eyes a soft gray nose poked him +under the chin. + +"Phew!" said Gray Brother (he was the eldest of Mother Wolf's cubs). +"This is a poor reward for following thee twenty miles. Thou smellest of +wood-smoke and cattle--altogether like a man already. Wake, Little +Brother; I bring news." + + [Illustration: "'WAKE, LITTLE BROTHER; I BRING NEWS.'"] + +"Are all well in the jungle?" said Mowgli, hugging him. + +"All except the wolves that were burned with the Red Flower. Now, +listen. Shere Khan has gone away to hunt far off till his coat grows +again, for he is badly singed. When he returns he swears that he will +lay thy bones in the Waingunga." + +"There are two words to that. I also have made a little promise. But +news is always good. I am tired to-night,--very tired with new things, +Gray Brother,--but bring me the news always." + +"Thou wilt not forget that thou art a wolf? Men will not make thee +forget?" said Gray Brother, anxiously. + +"Never. I will always remember that I love thee and all in our cave; but +also I will always remember that I have been cast out of the Pack." + +"And that thou mayest be cast out of another pack. Men are only men, +Little Brother, and their talk is like the talk of frogs in a pond. +When I come down here again, I will wait for thee in the bamboos at the +edge of the grazing-ground." + +For three months after that night Mowgli hardly ever left the village +gate, he was so busy learning the ways and customs of men. First he had +to wear a cloth round him, which annoyed him horribly; and then he had +to learn about money, which he did not in the least understand, and +about plowing, of which he did not see the use. Then the little children +in the village made him very angry. Luckily, the Law of the Jungle had +taught him to keep his temper, for in the jungle, life and food depend +on keeping your temper; but when they made fun of him because he would +not play games or fly kites, or because he mispronounced some word, only +the knowledge that it was unsportsmanlike to kill little naked cubs kept +him from picking them up and breaking them in two. + +He did not know his own strength in the least. In the jungle he knew he +was weak compared with the beasts, but in the village, people said he +was as strong as a bull. + +And Mowgli had not the faintest idea of the difference that caste makes +between man and man. When the potter's donkey slipped in the clay-pit, +Mowgli hauled it out by the tail, and helped to stack the pots for their +journey to the market at Khanhiwara. That was very shocking, too, for +the potter is a low-caste man, and his donkey is worse. When the priest +scolded him, Mowgli threatened to put him on the donkey, too, and the +priest told Messua's husband that Mowgli had better be set to work as +soon as possible; and the village head-man told Mowgli that he would +have to go out with the buffaloes next day, and herd them while they +grazed. No one was more pleased than Mowgli; and that night, because he +had been appointed a servant of the village, as it were, he went off to +a circle that met every evening on a masonry platform under a great +fig-tree. It was the village club, and the head-man and the watchman and +the barber (who knew all the gossip of the village), and old Buldeo, the +village hunter, who had a Tower musket, met and smoked. The monkeys sat +and talked in the upper branches, and there was a hole under the +platform where a cobra lived, and he had his little platter of milk +every night because he was sacred; and the old men sat around the tree +and talked, and pulled at the big _huqas_ (the water-pipes) till far +into the night. They told wonderful tales of gods and men and ghosts; +and Buldeo told even more wonderful ones of the ways of beasts in the +jungle, till the eyes of the children sitting outside the circle bulged +out of their heads. Most of the tales were about animals, for the jungle +was always at their door. The deer and the wild pig grubbed up their +crops, and now and again the tiger carried off a man at twilight, within +sight of the village gates. + +Mowgli, who naturally knew something about what they were talking of, +had to cover his face not to show that he was laughing, while Buldeo, +the Tower musket across his knees, climbed on from one wonderful story +to another, and Mowgli's shoulders shook. + +Buldeo was explaining how the tiger that had carried away Messua's son +was a ghost-tiger, and his body was inhabited by the ghost of a wicked +old money-lender, who had died some years ago. "And I know that this is +true," he said, "because Purun Dass always limped from the blow that he +got in a riot when his account-books were burned, and the tiger that I +speak of _he_ limps, too, for the tracks of his pads are unequal." + +"True, true; that must be the truth," said the graybeards, nodding +together. + +"Are all these tales such cobwebs and moon-talk?" said Mowgli. "That +tiger limps because he was born lame, as every one knows. To talk of the +soul of a money-lender in a beast that never had the courage of a jackal +is child's talk." + + [Illustration: "'ARE ALL THESE TALES SUCH COBWEBS AND MOONTALK?' SAID + MOWGLI."] + +Buldeo was speechless with surprise for a moment, and the head-man +stared. + +"Oho! It is the jungle brat, is it?" said Buldeo. "If thou art so wise, +better bring his hide to Khanhiwara, for the Government has set a +hundred rupees [$30] on his life. Better still, do not talk when thy +elders speak." + +Mowgli rose to go. "All the evening I have lain here listening," he +called back over his shoulder, "and, except once or twice, Buldeo has +not said one word of truth concerning the jungle, which is at his very +doors. How, then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and +goblins which he says he has seen?" + +"It is full time that boy went to herding," said the head-man, while +Buldeo puffed and snorted at Mowgli's impertinence. + +The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle +and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning, and bring them back at +night; and the very cattle that would trample a white man to death allow +themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at by children that +hardly come up to their noses. So long as the boys keep with the herds +they are safe, for not even the tiger will charge a mob of cattle. But +if they straggle to pick flowers or hunt lizards, they are sometimes +carried off. Mowgli went through the village street in the dawn, sitting +on the back of Rama, the great herd bull; and the slaty-blue buffaloes, +with their long, backward-sweeping horns and savage eyes, rose out of +their byres, one by one, and followed him, and Mowgli made it very clear +to the children with him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes +with a long, polished bamboo, and told Kamya, one of the boys, to graze +the cattle by themselves, while he went on with the buffaloes, and to be +very careful not to stray away from the herd. + +An Indian grazing-ground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little +ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear. The buffaloes +generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie wallowing +or basking in the warm mud for hours. Mowgli drove them on to the edge +of the plain where the Waingunga River came out of the jungle; then he +dropped from Rama's neck, trotted off to a bamboo clump, and found Gray +Brother. "Ah," said Gray Brother, "I have waited here very many days. +What is the meaning of this cattle-herding work?" + +"It is an order," said Mowgli. "I am a village herd for a while. What +news of Shere Khan?" + +"He has come back to this country, and has waited here a long time for +thee. Now he has gone off again, for the game is scarce. But he means to +kill thee." + +"Very good," said Mowgli. "So long as he is away do thou or one of the +brothers sit on that rock, so that I can see thee as I come out of the +village. When he comes back wait for me in the ravine by the _dhak_-tree +in the center of the plain. We need not walk into Shere Khan's mouth." + +Then Mowgli picked out a shady place, and lay down and slept while the +buffaloes grazed round him. Herding in India is one of the laziest +things in the world. The cattle move and crunch, and lie down, and move +on again, and they do not even low. They only grunt, and the buffaloes +very seldom say anything, but get down into the muddy pools one after +another, and work their way into the mud till only their noses and +staring china-blue eyes show above the surface, and there they lie like +logs. The sun makes the rocks dance in the heat, and the herd-children +hear one kite (never any more) whistling almost out of sight overhead, +and they know that if they died, or a cow died, that kite would sweep +down, and the next kite miles away would see him drop and follow, and +the next, and the next, and almost before they were dead there would be +a score of hungry kites come out of nowhere. Then they sleep and wake +and sleep again, and weave little baskets of dried grass and put +grasshoppers in them; or catch two praying-mantises and make them fight; +or string a necklace of red and black jungle-nuts; or watch a lizard +basking on a rock, or a snake hunting a frog near the wallows. Then they +sing long, long songs with odd native quavers at the end of them, and +the day seems longer than most people's whole lives, and perhaps they +make a mud castle with mud figures of men and horses and buffaloes, and +put reeds into the men's hands, and pretend that they are kings and the +figures are their armies, or that they are gods to be worshiped. Then +evening comes, and the children call, and the buffaloes lumber up out of +the sticky mud with noises like gunshots going off one after the other, +and they all string across the gray plain back to the twinkling village +lights. + +Day after day Mowgli would lead the buffaloes out to their wallows, and +day after day he would see Gray Brother's back a mile and a half away +across the plain (so he knew that Shere Khan had not come back), and day +after day he would lie on the grass listening to the noise round him, +and dreaming of old days in the jungle. If Shere Khan had made a false +step with his lame paw up in the jungles by the Waingunga, Mowgli would +have heard him in those long still mornings. + +[Illustration] + +At last a day came when he did not see Gray Brother at the signal +place, and he laughed and headed the buffaloes for the ravine by the +_dhak_-tree, which was all covered with golden-red flowers. There sat +Gray Brother, every bristle on his back lifted. + +"He has hidden for a month to throw thee off thy guard. He crossed the +ranges last night with Tabaqui, hot-foot on thy trail," said the wolf, +panting. + +Mowgli frowned. "I am not afraid of Shere Khan, but Tabaqui is very +cunning." + +"Have no fear," said Gray Brother, licking his lips a little. "I met +Tabaqui in the dawn. Now he is telling all his wisdom to the kites, but +he told _me_ everything before I broke his back. Shere Khan's plan is to +wait for thee at the village gate this evening--for thee and for no one +else. He is lying up now in the big dry ravine of the Waingunga." + +"Has he eaten to-day, or does he hunt empty?" said Mowgli, for the +answer meant life or death to him. + +"He killed at dawn,--a pig,--and he has drunk too. Remember, Shere Khan +could never fast even for the sake of revenge." + +"Oh! Fool, fool! What a cub's cub it is! Eaten and drunk too, and he +thinks that I shall wait till he has slept! Now, where does he lie up? +If there were but ten of us we might pull him down as he lies. These +buffaloes will not charge unless they wind him, and I cannot speak their +language. Can we get behind his track so that they may smell it?" + +"He swam far down the Waingunga to cut that off," said Gray Brother. + +"Tabaqui told him that, I know. He would never have thought of it +alone." Mowgli stood with his finger in his mouth, thinking. "The big +ravine of the Waingunga. That opens out on the plain not half a mile +from here. I can take the herd round through the jungle to the head of +the ravine and then sweep down--but he would slink out at the foot. We +must block that end. Gray Brother, canst thou cut the herd in two for +me?" + +"Not I, perhaps--but I have brought a wise helper." Gray Brother trotted +off and dropped into a hole. Then there lifted up a huge gray head that +Mowgli knew well, and the hot air was filled with the most desolate cry +of all the jungle--the hunting-howl of a wolf at midday. + +"Akela! Akela!" said Mowgli, clapping his hands. "I might have known +that thou wouldst not forget me. We have a big work in hand. Cut the +herd in two, Akela. Keep the cows and calves together, and the bulls +and the plow-buffaloes by themselves." + +The two wolves ran, ladies'-chain fashion, in and out of the herd, which +snorted and threw up its head, and separated into two clumps. In one the +cow-buffaloes stood, with their calves in the center, and glared and +pawed, ready, if a wolf would only stay still, to charge down and +trample the life out of him. In the other the bulls and the young bulls +snorted and stamped; but, though they looked more imposing, they were +much less dangerous, for they had no calves to protect. No six men could +have divided the herd so neatly. + +"What orders!" panted Akela. "They are trying to join again." + +Mowgli slipped on to Rama's back. "Drive the bulls away to the left, +Akela. Gray Brother, when we are gone hold the cows together, and drive +them into the foot of the ravine." + +"How far?" said Gray Brother, panting and snapping. + +"Till the sides are higher than Shere Khan can jump," shouted Mowgli. +"Keep them there till we come down." The bulls swept off as Akela bayed, +and Gray Brother stopped in front of the cows. They charged down on him, +and he ran just before them to the foot of the ravine, as Akela drove +the bulls far to the left. + +"Well done! Another charge and they are fairly started. Careful, +now--careful, Akela. A snap too much, and the bulls will charge. +_Hujah!_ This is wilder work than driving black-buck. Didst thou think +these creatures could move so swiftly?" Mowgli called. + +"I have--have hunted these too in my time," gasped Akela in the dust. +"Shall I turn them into the jungle?" + +"Ay, turn! Swiftly turn them. Rama is mad with rage. Oh, if I could only +tell him what I need of him to-day!" + +The bulls were turned to the right this time, and crashed into the +standing thicket. The other herd-children, watching with the cattle half +a mile away, hurried to the village as fast as their legs could carry +them, crying that the buffaloes had gone mad and run away. + +But Mowgli's plan was simple enough. All he wanted to do was to make a +big circle uphill and get at the head of the ravine, and then take the +bulls down it and catch Shere Khan between the bulls and the cows, for +he knew that after a meal and a full drink Shere Khan would not be in +any condition to fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine. He was +soothing the buffaloes now by voice, and Akela had dropped far to the +rear, only whimpering once or twice to hurry the rear-guard. It was a +long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too near the ravine and +give Shere Khan warning. At last Mowgli rounded up the bewildered herd +at the head of the ravine on a grassy patch that sloped steeply down to +the ravine itself. From that height you could see across the tops of the +trees down to the plain below; but what Mowgli looked at was the sides +of the ravine, and he saw with a great deal of satisfaction that they +ran nearly straight up and down, and the vines and creepers that hung +over them would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out. + +"Let them breathe, Akela," he said, holding up his hand. "They have not +winded him yet. Let them breathe. I must tell Shere Khan who comes. We +have him in the trap." + +He put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine,--it was +almost like shouting down a tunnel,--and the echoes jumped from rock to +rock. + +After a long time there came back the drawling, sleepy snarl of a +full-fed tiger just awakened. + +"Who calls?" said Shere Khan, and a splendid peacock fluttered up out of +the ravine, screeching. + +"I, Mowgli. Cattle-thief, it is time to come to the Council Rock! +Down--hurry them down, Akela. Down, Rama, down!" + +The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope, but Akela gave +tongue in the full hunting-yell, and they pitched over one after the +other just as steamers shoot rapids, the sand and stones spurting up +round them. Once started, there was no chance of stopping, and before +they were fairly in the bed of the ravine Rama winded Shere Khan and +bellowed. + +"Ha! Ha!" said Mowgli, on his back. "Now thou knowest!" and the torrent +of black horns, foaming muzzles, and staring eyes whirled down the +ravine like boulders in flood-time; the weaker buffaloes being +shouldered out to the sides of the ravine where they tore through the +creepers. They knew what the business was before them--the terrible +charge of the buffalo-herd, against which no tiger can hope to stand. +Shere Khan heard the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up, and +lumbered down the ravine, looking from side to side for some way of +escape, but the walls of the ravine were straight, and he had to keep +on, heavy with his dinner and his drink, willing to do anything rather +than fight. The herd splashed through the pool he had just left, +bellowing till the narrow cut rang. Mowgli heard an answering bellow +from the foot of the ravine, saw Shere Khan turn (the tiger knew if the +worst came to the worst it was better to meet the bulls than the cows +with their calves), and then Rama tripped, stumbled, and went on again +over something soft, and, with the bulls at his heels, crashed full into +the other herd, while the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their +feet by the shock of the meeting. That charge carried both herds out +into the plain, goring and stamping and snorting. Mowgli watched his +time, and slipped off Rama's neck, laying about him right and left with +his stick. + +"Quick, Akela! Break them up. Scatter them, or they will be fighting one +another. Drive them away, Akela. _Hai_, Rama! _Hai! hai! hai!_ my +children. Softly now, softly! It is all over." + +Akela and Gray Brother ran to and fro nipping the buffaloes' legs, and +though the herd wheeled once to charge up the ravine again, Mowgli +managed to turn Rama, and the others followed him to the wallows. + +Shere Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead, and the kites were +coming for him already. + +"Brothers, that was a dog's death," said Mowgli, feeling for the knife +he always carried in a sheath round his neck now that he lived with men. +"But he would never have shown fight. His hide will look well on the +Council Rock. We must get to work swiftly." + +A boy trained among men would never have dreamed of skinning a ten-foot +tiger alone, but Mowgli knew better than any one else how an animal's +skin is fitted on, and how it can be taken off. But it was hard work, +and Mowgli slashed and tore and grunted for an hour, while the wolves +lolled out their tongues, or came forward and tugged as he ordered them. + +Presently a hand fell on his shoulder, and looking up he saw Buldeo with +the Tower musket. The children had told the village about the buffalo +stampede, and Buldeo went out angrily, only too anxious to correct +Mowgli for not taking better care of the herd. The wolves dropped out of +sight as soon as they saw the man coming. + +"What is this folly?" said Buldeo, angrily. "To think that thou canst +skin a tiger! Where did the buffaloes kill him? It is the Lame Tiger, +too, and there is a hundred rupees on his head. Well, well, we will +overlook thy letting the herd run off, and perhaps I will give thee one +of the rupees of the reward when I have taken the skin to Khanhiwara." +He fumbled in his waist-cloth for flint and steel, and stooped down to +singe Shere Khan's whiskers. Most native hunters singe a tiger's +whiskers to prevent his ghost haunting them. + +"Hum!" said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin of a fore +paw. "So thou wilt take the hide to Khanhiwara for the reward, and +perhaps give me one rupee? Now it is in my mind that I need the skin for +my own use. Heh! old man, take away that fire!" + +"What talk is this to the chief hunter of the village? Thy luck and the +stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped thee to this kill. The tiger has +just fed, or he would have gone twenty miles by this time. Thou canst +not even skin him properly, little beggar-brat, and forsooth I, Buldeo, +must be told not to singe his whiskers. Mowgli, I will not give thee one +anna of the reward, but only a very big beating. Leave the carcass!" + +"By the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli, who was trying to get at the +shoulder, "must I stay babbling to an old ape all noon? Here, Akela, +this man plagues me." + +Buldeo, who was still stooping over Shere Khan's head, found himself +sprawling on the grass, with a gray wolf standing over him, while Mowgli +went on skinning as though he were alone in all India. + +"Ye-es," he said, between his teeth. "Thou art altogether right, Buldeo. +Thou wilt never give me one anna of the reward. There is an old war +between this lame tiger and myself--a very old war, and--I have won." + +To do Buldeo justice, if he had been ten years younger he would have +taken his chance with Akela had he met the wolf in the woods, but a wolf +who obeyed the orders of this boy who had private wars with man-eating +tigers was not a common animal. It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind, +thought Buldeo, and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would +protect him. He lay as still as still, expecting every minute to see +Mowgli turn into a tiger, too. + +[Illustration: "BULDEO LAY AS STILL AS STILL, EXPECTING EVERY MINUTE TO + SEE MOWGLI TURN INTO A TIGER, TOO."] + +"Maharaj! Great King," he said at last, in a husky whisper. + +"Yes," said Mowgli, without turning his head, chuckling a little. + +"I am an old man. I did not know that thou wast anything more than a +herd-boy. May I rise up and go away, or will thy servant tear me to +pieces?" + +"Go, and peace go with thee. Only, another time do not meddle with my +game. Let him go, Akela." + +Buldeo hobbled away to the village as fast as he could, looking back +over his shoulder in case Mowgli should change into something terrible. +When he got to the village he told a tale of magic and enchantment and +sorcery that made the priest look very grave. + +Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight before he and +the wolves had drawn the great gay skin clear of the body. + +"Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home! Help me to herd +them, Akela." + +The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the +village Mowgli saw lights, and heard the conches and bells in the temple +blowing and banging. Half the village seemed to be waiting for him by +the gate. "That is because I have killed Shere Khan," he said to +himself; but a shower of stones whistled about his ears, and the +villagers shouted: "Sorcerer! Wolf's brat! Jungle-demon! Go away! Get +hence quickly, or the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot, +Buldeo, shoot!" + +The old Tower musket went off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed +in pain. + +"More sorcery!" shouted the villagers. "He can turn bullets. Buldeo, +that was _thy_ buffalo." + +"Now what is this?" said Mowgli, bewildered, as the stones flew thicker. + +"They are not unlike the Pack, these brothers of thine," said Akela, +sitting down composedly. "It is in my head that, if bullets mean +anything, they would cast thee out." + +"Wolf! Wolf's cub! Go away!" shouted the priest, waving a sprig of the +sacred _tulsi_ plant. + +"Again? Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because I +am a wolf. Let us go, Akela." + +A woman--it was Messua--ran across to the herd, and cried: "Oh, my son, +my son! They say thou art a sorcerer who can turn himself into a beast +at will. I do not believe, but go away or they will kill thee. Buldeo +says thou art a wizard, but I know thou hast avenged Nathoo's death." + +"Come back, Messua!" shouted the crowd. "Come back, or we will stone +thee." + +Mowgli laughed a little short ugly laugh, for a stone had hit him in the +mouth. "Run back, Messua. This is one of the foolish tales they tell +under the big tree at dusk. I have at least paid for thy son's life. +Farewell; and run quickly, for I shall send the herd in more swiftly +than their brickbats. I am no wizard, Messua. Farewell! + +"Now, once more, Akela," he cried. "Bring the herd in." + +The buffaloes were anxious enough to get to the village. They hardly +needed Akela's yell, but charged through the gate like a whirlwind, +scattering the crowd right and left. + +"Keep count!" shouted Mowgli, scornfully. "It may be that I have stolen +one of them. Keep count, for I will do your herding no more. Fare you +well, children of men, and thank Messua that I do not come in with my +wolves and hunt you up and down your street." + +He turned on his heel and walked away with the Lone Wolf; and as he +looked up at the stars he felt happy. "No more sleeping in traps for me, +Akela. Let us get Shere Khan's skin and go away. No; we will not hurt +the village, for Messua was kind to me." + +When the moon rose over the plain, making it look all milky, the +horrified villagers saw Mowgli, with two wolves at his heels and a +bundle on his head, trotting across at the steady wolf's trot that eats +up the long miles like fire. Then they banged the temple bells and blew +the conches louder than ever; and Messua cried, and Buldeo embroidered +the story of his adventures in the jungle, till he ended by saying that +Akela stood up on his hind legs and talked like a man. + + [Illustration: "WHEN THE MOON ROSE OVER THE PLAIN THE VILLAGERS SAW + MOWGLI TROTTING ACROSS, WITH TWO WOLVES AT HIS HEELS."] + +The moon was just going down when Mowgli and the two wolves came to the +hill of the Council Rock, and they stopped at Mother Wolf's cave. + +"They have cast me out from the Man Pack, Mother," shouted Mowgli, "but +I come with the hide of Shere Khan to keep my word." Mother Wolf walked +stiffly from the cave with the cubs behind her, and her eyes glowed as +she saw the skin. + +"I told him on that day, when he crammed his head and shoulders into +this cave, hunting for thy life, Little Frog--I told him that the hunter +would be the hunted. It is well done." + +"Little Brother, it is well done," said a deep voice in the thicket. "We +were lonely in the jungle without thee," and Bagheera came running to +Mowgli's bare feet. They clambered up the Council Rock together, and +Mowgli spread the skin out on the flat stone where Akela used to sit, +and pegged it down with four slivers of bamboo, and Akela lay down upon +it, and called the old call to the Council, "Look--look well, O Wolves!" +exactly as he had called when Mowgli was first brought there. + + [Illustration: "THEY CLAMBERED UP ON THE COUNCIL ROCK TOGETHER, AND + MOWGLI SPREAD THE SKIN OUT ON THE FLAT STONE."] + +Ever since Akela had been deposed, the Pack had been without a leader, +hunting and fighting at their own pleasure. But they answered the call +from habit, and some of them were lame from the traps they had fallen +into, and some limped from shot-wounds, and some were mangy from eating +bad food, and many were missing; but they came to the Council Rock, all +that were left of them, and saw Shere Khan's striped hide on the rock, +and the huge claws dangling at the end of the empty, dangling feet. It +was then that Mowgli made up a song without any rhymes, a song that came +up into his throat all by itself, and he shouted it aloud, leaping up +and down on the rattling skin, and beating time with his heels till he +had no more breath left, while Gray Brother and Akela howled between the +verses. + +"Look well, O Wolves. Have I kept my word?" said Mowgli when he had +finished; and the wolves bayed "Yes," and one tattered wolf howled: + +"Lead us again, O Akela. Lead us again, O Man-cub, for we be sick of +this lawlessness, and we would be the Free People once more." + +"Nay," purred Bagheera, "that may not be. When ye are full-fed, the +madness may come upon ye again. Not for nothing are ye called the Free +People. Ye fought for freedom, and it is yours. Eat it, O Wolves." + +"Man Pack and Wolf Pack have cast me out," said Mowgli. "Now I will hunt +alone in the jungle." + +"And we will hunt with thee," said the four cubs. + +So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from +that day on. But he was not always alone, because years afterward he +became a man and married. + +But that is a story for grown-ups. + + + MOWGLI'S SONG + + THAT HE SANG AT THE COUNCIL ROCK WHEN HE + DANCED ON SHERE KHAN'S HIDE + + The Song of Mowgli--I, Mowgli, am singing. Let + the jungle listen to the things I have done. + Shere Khan said he would kill--would kill! At the + gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli, + the Frog! + He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for + when wilt thou drink again? Sleep and dream + of the kill. + I am alone on the grazing-grounds. Gray Brother, + come to me! Come to me, Lone Wolf, for there + is big game afoot. + Bring up the great bull-buffaloes, the blue-skinned + herd-bulls with the angry eyes. Drive them + to and fro as I order. + Sleepest thou still, Shere Khan? Wake, O wake! + Here come I, and the bulls are behind. + + Rama, the King of the Buffaloes, stamped with + his foot. Waters of the Waingunga, whither went + Shere Khan? + He is not Ikki to dig holes, nor Mao, the Peacock, + that he should fly. He is not Mang, the Bat, to + hang in the branches. Little bamboos that creak + together, tell me where he ran? + _Ow!_ He is there. _Ahoo!_ He is there. + Under the feet of Rama lies the Lame One! Up, + Shere Khan! Up and kill! Here is meat; break the + necks of the bulls! + _Hsh!_ He is asleep. We will not wake him, for + his strength is very great. The kites have come + down to see it. The black ants have come up to + know it. There is a great assembly in his honor. + _Alala!_ I have no cloth to wrap me. The kites + will see that I am naked. I am ashamed to meet + all these people. + Lend me thy coat, Shere Khan. Lend me thy gay + striped coat that I may go to the Council Rock. + By the Bull that bought me I have made a promise--a + little promise. Only thy coat is lacking before + I keep my word. + With the knife--with the knife that men use--with + the knife of the hunter, the man, I will stoop + down for my gift. + Waters of the Waingunga, bear witness that Shere + Khan gives me his coat for the love that he + bears me. Pull, Gray Brother! Pull, Akela! + Heavy is the hide of Shere Khan. + The Man Pack are angry. They throw stones and talk + child's talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let us run + away. + Through the night, through the hot night, run + swiftly with me, my brothers. We will leave the + lights of the village and go to the low moon. + Waters of the Waingunga, the Man Pack have cast me + out. I did them no harm, but they were afraid of + me. Why? + Wolf Pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is + shut to me and the village gates are shut. Why? + As Mang flies between the beasts and the birds so + fly I between the village and the jungle. Why? + I dance on the hide of Shere Khan, but my heart is + very heavy. My mouth is cut and wounded with the + stones from the village, but my heart is very + light because I have come back to the jungle. + Why? + These two things fight together in me as the snakes + fight in the spring. The water comes out of my + eyes; yet I laugh while it falls. Why? + I am two Mowglis, but the hide of Shere Khan is + under my feet. + All the jungle knows that I have killed Shere Khan. + Look--look well, O Wolves! + _Ahae!_ My heart is heavy with the things that + I do not understand. + + + + + THE WHITE SEAL + + + Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, + And black are the waters that sparkled so green. + The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us + At rest in the hollows that rustle between. + Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow; + Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease! + The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, + Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas. + + _Seal Lullaby._ + + + [Illustration] + + THE WHITE SEAL + + +ALL these things happened several years ago at a place called +Novastoshnah, or North East Point, on the Island of St. Paul, away and +away in the Bering Sea. Limmershin, the Winter Wren, told me the tale +when he was blown on to the rigging of a steamer going to Japan, and I +took him down into my cabin and warmed and fed him for a couple of days +till he was fit to fly back to St. Paul's again. Limmershin is a very +odd little bird, but he knows how to tell the truth. + +Nobody comes to Novastoshnah except on business, and the only people who +have regular business there are the seals. They come in the summer +months by hundreds and hundreds of thousands out of the cold gray sea; +for Novastoshnah Beach has the finest accommodation for seals of any +place in all the world. + +Sea Catch knew that, and every spring would swim from whatever place he +happened to be in--would swim like a torpedo-boat straight for +Novastoshnah, and spend a month fighting with his companions for a good +place on the rocks as close to the sea as possible. Sea Catch was +fifteen years old, a huge gray fur-seal with almost a mane on his +shoulders, and long, wicked dogteeth. When he heaved himself up on his +front flippers he stood more than four feet clear of the ground, and his +weight, if any one had been bold enough to weigh him, was nearly seven +hundred pounds. He was scarred all over with the marks of savage fights, +but he was always ready for just one fight more. He would put his head +on one side, as though he were afraid to look his enemy in the face; +then he would shoot it out like lightning, and when the big teeth were +firmly fixed on the other seal's neck, the other seal might get away if +he could, but Sea Catch would not help him. + +Yet Sea Catch never chased a beaten seal, for that was against the Rules +of the Beach. He only wanted room by the sea for his nursery; but as +there were forty or fifty thousand other seals hunting for the same +thing each spring, the whistling, bellowing, roaring, and blowing on the +beach was something frightful. + +From a little hill called Hutchinson's Hill you could look over three +and a half miles of ground covered with fighting seals; and the surf was +dotted all over with the heads of seals hurrying to land and begin their +share of the fighting. They fought in the breakers, they fought in the +sand, and they fought on the smooth-worn basalt rocks of the nurseries; +for they were just as stupid and unaccommodating as men. Their wives +never came to the island until late in May or early in June, for they +did not care to be torn to pieces; and the young two-, three-, and +four-year-old seals who had not begun housekeeping went inland about +half a mile through the ranks of the fighters and played about on the +sand-dunes in droves and legions, and rubbed off every single green +thing that grew. They were called the holluschickie,--the +bachelors,--and there were perhaps two or three hundred thousand of them +at Novastoshnah alone. + +Sea Catch had just finished his forty-fifth fight one spring when +Matkah, his soft, sleek, gentle-eyed wife came up out of the sea, and +he caught her by the scruff of the neck and dumped her down on his +reservation, saying gruffly: "Late, as usual. Where _have_ you been?" + +It was not the fashion for Sea Catch to eat anything during the four +months he stayed on the beaches, and so his temper was generally bad. +Matkah knew better than to answer back. She looked around and cooed: +"How thoughtful of you. You've taken the old place again." + +"I should think I had," said Sea Catch. "Look at me!" + +He was scratched and bleeding in twenty places; one eye was almost +blind, and his sides were torn to ribbons. + +"Oh, you men, you men!" Matkah said, fanning herself with her hind +flipper. "Why can't you be sensible and settle your places quietly? You +look as though you had been fighting with the Killer Whale." + +"I haven't been doing anything _but_ fight since the middle of May. The +beach is disgracefully crowded this season. I've met at least a hundred +seals from Lukannon Beach, house-hunting. Why can't people stay where +they belong?" + +"I've often thought we should be much happier if we hauled out at Otter +Island instead of this crowded place," said Matkah. + +"Bah! Only the holluschickie go to Otter Island. If we went there they +would say we were afraid. We must preserve appearances, my dear." + +Sea Catch sunk his head proudly between his fat shoulders and pretended +to go to sleep for a few minutes, but all the time he was keeping a +sharp lookout for a fight. Now that all the seals and their wives were +on the land you could hear their clamor miles out to sea above the +loudest gales. At the lowest counting there were over a million seals on +the beach,--old seals, mother seals, tiny babies, and holluschickie, +fighting, scuffling, bleating, crawling, and playing together,--going +down to the sea and coming up from it in gangs and regiments, lying over +every foot of ground as far as the eye could reach, and skirmishing +about in brigades through the fog. It is nearly always foggy at +Novastoshnah, except when the sun comes out and makes everything look +all pearly and rainbow-colored for a little while. + +Kotick, Matkah's baby, was born in the middle of that confusion, and he +was all head and shoulders, with pale, watery blue eyes, as tiny seals +must be; but there was something about his coat that made his mother +look at him very closely. + +"Sea Catch," she said, at last, "our baby's going to be white!" + +"Empty clam-shells and dry seaweed!" snorted Sea Catch. "There never has +been such a thing in the world as a white seal." + +"I can't help that," said Matkah; "there's going to be now"; and she +sang the low, crooning seal-song that all the mother seals sing to their +babies: + + You mustn't swim till you're six weeks old, + Or your head will be sunk by your heels; + And summer gales and Killer Whales + Are bad for baby seals. + + Are bad for baby seals, dear rat, + As bad as bad can be; + But splash and grow strong, + And you can't be wrong, + Child of the Open Sea! + +Of course the little fellow did not understand the words at first. He +paddled and scrambled about by his mother's side, and learned to scuffle +out of the way when his father was fighting with another seal, and the +two rolled and roared up and down the slippery rocks. Matkah used to go +to sea to get things to eat, and the baby was fed only once in two days; +but then he ate all he could, and throve upon it. + +The first thing he did was to crawl inland, and there he met tens of +thousands of babies of his own age, and they played together like +puppies, went to sleep on the clean sand, and played again. The old +people in the nurseries took no notice of them, and the holluschickie +kept to their own grounds, so the babies had a beautiful playtime. + +When Matkah came back from her deep-sea fishing she would go straight to +their playground and call as a sheep calls for a lamb, and wait until +she heard Kotick bleat. Then she would take the straightest of straight +lines in his direction, striking out with her fore flippers and knocking +the youngsters head over heels right and left. There were always a few +hundred mothers hunting for their children through the playgrounds, and +the babies were kept lively; but, as Matkah told Kotick, "So long as you +don't lie in muddy water and get mange; or rub the hard sand into a cut +or scratch; and so long as you never go swimming when there is a heavy +sea, nothing will hurt you here." + +Little seals can no more swim than little children, but they are unhappy +till they learn. The first time that Kotick went down to the sea a wave +carried him out beyond his depth, and his big head sank and his little +hind flippers flew up exactly as his mother had told him in the song, +and if the next wave had not thrown him back again he would have +drowned. + +After that he learned to lie in a beach-pool and let the wash of the +waves just cover him and lift him up while he paddled, but he always +kept his eye open for big waves that might hurt. He was two weeks +learning to use his flippers; and all that while he floundered in and +out of the water, and coughed and grunted and crawled up the beach and +took cat-naps on the sand, and went back again, until at last he found +that he truly belonged to the water. + +Then you can imagine the times that he had with his companions, ducking +under the rollers; or coming in on top of a comber and landing with a +swash and a splutter as the big wave went whirling far up the beach; or +standing up on his tail and scratching his head as the old people did; +or playing "I'm the King of the Castle" on slippery, weedy rocks that +just stuck out of the wash. Now and then he would see a thin fin, like a +big shark's fin, drifting along close to shore, and he knew that that +was the Killer Whale, the Grampus, who eats young seals when he can get +them; and Kotick would head for the beach like an arrow, and the fin +would jig off slowly, as if it were looking for nothing at all. + +Late in October the seals began to leave St. Paul's for the deep sea, by +families and tribes, and there was no more fighting over the nurseries, +and the holluschickie played anywhere they liked. "Next year," said +Matkah to Kotick, "you will be a holluschickie; but this year you must +learn how to catch fish." + +They set out together across the Pacific, and Matkah showed Kotick how +to sleep on his back with his flippers tucked down by his side and his +little nose just out of the water. No cradle is so comfortable as the +long, rocking swell of the Pacific. When Kotick felt his skin tingle all +over, Matkah told him he was learning the "feel of the water," and that +tingly, prickly feelings meant bad weather coming, and he must swim hard +and get away. + +"In a little time," she said, "you'll know where to swim to, but just +now we'll follow Sea Pig, the Porpoise, for he is very wise." A school +of porpoises were ducking and tearing through the water, and little +Kotick followed them as fast as he could. "How do you know where to go +to?" he panted. The leader of the school rolled his white eyes, and +ducked under. "My tail tingles, youngster," he said. "That means +there's a gale behind me. Come along! When you're south of the Sticky +Water [he meant the Equator], and your tail tingles, that means there's +a gale in front of you and you must head north. Come along! The water +feels bad here." + +This was one of very many things that Kotick learned, and he was always +learning. Matkah taught him how to follow the cod and the halibut along +the under-sea banks, and wrench the rockling out of his hole among the +weeds; how to skirt the wrecks lying a hundred fathoms below water, and +dart like a rifle-bullet in at one porthole and out at another as the +fishes ran; how to dance on the top of the waves when the lightning was +racing all over the sky, and wave his flipper politely to the +Stumpy-tailed Albatross and the Man-of-war Hawk as they went down the +wind; how to jump three or four feet clear of the water, like a dolphin, +flippers close to the side and tail curved; to leave the flying-fish +alone because they are all bony; to take the shoulder-piece out of a cod +at full speed ten fathoms deep; and never to stop and look at a boat or +a ship, but particularly a row boat. At the end of six months, what +Kotick did not know about deep-sea fishing was not worth the knowing, +and all that time he never set flipper on dry ground. + + [Illustration: "TEN FATHOMS DEEP."] + +One day, however, as he was lying half asleep in the warm water +somewhere off the Island of Juan Fernandez, he felt faint and lazy all +over, just as human people do when the spring is in their legs, and he +remembered the good firm beaches of Novastoshnah seven thousand miles +away; the games his companions played, the smell of the seaweed, the +seal-roar, and the fighting. That very minute he turned north, swimming +steadily, and as he went on he met scores of his mates, all bound for +the same place, and they said: "Greeting, Kotick! This year we are all +holluschickie, and we can dance the Fire-dance in the breakers off +Lukannon and play on the new grass. But where did you get that coat?" + +Kotick's fur was almost pure white now, and though he felt very proud of +it, he only said: "Swim quickly! My bones are aching for the land." And +so they all came to the beaches where they had been born and heard the +old seals, their fathers, fighting in the rolling mist. + +That night Kotick danced the Fire-dance with the yearling seals. The sea +is full of fire on summer nights all the way down from Novastoshnah to +Lukannon, and each seal leaves a wake like burning oil behind him, and a +flaming flash when he jumps, and the waves break in great phosphorescent +streaks and swirls. Then they went inland to the holluschickie grounds, +and rolled up and down in the new wild wheat, and told stories of what +they had done while they had been at sea. They talked about the Pacific +as boys would talk about a wood that they had been nutting in, and if +any