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diff --git a/37364.txt b/37364.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..48f2927 --- /dev/null +++ b/37364.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7521 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Second 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 Second Jungle Book + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Illustrator: John Lockwood Kipling + +Release Date: September 9, 2011 [EBook #37364] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa McDaniel, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + Transcriber's note: + + Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have + been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + + + + THE + SECOND JUNGLE BOOK + + + + + [Illustration: Rudyard Kipling] + + + + + [Illustration] + + THE + SECOND JUNGLE BOOK + + BY + RUDYARD KIPLING + + [Illustration] + + DECORATED BY + JOHN LOCKWOOD KIPLING, C.I.E. + + NEW YORK + THE CENTURY CO. + 1906 + + + + + Copyright, 1895, by THE CENTURY CO. + + How Fear Came, The Law of the Jungle; + The Miracle of Purun Bhagat, a Song of Kabir; + The Undertakers, a Ripple-song. + Copyright, 1894, by Bacheller, Johnson & Bacheller. + + Quiquern, "Angutivun tina." + Copyright, 1895, by Irving Bacheller. + + The Spring Running, The Outsong. + Copyright, 1895, by John Brisben Walker. + + Letting in the Jungle, Mowgli's Song Against People. + Copyright, 1894, by Rudyard Kipling. + + Red Dog, Chil's Song. + Copyright, 1895, by Rudyard Kipling. + + The King's Ankus, The Song of the Little Hunter. + Copyright, 1895, by The Century Co. + + THE DE VINNE PRESS. + + + + + "_Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, + and many and mighty are they; + But the head and the hoof of the Law + and the haunch and the hump is--Obey!_" + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + HOW FEAR CAME 1 + + THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE 29 + + THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT 33 + + A SONG OF KABIR 61 + + LETTING IN THE JUNGLE 63 + + MOWGLI'S SONG AGAINST PEOPLE 112 + + THE UNDERTAKERS 115 + + A RIPPLE-SONG 155 + + THE KING'S ANKUS 157 + + THE SONG OF THE LITTLE HUNTER 191 + + QUIQUERN 193 + + "ANGUTIVUN TINA" 234 + + RED DOG 237 + + CHIL'S SONG 281 + + THE SPRING RUNNING 283 + + THE OUTSONG 321 + + + + + THE + SECOND JUNGLE BOOK + + + + + The stream is shrunk--the pool is dry, + And we be comrades, thou and I; + With fevered jowl and sunken flank + Each jostling each along the bank; + And, by one drouthy fear made still, + Foregoing thought of quest or kill. + Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see + The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he, + And the tall buck, unflinching, note + The fangs that tore his father's throat. + _The pools are shrunk--the streams are dry, + And we be playmates, thou and I, + Till yonder cloud--Good Hunting!--loose + The rain that breaks the Water Truce._ + + + + +[Illustration] + +HOW FEAR CAME + + +The Law of the Jungle--which is by far the oldest law in the +world--has arranged for almost every kind of accident that may befall +the Jungle People, till now its code is as perfect as time and custom +can make it. If you have read the other book about Mowgli, you will +remember that he spent a great part of his life in the Seeonee +Wolf-Pack, learning the Law from Baloo, the Brown Bear; and it was +Baloo who told him, when the boy grew impatient at the constant +orders, that the Law was like the Giant Creeper, because it dropped +across every one's back and no one could escape. "When thou hast lived +as long as I have, Little Brother, thou wilt see how all the Jungle +obeys at least one Law. And that will be no pleasant sight," said +Baloo. + +This talk went in at one ear and out at the other, for a boy who +spends his life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till +it actually stares him in the face. But, one year, Baloo's words came +true, and Mowgli saw all the Jungle working under the Law. + +It began when the winter Rains failed almost entirely, and Ikki, the +Porcupine, meeting Mowgli in a bamboo-thicket, told him that the wild +yams were drying up. Now everybody knows that Ikki is ridiculously +fastidious in his choice of food, and will eat nothing but the very +best and ripest. So Mowgli laughed and said, "What is that to me?" + +"Not much _now_," said Ikki, rattling his quills in a stiff, +uncomfortable way, "but later we shall see. Is there any more diving +into the deep rock-pool below the Bee-Rocks, Little Brother?" + +"No. The foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish to break +my head," said Mowgli, who, in those days, was quite sure that he +knew as much as any five of the Jungle People put together. + +"That is thy loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom." Ikki +ducked quickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling his nose-bristles, and +Mowgli told Baloo what Ikki had said. Baloo looked very grave, and +mumbled half to himself: "If I were alone I would change my +hunting-grounds now, before the others began to think. And +yet--hunting among strangers ends in fighting; and they might hurt the +Man-cub. We must wait and see how the _mohwa_ blooms." + +That spring the _mohwa_ tree, that Baloo was so fond of, never +flowered. The greeny, cream-colored, waxy blossoms were heat-killed +before they were born, and only a few bad-smelling petals came down +when he stood on his hind legs and shook the tree. Then, inch by inch, +the untempered heat crept into the heart of the Jungle, turning it +yellow, brown, and at last black. The green growths in the sides of +the ravines burned up to broken wires and curled films of dead stuff; +the hidden pools sank down and caked over, keeping the last least +footmark on their edges as if it had been cast in iron; the +juicy-stemmed creepers fell away from the trees they clung to and died +at their feet; the bamboos withered, clanking when the hot winds +blew, and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in the Jungle, till they +were as bare and as hot as the quivering blue boulders in the bed of +the stream. + +The birds and the monkey-people went north early in the year, for they +knew what was coming; and the deer and the wild pig broke far away to +the perished fields of the villages, dying sometimes before the eyes +of men too weak to kill them. Chil, the Kite, stayed and grew fat, for +there was a great deal of carrion, and evening after evening he +brought the news to the beasts, too weak to force their way to fresh +hunting-grounds, that the sun was killing the Jungle for three days' +flight in every direction. + +Mowgli, who had never known what real hunger meant, fell back on stale +honey, three years old, scraped out of deserted rock-hives--honey +black as a sloe, and dusty with dried sugar. He hunted, too, for +deep-boring grubs under the bark of the trees, and robbed the wasps of +their new broods. All the game in the Jungle was no more than skin and +bone, and Bagheera could kill thrice in a night, and hardly get a full +meal. But the want of water was the worst, for though the Jungle +People drink seldom they must drink deep. + +And the heat went on and on, and sucked up all the moisture, till at +last the main channel of the Waingunga was the only stream that +carried a trickle of water between its dead banks; and when Hathi, the +wild elephant, who lives for a hundred years and more, saw a long, +lean blue ridge of rock show dry in the very center of the stream, he +knew