one had understood them, he could have gone away and made such a +chart of that ocean as never was. The three- and four-year-old +holluschickie romped down from Hutchinson's Hill, crying: "Out of the +way, youngsters! The sea is deep, and you don't know all that's in it +yet. Wait till you've rounded the Horn. Hi, you yearling, where did you +get that white coat?" + +"I didn't get it," said Kotick; "it grew." And just as he was going to +roll the speaker over, a couple of black-haired men with flat red faces +came from behind a sand-dune, and Kotick, who had never seen a man +before, coughed and lowered his head. The holluschickie just bundled off +a few yards and sat staring stupidly. The men were no less than Kerick +Booterin, the chief of the seal-hunters on the island, and Patalamon, +his son. They came from the little village not half a mile from the seal +nurseries, and they were deciding what seals they would drive up to the +killing-pens (for the seals were driven just like sheep), to be turned +into sealskin jackets later on. + +"Ho!" said Patalamon. "Look! There's a white seal!" + +Kerick Booterin turned nearly white under his oil and smoke, for he was +an Aleut, and Aleuts are not clean people. Then he began to mutter a +prayer. "Don't touch him, Patalamon. There has never been a white seal +since--since I was born. Perhaps it is old Zaharrof's ghost. He was lost +last year in the big gale." + +"I'm not going near him," said Patalamon. "He's unlucky. Do you really +think he is old Zaharrof come back? I owe him for some gulls' eggs." + +"Don't look at him," said Kerick. "Head off that drove of +four-year-olds. The men ought to skin two hundred to-day, but it's the +beginning of the season, and they are new to the work. A hundred will +do. Quick!" + +Patalamon rattled a pair of seal's shoulder-bones in front of a herd of +holluschickie and they stopped dead, puffing and blowing. Then he +stepped near, and the seals began to move, and Kerick headed them +inland, and they never tried to get back to their companions. Hundreds +and hundreds of thousands of seals watched them being driven, but they +went on playing just the same. Kotick was the only one who asked +questions, and none of his companions could tell him anything, except +that the men always drove seals in that way for six weeks or two months +of every year. + +"I am going to follow," he said, and his eyes nearly popped out of his +head as he shuffled along in the wake of the herd. + +"The white seal is coming after us," cried Patalamon. "That's the first +time a seal has ever come to the killing-grounds alone." + +"Hsh! Don't look behind you," said Kerick. "It _is_ Zaharrof's ghost! I +must speak to the priest about this." + +The distance to the killing-grounds was only half a mile, but it took an +hour to cover, because if the seals went too fast Kerick knew that they +would get heated and then their fur would come off in patches when they +were skinned. So they went on very slowly, past Sea-Lion's Neck, past +Webster House, till they came to the Salt House just beyond the sight of +the seals on the beach. Kotick followed, panting and wondering. He +thought that he was at the world's end, but the roar of the seal +nurseries behind him sounded as loud as the roar of a train in a tunnel. +Then Kerick sat down on the moss and pulled out a heavy pewter watch and +let the drove cool off for thirty minutes, and Kotick could hear the +fog-dew dripping from the brim of his cap. Then ten or twelve men, each +with an iron-bound club three or four feet long, came up, and Kerick +pointed out one or two of the drove that were bitten by their companions +or were too hot, and the men kicked those aside with their heavy boots +made of the skin of a walrus's throat, and then Kerick said: "Let go!" +and then the men clubbed the seals on the head as fast as they could. + +Ten minutes later little Kotick did not recognize his friends any more, +for their skins were ripped off from the nose to the hind +flippers--whipped off and thrown down on the ground in a pile. + +That was enough for Kotick. He turned and galloped (a seal can gallop +very swiftly for a short time) back to the sea, his little new mustache +bristling with horror. At Sea-Lion's Neck, where the great sea-lions sit +on the edge of the surf, he flung himself flipper over-head into the +cool water, and rocked there, gasping miserably. "What's here?" said a +sea-lion, gruffly; for as a rule the sea-lions keep themselves to +themselves. + +"_Scoochnie! Ochen scoochnie!_" ("I'm lonesome, very lonesome!"), said +Kotick. "They're killing _all_ the holluschickie on _all_ the beaches!" + +The sea-lion turned his head inshore. "Nonsense," he said; "your friends +are making as much noise as ever. You must have seen old Kerick +polishing off a drove. He's done that for thirty years." + +"It's horrible," said Kotick, backing water as a wave went over him, and +steadying himself with a screw-stroke of his flippers that brought him +up all standing within three inches of a jagged edge of rock. + +"Well done for a yearling!" said the sea-lion, who could appreciate good +swimming. "I suppose it _is_ rather awful from your way of looking at +it; but if you seals will come here year after year, of course the men +get to know of it, and unless you can find an island where no men ever +come, you will always be driven." + +"Isn't there any such island?" began Kotick. + +"I've followed the _poltoos_ [the halibut] for twenty years, and I can't +say I've found it yet. But look here--you seem to have a fondness for +talking to your betters; suppose you go to Walrus Islet and talk to Sea +Vitch. He may know something. Don't flounce off like that. It's a +six-mile swim, and if I were you I should haul out and take a nap first, +little one." + +Kotick thought that that was good advice, so he swam round to his own +beach, hauled out, and slept for half an hour, twitching all over, as +seals will. Then he headed straight for Walrus Islet, a little low sheet +of rocky island almost due northeast from Novastoshnah, all ledges of +rock and gulls' nests, where the walrus herded by themselves. + +He landed close to old Sea Vitch--the big, ugly, bloated, pimpled, +fat-necked, long-tusked walrus of the North Pacific, who has no manners +except when he is asleep--as he was then, with his hind flippers half in +and half out of the surf. + +"Wake up!" barked Kotick, for the gulls were making a great noise. + +"Hah! Ho! Hmph! What's that?" said Sea Vitch, and he struck the next +walrus a blow with his tusks and waked him up, and the next struck the +next, and so on till they were all awake and staring in every direction +but the right one. + + [Illustration: "THEY WERE ALL AWAKE AND STARING IN EVERY DIRECTION BUT + THE RIGHT ONE."] + +"Hi! It's me," said Kotick, bobbing in the surf and looking like a +little white slug. + +"Well! May I be----skinned!" said Sea Vitch, and they all looked at +Kotick as you can fancy a club full of drowsy old gentlemen would look +at a little boy. Kotick did not care to hear any more about skinning +just then; he had seen enough of it; so he called out: "Isn't there any +place for seals to go where men don't ever come?" + +"Go and find out," said Sea Vitch, shutting his eyes. "Run away. We're +busy here." + +Kotick made his dolphin-jump in the air and shouted as loud as he could: +"Clam-eater! Clam-eater!" He knew that Sea Vitch never caught a fish in +his life, but always rooted for clams and seaweeds; though he pretended +to be a very terrible person. Naturally the Chickies and the +Gooverooskies and the Epatkas, the Burgomaster Gulls and the Kittiwakes +and the Puffins, who are always looking for a chance to be rude, took up +the cry, and--so Limmershin told me--for nearly five minutes you could +not have heard a gun fired on Walrus Islet. All the population was +yelling and screaming: "Clam-eater! _Stareek_ [old man]!" while Sea +Vitch rolled from side to side grunting and coughing. + +"_Now_ will you tell?" said Kotick, all out of breath. + +"Go and ask Sea Cow," said Sea Vitch. "If he is living still, he'll be +able to tell you." + +"How shall I know Sea Cow when I meet him?" said Kotick, sheering off. + +"He's the only thing in the sea uglier than Sea Vitch," screamed a +burgomaster gull, wheeling under Sea Vitch's nose. "Uglier, and with +worse manners! _Stareek!_" + +Kotick swam back to Novastoshnah, leaving the gulls to scream. There he +found that no one sympathized with him in his little attempts to +discover a quiet place for the seals. They told him that men had always +driven the holluschickie--it was part of the day's work--and that if he +did not like to see ugly things he should not have gone to the +killing-grounds. But none of the other seals had seen the killing, and +that made the difference between him and his friends. Besides, Kotick +was a white seal. + +"What you must do," said old Sea Catch, after he had heard his son's +adventures, "is to grow up and be a big seal like your father, and have +a nursery on the beach, and then they will leave you alone. In another +five years you ought to be able to fight for yourself." Even gentle +Matkah, his mother, said: "You will never be able to stop the killing. +Go and play in the sea, Kotick." And Kotick went off and danced the +Fire-dance with a very heavy little heart. + +That autumn he left the beach as soon as he could, and set off alone +because of a notion in his bullet-head. He was going to find Sea Cow, if +there was such a person in the sea, and he was going to find a quiet +island with good firm beaches for seals to live on, where men could not +get at them. So he explored and explored by himself from the North to +the South Pacific, swimming as much as three hundred miles in a day and +a night. He met with more adventures than can be told, and narrowly +escaped being caught by the Basking Shark, and the Spotted Shark, and +the Hammerhead, and he met all the untrustworthy ruffians that loaf up +and down the high seas, and the heavy polite fish, and the +scarlet-spotted scallops that are moored in one place for hundreds of +years, and grow very proud of it; but he never met Sea Cow, and he never +found an island that he could fancy. + +If the beach was good and hard, with a slope behind it for seals to play +on, there was always the smoke of a whaler on the horizon, boiling down +blubber, and Kotick knew what _that_ meant. Or else he could see that +seals had once visited the island and been killed off, and Kotick knew +that where men had come once they would come again. + +He picked up with an old stumpy-tailed albatross, who told him that +Kerguelen Island was the very place for peace and quiet, and when Kotick +went down there he was all but smashed to pieces against some wicked +black cliffs in a heavy sleet-storm with lightning and thunder. Yet as +he pulled out against the gale he could see that even there had once +been a seal nursery. And it was so in all the other islands that he +visited. + +Limmershin gave a long list of them, for he said that Kotick spent five +seasons exploring, with a four months' rest each year at Novastoshnah, +where the holluschickie used to make fun of him and his imaginary +islands. He went to the Gallapagos, a horrid dry place on the Equator, +where he was nearly baked to death; he went to the Georgia Islands, the +Orkneys, Emerald Island, Little Nightingale Island, Gough's Island, +Bouvet's Island, the Crossets, and even to a little speck of an island +south of the Cape of Good Hope. But everywhere the People of the Sea +told him the same things. Seals had come to those islands once upon a +time, but men had killed them all off. Even when he swam thousands of +miles out of the Pacific, and got to a place called Cape Corientes (that +was when he was coming back from Gough's Island), he found a few +hundred mangy seals on a rock, and they told him that men came there +too. + +That nearly broke his heart, and he headed round the Horn back to his +own beaches; and on his way north he hauled out on an island full of +green trees, where he found an old, old seal who was dying, and Kotick +caught fish for him and told him all his sorrows. "Now," said Kotick, "I +am going back to Novastoshnah, and if I am driven to the killing-pens +with the holluschickie I shall not care." + +The old seal said: "Try once more. I am the last of the Lost Rookery of +Masafuera, and in the days when men killed us by the hundred thousand +there was a story on the beaches that some day a white seal would come +out of the north and lead the seal people to a quiet place. I am old and +I shall never live to see that day, but others will. Try once more." + +And Kotick curled up his mustache (it was a beauty), and said: "I am the +only white seal that has ever been born on the beaches, and I am the +only seal, black or white, who ever thought of looking for new islands." + +That cheered him immensely; and when he came back to Novastoshnah that +summer, Matkah, his mother, begged him to marry and settle down, for he +was no longer a holluschick, but a full-grown sea-catch, with a curly +white mane on his shoulders, as heavy, as big, and as fierce as his +father. "Give me another season," he said. "Remember, Mother, it is +always the seventh wave that goes farthest up the beach." + +Curiously enough, there was another seal who thought that she would put +off marrying till the next year, and Kotick danced the Fire-dance with +her all down Lukannon Beach the night before he set off on his last +exploration. + +This time he went westward, because he had fallen on the trail of a +great shoal of halibut, and he needed at least one hundred pounds of +fish a day to keep him in good condition. He chased them till he was +tired, and then he curled himself up and went to sleep on the hollows of +the ground-swell that sets in to Copper Island. He knew the coast +perfectly well, so about midnight, when he felt himself gently bumped on +a weed bed, he said: "Hm, tide 's running strong to-night," and turning +over under water opened his eyes slowly and stretched. Then he jumped +like a cat, for he saw huge things nosing about in the shoal water and +browsing on the heavy fringes of the weeds. + +"By the Great Combers of Magellan!" he said, beneath his mustache. "Who +in the Deep Sea are these people?" + +They were like no walrus, sea-lion, seal, bear, whale, shark, fish, +squid, or scallop that Kotick had ever seen before. They were between +twenty and thirty feet long, and they had no hind flippers, but a +shovel-like tail that looked as if it had been whittled out of wet +leather. Their heads were the most foolish-looking things you ever saw, +and they balanced on the ends of their tails in deep water when they +weren't grazing, bowing solemnly to one another and waving their front +flippers as a fat man waves his arm. + +"Ahem!" said Kotick. "Good sport, gentlemen?" The big things answered by +bowing and waving their flippers like the Frog-Footman. When they began +feeding again Kotick saw that their upper lip was split into two pieces, +that they could twitch apart about a foot and bring together again with +a whole bushel of seaweed between the splits. They tucked the stuff into +their mouths and chumped solemnly. + +"Messy style of feeding that," said Kotick. They bowed again, and Kotick +began to lose his temper. "Very good," he said. "If you do happen to +have an extra joint in your front flipper you needn't show off so. I +see you bow gracefully, but I should like to know your names." The split +lips moved and twitched, and the glassy green eyes stared; but they did +not speak. + +"Well!" said Kotick, "you're the only people I've ever met uglier than +Sea Vitch--and with worse manners." + +Then he remembered in a flash what the Burgomaster Gull had screamed to +him when he was a little yearling at Walrus Islet, and he tumbled +backward in the water, for he knew that he had found Sea Cow at last. + + [Illustration: "HE HAD FOUND SEA COW AT LAST."] + +The sea cows went on schlooping and grazing, and chumping in the weed, +and Kotick asked them questions in every language that he had picked up +in his travels; and the Sea People talk nearly as many languages as +human beings. But the Sea Cow did not answer, because Sea Cow cannot +talk. He has only six bones in his neck where he ought to have seven, +and they say under the sea that that prevents him from speaking even to +his companions; but, as you know, he has an extra joint in his fore +flipper, and by waving it up and down and about he makes what answers to +a sort of clumsy telegraphic code. + +By daylight Kotick's mane was standing on end and his temper was gone +where the dead crabs go. Then the Sea Cow began to travel northward very +slowly, stopping to hold absurd bowing councils from time to time, and +Kotick followed them, saying to himself: "People who are such idiots as +these are would have been killed long ago if they hadn't found out some +safe island; and what is good enough for the Sea Cow is good enough for +the Sea Catch. All the same, I wish they'd hurry." + +It was weary work for Kotick. The herd never went more than forty or +fifty miles a day, and stopped to feed at night, and kept close to the +shore all the time; while Kotick swam round them, and over them, and +under them, but he could not hurry them up one half-mile. As they went +farther north they held a bowing council every few hours, and Kotick +nearly bit off his mustache with impatience till he saw that they were +following up a warm current of water, and then he respected them more. + +One night they sank through the shiny water--sank like stones--and, for +the first time since he had known them, began to swim quickly. Kotick +followed, and the pace astonished him, for he never dreamed that Sea Cow +was anything of a swimmer. They headed for a cliff by the shore, a cliff +that ran down into deep water, and plunged into a dark hole at the foot +of it, twenty fathoms under the sea. It was a long, long swim, and +Kotick badly wanted fresh air before he was out of the dark tunnel they +led him through. + +"My wig!" he said, when he rose, gasping and puffing, into open water at +the farther end. "It was a long dive, but it was worth it." + +The sea cows had separated, and were browsing lazily along the edges of +the finest beaches that Kotick had ever seen. There were long stretches +of smooth worn rock running for miles, exactly fitted to make seal +nurseries, and there were playgrounds of hard sand, sloping inland +behind them, and there were rollers for seals to dance in, and long +grass to roll in, and sand-dunes to climb up and down, and best of all, +Kotick knew by the feel of the water, which never deceives a true Sea +Catch, that no men had ever come there. + +The first thing he did was to assure himself that the fishing was good, +and then he swam along the beaches and counted up the delightful low +sandy islands half hidden in the beautiful rolling fog. Away to the +northward out to sea ran a line of bars and shoals and rocks that would +never let a ship come within six miles of the beach; and between the +islands and the mainland was a stretch of deep water that ran up to the +perpendicular cliffs, and somewhere below the cliffs was the mouth of +the tunnel. + +"It's Novastoshnah over again, but ten times better," said Kotick. "Sea +Cow must be wiser than I thought. Men can't come down the cliffs, even +if there were any men; and the shoals to seaward would knock a ship to +splinters. If any place in the sea is safe, this is it." + +He began to think of the seal he had left behind him, but though he was +in a hurry to go back to Novastoshnah, he thoroughly explored the new +country, so that he would be able to answer all questions. + +Then he dived and made sure of the mouth of the tunnel, and raced +through to the southward. No one but a sea cow or a seal would have +dreamed of there being such a place, and when he looked back at the +cliffs even Kotick could hardly believe that he had been under them. + +He was six days going home, though he was not swimming slowly; and when +he hauled out just above Sea-Lion's Neck the first person he met was the +seal who had been waiting for him, and she saw by the look in his eyes +that he had found his island at last. + +But the holluschickie and Sea Catch, his father, and all the other +seals, laughed at him when he told them what he had discovered, and a +young seal about his own age said: "This is all very well, Kotick, but +you can't come from no one knows where and order us off like this. +Remember we've been fighting for our nurseries, and that's a thing you +never did. You preferred prowling about in the sea." + +The other seals laughed at this, and the young seal began twisting his +head from side to side. He had just married that year, and was making a +great fuss about it. + +"I've no nursery to fight for," said Kotick. "I want only to show you +all a place where you will be safe. What's the use of fighting?" + +"Oh, if you're trying to back out, of course I've no more to say," said +the young seal, with an ugly chuckle. + +"Will you come with me if I win?" said Kotick; and a green light came +into his eyes, for he was very angry at having to fight at all. + +"Very good," said the young seal, carelessly. "_If_ you win, I'll come." + +He had no time to change his mind, for Kotick's head darted out and his +teeth sunk in the blubber of the young seal's neck. Then he threw +himself back on his haunches and hauled his enemy down the beach, shook +him, and knocked him over. Then Kotick roared to the seals: "I've done +my best for you these five seasons past. I've found you the island where +you'll be safe, but unless your heads are dragged off your silly necks +you won't believe. I'm going to teach you now. Look out for yourselves!" + +Limmershin told me that never in his life--and Limmershin sees ten +thousand big seals fighting every year--never in all his little life did +he see anything like Kotick's charge into the nurseries. He flung +himself at the biggest sea-catch he could find, caught him by the +throat, choked him and bumped him and banged him till he grunted for +mercy, and then threw him aside and attacked the next. You see, Kotick +had never fasted for four months as the big seals did every year, and +his deep-sea swimming-trips kept him in perfect condition, and, best of +all, he had never fought before. His curly white mane stood up with +rage, and his eyes flamed, and his big dogteeth glistened, and he was +splendid to look at. + +Old Sea Catch, his father, saw him tearing past, hauling the grizzled +old seals about as though they had been halibut, and upsetting the young +bachelors in all directions; and Sea Catch gave one roar and shouted: +"He may be a fool, but he is the best fighter on the Beaches. Don't +tackle your father, my son! He's with you!" + +Kotick roared in answer, and old Sea Catch waddled in, his mustache on +end, blowing like a locomotive, while Matkah and the seal that was going +to marry Kotick cowered down and admired their men-folk. It was a +gorgeous fight, for the two fought as long as there was a seal that +dared lift up his head, and then they paraded grandly up and down the +beach side by side, bellowing. + +At night, just as the Northern Lights were winking and flashing through +the fog, Kotick climbed a bare rock and looked down on the scattered +nurseries and the torn and bleeding seals. "Now," he said, "I've taught +you your lesson." + +"My wig!" said old Sea Catch, boosting himself up stiffly, for he was +fearfully mauled. "The Killer Whale himself could not have cut them up +worse. Son, I'm proud of you, and what's more, _I'll_ come with you to +your island--if there is such a place." + +"Hear you, fat pigs of the sea! Who comes with me to the Sea Cow's +tunnel? Answer, or I shall teach you again," roared Kotick. + +There was a murmur like the ripple of the tide all up and down the +beaches. "We will come," said thousands of tired voices. "We will follow +Kotick, the White Seal." + +Then Kotick dropped his head between his shoulders and shut his eyes +proudly. He was not a white seal any more, but red from head to tail. +All the same he would have scorned to look at or touch one of his +wounds. + +A week later he and his army (nearly ten thousand holluschickie and old +seals) went away north to the Sea Cow's tunnel, Kotick leading them, and +the seals that stayed at Novastoshnah called them idiots. But next +spring when they all met off the fishing-banks of the Pacific, Kotick's +seals told such tales of the new beaches beyond Sea Cow's tunnel that +more and more seals left Novastoshnah. + +Of course it was not all done at once, for the seals need a long time to +turn things over in their minds, but year by year more seals went away +from Novastoshnah, and Lukannon, and the other nurseries, to the quiet, +sheltered beaches where Kotick sits all the summer through, getting +bigger and fatter and stronger each year, while the holluschickie play +round him, in that sea where no man comes. + + + LUKANNON + +This is the great deep-sea song that all the St. Paul seals sing when +they are heading back to their beaches in the summer. It is a sort of +very sad seal National Anthem. + + I met my mates in the morning (and oh, but I am old!) + Where roaring on the ledges the summer ground-swell + rolled; + I heard them lift the chorus that dropped the + breakers' song-- + The beaches of Lukannon--two million voices strong! + + _The song of pleasant stations beside the salt + lagoons, + The song of blowing squadrons that shuffled down the + dunes, + The song of midnight dances that churned the sea to + flame-- + The beaches of Lukannon--before the sealers came!_ + + I met my mates in the morning (I'll never meet them + more!); + They came and went in legions that darkened all the + shore. + And through the foam-flecked offing as far as voice + could reach + We hailed the landing-parties and we sang them up + the beach. + + _The beaches of Lukannon--the winter-wheat so + tall-- + The dripping, crinkled lichens, and the sea-fog + drenching all! + The platforms of our playground, all shining smooth + and worn! + The beaches of Lukannon--the home where we were + born!_ + + I meet my mates in the morning, a broken, scattered + band. + Men shoot us in the water and club us on the land; + Men drive us to the Salt House like silly sheep and + tame, + And still we sing Lukannon--before the sealers came. + + _Wheel down, wheel down to southward; oh, + Gooverooska go! + And tell the Deep-Sea Viceroys the story of our woe; + Ere, empty as the shark's egg the tempest flings + ashore, + The beaches of Lukannon shall know their sons no + more!_ + + + + + "RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI" + + + At the hole where he went in + Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin. + Hear what little Red-Eye saith: + "Nag, come up and dance with death!" + + Eye to eye and head to head, + (_Keep the measure, Nag._) + This shall end when one is dead; + (_At thy pleasure, Nag._) + Turn for turn and twist for twist-- + (_Run and hide thee, Nag._) + Hah! The hooded Death has missed! + (_Woe betide thee, Nag!_) + + + [Illustration] + + "RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI" + + +THIS is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought +single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee +cantonment. Darzee, the tailor-bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the +muskrat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always +creeps round by the wall, gave him advice; but Rikki-tikki did the real +fighting. + +He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but +quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of +his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he +pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could +fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush, and his war-cry +as he scuttled through the long grass, was: +"_Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!_" + +One day, a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived +with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down +a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of grass floating there, and +clung to it till he lost his senses. When he revived, he was lying in +the hot sun on the middle of a garden path, very draggled indeed, and a +small boy was saying: "Here's a dead mongoose. Let's have a funeral." + +"No," said his mother; "let's take him in and dry him. Perhaps he isn't +really dead." + +They took him into the house, and a big man picked him up between his +finger and thumb and said he was not dead but half choked; so they +wrapped him in cotton-wool, and warmed him, and he opened his eyes and +sneezed. + +"Now," said the big man (he was an Englishman who had just moved into +the bungalow); "don't frighten him, and we'll see what he'll do." + +It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he +is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the +mongoose family is, "Run and find out"; and Rikki-tikki was a true +mongoose. He looked at the cotton-wool, decided that it was not good to +eat, ran all round the table, sat up and put his fur in order, scratched +himself, and jumped on the small boy's shoulder. + +"Don't be frightened, Teddy," said his father. "That's his way of making +friends." + +"Ouch! He's tickling under my chin," said Teddy. + + [Illustration: "RIKKI-TIKKI LOOKED DOWN BETWEEN THE BOY'S COLLAR AND + NECK."] + +Rikki-tikki looked down between the boy's collar and neck, snuffed at +his ear, and climbed down to the floor, where he sat rubbing his nose. + +"Good gracious," said Teddy's mother, "and that's a wild creature! I +suppose he's so tame because we've been kind to him." + +"All mongooses are like that," said her husband. "If Teddy doesn't pick +him up by the tail, or try to put him in a cage, he'll run in and out of +the house all day long. Let's give him something to eat." + +They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki-tikki liked it +immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the veranda and sat +in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. Then +he felt better. + +"There are more things to find out about in this house," he said to +himself, "than all my family could find out in all their lives. I shall +certainly stay and find out." + + [Illustration: "HE PUT HIS NOSE INTO THE INK."] + +He spent all that day roaming over the house. He nearly drowned himself +in the bath-tubs, put his nose into the ink on a writing-table, and +burned it on the end of the big man's cigar, for he climbed up in the +big man's lap to see how writing was done. At nightfall he ran into +Teddy's nursery to watch how kerosene lamps were lighted, and when Teddy +went to bed Rikki-tikki climbed up too; but he was a restless companion, +because he had to get up and attend to every noise all through the +night, and find out what made it. Teddy's mother and father came in, the +last thing, to look at their boy, and Rikki-tikki was awake on the +pillow. "I don't like that," said Teddy's mother; "he may bite the +child." "He'll do no such thing," said the father. "Teddy's safer with +that little beast than if he had a bloodhound to watch him. If a snake +came into the nursery now--" + + [Illustration: "RIKKI-TIKKI WAS AWAKE ON THE PILLOW."] + +But Teddy's mother wouldn't think of anything so awful. + +Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast in the veranda +riding on Teddy's shoulder, and they gave him banana and some boiled +egg; and he sat on all their laps one after the other, because every +well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a house-mongoose some day +and have rooms to run about in, and Rikki-tikki's mother (she used to +live in the General's house at Segowlee) had carefully told Rikki what +to do if ever he came across white men. + + [Illustration: "HE CAME TO BREAKFAST RIDING ON TEDDY'S SHOULDER."] + +Then Rikki-tikki went out into the garden to see what was to be seen. It +was a large garden, only half cultivated, with bushes as big as +summer-houses of Marshal Niel roses, lime and orange trees, clumps of +bamboos, and thickets of high grass. Rikki-tikki licked his lips. "This +is a splendid hunting-ground," he said, and his tail grew bottle-brushy +at the thought of it, and he scuttled up and down the garden, snuffing +here and there till he heard very sorrowful voices in a thorn-bush. + +It was Darzee, the tailor-bird, and his wife. They had made a beautiful +nest by pulling two big leaves together and stitching them up the edges +with fibers, and had filled the hollow with cotton and downy fluff. The +nest swayed to and fro, as they sat on the rim and cried. + +"What is the matter?" asked Rikki-tikki. + + [Illustration: "'WE ARE VERY MISERABLE,' SAID DARZEE."] + +"We are very miserable," said Darzee. "One of our babies fell out of the +nest yesterday and Nag ate him." + +"H'm!" said Rikki-tikki," that is very sad--but I am a stranger here. +Who is Nag?" + +Darzee and his wife only cowered down in the nest without answering, for +from the thick grass at the foot of the bush there came a low hiss--a +horrid cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back two clear feet. Then +inch by inch out of the grass rose up the head and spread hood of Nag, +the big black cobra, and he was five feet long from tongue to tail. When +he had lifted one-third of himself clear of the ground, he stayed +balancing to and fro exactly as a dandelion-tuft balances in the wind, +and he looked at Rikki-tikki with the wicked snake's eyes that never +change their expression, whatever the snake may be thinking of. + +"Who is Nag?" he said, "_I_ am Nag. The great god Brahm put his mark +upon all our people when the first cobra spread his hood to keep the sun +off Brahm as he slept. Look, and be afraid!" + + [Illustration: "'I AM NAG,' SAID THE COBRA: 'LOOK, AND BE AFRAID!' BUT + AT THE BOTTOM OF HIS COLD HEART HE WAS AFRAID."] + +He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikki-tikki saw the +spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part of +a hook-and-eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute; but it is +impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and +though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother had fed +him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose's business in +life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too, and at the bottom +of his cold heart he was afraid. + +"Well," said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to fluff up again, "marks +or no marks, do you think it is right for you to eat fledglings out of a +nest?" + +Nag was thinking to himself, and watching the least little movement in +the grass behind Rikki-tikki. He knew that mongooses in the garden meant +death sooner or later for him and his family; but he wanted to get +Rikki-tikki off his guard. So he dropped his head a little, and put it +on one side. + +"Let us talk," he said. "You eat eggs. Why should not I eat birds?" + +"Behind you! Look behind you!" sang Darzee. + +Rikki-tikki knew better than to waste time in staring. He jumped up in +the air as high as he could go, and just under him whizzed by the head +of Nagaina, Nag's wicked wife. She had crept up behind him as he was +talking, to make an end of him; and he heard her savage hiss as the +stroke missed. He came down almost across her back, and if he had been +an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to break her +back with one bite; but he was afraid of the terrible lashing +return-stroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but did not bite long +enough, and he jumped clear of the whisking tail, leaving Nagaina torn +and angry. + + [Illustration: "HE JUMPED UP IN THE AIR, AND JUST UNDER HIM WHIZZED BY + THE HEAD OF NAGAINA."] + +"Wicked, wicked Darzee!" said Nag, lashing up as high as he could reach +toward the nest in the thorn-bush; but Darzee had built it out of reach +of snakes, and it only swayed to and fro. + +Rikki-tikki felt his eyes growing red and hot (when a mongoose's eyes +grow red, he is angry), and he sat back on his tail and hind legs like a +little kangaroo, and looked all around him, and chattered with rage. But +Nag and Nagaina had disappeared into the grass. When a snake misses its +stroke, it never says anything or gives any sign of what it means to do +next. Rikki-tikki did not care to follow them, for he did not feel sure +that he could manage two snakes at once. So he trotted off to the +gravel path near the house, and sat down to think. It was a serious +matter for him. + +If you read the old books of natural history, you will find they say +that when the mongoose fights the snake and happens to get bitten, he +runs off and eats some herb that cures him. That is not true. The +victory is only a matter of quickness of eye and quickness of +foot,--snake's blow against mongoose's jump,--and as no eye can follow +the motion of a snake's head when it strikes, that makes things much +more wonderful than any magic herb. Rikki-tikki knew he was a young +mongoose, and it made him all the more pleased to think that he had +managed to escape a blow from behind. It gave him confidence in himself, +and when Teddy came running down the path, Rikki-tikki was ready to be +petted. + +But just as Teddy was stooping, something flinched a little in the dust, +and a tiny voice said: "Be careful. I am death!" It was Karait, the +dusty brown snakeling that lies for choice on the dusty earth; and his +bite is as dangerous as the cobra's. But he is so small that nobody +thinks of him, and so he does the more harm to people. + +Rikki-tikki's eyes grew red again, and he danced up to Karait with the +peculiar rocking, swaying motion that he had inherited from his family. +It looks very funny, but it is so perfectly balanced a gait that you can +fly off from it at any angle you please; and in dealing with snakes this +is an advantage. If Rikki-tikki had only known, he was doing a much more +dangerous thing than fighting Nag, for Karait is so small, and can turn +so quickly, that unless Rikki bit him close to the back of the head, he +would get the return-stroke in his eye or lip. But Rikki did not know: +his eyes were all red, and he rocked back and forth, looking for a good +place to hold. Karait struck out. Rikki jumped sideways and tried to run +in, but the wicked little dusty gray head lashed within a fraction of +his shoulder, and he had to jump over the body, and the head followed +his heels close. + +Teddy shouted to the house: "Oh, look here! Our mongoose is killing a +snake"; and Rikki-tikki heard a scream from Teddy's mother. His father +ran out with a stick, but by the time he came up, Karait had lunged out +once too far, and Rikki-tikki had sprung, jumped on the snake's back, +dropped his head far between his fore legs, bitten as high up the back +as he could get hold, and rolled away. That bite paralyzed Karait, and +Rikki-tikki was just going to eat him up from the tail, after the custom +of his family at dinner, when he remembered that a full meal makes a +slow mongoose, and if he wanted all his strength and quickness ready, he +must keep himself thin. + +He went away for a dust-bath under the castor-oil bushes, while Teddy's +father beat the dead Karait. "What is the use of that?" thought +Rikki-tikki. "I have settled it all"; and then Teddy's mother picked him +up from the dust and hugged him, crying that he had saved Teddy from +death, and Teddy's father said that he was a providence, and Teddy +looked on with big scared eyes. Rikki-Tikki was rather amused at all the +fuss, which, of course, he did not understand. Teddy's mother might just +as well have petted Teddy for playing in the dust. Rikki was thoroughly +enjoying himself. + +That night, at dinner, walking to and fro among the wine-glasses on the +table, he could have stuffed himself three times over with nice things; +but he remembered Nag and Nagaina, and though it was very pleasant to be +patted and petted by Teddy's mother, and to sit on Teddy's shoulder, +his eyes would get red from time to time, and he would go off into his +long war-cry of "_Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!_" + +Teddy carried him off to bed, and insisted on Rikki-tikki sleeping under +his chin. Rikki-tikki was too well bred to bite or scratch, but as soon +as Teddy was asleep he went off for his nightly walk round the house, +and in the dark he ran up against Chuchundra, the muskrat, creeping +round by the wall. Chuchundra is a broken-hearted little beast. He +whimpers and cheeps all the night, trying to make up his mind to run +into the middle of the room, but he never gets there. + +[Illustration: "IN THE DARK HE RAN UP AGAINST CHUCHUNDRA, THE MUSKRAT."] + +"Don't kill me," said Chuchundra, almost weeping. "Rikki-tikki, don't +kill me." + +"Do you think a snake-killer kills muskrats?" said Rikki-tikki +scornfully. + +"Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes," said Chuchundra, more +sorrowfully than ever. "And how am I to be sure that Nag won't mistake +me for you some dark night?" + +"There's not the least danger," said Rikki-tikki; "but Nag is in the +garden, and I know you don't go there." + +"My cousin Chua, the rat, told me--" said Chuchundra, and then he +stopped. + +"Told you what?" + +"H'sh! Nag is everywhere, Rikki-tikki. You should have talked to Chua in +the garden." + +"I didn't--so you must tell me. Quick, Chuchundra, or I'll bite you!" + +Chuchundra sat down and cried till the tears rolled off his whiskers. "I +am a very poor man," he sobbed. "I never had spirit enough to run out +into the middle of the room. H'sh! I mustn't tell you anything. Can't +you _hear_, Rikki-tikki?" + +Rikki-tikki listened. The house was as still as still, but he thought he +could just catch the faintest _scratch-scratch_ in the world,--a noise +as faint as that of a wasp walking on a window-pane,--the dry scratch of +a snake's scales on brickwork. + +"That's Nag or Nagaina," he said to himself; "and he is crawling into +the bath-room sluice. You're right, Chuchundra; I should have talked to +Chua." + +He stole off to Teddy's bath-room, but there was nothing there, and then +to Teddy's mother's bath-room. At the bottom of the smooth plaster wall +there was a brick pulled out to make a sluice for the bath-water, and as +Rikki-tikki stole in by the masonry curb where the bath is put, he heard +Nag and Nagaina whispering together outside in the moonlight. + +"When the house is emptied of people," said Nagaina to her husband, +"_he_ will have to go away, and then the garden will be our own again. +Go in quietly, and remember that the big man who killed Karait is the +first one to bite. Then come out and tell me, and we will hunt for +Rikki-tikki together." + +"But are you sure that there is anything to be gained by killing the +people?" said Nag. + +"Everything. When there were no people in the bungalow, did we have any +mongoose in the garden? So long as the bungalow is empty, we are king +and queen of the garden; and remember that as soon as our eggs in the +melon-bed hatch (as they may to-morrow), our children will need room and +quiet." + +"I had not thought of that," said Nag. "I will go, but there is no need +that we should hunt for Rikki-tikki afterward. I will kill the big man +and his wife, and the child if I can, and come away quietly. Then the +bungalow will be empty, and Rikki-tikki will go." + +Rikki-tikki tingled all over with rage and hatred at this, and then +Nag's head came through the sluice, and his five feet of cold body +followed it. Angry as he was, Rikki-tikki was very frightened as he saw +the size of the big cobra. Nag coiled himself up, raised his head, and +looked into the bath-room in the dark, and Rikki could see his eyes +glitter. + +"Now, if I kill him here, Nagaina will know; and if I fight him on the +open floor, the odds are in his favor. What am I to do?" said +Rikki-tikki-tavi. + +Nag waved to and fro, and then Rikki-tikki heard him drinking from the +biggest water-jar that was used to fill the bath. "That is good," said +the snake. "Now, when Karait was killed, the big man had a stick. He may +have that stick still, but when he comes in to bathe in the morning he +will not have a stick. I shall wait here till he comes. Nagaina--do you +hear me?