that he was looking at the Peace Rock, and then and there he +lifted up his trunk and proclaimed the Water Truce, as his father +before him had proclaimed it fifty years ago. The deer, wild pig, and +buffalo took up the cry hoarsely; and Chil, the Kite, flew in great +circles far and wide, whistling and shrieking the warning. + +By the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the drinking-places +when once the Water Truce has been declared. The reason of this is +that drinking comes before eating. Every one in the Jungle can +scramble along somehow when only game is scarce; but water is water, +and when there is but one source of supply, all hunting stops while +the Jungle People go there for their needs. In good seasons, when +water was plentiful, those who came down to drink at the Waingunga--or +anywhere else, for that matter--did so at the risk of their lives, and +that risk made no small part of the fascination of the night's doings. +To move down so cunningly that never a leaf stirred; to wade +knee-deep in the roaring shallows that drown all noise from behind; to +drink, looking backward over one shoulder, every muscle ready for the +first desperate bound of keen terror; to roll on the sandy margin, and +return, wet-muzzled and well plumped out, to the admiring herd, was a +thing that all tall-antlered young bucks took a delight in, precisely +because they knew that at any moment Bagheera or Shere Khan might leap +upon them and bear them down. But now all that life-and-death fun was +ended, and the Jungle People came up, starved and weary, to the +shrunken river,--tiger, bear, deer, buffalo, and pig, all +together,--drank the fouled waters, and hung above them, too exhausted +to move off. + +The deer and the pig had tramped all day in search of something better +than dried bark and withered leaves. The buffaloes had found no +wallows to be cool in, and no green crops to steal. The snakes had +left the Jungle and come down to the river in the hope of finding a +stray frog. They curled round wet stones, and never offered to strike +when the nose of a rooting pig dislodged them. The river-turtles had +long ago been killed by Bagheera, cleverest of hunters, and the fish +had buried themselves deep in the dry mud. Only the Peace Rock lay +across the shallows like a long snake, and the little tired ripples +hissed as they dried on its hot side. + +It was here that Mowgli came nightly for the cool and the +companionship. The most hungry of his enemies would hardly have cared +for the boy then. His naked hide made him seem more lean and wretched +than any of his fellows. His hair was bleached to tow color by the +sun; his ribs stood out like the ribs of a basket, and the lumps on +his knees and elbows, where he was used to track on all fours, gave +his shrunken limbs the look of knotted grass-stems. But his eye, under +his matted forelock, was cool and quiet, for Bagheera was his adviser +in this time of trouble, and told him to go quietly, hunt slowly, and +never, on any account, to lose his temper. + +"It is an evil time," said the Black Panther, one furnace-hot evening, +"but it will go if we can live till the end. Is thy stomach full, Man +cub?" + +"There is stuff in my stomach, but I get no good of it. Think you, +Bagheera, the Rains have forgotten us and will never come again?" + +"Not I! We shall see the _mohwa_ in blossom yet, and the little fawns +all fat with new grass. Come down to the Peace Rock and hear the news. +On my back, Little Brother." + +"This is no time to carry weight. I can still stand alone, but--indeed +we be no fatted bullocks, we too." + +Bagheera looked along his ragged, dusty flank and whispered: "Last +night I killed a bullock under the yoke. So low was I brought that I +think I should not have dared to spring if he had been loose. _Wou!_" + +Mowgli laughed. "Yes, we be great hunters now," said he. "I am very +bold--to eat grubs," and the two came down together through the +crackling undergrowth to the river-bank and the lace-work of shoals +that ran out from it in every direction. + +"The water cannot live long," said Baloo, joining them. "Look across. +Yonder are trails like the roads of Man." + +On the level plain of the further bank the stiff jungle-grass had died +standing, and, dying, had mummied. The beaten tracks of the deer and +the pig, all heading toward the river, had striped that colorless +plain with dusty gullies driven through the ten-foot grass, and, early +as it was, each long avenue was full of first-comers hastening to the +water. You could hear the does and fawns coughing in the snuff-like +dust. + +Up-stream, at the bend of the sluggish pool round the Peace Rock, and +Warden of the Water Truce, stood Hathi, the wild elephant, with his +sons, gaunt and gray in the moonlight, rocking to and fro--always +rocking. Below him a little were the vanguard of the deer; below +these, again, the pig and the wild buffalo; and on the opposite bank, +where the tall trees came down to the water's edge, was the place set +apart for the Eaters of Flesh--the tiger, the wolves, the panther, and +the bear, and the others. + +"We are under one Law, indeed," said Bagheera, wading into the water +and looking across at the lines of clicking horns and starting eyes +where the deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro. "Good +hunting, all you of my blood," he added, lying down at full length, +one flank thrust out of the shallows; and then, between his teeth, +"But for that which is the Law it would be _very_ good hunting." + +The quick-spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence, and a +frightened whisper ran along the ranks. "The Truce! Remember the +Truce!" + +"Peace there, peace!" gurgled Hathi, the wild elephant. "The Truce +holds, Bagheera. This is no time to talk of hunting." + +"Who should know better than I?" Bagheera answered, rolling his yellow +eyes up-stream. "I am an eater of turtles--a fisher of frogs. +_Ngaayah!_ Would I could get good from chewing branches!" + +"_We_ wish so, very greatly," bleated a young fawn, who had only been +born that spring, and did not at all like it. Wretched as the Jungle +People were, even Hathi could not help chuckling; while Mowgli, lying +on his elbows in the warm water, laughed aloud, and beat up the scum +with his feet. + +"Well spoken, little bud-horn," Bagheera purred. "When the Truce ends +that shall be remembered in thy favor," and he looked keenly through +the darkness to make sure of recognizing the fawn again. + +Gradually the talking spread up and down the drinking-places. One +could hear the scuffling, snorting pig asking for more room; the +buffaloes grunting among themselves as they lurched out across the +sand-bars, and the deer telling pitiful stories of their long +foot-sore wanderings in quest of food. Now and again they asked some +question of the Eaters of Flesh across the river, but all the news was +bad, and the roaring hot wind of the Jungle came and went between the +rocks and the rattling branches, and scattered twigs and dust on the +water. + +"The men-folk, too, they die beside their plows," said a young +sambhur. "I passed three between sunset and night. They lay still, and +their bullocks with them. We also shall lie still in a little." + +"The river has fallen since last night," said Baloo. "O Hathi, hast +thou ever seen the like of this drought?" + +"It will pass, it will pass," said Hathi, squirting water along his +back and sides. + +"We have one here that cannot endure long," said Baloo; and he looked +toward the boy he loved. + +"I?" said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. "I