--I shall wait here in the cool till daytime." + +There was no answer from outside, so Rikki-tikki knew Nagaina had gone +away. Nag coiled himself down, coil by coil, round the bulge at the +bottom of the water-jar, and Rikki-tikki stayed still as death. After an +hour he began to move, muscle by muscle, toward the jar. Nag was asleep, +and Rikki-tikki looked at his big back, wondering which would be the +best place for a good hold. "If I don't break his back at the first +jump," said Rikki, "he can still fight; and if he fights--O Rikki!" He +looked at the thickness of the neck below the hood, but that was too +much for him; and a bite near the tail would only make Nag savage. + +"It must be the head," he said at last: "the head above the hood; and, +when I am once there, I must not let go." + +Then he jumped. The head was lying a little clear of the water-jar, +under the curve of it; and, as his teeth met, Rikki braced his back +against the bulge of the red earthenware to hold down the head. This +gave him just one second's purchase, and he made the most of it. Then he +was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog--to and fro on the +floor, up and down, and round in great circles; but his eyes were red, +and he held on as the body cartwhipped over the floor, upsetting the tin +dipper and the soap-dish and the flesh-brush, and banged against the tin +side of the bath. As he held he closed his jaws tighter and tighter, +for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honor of his +family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked. He was dizzy, +aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off like a +thunderclap just behind him; a hot wind knocked him senseless and red +fire singed his fur. The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had +fired both barrels of a shot-gun into Nag just behind the hood. + + [Illustration: "THEN RIKKI-TIKKI WAS BATTERED TO AND FRO AS A RAT IS + SHAKEN BY A DOG."] + +Rikki-tikki held on with his eyes shut, for now he was quite sure he was +dead; but the head did not move, and the big man picked him up and said: +"It's the mongoose again, Alice; the little chap has saved _our_ lives +now." Then Teddy's mother came in with a very white face, and saw what +was left of Nag, and Rikki-tikki dragged himself to Teddy's bedroom and +spent half the rest of the night shaking himself tenderly to find out +whether he really was broken into forty pieces, as he fancied. + +When morning came he was very stiff, but well pleased with his doings. +"Now I have Nagaina to settle with, and she will be worse than five +Nags, and there's no knowing when the eggs she spoke of will hatch. +Goodness! I must go and see Darzee," he said. + +Without waiting for breakfast, Rikki-tikki ran to the thorn-bush where +Darzee was singing a song of triumph at the top of his voice. The news +of Nag's death was all over the garden, for the sweeper had thrown the +body on the rubbish-heap. + +"Oh, you stupid tuft of feathers!" said Rikki-tikki, angrily. "Is this +the time to sing?" + +"Nag is dead--is dead--is dead!" sang Darzee. "The valiant Rikki-tikki +caught him by the head and held fast. The big man brought the bang-stick +and Nag fell in two pieces! He will never eat my babies again." + +"All that's true enough; but where's Nagaina?" said Rikki-tikki, looking +carefully round him. + +"Nagaina came to the bath-room sluice and called for Nag," Darzee went +on; "and Nag came out on the end of a stick--the sweeper picked him up +on the end of a stick and threw him upon the rubbish-heap. Let us sing +about the great, the red-eyed Rikki-tikki!" and Darzee filled his throat +and sang. + +"If I could get up to your nest, I'd roll all your babies out!" said +Rikki-tikki. "You don't know when to do the right thing at the right +time. You're safe enough in your nest there, but it's war for me down +here. Stop singing a minute, Darzee." + +"For the great, the beautiful Rikki-tikki's sake I will stop," said +Darzee. "What is it, O Killer of the terrible Nag!" + +"Where is Nagaina, for the third time?" + +"On the rubbish-heap by the stables, mourning for Nag. Great is +Rikki-tikki with the white teeth." + +"Bother my white teeth! Have you ever heard where she keeps her eggs?" + +"In the melon-bed, on the end nearest the wall, where the sun strikes +nearly all day. She had them there weeks ago." + +"And you never thought it worth while to tell me? The end nearest the +wall, you said?" + +"Rikki-tikki, you are not going to eat her eggs?" + +"Not eat exactly; no. Darzee, if you have a grain of sense you will fly +off to the stables and pretend that your wing is broken, and let Nagaina +chase you away to this bush? I must get to the melon-bed, and if I went +there now she'd see me." + +Darzee was a feather-brained little fellow who could never hold more +than one idea at a time in his head; and just because he knew that +Nagaina's children were born in eggs like his own, he didn't think at +first that it was fair to kill them. But his wife was a sensible bird, +and she knew that cobra's eggs meant young cobras later on; so she +flew off from the nest, and left Darzee to keep the babies warm, and +continue his song about the death of Nag. Darzee was very like a man in +some ways. + +She fluttered in front of Nagaina by the rubbish-heap, and cried out, +"Oh, my wing is broken! The boy in the house threw a stone at me and +broke it." Then she fluttered more desperately than ever. + + [Illustration: DARZEE'S WIFE PRETENDS TO HAVE BROKEN A WING.] + +Nagaina lifted up her head and hissed, "You warned Rikki-tikki when I +would have killed him. Indeed and truly, you've chosen a bad place to be +lame in." And she moved toward Darzee's wife, slipping along over the +dust. + +"The boy broke it with a stone!" shrieked Darzee's wife. + +"Well! It may be some consolation to you when you're dead to know that I +shall settle accounts with the boy. My husband lies on the rubbish-heap +this morning, but before night the boy in the house will lie very still. +What is the use of running away? I am sure to catch you. Little fool, +look at me!" + +Darzee's wife knew better than to do _that_, for a bird who looks at a +snake's eyes gets so frightened that she cannot move. Darzee's wife +fluttered on, piping sorrowfully, and never leaving the ground, and +Nagaina quickened her pace. + +Rikki-tikki heard them going up the path from the stables, and he raced +for the end of the melon-patch near the wall. There, in the warm litter +about the melons, very cunningly hidden, he found twenty-five eggs, +about the size of a bantam's eggs, but with whitish skin instead of +shell. + +"I was not a day too soon," he said; for he could see the baby cobras +curled up inside the skin, and he knew that the minute they were hatched +they could each kill a man or a mongoose. He bit off the tops of the +eggs as fast as he could, taking care to crush the young cobras, and +turned over the litter from time to time to see whether he had missed +any. At last there were only three eggs left, and Rikki-tikki began to +chuckle to himself, when he heard Darzee's wife screaming: + +"Rikki-tikki, I led Nagaina toward the house, and she has gone into the +veranda, and--oh, come quickly--she means killing!" + +Rikki-tikki smashed two eggs, and tumbled backward down the melon-bed +with the third egg in his mouth, and scuttled to the veranda as hard as +he could put foot to the ground. Teddy and his mother and father were +there at early breakfast; but Rikki-tikki saw that they were not eating +anything. They sat stone-still, and their faces were white. Nagaina was +coiled up on the matting by Teddy's chair, within easy striking distance +of Teddy's bare leg, and she was swaying to and fro singing a song of +triumph. + +"Son of the big man that killed Nag," she hissed, "stay still. I am not +ready yet. Wait a little. Keep very still, all you three. If you move I +strike, and if you do not move I strike. Oh, foolish people, who killed +my Nag!" + +Teddy's eyes were fixed on his father, and all his father could do was +to whisper, "Sit still, Teddy. You mustn't move. Teddy, keep still." + +Then Rikki-tikki came up and cried: "Turn round, Nagaina; turn and +fight!" + +"All in good time," said she, without moving her eyes. "I will settle my +account with _you_ presently. Look at your friends, Rikki-tikki. They +are still and white; they are afraid. They dare not move, and if you +come a step nearer I strike." + +"Look at your eggs," said Rikki-tikki, "in the melon-bed near the wall. +Go and look, Nagaina." + +The big snake turned half round, and saw the egg on the veranda. "Ah-h! +Give it to me," she said. + +Rikki-tikki put his paws one on each side of the egg, and his eyes were +blood-red. "What price for a snake's egg? For a young cobra? For a +young king-cobra? For the last--the very last of the brood? The ants are +eating all the others down by the melon-bed." + +Nagaina spun clear round, forgetting everything for the sake of the one +egg; and Rikki-tikki saw Teddy's father shoot out a big hand, catch +Teddy by the shoulder, and drag him across the little table with the +tea-cups, safe and out of reach of Nagaina. + +"Tricked! Tricked! Tricked! _Rikk-tck-tck!_" chuckled Rikki-tikki. "The +boy is safe, and it was I--I--I that caught Nag by the hood last night +in the bath-room." Then he began to jump up and down, all four feet +together, his head close to the floor. "He threw me to and fro, but he +could not shake me off. He was dead before the big man blew him in two. +I did it. _Rikki-tikki-tck-tck!_ Come then, Nagaina. Come and fight with +me. You shall not be a widow long." + +Nagaina saw that she had lost her chance of killing Teddy, and the egg +lay between Rikki-tikki's paws. "Give me the egg, Rikki-tikki. Give me +the last of my eggs, and I will go away and never come back," she said, +lowering her hood. + +"Yes, you will go away, and you will never come back; for you will go to +the rubbish-heap with Nag. Fight, widow! The big man has gone for his +gun! Fight!" + +Rikki-tikki was bounding all round Nagaina, keeping just out of reach of +her stroke, his little eyes like hot coals. Nagaina gathered herself +together, and flung out at him. Rikki-tikki jumped up and backward. +Again and again and again she struck, and each time her head came with a +whack on the matting of the veranda and she gathered herself together +like a watch-spring. Then Rikki-tikki danced in a circle to get behind +her, and Nagaina spun round to keep her head to his head, so that the +rustle of her tail on the matting sounded like dry leaves blown along by +the wind. + +He had forgotten the egg. It still lay on the veranda, and Nagaina came +nearer and nearer to it, till at last, while Rikki-tikki was drawing +breath, she caught it in her mouth, turned to the veranda steps, and +flew like an arrow down the path, with Rikki-tikki behind her. When the +cobra runs for her life, she goes like a whiplash flicked across a +horse's neck. + +[Illustration: "NAGAINA FLEW DOWN THE PATH, WITH RIKKI-TIKKI BEHIND + HER."] + +Rikki-tikki knew that he must catch her, or all the trouble would begin +again. She headed straight for the long grass by the thorn-bush, and as +he was running Rikki-tikki heard Darzee still singing his foolish little +song of triumph. But Darzee's wife was wiser. She flew off her nest as +Nagaina came along, and flapped her wings about Nagaina's head. If +Darzee had helped they might have turned her; but Nagaina only lowered +her hood and went on. Still, the instant's delay brought Rikki-tikki up +to her, and as she plunged into the rat-hole where she and Nag used to +live, his little white teeth were clenched on her tail, and he went down +with her--and very few mongooses, however wise and old they may be, +care to follow a cobra into its hole. It was dark in the hole; and +Rikki-tikki never knew when it might open out and give Nagaina room to +turn and strike at him. He held on savagely, and struck out his feet to +act as brakes on the dark slope of the hot, moist earth. + +Then the grass by the mouth of the hole stopped waving, and Darzee said: +"It is all over with Rikki-tikki! We must sing his death-song. Valiant +Rikki-tikki is dead! For Nagaina will surely kill him underground." + +So he sang a very mournful song that he made up all on the spur of the +minute, and just as he got to the most touching part the grass quivered +again, and Rikki-tikki, covered with dirt, dragged himself out of the +hole leg by leg, licking his whiskers. Darzee stopped with a little +shout. Rikki-tikki shook some of the dust out of his fur and sneezed. +"It is all over," he said. "The widow will never come out again." And +the red ants that live between the grass stems heard him, and began to +troop down one after another to see if he had spoken the truth. + + [Illustration: "IT IS ALL OVER."] + +Rikki-tikki curled himself up in the grass and slept where he was--slept +and slept till it was late in the afternoon, for he had done a hard +day's work. + +"Now," he said, when he awoke, "I will go back to the house. Tell the +Coppersmith, Darzee, and he will tell the garden that Nagaina is dead." + +The Coppersmith is a bird who makes a noise exactly like the beating of +a little hammer on a copper pot; and the reason he is always making it +is because he is the town-crier to every Indian garden, and tells all +the news to everybody who cares to listen. As Rikki-tikki went up the +path, he heard his "attention" notes like a tiny dinner-gong; and then +the steady "_Ding-dong-tock!_ Nag is dead--_dong!_ Nagaina is dead! +_Ding-dong-tock!_" That set all the birds in the garden singing, and the +frogs croaking; for Nag and Nagaina used to eat frogs as well as little +birds. + +When Rikki got to the house, Teddy and Teddy's mother (she looked very +white still, for she had been fainting) and Teddy's father came out and +almost cried over him; and that night he ate all that was given him till +he could eat no more, and went to bed on Teddy's shoulder, where Teddy's +mother saw him when she came to look late at night. + +"He saved our lives and Teddy's life," she said to her husband. "Just +think, he saved all our lives." + +Rikki-tikki woke up with a jump, for all the mongooses are light +sleepers. + +"Oh, it's you," said he. "What are you bothering for? All the cobras are +dead; and if they weren't, I'm here." + +Rikki-tikki had a right to be proud of himself; but he did not grow too +proud, and he kept that garden as a mongoose should keep it, with tooth +and jump and spring and bite, till never a cobra dared show its head +inside the walls. + + + DARZEE'S CHAUNT + + (SUNG IN HONOR OF RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI) + + Singer and tailor am I-- + Doubled the joys that I know-- + Proud of my lilt through the sky, + Proud of the house that I sew-- + Over and under, so weave I my music--so weave I + the house that I sew. + + Sing to your fledglings again, + Mother, oh lift up your head! + Evil that plagued us is slain, + Death in the garden lies dead. + Terror that hid in the roses is impotent--flung + on the dung-hill and dead! + + Who hath delivered us, who? + Tell me his nest and his name. + Rikki, the valiant, the true, + Tikki, with eyeballs of flame. + Rik-tikki-tikki, the ivory-fanged, the hunter with + eyeballs of flame. + + Give him the Thanks of the Birds, + Bowing with tail-feathers spread! + Praise him with nightingale words-- + Nay, I will praise him instead. + Hear! I will sing you the praise of the bottle-tailed + Rikki, with eyeballs of red! + +(_Here Rikki-tikki interrupted, and the rest of the song is lost._) + + + + + TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS + + + I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chain-- + I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs. + I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar-cane, + I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs. + + I will go out until the day, until the morning break, + Out to the winds' untainted kiss, the waters' clean caress: + I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake. + I will revisit my lost loves, and playmates masterless! + + + [Illustration] + + TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS + + +KALA NAG, which means Black Snake, had served the Indian Government in +every way that an elephant could serve it for forty-seven years, and as +he was fully twenty years old when he was caught, that makes him nearly +seventy--a ripe age for an elephant. He remembered pushing, with a big +leather pad on his forehead, at a gun stuck in deep mud, and that was +before the Afghan war of 1842, and he had not then come to his full +strength. His mother, Radha Pyari,--Radha the darling,--who had been +caught in the same drive with Kala Nag, told him, before his little milk +tusks had dropped out, that elephants who were afraid always got hurt: +and Kala Nag knew that that advice was good, for the first time that he +saw a shell burst he backed, screaming, into a stand of piled rifles, +and the bayonets pricked him in all his softest places. So, before he +was twenty-five, he gave up being afraid, and so he was the best-loved +and the best-looked-after elephant in the service of the Government of +India. He had carried tents, twelve hundred pounds' weight of tents, on +the march in Upper India: he had been hoisted into a ship at the end of +a steam-crane and taken for days across the water, and made to carry a +mortar on his back in a strange and rocky country very far from India, +and had seen the Emperor Theodore lying dead in Magdala, and had come +back again in the steamer entitled, so the soldiers said, to the +Abyssinian war medal. He had seen his fellow-elephants die of cold and +epilepsy and starvation and sunstroke up at a place called Ali Musjid, +ten years later; and afterward he had been sent down thousands of miles +south to haul and pile big baulks of teak in the timber-yards at +Moulmein. There he had half killed an insubordinate young elephant who +was shirking his fair share of the work. + + [Illustration: "KALA NAG WAS THE BEST-LOVED ELEPHANT IN THE SERVICE."] + +After that he was taken off timber-hauling, and employed, with a few +score other elephants who were trained to the business, in helping to +catch wild elephants among the Garo hills. Elephants are very strictly +preserved by the Indian Government. There is one whole department which +does nothing else but hunt them, and catch them, and break them in, and +send them up and down the country as they are needed for work. + +Kala Nag stood ten fair feet at the shoulders, and his tusks had been +cut off short at five feet, and bound round the ends, to prevent them +splitting, with bands of copper; but he could do more with those stumps +than any untrained elephant could do with the real sharpened ones. + +When, after weeks and weeks of cautious driving of scattered elephants +across the hills, the forty or fifty wild monsters were driven into the +last stockade, and the big drop-gate, made of tree-trunks lashed +together, jarred down behind them, Kala Nag, at the word of command, +would go into that flaring, trumpeting pandemonium (generally at night, +when the flicker of the torches made it difficult to judge distances), +and, picking out the biggest and wildest tusker of the mob, would hammer +him and hustle him into quiet while the men on the backs of the other +elephants roped and tied the smaller ones. + +There was nothing in the way of fighting that Kala Nag, the old wise +Black Snake, did not know, for he had stood up more than once in his +time to the charge of the wounded tiger, and, curling up his soft trunk +to be out of harm's way, had knocked the springing brute sideways in +mid-air with a quick sickle-cut of his head, that he had invented all by +himself; had knocked him over, and kneeled upon him with his huge knees +till the life went out with a gasp and a howl, and there was only a +fluffy striped thing on the ground for Kala Nag to pull by the tail. + +"Yes," said Big Toomai, his driver, the son of Black Toomai who had +taken him to Abyssinia, and grandson of Toomai of the Elephants who had +seen him caught, "there is nothing that the Black Snake fears except me. +He has seen three generations of us feed him and groom him, and he will +live to see four." + +"He is afraid of _me_ also," said Little Toomai, standing up to his full +height of four feet, with only one rag upon him. He was ten years old, +the eldest son of Big Toomai, and, according to custom, he would take +his father's place on Kala Nag's neck when he grew up, and would handle +the heavy iron _ankus_, the elephant-goad that had been worn smooth +by his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. He knew +what he was talking of; for he had been born under Kala Nag's shadow, +had played with the end of his trunk before he could walk, had taken him +down to water as soon as he could walk, and Kala Nag would no more have +dreamed of disobeying his shrill little orders than he would have +dreamed of killing him on that day when Big Toomai carried the little +brown baby under Kala Nag's tusks, and told him to salute his master +that was to be. + + [Illustration: "'HE IS AFRAID OF ME,' SAID LITTLE TOOMAI, AND HE MADE + KALA NAG LIFT UP HIS FEET ONE AFTER THE OTHER."] + +"Yes," said Little Toomai, "he is afraid of _me_," and he took long +strides up to Kala Nag, called him a fat old pig, and made him lift up +his feet one after the other. + +"Wah!" said Little Toomai, "thou art a big elephant," and he wagged his +fluffy head, quoting his father. "The Government may pay for elephants, +but they belong to us mahouts. When thou art old, Kala Nag, there will +come some rich Rajah, and he will buy thee from the Government, on +account of thy size and thy manners, and then thou wilt have nothing to +do but to carry gold earrings in thy ears, and a gold howdah on thy +back, and a red cloth covered with gold on thy sides, and walk at the +head of the processions of the King. Then I shall sit on thy neck, O +Kala Nag, with a silver _ankus_, and men will run before us with golden +sticks, crying, 'Room for the King's elephant!' That will be good, Kala +Nag, but not so good as this hunting in the jungles." + +"Umph!" said Big Toomai. "Thou art a boy, and as wild as a buffalo-calf. +This running up and down among the hills is not the best Government +service. I am getting old, and I do not love wild elephants, Give me +brick elephant-lines, one stall to each elephant, and big stumps to tie +them to safely, and flat, broad roads to exercise upon, instead of this +come-and-go camping. Aha, the Cawnpore barracks were good. There was a +bazaar close by, and only three hours' work a day." + +Little Toomai remembered the Cawnpore elephant-lines and said nothing. +He very much preferred the camp life, and hated those broad, flat roads, +with the daily grubbing for grass in the forage-reserve, and the long +hours when there was nothing to do except to watch Kala Nag fidgeting in +his pickets. + +What Little Toomai liked was to scramble up bridle-paths that only an +elephant could take; the dip into the valley below; the glimpses of the +wild elephants browsing miles away; the rush of the frightened pig and +peacock under Kala Nag's feet; the blinding warm rains, when all the +hills and valleys smoked; the beautiful misty mornings when nobody knew +where they would camp that night; the steady, cautious drive of the wild +elephants, and the mad rush and blaze and hullaballoo of the last +night's drive, when the elephants poured into the stockade like boulders +in a landslide, found that they could not get out, and flung themselves +at the heavy posts only to be driven back by yells and flaring torches +and volleys of blank cartridge. + + [Illustration: "HE WOULD GET HIS TORCH AND WAVE IT, AND YELL WITH THE + BEST."] + +Even a little boy could be of use there, and Toomai was as useful as +three boys. He would get his torch and wave it, and yell with the best. +But the really good time came when the driving out began, and the +Keddah, that is, the stockade, looked like a picture of the end of the +world, and men had to make signs to one another, because they could not +hear themselves speak. Then Little Toomai would climb up to the top of +one of the quivering stockade-posts, his sun-bleached brown hair flying +loose all over his shoulders, and he looking like a goblin in the +torch-light; and as soon as there was a lull you could hear his +high-pitched yells of encouragement to Kala Nag, above the trumpeting +and crashing, and snapping of ropes, and groans of the tethered +elephants. "_Mail, mail, Kala Nag!_ (Go on, go on, Black Snake!) _Dant +do!_ (Give him the tusk!) _Somalo! Somalo!_ (Careful, careful!) _Maro! +Mar!_ (Hit him, hit him!) Mind the post! _Arre! Arre! Hai! Yai! +Kya-a-ah!_" he would shout, and the big fight between Kala Nag and the +wild elephant would sway to and fro across the Keddah, and the old +elephant-catchers would wipe the sweat out of their eyes, and find time +to nod to Little Toomai wriggling with joy on the top of the posts. + +He did more than wriggle. One night he slid down from the post and +slipped in between the elephants, and threw up the loose end of a rope, +which had dropped, to a driver who was trying to get a purchase on the +leg of a kicking young calf (calves always give more trouble than +full-grown animals). Kala Nag saw him, caught him in his trunk, and +handed him up to Big Toomai, who slapped him then and there, and put him +back on the post. + +Next morning he gave him a scolding, and said: "Are not good brick +elephant-lines and a little tent-carrying enough, that thou must needs +go elephant-catching on thy own account, little worthless? Now those +foolish hunters, whose pay is less than my pay, have spoken to Petersen +Sahib of the matter." Little Toomai was frightened. He did not know much +of white men, but Petersen Sahib was the greatest white man in the world +to him. He was the head of all the Keddah operations--the man who caught +all the elephants for the Government of India, and who knew more about +the ways of elephants than any living man. + +"What--what will happen?" said Little Toomai. + +"Happen! the worst that can happen. Petersen Sahib is a madman. Else why +should he go hunting these wild devils? He may even require thee to be +an elephant-catcher, to sleep anywhere in these fever-filled jungles, +and at last to be trampled to death in the Keddah. It is well that this +nonsense ends safely. Next week the catching is over, and we of the +plains are sent back to our stations. Then we will march on smooth +roads, and forget all this hunting. But, son, I am angry that thou +shouldst meddle in the business that belongs to these dirty Assamese +jungle-folk. Kala Nag will obey none but me, so I must go with him into +the Keddah, but he is only a fighting elephant, and he does not help to +rope them. So I sit at my ease, as befits a mahout,--not a mere +hunter,--a mahout, I say, and a man who gets a pension at the end of his +service. Is the family of Toomai of the Elephants to be trodden +underfoot in the dirt of a Keddah? Bad one! Wicked one! Worthless son! +Go and wash Kala Nag and attend to his ears, and see that there are no +thorns in his feet; or else Petersen Sahib will surely catch thee and +make thee a wild hunter--a follower of elephant's foot-tracks, a +jungle-bear. Bah! Shame! Go!" + +Little Toomai went off without saying a word, but he told Kala Nag all +his grievances while he was examining his feet. "No matter," said Little +Toomai, turning up the fringe of Kala Nag's huge right ear. "They have +said my name to Petersen Sahib, and perhaps--and perhaps--and +perhaps--who knows? Hai! That is a big thorn that I have pulled out!" + +The next few days were spent in getting the elephants together, in +walking the newly caught wild elephants up and down between a couple of +tame ones, to prevent them from giving too much trouble on the downward +march to the plains, and in taking stock of the blankets and ropes and +things that had been worn out or lost in the forest. + +Petersen Sahib came in on his clever she-elephant Pudmini; he had been +paying off other camps among the hills, for the season was coming to an +end, and there was a native clerk sitting at a table under a tree, to +pay the drivers their wages. As each man was paid he went back to his +elephant, and joined the line that stood ready to start. The catchers, +and hunters, and beaters, the men of the regular Keddah, who stayed in +the jungle year in and year out, sat on the backs of the elephants that +belonged to Petersen Sahib's permanent force, or leaned against the +trees with their guns across their arms, and made fun of the drivers who +were going away, and laughed when the newly caught elephants broke the +line and ran about. + +Big Toomai went up to the clerk with Little Toomai behind him, and +Machua Appa, the head-tracker, said in an undertone to a friend of his, +"There goes one piece of good elephant-stuff at least. 'T is a pity to +send that young jungle-cock to moult in the plains." + +Now Petersen Sahib had ears all over him, as a man must have who listens +to the most silent of all living things--the wild elephant. He turned +where he was lying all along on Pudmini's back, and said, "What is that? +I did not know of a man among the plain-drivers who had wit enough to +rope even a dead elephant." + +"This is not a man, but a boy. He went into the Keddah at the last +drive, and threw Barmao there the rope, when we were trying to get that +young calf with the blotch on his shoulder away from his mother." + +Machua Appa pointed at Little Toomai, and Petersen Sahib looked, and +Little Toomai bowed to the earth. + +"He throw a rope? He is smaller than a picket-pin. Little one, what is +thy name?" said Petersen Sahib. + +Little Toomai was too frightened to speak, but Kala Nag was behind him, +and Toomai made a sign with his hand, and the elephant caught him up in +his trunk and held him level with Pudmini's forehead, in front of the +great Petersen Sahib. Then Little Toomai covered his face with his +hands, for he was only a child, and except where elephants were +concerned, he was just as bashful as a child could be. + +"Oho!" said Petersen Sahib, smiling underneath his mustache, "and why +didst thou teach thy elephant _that_ trick? Was it to help thee steal +green corn from the roofs of the houses when the ears are put out to +dry?" + + [Illustration: "'NOT GREEN CORN, PROTECTOR OF THE POOR,--MELONS,' SAID + LITTLE TOOMAI."] + +"Not green corn, Protector of the Poor,--melons," said Little Toomai, +and all the men sitting about broke into a roar of laughter. Most of +them had taught their elephants that trick when they were boys. Little +Toomai was hanging eight feet up in the air, and he wished very much +that he were eight feet underground. + +"He is Toomai, my son, Sahib," said Big Toomai, scowling. "He is a very +bad boy, and he will end in a jail, Sahib." + +"Of that I have my doubts," said Petersen Sahib. "A boy who can face a +full Keddah at his age does not end in jails. See, little one, here are +four annas to spend in sweetmeats because thou hast a little head under +that great thatch of hair. In time thou mayest become a hunter too." Big +Toomai scowled more than ever. "Remember, though, that Keddahs are not +good for children to play in," Petersen Sahib went on. + +"Must I never go there, Sahib?" asked Little Toomai, with a big gasp. + +"Yes." Petersen Sahib smiled again. "When thou hast seen the elephants +dance. That is the proper time. Come to me when thou hast seen the +elephants dance, and then I will let thee go into all the Keddahs." + +There was another roar of laughter, for that is an old joke among +elephant-catchers, and it means just never. There are great cleared flat +places hidden away in the forests that are called elephants' ballrooms, +but even these are found only by accident, and no man has ever seen the +elephants dance. When a driver boasts of his skill and bravery the other +drivers say, "And when didst _thou_ see the elephants dance?" + +Kala Nag put Little Toomai down, and he bowed to the earth again and +went away with his father, and gave the silver four-anna piece to his +mother, who was nursing his baby-brother, and they all were put up on +Kala Nag's back, and the line of grunting, squealing elephants rolled +down the hill-path to the plains. It was a very lively march on account +of the new elephants, who gave trouble at every ford, and who needed +coaxing or beating every other minute. + +Big Toomai prodded Kala Nag spitefully, for he was very angry, but +Little Toomai was too happy to speak. Petersen Sahib had noticed him, +and given him money, so he felt as a private soldier would feel if he +had been called out of the ranks and praised by his commander-in-chief. + +"What did Petersen Sahib mean by the elephant-dance?" he said, at last, +softly to his mother. + +Big Toomai heard him and grunted. "That thou shouldst never be one of +these hill-buffaloes of trackers. _That_ was what he meant. Oh you in +front, what is blocking the way?" + +An Assamese driver, two or three elephants ahead, turned round angrily, +crying: "Bring up Kala Nag, and knock this youngster of mine into good +behavior. Why should Petersen Sahib have chosen _me_ to go down with you +donkeys of the rice-fields? Lay your beast alongside, Toomai, and let +him prod with his tusks. By all the Gods of the Hills, these new +elephants are possessed, or else they can smell their companions in the +jungle." + +Kala Nag hit the new elephant in the ribs and knocked the wind out of +him, as Big Toomai said, "We have swept the hills of wild elephants at +the last catch. It is only your carelessness in driving. Must I keep +order along the whole line?" + +"Hear him!" said the other driver. "_We_ have swept the hills! Ho! ho! +You are very wise, you plains-people. Any one but a mudhead who never +saw the jungle would know that _they_ know that the drives are ended for +the season. Therefore all the wild elephants to-night will--but why +should I waste wisdom on a river-turtle?" + +"What will they do?" Little Toomai called out. + +"_Ohe_, little one. Art thou there? Well, I will tell thee, for thou +hast a cool head. They will dance, and it behooves thy father, who has +swept _all_ the hills of _all_ the elephants, to double-chain his +pickets to-night." + +"What talk is this?" said Big Toomai. "For forty years, father and son, +we have tended elephants, and we have never heard such moonshine about +dances." + +"Yes; but a plains-man who lives in a hut knows only the four walls of +his hut. Well, leave thy elephants unshackled to-night and see what +comes; as for their dancing, I have seen the place where--_Bapree-Bap!_ +how many windings has the Dihang River? Here is another ford, and we +must swim the calves. Stop still, you behind there." + +And in this way, talking and wrangling and splashing through the rivers, +they made their first march to a sort of receiving-camp for the new +elephants; but they lost their tempers long before they got there. + +Then the elephants were chained by their hind legs to their big stumps +of pickets, and extra ropes were fitted to the new elephants, and the +fodder was piled before them, and the hill-drivers went back to Petersen +Sahib through the afternoon light, telling the plains-drivers to be +extra careful that night, and laughing when the plains-drivers asked the +reason. + +Little Toomai attended to Kala Nag's supper, and as evening fell, +wandered through the camp, unspeakably happy, in search of a tom-tom. +When an Indian child's heart is full, he does not run about and make a +noise in an irregular fashion. He sits down to a sort of revel all by +himself. And Little Toomai had been spoken to by Petersen Sahib! If he +had not found what he wanted I believe he would have burst. But the +sweatmeat-seller in the camp lent him a little tom-tom--a drum beaten +with the flat of the hand--and he sat down, cross-legged, before Kala +Nag as the stars began to come out, the tom-tom in his lap, and he +thumped and he thumped and he thumped, and the more he thought of the +great honor that had been done to him, the more he thumped, all alone +among the elephant-fodder. There was no tune and no words, but the +thumping made him happy. + +The new elephants strained at their ropes, and squealed and trumpeted +from time to time, and he could hear his mother in the camp hut putting +his small brother to sleep with an old, old song about the great God +Shiv, who once told all the animals what they should eat. It is a very +soothing lullaby, and the first verse says: + + Shiv, who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow, + Sitting at the doorways of a day of long ago, + Gave to each his portion, food and toil and fate, + From the King upon the _guddee_ to the Beggar at the gate. + All things made he--Shiva the Preserver. + Mahadeo! Mahadeo! he made all,-- + Thorn for the camel, fodder for the kine, + And mother's heart for sleepy head, O little son of mine! + +Little Toomai came in with a joyous _tunk-a-tunk_ at the end of each +verse, till he felt sleepy and stretched himself on the fodder at Kala +Nag's side. + +At last the elephants began to lie down one after another as is their +custom, till only Kala Nag at the right of the line was left standing +up; and he rocked slowly from side to side, his ears put forward to +listen to the night wind as it blew very slowly across the hills. The +air was full of all the night noises that, taken together, make one big +silence--the click of one bamboo-stem against the other, the rustle of +something alive in the undergrowth, the scratch and squawk of a +half-waked bird (birds are awake in the night much more often than we +imagine), and the fall of water ever so far away. Little Toomai slept +for some time, and when he waked it was brilliant moonlight, and Kala +Nag was still standing up with his ears cocked. Little Toomai turned, +rustling in the fodder, and watched the curve of his big back against +half the stars in heaven, and while he watched he heard, so far away +that it sounded no more than a pinhole of noise pricked through the +stillness, the "hoot-toot" of a wild elephant. + +All the elephants in the lines jumped up as if they had been shot, and +their grunts at last waked the sleeping mahouts, and they came out and +drove in the picket-pegs with big mallets, and tightened this rope and +knotted that till all was quiet. One new elephant had nearly grubbed up +his picket, and Big Toomai took off Kala Nag's leg-chain and shackled +that elephant fore foot to hind foot, but slipped a loop of grass-string +round Kala Nag's leg, and told him to remember that he was tied fast. He +knew that he and his father and his grandfather had done the very same +thing hundreds of times before. Kala Nag did not answer to the order by +gurgling, as he usually did. He stood still, looking out across the +moonlight, his head a little raised and his ears spread like fans, up +to the great folds of the Garo hills. + +"Look to him if he grows restless in the night," said Big Toomai to +Little Toomai, and he went into the hut and slept. Little Toomai was +just going to sleep, too, when he heard the coir string snap with a +little "tang," and Kala Nag rolled out of his pickets as slowly and as +silently as a cloud rolls out of the mouth of a valley. Little Toomai +pattered after him, bare-footed, down the road in the moonlight, calling +under his breath, "Kala Nag! Kala Nag! Take me with you, O Kala Nag!" +The elephant turned without a sound, took three strides back to the boy +in the moonlight, put down his trunk, swung him up to his neck, and +almost before Little Toomai had settled his knees, slipped into the +forest. + +There was one blast of furious trumpeting from the lines, and then the +silence shut down on everything, and Kala Nag began to move. Sometimes a +tuft of high grass washed along his sides as a wave washes along the +sides of a ship, and sometimes a cluster of wild-pepper vines would +scrape along his back, or a bamboo would creak where his shoulder +touched it; but between those times he moved absolutely without any +sound, drifting through the thick Garo forest as though it had been +smoke. He was going uphill, but though Little Toomai watched the stars +in the rifts of the trees, he could not tell in what direction. + +Then Kala Nag reached the crest of the ascent and stopped for a minute, +and Little Toomai could see the tops of the trees lying all speckled and +furry under the moonlight for miles and miles, and the blue-white mist +over the river in the hollow. Toomai leaned forward and looked, and he +felt that the forest was awake below him--awake and alive and crowded. A +big brown fruit-eating bat brushed past his ear; a porcupine's quills +rattled in the thicket, and in the darkness between the tree-stems he +heard a hog-bear digging hard in the moist warm earth, and snuffing as +it digged. + +Then the branches closed over his head again, and Kala Nag began to go +down into the valley--not quietly this time, but as a runaway gun goes +down a steep bank--in one rush. The huge limbs moved as steadily as +pistons, eight feet to each stride, and the wrinkled skin of the +elbow-points rustled. The undergrowth on either side of him ripped with +a noise like torn canvas, and the saplings that he heaved away right +and left with his shoulders sprang back again, and banged him on the +flank, and great trails of creepers, all matted together, hung from his +tusks as he threw his head from side to side and plowed out his pathway. +Then Little Toomai laid himself down close to the great neck, lest a +swinging bough should sweep him to the ground, and he wished that he +were back in the lines again. + +The grass began to get squashy, and Kala Nag's feet sucked and squelched +as he put them down, and the night mist at the bottom of the valley +chilled Little Toomai. There was a splash and a trample, and the rush of +running water, and Kala Nag strode through the bed of a river, feeling +his way at each step. Above the noise of the water, as it swirled round +the elephant's legs, Little Toomai could hear more splashing and some +trumpeting both up-stream and down--great grunts and angry snortings, +and all the mist about him seemed to be full of rolling wavy shadows. + +"_Ai!_" he said, half aloud, his teeth chattering. "The elephant-folk +are out to-night. It _is_ the dance, then." + +Kala Nag swashed out of the water, blew his trunk clear, and began +another climb; but this time he was not alone, and he had not to make +his path. That was made already, six feet wide, in front of him, where +the bent jungle-grass was trying to recover itself and stand up. Many +elephants must have gone that way only a few minutes before. Little +Toomai looked back, and behind him a great wild tusker with his little +pig's eyes glowing like hot coals, was just lifting himself out of the +misty river. Then the trees closed up again, and they went on and up, +with trumpetings and crashings, and the sound of breaking branches on +every side of them. + +At last Kala Nag stood still between two tree-trunks at the very top of +the hill. They were part of a circle of trees that grew round an +irregular space of some three or four acres, and in all that space, as +Little Toomai could see, the ground had been trampled down as hard as a +brick floor. Some trees grew in the center of the clearing, but their +bark was rubbed away, and the white wood beneath showed all shiny and +polished in the patches of moonlight. There were creepers hanging from +the upper branches, and the bells of the flowers of the creepers, great +waxy white things like convolvuluses, hung down fast asleep; but within +the limits of the clearing there was not a single blade of +green--nothing but the trampled earth. + +The moonlight showed it all iron-gray, except where some elephants stood +upon it, and their shadows were inky black. Little Toomai looked, +holding his breath, with his eyes starting out of his head, and as he +looked, more and more and more elephants swung out into the open from +between the tree-trunks. Little Toomai could count only up to ten, and +he counted again and again on his fingers till he lost count of the +tens, and his head began to swim. Outside the clearing he could hear +them crashing in the undergrowth as they worked their way up the +hillside; but as soon as they were within the circle of the tree-trunks +they moved like ghosts. + +There were white-tusked wild males, with fallen leaves and nuts and +twigs lying in the wrinkles of their necks and the folds of their ears; +fat slow-footed she-elephants, with restless, little pinky-black calves +only three or four feet high running under their stomachs; young +elephants with their tusks just beginning to show, and very proud of +them; lanky, scraggy old-maid elephants, with their hollow anxious +faces, and trunks like rough bark; savage old bull-elephants, scarred +from shoulder to flank with great weals and cuts of bygone fights, and +the caked dirt of their solitary mud-baths dropping from their +shoulders; and there was one with a broken tusk and the marks of the +full-stroke, the terrible drawing scrape, of a tiger's claws on his +side. + +They were standing head to head, or walking to and fro across the ground +in couples, or rocking and swaying all by themselves--scores and scores +of elephants. + +Toomai knew that so long as he lay still on Kala Nag's neck nothing +would happen to him; for even in the rush and scramble of a Keddah-drive +a wild elephant does not reach up with his trunk and drag a man off the +neck of a tame elephant; and these elephants were not thinking of men +that night. Once they started and put their ears forward when they heard +the chinking of a leg-iron in the forest, but it was Pudmini, Petersen +Sahib's pet elephant, her chain snapped short off, grunting, snuffling +up the hillside. She must have broken her pickets, and come straight +from Petersen Sahib's camp; and Little Toomai saw another elephant, one +that he did not know, with deep rope-galls on his back and breast. He, +too, must have run away from some camp in the hills about. + +At last there was no sound of any more elephants moving in the forest, +and Kala Nag rolled out from his station between the trees and went +into the middle of the crowd, clucking and gurgling, and all the +elephants began to talk in their own tongue, and to move about. + + [Illustration: "LITTLE TOOMAI LOOKED DOWN UPON SCORES AND SCORES OF + BROAD BACKS."] + +Still lying down, Little Toomai looked down upon scores and scores of +broad backs, and wagging ears, and tossing trunks, and little rolling +eyes. He heard the click of tusks as they crossed other tusks by +accident, and the dry rustle of trunks twined together, and the chafing +of enormous sides and shoulders in the crowd, and the incessant flick +and _hissh_ of the great tails. Then a cloud came over the moon, and he +sat in black darkness; but the quiet, steady hustling and pushing and +gurgling went on just the same. He knew that there were elephants all +round Kala Nag, and that there was no chance of backing him out of the +assembly; so he set his teeth and shivered. In a Keddah at least there +was torch-light and shouting, but here he was all alone in the dark, and +once a trunk came