have no long +fur to cover my bones, but--but if _thy_ hide were taken off, Baloo--" + +Hathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely: + +"Man-cub, that is not seemly to tell a Teacher of the Law. _Never_ +have I been seen without my hide." + +"Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it were, like +the cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked. Now +that brown husk of thine--" Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and +explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way, when Bagheera +put out a paddy paw and pulled him over backward into the water. + +"Worse and worse," said the Black Panther, as the boy rose +spluttering. "First, Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a cocoanut. +Be careful that he does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do." + +"And what is that?" said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute, though +that is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle. + +"Break thy head," said Bagheera quietly, pulling him under again. + +"It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher," said the bear, when +Mowgli had been ducked for the third time. + +"Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing running to and fro +makes a monkey-jest of those who have once been good hunters, and +pulls the best of us by the whisker for sport." This was Shere Khan, +the Lame Tiger, limping down to the water. He waited a little to enjoy +the sensation he made among the deer on the opposite bank; then he +dropped his square, frilled head and began to lap, growling: "The +Jungle has become a whelping-ground for naked cubs now. Look at me, +Man-cub!" + +Mowgli looked--stared, rather--as insolently as he knew how, and in a +minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. "Man-cub this, and Man-cub +that," he rumbled, going on with his drink, "the cub is neither man +nor cub, or he would have been afraid. Next season I shall have to beg +his leave for a drink. _Aurgh!_" + +"That may come, too," said Bagheera, looking him steadily between the +eyes. "That may come, too--Faugh, Shere Khan!--what new shame hast +thou brought here?" + +The Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and dark +oily streaks were floating from it down-stream. + +"Man!" said Shere Khan coolly, "I killed an hour since." He went on +purring and growling to himself. + +The line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper went up +that grew to a cry: "Man! Man! He has killed Man!" Then all looked +toward Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed not to hear. Hathi +never does anything till the time comes, and that is one of the +reasons why he lives so long. + +"At such a season as this to kill Man! Was no other game afoot?" said +Bagheera scornfully, drawing himself out of the tainted water, and +shaking each paw, cat-fashion, as he did so. + +"I killed for choice--not for food." The horrified whisper began +again, and Hathi's watchful little white eye cocked itself in Shere +Khan's direction. "For choice," Shere Khan drawled. "Now come I to +drink and make me clean again. Is there any to forbid?" + +Bagheera's back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind, but Hathi +lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly. + +"Thy kill was from choice?" he asked; and when Hathi asks a question +it is best to answer. + +"Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi." Shere +Khan spoke almost courteously. + +"Yes, I know," Hathi answered; and, after a little silence, "Hast thou +drunk thy fill?" + +"For to-night, yes." + +"Go, then. The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but the Lame +Tiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when--when we +suffer together--Man and Jungle People alike. Clean or unclean, get to +thy lair, Shere Khan!" + +The last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi's three sons +rolled forward half a pace, though there was no need. Shere Khan slunk +away, not daring to growl, for he knew--what every one else +knows--that when the last comes to the last, Hathi is the Master of +the Jungle. + +"What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?" Mowgli whispered in +Bagheera's ear. "To kill Man is _always_ shameful. The Law says so. +And yet Hathi says--" + +"Ask him. I do not know, Little Brother. Right or no right, if Hathi +had not spoken I would have taught that lame butcher his lesson. To +come to the Peace Rock fresh from a kill of Man--and to boast of +it--is a jackal's trick. Besides, he tainted the good water." + +Mowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage, because no one +cared to address Hathi directly, and then he cried: "What is Shere +Khan's right, O Hathi?" Both banks echoed his words, for all the +People of the Jungle are intensely curious, and they had just seen +something that none, except Baloo, who looked very thoughtful, seemed +to understand. + +"It is an old tale," said Hathi; "a tale older than the Jungle. Keep +silence along the banks, and I will tell that tale." + +There was a minute or two of pushing and shouldering among the pigs +and the buffalo, and then the leaders of the herds grunted, one after +another, "We wait," and Hathi strode forward till he was nearly +knee-deep in the pool by the Peace Rock. Lean and wrinkled and +yellow-tusked though he was, he looked what the Jungle knew him to +be--their master. + +"Ye know, children," he began, "that of all things ye most fear Man"; +and there was a mutter of agreement. + +"This tale touches thee, Little Brother," said Bagheera to Mowgli. + +"I? I am of the Pack--a hunter of the Free People," Mowgli answered. +"What have I to do with Man?" + +"And ye do not know why ye fear Man?" Hathi went on. "This is the +reason. In the beginning of the Jungle, and none know when that was, +we of the Jungle walked together, having no fear of one another. In +those days there was no drought, and leaves and flowers and fruit grew +on the same tree, and we ate nothing at all except leaves and flowers +and grass and fruit and bark." + +"I am glad I was not born in those days," said Bagheera. "Bark is only +good to sharpen claws." + +"And the Lord of the Jungle was Tha, the First of the Elephants. He +drew the Jungle out of deep waters with his trunk; and where he made +furrows in the ground with his tusks, there the rivers ran; and where +he struck with his foot, there rose ponds of good water; and when he +blew through his trunk,--thus,--the trees fell. That was the manner in +which the Jungle was made by Tha; and so the tale was told to me." + +"It has not lost fat in the telling," Bagheera whispered, and Mowgli +laughed behind his hand. + +"In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or sugar-cane, +nor were there any little huts such as ye have all seen; and the +Jungle People knew nothing of Man, but lived in the Jungle together, +making one people. But presently they began to dispute over their +food, though there was grazing enough for all. They were lazy. Each +wished to eat where he lay down, as sometimes we can do now when the +spring rains are good. Tha, the First of the Elephants, was busy +making new jungles and leading the rivers in their beds. He could not +walk in all places: therefore he made the First of the Tigers the +master and the judge of the Jungle, to whom the Jungle People should +bring their disputes. In those days the First of the Tigers ate fruit +and grass with the others. He was as large as I am, and he was very +beautiful, in color all over like the blossom of the yellow creeper. +There was never stripe nor bar upon his hide in those good days when +this the Jungle was new. All the Jungle People came before him without +fear, and his word was the Law of all the Jungle. We were then, +remember ye, one people. + +"Yet upon a night there was a dispute between two bucks--a +grazing-quarrel such as ye now settle with the horns and the fore +feet--and it is said that as the two spoke together before the First +of the Tigers lying among the flowers, a buck pushed him with his +horns, and the First of the Tigers forgot that he was the master and +judge of the Jungle, and, leaping upon that buck, broke his neck. + +"Till that night never one of us had died, and the First of the +Tigers, seeing what he had done, and being made foolish by the scent +of the blood, ran away into the marshes of the North, and we of the +Jungle, left without a judge, fell to fighting among ourselves; and +Tha heard the noise of it and came back. Then some of us said this and +some of us said that, but he saw the dead buck among the flowers, and +asked who had killed, and we of the Jungle would not tell because the +smell of the blood made us foolish. We ran to and fro in circles, +capering and crying out and shaking our heads. Then Tha gave an order +to the trees that hang low, and to the trailing creepers of the +Jungle, that they should mark the killer of the buck so that he should +know him again, and he said, 'Who will now be master of the Jungle +People?' Then up leaped the Gray Ape who lives in the branches, and +said, 'I will now be master of the Jungle.' At this Tha laughed, and +said, 'So be it,' and went away very angry. + +"Children, ye know the Gray Ape. He was then as he is now. At the +first he made a wise face for himself, but in a little while he began +to scratch and to leap up and down, and when Tha came back he found +the Gray Ape hanging, head down, from a bough, mocking those who stood +below; and they mocked him again. And so there was no Law in the +Jungle--only foolish talk and senseless words. + +"Then Tha called us all together and said: 'The first of your masters +has brought Death into the Jungle, and the second Shame. Now it is +time there was a Law, and a Law that ye must not break. Now ye shall +know Fear, and when ye have found him ye shall know that he is your +master, and the rest shall follow.' Then we of the Jungle said, 'What +is Fear?' And Tha said, 'Seek till ye find.' So we went up and down +the Jungle seeking for Fear, and presently the buffaloes--" + +"Ugh!" said Mysa, the leader of the buffaloes, from their sand-bank. + +"Yes, Mysa, it was the buffaloes. They came back with the news that in +a cave in the Jungle sat Fear, and that he had no hair, and went upon +his hind legs. Then we of the Jungle followed the herd till we came to +that cave, and Fear stood at the mouth of it, and he was, as the +buffaloes had said, hairless, and he walked upon his hinder legs. When +he saw us he cried out, and his voice filled us with the fear that we +have now of that voice when we hear it, and we ran away, tramping upon +and tearing each other because we were afraid. That night, so it was +told to me, we of the Jungle did not lie down together as used to be +our custom, but each tribe drew off by itself--the pig with the pig, +the deer with the deer; horn to horn, hoof to hoof,--like keeping to +like, and so lay shaking in the Jungle. + +"Only the First of the Tigers was not with us, for he was still hidden +in the marshes of the North, and when word was brought to him of the +Thing we had seen in the cave, he said: 'I will go to this Thing and +break his neck.' So he ran all the night till he came to the cave; but +the trees and the creepers on his path, remembering the order that +Tha had given, let down their branches and marked him as he ran, +drawing their fingers across his back, his flank, his forehead, and +his jowl. Wherever they touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon +his yellow hide. _And those stripes do his children wear to this day!_ +When he came to the cave, Fear, the Hairless One, put out his hand and +called him 'The Striped One that comes by night,' and the First of the +Tigers was afraid of the Hairless One, and ran back to the swamps +howling." + +Mowgli chuckled quietly here, his chin in the water. + +"So loud did he howl that Tha heard him and said, 'What is the +sorrow?' And the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to the +new-made sky, which is now so old, said: 'Give me back my power, O +Tha. I am made ashamed before all the Jungle, and I have run away from +a Hairless One, and he has called me a shameful name.' 'And why?' said +Tha. 'Because I am smeared with the mud of the marshes,' said the +First of the Tigers. 'Swim, then, and roll on the wet grass, and if it +be mud it will wash away,' said Tha; and the First of the Tigers swam, +and rolled and rolled upon the grass, till the Jungle ran round and +round before his eyes, but not one little bar upon all his hide was +changed, and Tha, watching him, laughed. Then the First of the Tigers +said, 'What have I done that this comes to me?' Tha said, 'Thou hast +killed the buck, and thou hast let Death loose in the Jungle, and with +Death has come Fear, so that the people of the Jungle are afraid one +of the other, as thou art afraid of the Hairless One.' The First of +the Tigers said, 'They will never fear me, for I knew them since the +beginning.' Tha said, 'Go and see.' And the First of the Tigers ran to +and fro, calling aloud to the deer and the pig and the sambhur and the +porcupine and all the Jungle Peoples, and they all ran away from him +who had been their judge, because they were afraid. + +"Then the First of the Tigers came back, and his pride was broken in +him, and, beating his head upon the ground, he tore up the earth with +all his feet and said: 'Remember that I was once the Master of the +Jungle. Do not forget me, O Tha! Let my children remember that I was +once without shame or fear!' And Tha said: 'This much I will do, +because thou and I together saw the Jungle made. For one night in each +year it shall be as it was before the buck was killed--for thee and +for thy children. In that one night, if ye meet the Hairless One--and +his name is Man--ye shall not be afraid of him, but he shall be afraid +of you, as though ye were judges of the Jungle and masters of all +things. Show him mercy in that night of his fear, for thou hast known +what Fear is.' + +"Then the First of the Tigers answered, 'I am content'; but when next +he drank he saw the black stripes upon his flank and his side, and he +remembered the name that the Hairless One had given him, and he was +angry. For a year he lived in the marshes, waiting till Tha should +keep his promise. And upon a night when the Jackal of the Moon [the +Evening Star] stood clear of the Jungle, he felt that his Night was +upon him, and he went to that cave to meet the Hairless One. Then it +happened as Tha promised, for the Hairless One fell down before him +and lay along the ground, and the First of the Tigers struck him and +broke his back, for he thought that there was but one such Thing in +the Jungle, and that he had killed Fear. Then, nosing above the kill, +he heard Tha coming down from the woods of the North, and presently +the voice of the First of the Elephants, which is the voice that we +hear now--" + +The thunder was rolling up and down the dry, scarred hills, but it +brought no rain--only heat-lightning that flickered along the +ridges--and Hathi went on: "_That_ was the voice he heard, and it +said: 'Is this thy mercy?' The First of the Tigers licked his lips and +said: 'What matter? I have killed Fear.' And Tha said: 'O blind and +foolish! Thou hast untied the feet of Death, and he will follow thy +trail till thou diest. Thou hast taught Man to kill!' + +"The First of the Tigers, standing stiffly to his kill, said: 'He is +as the buck was. There is no Fear. Now I will judge the Jungle Peoples +once more." + +"And Tha said: 'Never again shall the Jungle Peoples come to thee. +They shall never cross thy trail, nor sleep near thee, nor follow +after thee, nor browse by thy lair. Only Fear shall follow thee, and +with a blow that thou canst not see he shall bid thee wait his +pleasure. He shall make the ground to open under thy feet, and the +creeper to twist about thy neck, and the tree-trunks to grow together +about thee higher than thou canst leap, and at the last he shall take +thy hide to wrap his cubs when they are cold. Thou hast shown him no +mercy, and none will he show thee.' + +"The First of the Tigers was very bold, for his Night was still on +him, and he said: 'The Promise of Tha is the Promise of Tha. He will +not take away my Night?' And Tha said: 'The one Night is thine, as I +have said, but there is a price to pay. Thou hast taught Man to kill, +and he is no slow learner.' + +"The First of the Tigers said: 'He is here under my foot, and his back +is broken. Let the Jungle know I have killed Fear.' + +"Then Tha laughed, and said: 'Thou hast killed one of many, but thou +thyself shalt tell the Jungle--for thy Night is ended.' + +"So the day came; and from the mouth of the cave went out another +Hairless One, and he saw the kill in the path, and the First of the +Tigers above it, and he took a pointed stick--" + +"They throw a thing that cuts now," said Ikki, rustling down the bank; +for Ikki was considered uncommonly good eating by the Gonds--they +called him Ho-Igoo--and he knew something of the wicked little Gondee +axe that whirls across a clearing like a dragon-fly. + +"It was a pointed stick, such as they put in the foot of a pit-trap," +said Hathi, "and throwing it, he struck the First of the Tigers deep +in the flank. Thus it happened as Tha said, for the First of the +Tigers ran howling up and down the Jungle till he tore out the stick, +and all the Jungle knew that the Hairless One could strike from far +off, and they feared more than before. So it came about that the First +of the Tigers taught the Hairless One to kill--and ye know what harm +that has since done to all our peoples--through the noose, and the +pitfall, and the hidden trap, and the flying stick, and the stinging +fly that comes out of white smoke [Hathi meant the rifle], and the Red +Flower that drives us into the open. Yet for one night in the year the +Hairless One fears the Tiger, as Tha promised, and never has the Tiger +given him cause to be less afraid. Where he finds him, there he kills +him, remembering how the First of the Tigers was made ashamed. For the +rest, Fear walks up and down the Jungle by day and by night." + +"_Ahi! Aoo!_" said the deer, thinking of what it all meant to them. + +"And only when there is one great Fear over all, as there is now, can +we of the Jungle lay aside our little fears, and meet together in one +place as we do now." + +"For one night only does Man fear the Tiger?" said Mowgli. + +"For one night only," said Hathi. + +"But I--but we--but all the Jungle knows that Shere Khan kills Man +twice and thrice in a moon." + +"Even so. _Then_ he springs from behind and turns his head aside as he +strikes, for he is full of fear. If Man looked at him he would run. +But on his one Night he goes openly down to the village. He walks +between the houses and thrusts his head into the doorway, and the men +fall on their faces and there he does his kill. One kill in that +Night." + +"Oh!" said Mowgli to himself, rolling over in the water. "_Now_ I see +why it was Shere Khan bade me look at him! He got no good of it, for +he could not hold his eyes steady, and--and I certainly did not fall +down at his feet. But then I am not a man, being of the Free People." + +"Umm!" said Bagheera deep in his furry throat. "Does the Tiger know +his Night?" + +"Never till the Jackal of the Moon stands clear of the evening mist. +Sometimes it falls in the dry summer and sometimes in the wet +rains--this one Night of the Tiger. But for the First of the Tigers, +this would never have been, nor would any of us have known fear." + +The deer grunted sorrowfully, and Bagheera's lips curled in a wicked +smile. "Do men know this--tale?" said he. + +"None know it except the tigers, and we, the elephants--the children +of Tha. Now ye by the pools have heard it, and I have spoken." + +Hathi dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not wish +to talk. + +"But--but--but," said Mowgli, turning to Baloo, "why did not the First +of the Tigers continue to eat grass and leaves and trees? He did but +break the buck's neck. He did not _eat_. What led him to the hot +meat?" + +"The trees and the creepers marked him, Little Brother, and made him +the striped thing that we see. Never again would he eat their fruit; +but from that day he revenged himself upon the deer, and the others, +the Eaters of Grass," said Baloo. + +"Then _thou_ knowest the tale. Heh? Why have I never heard?" + +"Because the Jungle is full of such tales. If I made a beginning there +would never be an end to them. Let go my ear, Little Brother." + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE + + +Just to give you an idea of the immense variety of the Jungle Law, I +have translated into verse (Baloo always recited them in a sort of +sing-song) a few of the laws that apply to the wolves. There are, of +course, hundreds and hundreds more, but these will do for specimens of +the simpler rulings. + + _Now this is the Law of the Jungle--as old and as true as the + sky; + And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that + shall break it must die. + As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward + and back-- + For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the + Wolf is the Pack._ + + Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too + deep; + And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is + for sleep. + + The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are + grown, + Remember the Wolf is a hunter--go forth and get food of thine + own. + + Keep peace with the Lords of the Jungle--the Tiger, the Panther, + the Bear; + And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar in his + lair. + + When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from + the trail, + Lie down till the leaders have spoken--it may be fair words shall + prevail. + + When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must fight him alone and + afar, + Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be diminished + by war. + + The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his + home, + Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council may come. + + The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has digged it + too plain, + The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall change it + again. + + If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods with + your bay, + Lest ye frighten the deer from the crops, and the brothers go empty + away. + + Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they + need, and ye can; + But kill not for pleasure of killing, and _seven times never kill + Man_. + + If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride; + Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the head and + the hide. + + The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must eat where it + lies; + And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or he dies. + + The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do what he + will, + But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat of that + Kill. + + Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack he + may claim + Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse him the + same. + + Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year she + may claim + One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny her the + same. + + Cave-Right is the right of the Father--to hunt by himself for his + own: + He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the Council + alone. + + Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe and his + paw, + In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of the Head Wolf is + Law. + + _Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are + they; + But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump + is--Obey!_ + + + + + THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT + + + + + The night we felt the earth would move + We stole and plucked him by the hand, + Because we loved him with the love + That knows but cannot understand. + + And when the roaring hillside broke, + And all our world fell down in rain, + We saved him, we the Little Folk; + But lo! he does not come again! + + Mourn now, we saved him for the sake + Of such poor love as wild ones may. + Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake, + And his own kind drive us away! + + _Dirge of the Langurs._ + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT + + +There was once a man in India who was Prime Minister of one of the +semi-independent native States in the northwestern part of the +country. He was a Brahmin, so high-caste that caste ceased to have any +particular meaning for him; and his father had been an important +official in the gay-colored tag-rag and bobtail of an old-fashioned +Hindu Court. But as Purun Dass grew up he felt that the old order of +things was changing, and that if any one wished to get on in the world +he must stand well with the English, and imitate all that the English +believed to be good. At the same time a native official must keep his +own master's favor. This was a difficult game, but the quiet, +close-mouthed young Brahmin, helped by a good English education at a +Bombay University, played it coolly, and rose, step by step, to be +Prime Minister of the kingdom. That is to say, he held more real power +than his master, the Maharajah. + +When the old king--who was suspicious of the English, their railways +and telegraphs--died, Purun Dass stood high with his young successor, +who had been tutored by an Englishman; and between them, though he +always took care that his master should have the credit, they +established schools for little girls, made roads, and started State +dispensaries and shows of agricultural implements, and published a +yearly blue-book on the "Moral and Material Progress of the State," +and the Foreign Office and the Government of India were delighted. +Very few native States take up English progress altogether, for they +will not believe, as Purun Dass showed he did, that what was good for +the Englishman must be twice as good for the Asiatic. The Prime +Minister became the honored friend of Viceroys and Governors, and +Lieutenant-Governors, and medical missionaries, and common +missionaries, and hard-riding English officers who came to shoot in +the State preserves, as well as of whole hosts of tourists who +traveled up and down India in the cold weather, showing how things +ought to be managed. In his spare time he would endow scholarships for +the study of medicine and manufactures on strictly English lines, and +write letters to the "Pioneer," the greatest Indian daily paper, +explaining his master's aims and objects. + +At last he went to England on a visit, and had to pay enormous sums to +the priests when he came back; for even so high-caste a Brahmin as +Purun Dass lost caste by crossing the black sea. In London he met and +talked with every one worth knowing--men whose names go all over the +world--and saw a great deal more than he said. He was given honorary +degrees by learned universities, and he made speeches and talked of +Hindu social reform to English ladies in evening dress, till all +London cried, "This is the most fascinating man we have ever met at +dinner since cloths were first laid." + +When he returned to India there was a blaze of glory, for the Viceroy +himself made a special visit to confer upon the Maharajah the Grand +Cross of the Star of India--all diamonds and ribbons and enamel; and +at the same ceremony, while the cannon boomed, Purun Dass was made a +Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire; so that his name +stood Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E. + +That evening, at dinner in the big Viceregal tent, he stood up with +the badge and the collar of the Order on his breast, and replying to +the toast of his master's health, made a speech few Englishmen could +have bettered. + +Next month, when the city had returned to its sunbaked quiet, he did a +thing no Englishman would have dreamed of doing; for, so far as the +world's affairs went, he died. The jeweled order of his knighthood +went back to the Indian Government, and a new Prime Minister was +appointed to the charge of affairs, and a great game of General Post +began in all the subordinate appointments. The priests knew what had +happened and the people guessed; but India is the one place in the +world where a man can do as he pleases and nobody asks why; and the +fact that Dewan Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., had resigned position, +palace, and power, and taken up the begging-bowl and ocher-colored +dress of a Sunnyasi or holy man, was considered nothing +extraordinary. He had been, as the Old Law recommends, twenty years a +youth, twenty years a fighter,--though he had never carried a weapon +in his life,--and twenty years head of a household. He had used his +wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth; he had taken +honor when it came his way; he had seen men and cities far and near, +and men and cities had stood up and honored him. Now he would let +these things go, as a man drops the cloak he no longer needs. + +Behind him, as he walked through the city gates, an antelope skin and +brass-handled crutch under his arm, and a begging-bowl of polished +brown _coco-de-mer_ in his hand, barefoot, alone, with eyes cast on +the ground--behind him they were firing salutes from the bastions in +honor of his happy successor. Purun Dass nodded. All that life was +ended; and he bore it no more ill-will or good-will than a man bears +to a colorless dream of the night. He was a Sunnyasi--a houseless +wandering mendicant, depending on his neighbors for his daily bread; +and so long as there is a morsel to divide in India neither priest nor +beggar starves. He had never in his life tasted meat, and very seldom +eaten even fish. A five-pound note would have covered his personal +expenses for food through any one of the many years in which he had +been absolute master of millions of money. Even when he was being +lionized in London he had held before him his dream of peace and +quiet--the long, white, dusty Indian road, printed all over with bare +feet, the incessant, slow-moving traffic, and the sharp-smelling wood +smoke curling up under the fig-trees in the twilight, where the +wayfarers sit at their evening meal. + +When the time came to make that dream true the Prime Minister took the +proper steps, and in three days you might more easily have found a +bubble in the trough of the long Atlantic seas than Purun Dass among +the roving, gathering, separating millions of India. + +At night his antelope skin was spread where the darkness overtook +him--sometimes in a Sunnyasi monastery by the roadside; sometimes by a +mud pillar shrine of Kala Pir, where the Jogis, who are another misty +division of holy men, would receive him as they do those who know what +castes and divisions are worth; sometimes on the outskirts of a little +Hindu village, where the children would steal up with the food their +parents had prepared; and sometimes on the pitch of the bare +grazing-grounds, where the flame of his stick fire waked the drowsy +camels. It was all one to Purun Dass--or Purun Bhagat, as he called +himself now. Earth, people, and food were all one. But unconsciously +his feet drew him away northward and eastward; from the south to +Rohtak; from Rohtak to Kurnool; from Kurnool to ruined Samanah, and +then up-stream along the dried bed of the Gugger river that fills only +when the rain falls in the hills, till one day he saw the far line of +the great Himalayas. + +Then Purun Bhagat smiled, for he remembered that his mother was of +Rajput Brahmin birth, from Kulu way--a Hill-woman, always homesick for +the snows--and that the least touch of Hill blood draws a man at the +end back to where he belongs. + +"Yonder," said Purun Bhagat, breasting the lower slopes of the Sewaliks, +where the cacti stand up like seven-branched candlesticks--"yonder +I shall sit down and get knowledge"; and the cool wind of the +Himalayas whistled about his ears as he trod the road that led to +Simla. + +The last time he had come that way it had been in state, with a +clattering cavalry escort, to visit the gentlest and most affable of +Viceroys; and the two had talked for an hour together about mutual +friends in London, and what the Indian common folk really thought of +things. This time Purun Bhagat paid no calls, but leaned on the rail +of the Mall, watching that glorious view of the Plains spread out +forty miles below, till a native Mohammedan policeman told him he was +obstructing traffic; and Purun Bhagat salaamed reverently to the Law, +because he knew the value of it, and was seeking for a Law of his own. +Then he moved on, and slept that night in an empty hut at Chota Simla, +which looks like the very last end of the earth, but it was only the +beginning of his journey. + +[Illustration] + +He followed the Himalaya-Thibet road, the little ten-foot track that +is blasted out of solid rock, or strutted out on timbers over gulfs a +thousand feet deep; that dips into warm, wet, shut-in valleys, and +climbs out across bare, grassy hill-shoulders where the sun strikes +like a burning-glass; or turns through dripping, dark forests where +the tree-ferns dress the trunks from head to heel, and the pheasant +calls to his mate. And he met Thibetan herdsmen with their dogs and +flocks of sheep, each sheep with a little bag of borax on his back, +and wandering wood-cutters, and cloaked and blanketed Lamas from +Thibet, coming into India on pilgrimage, and envoys of little solitary +Hill-states, posting furiously on ring-streaked and piebald ponies, or +the cavalcade of a Rajah paying a visit; or else for a long, clear day +he would see nothing more than a black bear grunting and rooting below +in the valley. When he first started, the roar of the world he had +left still rang in his ears, as the roar of a tunnel rings long after +the train has passed through; but when he had put the Mutteeanee Pass +behind him that was all done, and Purun Bhagat was alone with himself, +walking, wondering, and thinking, his eyes on the ground, and his +thoughts with the clouds. + +One evening he crossed the highest pass he had met till then--it had +been a two days' climb--and came out on a line of snow-peaks that +banded all the horizon--mountains from fifteen to twenty thousand feet +high, looking almost near enough to hit with a stone, though they were +fifty or sixty miles away. The pass was crowned with dense, dark +forest--deodar, walnut, wild cherry, wild olive, and wild pear, but +mostly deodar, which is the Himalayan cedar; and under the shadow of +the deodars stood a deserted shrine to Kali--who is Durga, who is +Sitala, who is sometimes worshiped against the smallpox. + +Purun Dass swept the stone floor clean, smiled at the grinning statue, +made himself a little mud fireplace at the back of the shrine, spread +his antelope skin on a bed of fresh pine-needles, tucked his +_bairagi_--his brass-handled crutch--under his armpit, and sat down to +rest. + +Immediately below him the hillside fell away, clean and cleared for +fifteen hundred feet, where a little village of stone-walled houses, +with roofs of beaten earth, clung to the steep tilt. All round it the +tiny terraced fields lay out like aprons of patchwork on the knees of +the mountain, and cows no bigger than beetles grazed between the +smooth stone circles of the threshing-floors. Looking across the +valley, the eye was deceived by the size of things, and could not at +first realize that what seemed to be low scrub, on the opposite +mountain-flank, was in truth a forest of hundred-foot pines. Purun +Bhagat saw an eagle swoop across the gigantic hollow, but the great +bird dwindled to a dot ere it was half-way over. A few bands of +scattered clouds strung up and down the valley, catching on a shoulder +of the hills, or rising up and dying out when they were level with the +head of the pass. And "Here shall I find peace," said Purun Bhagat. + +Now, a Hill-man makes nothing of a few hundred feet up or down, and as +soon as the villagers saw the smoke in the deserted shrine, the +village priest climbed up the terraced hillside to welcome the +stranger. + +When he met Purun Bhagat's eyes--the eyes of a man used to control +thousands--he bowed to the earth, took the begging-bowl without a +word, and returned to the village, saying, "We have at last a holy +man. Never have I seen such a man. He is of the Plains--but +pale-colored--a Brahmin of the Brahmins." Then all the housewives of +the village said, "Think you he will stay with us?" and each did her +best to cook the most savory meal for the Bhagat. Hill-food is very +simple, but with buckwheat and Indian corn, and rice and red pepper, +and little fish out of the stream in the valley, and honey from the +flue-like hives built in the stone walls, and dried apricots, and +turmeric, and wild ginger, and bannocks of flour, a devout woman can +make good things, and it was a full bowl that the priest carried to +the Bhagat. Was he going to stay? asked the priest. Would he need a +_chela_--a disciple--to beg for him? Had he a blanket against the cold +weather? Was the food good? + +Purun Bhagat ate, and thanked the giver. It was in his mind to stay. +That was sufficient, said the priest. Let the begging-bowl be placed +outside the shrine, in the hollow made by those two twisted roots, and +daily should the Bhagat be fed; for the village felt honored that such +a man--he looked timidly into the Bhagat's face--should tarry among +them. + +That day saw the end of Purun Bhagat's wanderings. He had come to the +place appointed for him--the silence and the space. After this, time +stopped, and he, sitting at the mouth of the shrine, could not tell +whether he were alive or dead; a man with control of his limbs, or a +part of the hills, and the clouds, and the shifting rain and sunlight. +He would repeat a Name softly to himself a hundred hundred times, +till, at each repetition, he seemed to move more and more out of his +body, sweeping up to the doors of some tremendous discovery; but, +just as the door was opening, his body would drag him back, and, with +grief, he felt he was locked up again in the flesh and bones of Purun +Bhagat. + +Every morning the filled begging-bowl was laid silently in the crutch +of the roots outside the shrine. Sometimes the priest brought it; +sometimes a Ladakhi trader, lodging in the village, and anxious to get +merit, trudged up the path; but, more often, it was the woman who had +cooked the meal overnight; and she would murmur, hardly above her +breath: "Speak for me before the gods, Bhagat. Speak for such a one, +the wife of so-and-so!" Now and then some bold child would be allowed +the honor, and Purun Bhagat would hear him drop the bowl and run as +fast as his little legs could carry him, but the Bhagat never came +down to the village. It was laid out like a map at his feet. He could +see the evening gatherings, held on the circle of the threshing-floors +because that was the only level ground; could see the wonderful +unnamed green of the young rice, the indigo blues of the Indian corn, +the dock-like patches of buckwheat, and, in its season, the red bloom +of the amaranth, whose tiny seeds, being neither grain nor pulse, make +a food that can be lawfully eaten by Hindus in time of fasts. + +When the year turned, the roofs of the huts were all little squares of +purest gold, for it was on the roofs that they laid out their cobs of +the corn to dry. Hiving and harvest, rice-sowing and husking, passed +before his eyes, all embroidered down there on the many-sided plots of +fields, and he thought of them all, and wondered what they all led to +at the long last. + +[Illustration] + +Even in populated India a man cannot a day sit still before the wild +things run over him as though he were a rock; and in that wilderness +very soon the wild things, who knew Kali's Shrine well, came back to +look at the intruder. The _langurs_, the big gray-whiskered monkeys of +the Himalayas, were, naturally, the first, for they are alive with +curiosity; and when they had upset the begging-bowl, and rolled it +round the floor, and tried their teeth on the brass-handled crutch, +and made faces at the antelope skin, they decided that the human being +who sat so still was harmless. At evening, they would leap down from +the pines, and beg with their hands for things to eat, and then swing +off in graceful curves. They liked the warmth of the fire, too, and +huddled round it till Purun Bhagat had to push them aside to throw on +more fuel; and in the morning, as often as not, he would find a furry +ape sharing his blanket. All day long, one or other of the tribe would +sit by his side, staring out at the snows, crooning and looking +unspeakably wise and sorrowful. + +After the monkeys came the _barasingh_, that big deer which is like +our red deer, but stronger. He wished to rub off the velvet of his +horns against the cold stones of Kali's statue, and stamped his feet +when he saw the man at the shrine. But Purun Bhagat never moved, and, +little by little, the royal stag edged up and nuzzled his shoulder. +Purun Bhagat slid one cool hand along the hot antlers, and the touch +soothed the fretted beast, who bowed his head, and Purun Bhagat very +softly rubbed and raveled off the velvet. Afterward, the _barasingh_ +brought his doe and fawn--gentle things that mumbled on the holy man's +blanket--or would come alone at night, his eyes green in the +fire-flicker, to take his share of fresh walnuts. At last, the +musk-deer, the shyest and almost the smallest of the deerlets, came, +too, her big rabbity ears erect; even brindled, silent _mushick-nabha_ +must needs find out what the light in the shrine meant, and drop her +moose-like nose into Purun Bhagat's lap, coming and going with the +shadows of the fire. Purun Bhagat called them all "my brothers," and +his low call of "_Bhai! Bhai!_" would draw them from the forest at +noon if they were within earshot. The Himalayan black bear, moody and +suspicious--Sona, who has the V-shaped white mark under his +chin--passed that way more than once; and since the Bhagat showed no +fear, Sona showed no anger, but watched him, and came closer, and +begged a share of the caresses, and a dole of bread or wild berries. +Often, in the still dawns, when the Bhagat would climb to the very +crest of the pass to watch the red day walking along the peaks of the +snows, he would find Sona shuffling and grunting at his heels, +thrusting a curious fore-paw under fallen trunks, and bringing it away +with a _whoof_ of impatience; or his early steps would wake Sona where +he lay curled up, and the great brute, rising erect, would think to +fight, till he heard the Bhagat's voice and knew his best friend. + +Nearly all hermits and holy men who live apart from the big cities +have the reputation of being able to work miracles with the wild +things, but all the miracle lies in keeping still, in never making a +hasty movement, and, for a long time, at least, in never looking +directly at a visitor. The villagers saw the outline of the +_barasingh_ stalking like a shadow through the dark forest behind the +shrine; saw the _minaul_, the Himalayan pheasant, blazing in her best +colors before Kali's statue; and the _langurs_ on their haunches, +inside, playing with the walnut shells. Some of the children, too, had +heard Sona singing to himself, bear-fashion, behind the fallen rocks, +and the Bhagat's reputation as miracle-worker stood firm. + +Yet nothing was further from his mind than miracles. He believed that +all things were one big Miracle, and when a man knows that much he +knows something to go upon. He knew for a certainty that there was +nothing great and nothing little in this world; and day and night he +strove to think out his way into the heart of things, back to the +place whence his soul had come. + +So thinking, his untrimmed hair fell down about his shoulders, the +stone slab at the side of the antelope skin was dented into a little +hole by the foot of his brass-handled crutch, and the place between +the tree-trunks, where the begging-bowl rested day after day, sunk and +wore into a hollow almost as smooth as the brown shell itself; and +each beast knew his exact place at the fire. The fields changed their +colors with the seasons; the threshing-floors filled and emptied, and +filled again and again; and again and again, when winter came, the +_langurs_ frisked among the branches feathered with light snow, till +the mother-monkeys brought their sad-eyed little babies up from the +warmer valleys with the spring. There were few changes in the village. +The priest was older, and many of the little children who used to come +with the begging-dish sent their own children now; and when you asked +of the villagers how long their holy man had lived in Kali's Shrine at +the head of the pass, they answered, "Always." + +Then came such summer rains as had not been known in the Hills for +many seasons. Through three good months the valley was wrapped in +cloud and soaking mist--steady, unrelenting downfall, breaking off +into thunder-shower after thunder-shower. Kali's Shrine stood above +the clouds, for the most part, and there was a whole month in which +the Bhagat never saw his village. It was packed away