up and touched him on the knee. + +Then an elephant trumpeted, and they all took it up for five or ten +terrible seconds. The dew from the trees above spattered down like rain +on the unseen backs, and a dull booming noise began, not very loud at +first, and Little Toomai could not tell what it was; but it grew and +grew, and Kala Nag lifted up one fore foot and then the other, and +brought them down on the ground--one-two, one-two, as steadily as +trip-hammers. The elephants were stamping altogether now, and it sounded +like a war-drum beaten at the mouth of a cave. The dew fell from the +trees till there was no more left to fall, and the booming went on, and +the ground rocked and shivered, and Little Toomai put his hands up to +his ears to shut out the sound. But it was all one gigantic jar that ran +through him--this stamp of hundreds of heavy feet on the raw earth. Once +or twice he could feel Kala Nag and all the others surge forward a few +strides, and the thumping would change to the crushing sound of juicy +green things being bruised, but in a minute or two the boom of feet on +hard earth began again. A tree was creaking and groaning somewhere near +him. He put out his arm and felt the bark, but Kala Nag moved forward, +still tramping, and he could not tell where he was in the clearing. +There was no sound from the elephants, except once, when two or three +little calves squeaked together. Then he heard a thump and a shuffle, +and the booming went on. It must have lasted fully two hours, and Little +Toomai ached in every nerve; but he knew by the smell of the night air +that the dawn was coming. + +The morning broke in one sheet of pale yellow behind the green hills, +and the booming stopped with the first ray, as though the light had been +an order. Before Little Toomai had got the ringing out of his head, +before even he had shifted his position, there was not an elephant in +sight except Kala Nag, Pudmini, and the elephant with the rope-galls, +and there was neither sign nor rustle nor whisper down the hillsides to +show where the others had gone. + +Little Toomai stared again and again. The clearing, as he remembered it, +had grown in the night. More trees stood in the middle of it, but the +undergrowth and the jungle-grass at the sides had been rolled back. +Little Toomai stared once more. Now he understood the trampling. The +elephants had stamped out more room--had stamped the thick grass and +juicy cane to trash, the trash into slivers, the slivers into tiny +fibers, and the fibers into hard earth. + +"Wah!" said Little Toomai, and his eyes were very heavy. "Kala Nag, my +lord, let us keep by Pudmini and go to Peterson Sahib's camp, or I shall +drop from thy neck." + +The third elephant watched the two go away, snorted, wheeled round, and +took his own path. He may have belonged to some little native king's +establishment, fifty or sixty or a hundred miles away. + +Two hours later, as Petersen Sahib was eating early breakfast, his +elephants, who had been double-chained that night, began to trumpet, and +Pudmini, mired to the shoulders, with Kala Nag, very foot-sore, shambled +into the camp. + +Little Toomai's face was gray and pinched, and his hair was full of +leaves and drenched with dew; but he tried to salute Petersen Sahib, and +cried faintly: "The dance--the elephant-dance! I have seen it, and--I +die!" As Kala Nag sat down, he slid off his neck in a dead faint. + +But, since native children have no nerves worth speaking of, in two +hours he was lying very contentedly in Petersen Sahib's hammock with +Petersen Sahib's shooting-coat under his head, and a glass of warm milk, +a little brandy, with a dash of quinine inside of him, and while the old +hairy, scarred hunters of the jungles sat three-deep before him, looking +at him as though he were a spirit, he told his tale in short words, as a +child will, and wound up with: + +"Now, if I lie in one word, send men to see, and they will find that the +elephant-folk have trampled down more room in their dance-room, and they +will find ten and ten, and many times ten, tracks leading to that +dance-room. They made more room with their feet. I have seen it. Kala +Nag took me, and I saw. Also Kala Nag is very leg-weary!" + +Little Toomai lay back and slept all through the long afternoon and into +the twilight, and while he slept Petersen Sahib and Machua Appa followed +the track of the two elephants for fifteen miles across the hills. +Petersen Sahib had spent eighteen years in catching elephants, and he +had only once before found such a dance-place. Machua Appa had no need +to look twice at the clearing to see what had been done there, or to +scratch with his toe in the packed, rammed earth. + +"The child speaks truth," said he. "All this was done last night, and I +have counted seventy tracks crossing the river. See, Sahib, where +Pudmini's leg-iron cut the bark of that tree! Yes; she was there too." + +They looked at each other, and up and down, and they wondered; for the +ways of elephants are beyond the wit of any man, black or white, to +fathom. + +"Forty years and five," said Machua Appa, "have I followed my lord, the +elephant, but never have I heard that any child of man had seen what +this child has seen. By all the Gods of the Hills, it is--what can we +say?" and he shook his head. + +When they got back to camp it was time for the evening meal. Peterson +Sahib ate alone in his tent, but he gave orders that the camp should +have two sheep and some fowls, as well as a double-ration of flour and +rice and salt, for he knew that there would be a feast. + +Big Toomai had come up hot-foot from the camp in the plains to search +for his son and his elephant, and now that he had found them he looked +at them as though he were afraid of them both. And there was a feast by +the blazing campfires in front of the lines of picketed elephants, and +Little Toomai was the hero of it all; and the big brown +elephant-catchers, the trackers and drivers and ropers, and the men who +know all the secrets of breaking the wildest elephants, passed him from +one to the other, and they marked his forehead with blood from the +breast of a newly killed jungle-cock, to show that he was a forester, +initiated and free of all the jungles. + +And at last, when the flames died down, and the red light of the logs +made the elephants look as though they had been dipped in blood too, +Machua Appa, the head of all the drivers of all the Keddahs--Machua +Appa, Petersen Sahib's other self, who had never seen a made road in +forty years: Machua Appa, who was so great that he had no other name +than Machua Appa--leaped to his feet, with Little Toomai held high in +the air above his head, and shouted: "Listen, my brothers. Listen, too, +you my lords in the lines there, for I, Machua Appa, am speaking! This +little one shall no more be called Little Toomai, but Toomai of the +Elephants, as his great-grandfather was called before him. What never +man has seen he has seen through the long night, and the favor of the +elephant-folk and of the Gods of the Jungles is with him. He shall +become a great tracker; he shall become greater than I, even I, Machua +Appa! He shall follow the new trail, and the stale trail, and the mixed +trail, with a clear eye! He shall take no harm in the Keddah when he +runs under their bellies to rope the wild tuskers; and if he slips +before the feet of the charging bull-elephant that bull-elephant shall +know who he is and shall not crush him. _Aihai!_ my lords in the +chains,"--he whirled up the line of pickets,--"here is the little one +that has seen your dances in your hidden places--the sight that never +man saw! Give him honor, my lords! _Salaam karo_, my children. Make your +salute to Toomai of the Elephants! Gunga Pershad, ahaa! Hira Guj, +Birchi Guj, Kuttar Guj, ahaa! Pudmini,--thou hast seen him at the dance, +and thou too, Kala Nag, my pearl among elephants!--ahaa! Together! To +Toomai of the Elephants. _Barrao!_" + + [Illustration: "'TO TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS. BARRAO!'"] + +And at that last wild yell the whole line flung up their trunks till the +tips touched their foreheads, and broke out into the full salute--the +crashing trumpet-peal that only the Viceroy of India hears, the Salaamut +of the Keddah. + +But it was all for the sake of Little Toomai, who had seen what never +man had seen before--the dance of the elephants at night and alone in +the heart of the Garo hills! + + + SHIV AND THE GRASSHOPPER + + (THE SONG THAT TOOMAI'S MOTHER SANG TO + THE BABY) + + Shiv, who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow, + Sitting at the doorways of a day of long ago, + Gave to each his portion, food and toil and fate, + From the King upon the _guddee_ to the Beggar at the gate. + _All things made he--Shiva the Preserver, + Mahadeo! Mahadeo! he made all,-- + Thorn for the camel, fodder for the kine, + And mother's heart for sleepy head, O little son of mine!_ + + Wheat he gave to rich folk, millet to the poor, + Broken scraps for holy men that beg from door to door; + Cattle to the tiger, carrion to the kite, + And rags and bones to wicked wolves without the wall at night. + Naught he found too lofty, none he saw too low-- + Parbati beside him watched them come and go; + Thought to cheat her husband, turning Shiv to jest-- + Stole the little grasshopper and hid it in her breast. + _So she tricked him, Shiva the Preserver. + Mahadeo! Mahadeo! turn and see. + Tall are the camels, heavy are the kine, + But this was least of little things, O little son of mine!_ + + When the dole was ended, laughingly she said, + "Master, of a million mouths is not one unfed?" + Laughing, Shiv made answer, "All have had their part, + Even he, the little one, hidden 'neath thy heart." + From her breast she plucked it, Parbati the thief, + Saw the Least of Little Things gnawed a new-grown leaf! + Saw and feared and wondered, making prayer to Shiv, + Who hath surely given meat to all that live. + _All things made he--Shiva the Preserver. + Mahadeo! Mahadeo! he made all,-- + Thorn for the camel, fodder for the kine, + And mother's heart for sleepy head, O little son of mine!_ + + + + + HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS + + + You can work it out by Fractions or by simple Rule of Three, + But the way of Tweedle-dum is not the way of Tweedle-dee. + You can twist it, you can turn it, you can plait it till you drop + But the way of Pilly-Winky's not the way of Winkie-Pop! + + + [Illustration] + + HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS + + +IT had been raining heavily for one whole month--raining on a camp of +thirty thousand men, thousands of camels, elephants, horses, bullocks, +and mules, all gathered together at a place called Rawal Pindi, to be +reviewed by the Viceroy of India. He was receiving a visit from the Amir +of Afghanistan--a wild king of a very wild country; and the Amir had +brought with him for a bodyguard eight hundred men and horses who had +never seen a camp or a locomotive before in their lives--savage men and +savage horses from somewhere at the back of Central Asia. Every night a +mob of these horses would be sure to break their heel-ropes, and +stampede up and down the camp through the mud in the dark, or the +camels would break loose and run about and fall over the ropes of the +tents, and you can imagine how pleasant that was for men trying to go to +sleep. My tent lay far away from the camel lines, and I thought it was +safe; but one night a man popped his head in and shouted, "Get out, +quick! They're coming! My tent's gone!" + +I knew who "they" were; so I put on my boots and waterproof and scuttled +out into the slush. Little Vixen, my fox-terrier, went out through the +other side; and then there was a roaring and a grunting and bubbling, +and I saw the tent cave in, as the pole snapped, and begin to dance +about like a mad ghost. A camel had blundered into it, and wet and angry +as I was, I could not help laughing. Then I ran on, because I did not +know how many camels might have got loose, and before long I was out of +sight of the camp, plowing my way through the mud. + + [Illustration: "A CAMEL HAD BLUNDERED INTO MY TENT."] + +At last I fell over the tail-end of a gun, and by that knew I was +somewhere near the Artillery lines where the cannon were stacked at +night. As I did not want to plowter about any more in the drizzle and +the dark, I put my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun, and made a +sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found, and lay along +the tail of another gun, wondering where Vixen had got to, and where I +might be. + +Just as I was getting ready to sleep I heard a jingle of harness and a +grunt, and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears. He belonged to a +screw-gun battery, for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings +and chains and things on his saddle-pad. The screw-guns are tidy little +cannon made in two pieces, that are screwed together when the time comes +to use them. They are taken up mountains, anywhere that a mule can find +a road, and they are very useful for fighting in rocky country. + +Behind the mule there was a camel, with his big soft feet squelching and +slipping in the mud, and his neck bobbing to and fro like a strayed +hen's. Luckily, I knew enough of beast language--not wild-beast +language, but camp-beast language, of course--from the natives to know +what he was saying. + +He must have been the one that flopped into my tent, for he called to +the mule, "What shall I do? Where shall I go? I have fought with a white +thing that waved, and it took a stick and hit me on the neck." (That was +my broken tentpole, and I was very glad to know it.) "Shall we run on?" + +"Oh, it was you," said the mule, "you and your friends, that have been +disturbing the camp? All right. You'll be beaten for this in the +morning; but I may as well give you something on account now." + +I heard the harness jingle as the mule backed and caught the camel two +kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum. "Another time," he said, +"you'll know better than to run through a mule-battery at night, +shouting 'Thieves and fire!' Sit down, and keep your silly neck quiet." + +The camel doubled up camel-fashion, like a two-foot rule, and sat down +whimpering. There was a regular beat of hoofs in the darkness, and a big +troop-horse cantered up as steadily as though he were on parade, jumped +a gun-tail, and landed close to the mule. + +"It's disgraceful," he said, blowing out his nostrils. "Those camels +have racketed through our lines again--the third time this week. How's a +horse to keep his condition if he isn't allowed to sleep? Who's here?" + +"I'm the breech-piece mule of number two gun of the First Screw +Battery," said the mule, "and the other's one of your friends. He's +waked me up too. Who are you?" + +"Number Fifteen, E troop, Ninth Lancers--Dick Cunliffe's horse. Stand +over a little, there." + +"Oh, beg your pardon," said the mule. "It's too dark to see much. Aren't +these camels too sickening for anything? I walked out of my lines to get +a little peace and quiet here." + +"My lords," said the camel humbly, "we dreamed bad dreams in the night, +and we were very much afraid. I am only a baggage-camel of the 39th +Native Infantry, and I am not so brave as you are, my lords." + +"Then why the pickets didn't you stay and carry baggage for the 39th +Native Infantry, instead of running all round the camp?" said the mule. + +"They were such very bad dreams," said the camel. "I am sorry. Listen! +What is that? Shall we run on again?" + +"Sit down," said the mule, "or you'll snap your long legs between the +guns." He cocked one ear and listened. "Bullocks!" he said; +"gun-bullocks. On my word, you and your friends have waked the camp very +thoroughly. It takes a good deal of prodding to put up a gun-bullock." + +I heard a chain dragging along the ground, and a yoke of the great sulky +white bullocks that drag the heavy siege-guns when the elephants won't +go any nearer to the firing, came shouldering along together; and almost +stepping on the chain was another battery-mule, calling wildly for +"Billy." + +"That's one of our recruits," said the old mule to the troop-horse. +"He's calling for me. Here, youngster, stop squealing; the dark never +hurt anybody yet." + +The gun-bullocks lay down together and began chewing the cud, but the +young mule huddled close to Billy. + +"Things!" he said; "fearful and horrible things, Billy! They came into +our lines while we were asleep. D'you think they'll kill us?" + +"I've a very great mind to give you a number one kicking," said Billy. +"The idea of a fourteen-hand mule with your training disgracing the +battery before this gentleman!" + +"Gently, gently!" said the troop-horse. "Remember they are always like +this to begin with. The first time I ever saw a man (it was in Australia +when I was a three-year-old) I ran for half a day, and if I'd seen a +camel I should have been running still." + +Nearly all our horses for the English cavalry are brought to India from +Australia, and are broken in by the troopers themselves. + +"True enough," said Billy. "Stop shaking, youngster. The first time they +put the full harness with all its chains on my back, I stood on my fore +legs and kicked every bit of it off. I hadn't learned the real science +of kicking then, but the battery said they had never seen anything like +it." + +"But this wasn't harness or anything that jingled," said the young mule. +"You know I don't mind that now, Billy. It was Things like trees, and +they fell up and down the lines and bubbled; and my head-rope broke, and +I couldn't find my driver, and I couldn't find you, Billy, so I ran off +with--with these gentlemen." + +"H'm!" said Billy. "As soon as I heard the camels were loose I came away +on my own account, quietly. When a battery--a screw-gun mule calls +gun-bullocks gentlemen, he must be very badly shaken up. Who are you +fellows on the ground there?" + +The gun-bullocks rolled their cuds, and answered both together: "The +seventh yoke of the first gun of the Big Gun Battery. We were asleep +when the camels came, but when we were trampled on we got up and walked +away. It is better to lie quiet in the mud than to be disturbed on good +bedding. We told your friend here that there was nothing to be afraid +of, but he knew so much that he thought otherwise. Wah!" + +They went on chewing. + +"That comes of being afraid," said Billy. "You get laughed at by +gun-bullocks. I hope you like it, young 'un." + +The young mule's teeth snapped, and I heard him say something about not +being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the world; but the bullocks +only clicked their horns together and went on chewing. + +"Now, don't be angry _after_ you've been afraid. That's the worst kind +of cowardice," said the troop-horse. "Anybody can be forgiven for being +scared in the night, _I_ think, if they see things they don't +understand. We've broken out of our pickets, again and again, four +hundred and fifty of us, just because a new recruit got to telling tales +of whip-snakes at home in Australia till we were scared to death of the +loose ends of our head-ropes." + +[Illustration: "'ANYBODY CAN BE FORGIVEN FOR BEING SCARED IN THE NIGHT,' + SAID THE TROOP-HORSE."] + +"That's all very well in camp," said Billy; "I'm not above stampeding +myself, for the fun of the thing, when I haven't been out for a day or +two; but what do you do on active service?" + +"Oh, that's quite another set of new shoes," said the troop-horse. "Dick +Cunliffe's on my back then, and drives his knees into me, and all I +have to do is to watch where I am putting my feet, and to keep my hind +legs well under me, and be bridle-wise." + +"What's bridle-wise?" said the young mule. + +"By the Blue Gums of the Back Blocks," snorted the troop-horse, "do you +mean to say that you aren't taught to be bridle-wise in your business? +How can you do anything, unless you can spin round at once when the rein +is pressed on your neck? It means life or death to your man, and of +course that's life or death to you. Get round with your hind legs under +you the instant you feel the rein on your neck. If you haven't room to +swing round, rear up a little and come round on your hind legs. That's +being bridle-wise." + +"We aren't taught that way," said Billy the mule stiffly. "We're taught +to obey the man at our head: step off when he says so, and step in when +he says so. I suppose it comes to the same thing. Now, with all this +fine fancy business and rearing, which must be very bad for your hocks, +what do you _do_?" + +"That depends," said the troop-horse. "Generally I have to go in among a +lot of yelling, hairy men with knives,--long shiny knives, worse than +the farrier's knives,--and I have to take care that Dick's boot is just +touching the next man's boot without crushing it. I can see Dick's lance +to the right of my right eye, and I know I'm safe. I shouldn't care to +be the man or horse that stood up to Dick and me when we're in a hurry." + +"Don't the knives hurt?" said the young mule. + +"Well, I got one cut across the chest once, but that wasn't Dick's +fault--" + +"A lot I should have cared whose fault it was, if it hurt!" said the +young mule. + +"You must," said the troop-horse. "If you don't trust your man, you may +as well run away at once. That's what some of our horses do, and I don't +blame them. As I was saying, it wasn't Dick's fault. The man was lying +on the ground, and I stretched myself not to tread on him, and he +slashed up at me. Next time I have to go over a man lying down I shall +step on him--hard." + +[Illustration: "'THE MAN WAS LYING ON THE GROUND, AND I STRETCHED MYSELF + NOT TO TREAD ON HIM, AND HE SLASHED UP AT ME.'"] + +"H'm!" said Billy; "it sounds very foolish. Knives are dirty things at +any time. The proper thing to do is to climb up a mountain with a +well-balanced saddle, hang on by all four feet and your ears too, and +creep and crawl and wriggle along, till you come out hundreds of feet +above any one else, on a ledge where there's just room enough for your +hoofs. Then you stand still and keep quiet,--never ask a man to hold +your head, young 'un,--keep quiet while the guns are being put together, +and then you watch the little poppy shells drop down into the tree-tops +ever so far below." + +"Don't you ever trip?" said the troop-horse. + +"They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen's ear," said Billy. +"Now and again _per-haps_ a badly packed saddle will upset a mule, but +it's very seldom. I wish I could show you our business. It's beautiful. +Why, it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at. +The science of the thing is never to show up against the sky-line, +because, if you do, you may get fired at. Remember that, young 'un. +Always keep hidden as much as possible, even if you have to go a mile +out of your way. I lead the battery when it comes to that sort of +climbing." + +"Fired at without the chance of running into the people who are firing!" +said the troop-horse, thinking hard. "I couldn't stand that. I should +want to charge, with Dick." + +"Oh no, you wouldn't; you know that as soon as the guns are in position +_they'll_ do all the charging. That's scientific and neat; but +knives--pah!" + +The baggage-camel had been bobbing his head to and fro for some time +past, anxious to get a word in edgeways. Then I heard him say, as he +cleared his throat, nervously: + +"I--I--I have fought a little, but not in that climbing way or that +running way." + +"No. Now you mention it," said Billy, "you don't look as though you were +made for climbing or running--much. Well, how was it, old Hay-bales?" + +"The proper way," said the camel. "We all sat down--" + +"Oh, my crupper and breastplate!" said the troop-horse under his breath. +"Sat down?" + +"We sat down--a hundred of us," the camel went on, "in a big square, and +the men piled our packs and saddles outside the square, and they fired +over our backs, the men did, on all sides of the square." + +"What sort of men? Any men that came along?" said the troop-horse. "They +teach us in riding-school to lie down and let our masters fire across +us, but Dick Cunliffe is the only man I'd trust to do that. It tickles +my girths, and, besides, I can't see with my head on the ground." + +"What does it matter who fires across you?" said the camel. "There are +plenty of men and plenty of other camels close by, and a great many +clouds of smoke. I am not frightened then. I sit still and wait." + +"And yet," said Billy, "you dream bad dreams and upset the camp at +night. Well! well! Before I'd lie down, not to speak of sitting down, +and let a man fire across me, my heels and his head would have something +to say to each other. Did you ever hear anything so awful as that?" + +There was a long silence, and then one of the gun-bullocks lifted up his +big head and said, "This is very foolish indeed. There is only one way +of fighting." + +"Oh, go on," said Billy. "_Please_ don't mind me. I suppose you fellows +fight standing on your tails?" + +"Only one way," said the two together. (They must have been twins.) +"This is that way. To put all twenty yoke of us to the big gun as soon +as Two Tails trumpets." ("Two Tails" is camp slang for the elephant.) + +"What does Two Tails trumpet for?" said the young mule. + +"To show that he is not going any nearer to the smoke on the other side. +Two Tails is a great coward. Then we tug the big gun all +together--_Heya_--_Hullah! Heeyah! Hullah!_ _We_ do not climb like cats +nor run like calves. We go across the level plain, twenty yoke of us, +till we are unyoked again, and we graze while the big guns talk across +the plain to some town with mud walls, and pieces of the wall fall out, +and the dust goes up as though many cattle were coming home." + +"Oh! And you choose that time for grazing do you?" said the young mule. + +"That time or any other. Eating is always good. We eat till we are yoked +up again and tug the gun back to where Two Tails is waiting for it. +Sometimes there are big guns in the city that speak back, and some of us +are killed, and then there is all the more grazing for those that are +left. This is Fate--nothing but Fate. None the less, Two Tails is a +great coward. That is the proper way to fight. We are brothers from +Hapur. Our father was a sacred bull of Shiva. We have spoken." + +"Well, I've certainly learned something tonight," said the troop-horse. +"Do you gentlemen of the screw-gun battery feel inclined to eat when you +are being fired at with big guns, and Two Tails is behind you?" + +"About as much as we feel inclined to sit down and let men sprawl all +over us, or run into people with knives. I never heard such stuff. A +mountain ledge, a well-balanced load, a driver you can trust to let you +pick your own way, and I'm your mule; but the other things--no!" said +Billy, with a stamp of his foot. + +"Of course," said the troop-horse, "every one is not made in the same +way, and I can quite see that your family, on your father's side, would +fail to understand a great many things." + +"Never you mind my family on my father's side," said Billy angrily; for +every mule hates to be reminded that his father was a donkey. "My father +was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull down and bite and kick into +rags every horse he came across. Remember that, you big brown Brumby!" + +Brumby means wild horse without any breeding. Imagine the feelings of +Sunol if a car-horse called her a "skate," and you can imagine how the +Australian horse felt. I saw the white of his eye glitter in the dark. + +"See here, you son of an imported Malaga jackass," he said between his +teeth, "I'd have you know that I'm related on my mother's side to +Carbine, winner of the Melbourne Cup, and where _I_ come from we aren't +accustomed to being ridden over roughshod by any parrot-mouthed, +pig-headed mule in a pop-gun peashooter battery. Are you ready?" + +"On your hind legs!" squealed Billy. They both reared up facing each +other, and I was expecting a furious fight, when a gurgly, rumbly voice +called out of the darkness to the right--"Children, what are you +fighting about there? Be quiet." + +Both beasts dropped down with a snort of disgust, for neither horse nor +mule can bear to listen to an elephant's voice. + +"It's Two Tails!" said the troop-horse. "I can't stand him. A tail at +each end isn't fair!" + +"My feelings exactly," said Billy, crowding into the troop-horse for +company. "We're very alike in some things." + +"I suppose we've inherited them from our mothers," said the troop-horse. +"It's not worth quarreling about. Hi! Two Tails, are you tied up?" + +"Yes," said Two Tails, with a laugh all up his trunk. "I'm picketed for +the night. I've heard what you fellows have been saying. But don't be +afraid. I'm not coming over." + +The bullocks and the camel said, half aloud: "Afraid of Two Tails--what +nonsense!" And the bullocks went on: "We are sorry that you heard, but +it is true. Two Tails, why are you afraid of the guns when they fire?" + +"Well," said Two Tails, rubbing one hind leg against the other, exactly +like a little boy saying a piece, "I don't quite know whether you'd +understand." + +"We don't, but we have to pull the guns," said the bullocks. + +"I know it, and I know you are a good deal braver than you think you +are. But it's different with me. My battery captain called me a +Pachydermatous Anachronism the other day." + +"That's another way of fighting, I suppose?" said Billy, who was +recovering his spirits. + +"_You_ don't know what that means, of course, but I do. It means betwixt +and between, and that is just where I am. I can see inside my head what +will happen when a shell bursts; and you bullocks can't." + +"I can," said the troop-horse. "At least a little bit. I try not to +think about it." + +"I can see more than you, and I _do_ think about it. I know there's a +great deal of me to take care of, and I know that nobody knows how to +cure me when I'm sick. All they can do is to stop my driver's pay till +I get well, and I can't trust my driver." + +"Ah!" said the troop-horse. "That explains it. I can trust Dick." + +"You could put a whole regiment of Dicks on my back without making me +feel any better. I know just enough to be uncomfortable, and not enough +to go on in spite of it." + +"We do not understand," said the bullocks. + +"I know you don't. I'm not talking to you. You don't know what blood +is." + +"We do," said the bullocks. "It is red stuff that soaks into the ground +and smells." + +The troop-horse gave a kick and a bound and a snort. + +"Don't talk of it," he said. "I can smell it now, just thinking of it. +It makes me want to run--when I haven't Dick on my back." + +"But it is not here," said the camel and the bullocks. "Why are you so +stupid?" + +"It's vile stuff," said Billy. "I don't want to run, but I don't want to +talk about it." + +"There you are!" said Two Tails, waving his tail to explain. + +"Surely. Yes, we have been here all night," said the bullocks. + +Two Tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it jingled. "Oh, I'm +not talking to _you_. You can't see inside your heads." + +"No. We see out of our four eyes," said the bullocks. "We see straight +in front of us." + +"If I could do that and nothing else you wouldn't be needed to pull the +big guns at all. If I was like my captain--he can see things inside his +head before the firing begins, and he shakes all over, but he knows too +much to run away--if I was like him I could pull the guns. But if I were +as wise as all that I should never be here. I should be a king in the +forest, as I used to be, sleeping half the day and bathing when I liked. +I haven't had a good bath for a month." + +"That's all very fine," said Billy; "but giving a thing a long name +doesn't make it any better." + +"H'sh!" said the troop-horse. "I think I understand what Two Tails +means." + +"You'll understand better in a minute," said Two Tails angrily. "Now, +just you explain to me why you don't like _this_!" + +He began trumpeting furiously at the top of his trumpet. + +"Stop that!" said Billy and the troop-horse together, and I could hear +them stamp and shiver. An elephant's trumpeting is always nasty, +especially on a dark night. + +"I sha'n't stop," said Two Tails. "Won't you explain that, please? +_Hhrrmþh! Rrrt! Rrrmph! Rrrhha!_" Then he stopped suddenly, and I heard +a little whimper in the dark, and knew that Vixen had found me at last. +She knew as well as I did that if there is one thing in the world the +elephant is more afraid of than another it is a little barking dog; so +she stopped to bully Two Tails in his pickets, and yapped round his big +feet. Two Tails shuffled and squeaked. "Go away, little dog!" he said. +"Don't snuff at my ankles, or I 'll kick at you. Good little dog--nice +little doggie, then! Go home, you yelping little beast! Oh, why doesn't +some one take her away? She'll bite me in a minute." + +"Seems to me," said Billy to the troop-horse, "that our friend Two Tails +is afraid of most things. Now, if I had a full meal for every dog I've +kicked across the parade-ground, I should be as fat as Two Tails +nearly." + +I whistled, and Vixen ran up to me, muddy all over, and licked my nose, +and told me a long tale about hunting for me all through the camp. I +never let her know that I understood beast talk, or she would have taken +all sorts of liberties. So I buttoned her into the breast of my +overcoat, and Two Tails shuffled and stamped and growled to himself. + +"Extraordinary! Most extraordinary!" he said. "It runs in our family. +Now, where has that nasty little beast gone to?" + +I heard him feeling about with his trunk. + +"We all seem to be affected in various ways," he went on, blowing his +nose. "Now, you gentlemen were alarmed, I believe, when I trumpeted." + +"Not alarmed, exactly," said the troop-horse, "but it made me feel as +though I had hornets where my saddle ought to be. Don't begin again." + +"I'm frightened of a little dog, and the camel here is frightened by bad +dreams in the night." + +"It is very lucky for us that we haven't all got to fight in the same +way," said the troop-horse. + +"What I want to know," said the young mule, who had been quiet for a +long time--"what _I_ want to know is, why we have to fight at all." + +"Because we are told to," said the troop-horse, with a snort of +contempt. + +"Orders," said Billy the mule; and his teeth snapped. + +"_Hukm hai!_" (It is an order), said the camel with a gurgle; and Two +Tails and the bullocks repeated, "_Hukm hai!_" + +"Yes, but who gives the orders?" said the recruit-mule. + +"The man who walks at your head--Or sits on your back--Or holds the +nose-rope--Or twists your tail," said Billy and the troop-horse and the +camel and the bullocks one after the other. + +"But who gives them the orders?" + +"Now you want to know too much, young un," said Billy, "and that is one +way of getting kicked. All you have to do is to obey the man at your +head and ask no questions." + +"He's quite right," said Two Tails. "I can't always obey, because I'm +betwixt and between; but Billy's right. Obey the man next to you who +gives the order, or you'll stop all the battery, besides getting a +thrashing." + +The gun-bullocks got up to go. "Morning is coming," they said. "We will +go back to our lines. It is true that we see only out of our eyes, and +we are not very clever; but still, we are the only people to-night who +have not been afraid. Good night, you brave people." + +Nobody answered, and the troop-horse said, to change the conversation, +"Where's that little dog? A dog means a man somewhere near." + +"Here I am," yapped Vixen, "under the gun-tail with my man. You big, +blundering beast of a camel you, you upset our tent. My man's very +angry." + +"Phew!" said the bullocks. "He must be white?" + +"Of course he is," said Vixen. "Do you suppose I'm looked after by a +black bullock-driver?" + +"_Huah! Ouach! Ugh!_" said the bullocks. "Let us get away quickly." + +They plunged forward in the mud, and managed somehow to run their yoke +on the pole of an ammunition-wagon, where it jammed. + +"Now you _have_ done it," said Billy calmly. "Don't struggle. You're +hung up till daylight. What on earth's the matter?" + +The bullocks went off into the long hissing snorts that Indian cattle +give, and pushed and crowded and slued and stamped and slipped and +nearly fell down in the mud, grunting savagely. + +"You'll break your necks in a minute," said the troop-horse. "What's the +matter with white men? I live with 'em." + +"They--eat--us! Pull!" said the near bullock: the yoke snapped with a +twang, and they lumbered off together. + +I never knew before what made Indian cattle so afraid of Englishmen. We +eat beef--a thing that no cattle-driver touches--and of course the +cattle do not like it. + +"May I be flogged with my own pad-chains! Who'd have thought of two big +lumps like those losing their heads?" said Billy. + +"Never mind. I'm going to look at this man. Most of the white men, I +know, have things in their pockets," said the troop-horse. + +"I'll leave you, then. I can't say I'm overfond of 'em myself. Besides, +white men who haven't a place to sleep in are more than likely to be +thieves, and I've a good deal of Government property on my back. Come +along, young 'un, and we'll go back to our lines. Good-night, Australia! +See you on parade to-morrow, I suppose. Good-night, old Hay-bale!--try +to control your feelings, won't you? Good-night, Two Tails! If you pass +us on the ground to-morrow, don't trumpet. It spoils our formation." + +Billy the mule stumped off with the swaggering limp of an old +campaigner, as the troop-horse's head came nuzzling into my breast, and +I gave him biscuits; while Vixen, who is a most conceited little dog, +told him fibs about the scores of horses that she and I kept. + +"I'm coming to the parade to-morrow in my dog-cart," she said. "Where +will you be?" + +"On the left hand of the second squadron. I set the time for all my +troop, little lady," he said politely. "Now I must go back to Dick. My +tail's all muddy, and he'll have two hours' hard work dressing me for +the parade." + +The big parade of all the thirty thousand men was held that afternoon, +and Vixen and I had a good place close to the Viceroy and the Amir of +Afghanistan, with his high big black hat of astrakhan wool and the great +diamond star in the center. The first part of the review was all +sunshine, and the regiments went by in wave upon wave of legs all moving +together, and guns all in a line, till our eyes grew dizzy. Then the +cavalry came up, to the beautiful cavalry canter of "Bonnie Dundee," and +Vixen cocked her ear where she sat on the dog-cart. The second squadron +of the lancers shot by, and there was the troop-horse, with his tail +like spun silk, his head pulled into his breast, one ear forward and one +back, setting the time for all his squadron, his legs going as smoothly +as waltz-music. Then the big guns came by, and I saw Two Tails and two +other elephants harnessed in line to a forty-pounder siege-gun while +twenty yoke of oxen walked behind. The seventh pair had a new yoke, and +they looked rather stiff and tired. Last came the screw-guns, and Billy +the mule carried himself as though he commanded all the troops, and his +harness was oiled and polished till it winked. I gave a cheer all by +myself for Billy the mule, but he never looked right or left. + +The rain began to fall again, and for a while it was too misty to see +what the troops were doing. They had made a big half-circle across the +plain, and were spreading out into a line. That line grew and grew and +grew till it was three-quarters of a mile long from wing to wing--one +solid wall of men, horses, and guns. Then it came on straight toward the +Viceroy and the Amir, and as it got nearer the ground began to shake, +like the deck of a steamer when the engines are going fast. + +Unless you have been there you cannot imagine what a frightening effect +this steady come-down of troops has on the spectators, even when they +know it is only a review. I looked at the Amir. Up till then he had not +shown the shadow of a sign of astonishment or anything else; but now his +eyes began to get bigger and bigger, and he picked up the reins on his +horse's neck and looked behind him. For a minute it seemed as though he +were going to draw his sword and slash his way out through the +English men and women in the carriages at the back. Then the advance +stopped dead, the ground stood still, the whole line saluted, and thirty +bands began to play all together. That was the end of the review, and +the regiments went off to their camps in the rain; and an infantry band +struck up with-- + + The animals went in two by two, + Hurrah! + The animals went in two by two, + The elephant and the battery mu- + l', and they all got into the Ark, + For to get out of the rain! + +Then I heard an old, grizzled, long-haired Central Asian chief, who had +come down with the Amir, asking questions of a native officer. + +[Illustration: "THEN I HEARD AN OLD, GRIZZLED, LONG-HAIRED, CENTRAL + ASIAN CHIEF ASKING QUESTIONS OF A NATIVE OFFICER."] + +"Now," said he, "in what manner was this wonderful thing done?" + +And the officer answered, "There was an order, and they obeyed." + +"But are the beasts as wise as the men?" said the chief. + +"They obey, as the men do. Mule, horse, elephant, or bullock, he obeys +his driver, and the driver his sergeant, and the sergeant his +lieutenant, and the lieutenant his captain, and the captain his major, +and the major his colonel, and the colonel his brigadier commanding +three regiments, and the brigadier his general, who obeys the Viceroy, +who is the servant of the Empress. Thus it is done." + +"Would it were so in Afghanistan!" said the chief; "for there we obey +only our own wills." + +"And for that reason," said the native officer, twirling his mustache, +"your Amir whom you do not obey must come here and take orders from our +Viceroy." + + + PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP ANIMALS + + ELEPHANTS OF THE GUN-TEAM + + We lent to Alexander the strength of Hercules, + The wisdom of our foreheads, the cunning of our knees; + We bowed our necks to service; they ne'er were loosed again,-- + Make way there, way for the ten-foot teams + Of the Forty-Pounder train! + + + GUN-BULLOCKS + + Those heroes in their harnesses avoid a cannon-ball, + And what they know of powder upsets them one and all; + Then _we_ come into action and tug the guns again,-- + Make way there, way for the twenty yoke + Of the Forty-Pounder train! + + + CAVALRY HORSES + + By the brand on my withers, the finest of tunes + Is played by the Lancers, Hussars, and Dragoons, + And it's sweeter than "Stables" or "Water" to me, + The Cavalry Canter of "Bonnie Dundee"! + + Then feed us and break us and handle and groom, + And give us good riders and plenty of room, + And launch us in column of squadrons and see + The way of the war-horse to "Bonnie Dundee"! + + + SCREW-GUN MULES + + As me and my companions were scrambling up a hill, + The path was lost in rolling stones, but we went + forward still; + For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, and turn up + everywhere, + And it's our delight on a mountain height, with + a leg or two to spare! + + Good luck to every sergeant, then, that lets us + pick our road; + Bad luck to all the driver-men that cannot pack + a load: + For we can wriggle and climb, my lads, and turn + up everywhere, + And it's our delight on a mountain height with + a leg or two to spare! + + + COMMISSARIAT CAMELS + + We haven't a camelty tune of our own + To help us trollop along, + But every neck is a hairy trombone + (_Rtt-ta-ta-ta!_ is a hairy trombone!) + And this is our marching song: + _Can't! Don't! Shan't! Won't!_ + Pass it along the line! + Somebody's pack has slid from his back, + Wish it were only mine! + Somebody's load has tipped off in the road-- + Cheer for a halt and a row! + _Urrr! Yarrh! Grr! Arrh!_ + Somebody's catching it now! + + + ALL THE BEASTS TOGETHER + + Children of the Camp are we, + Serving each in his degree; + Children of the yoke and goad, + Pack and harness, pad and load. + See our line across the plain, + Like a heel-rope bent again. + Reaching, writhing, rolling far, + Sweeping all away to war! + While the men that walk beside, + Dusty, silent, heavy-eyed, + Cannot tell why we or they + March and suffer day by day. + _Children of the Camp are we,_ + _Serving each in his degree;_ + _Children of the yoke and goad,_ + _Pack and harness, pad and load._ + + + + + Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. + +Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. + +Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of +the speakers. Those words were retained as-is. + +The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up +paragraphs and so that they are next the text they illustrate. Thus the +page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the +List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the +same in the List of Illustrations and in the book. + +On page 78, "Bandar log" was replaced with "Bandar-log". + +On page 80, a period was added after "leave to hunt here". + +On page 156, "Novastoshna" was replaced with "Novastoshnah". + +On page 171, "floam-flecked" was replaced with "foam-flecked". + +On page 299, there is a hyphen at the end of a line of poetry. That +hyphen seems to be deliberate, and was kept as-is. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The jungle book, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JUNGLE BOOK *** + +***** This file should be named 35997.txt or 35997.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/9/9/35997/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |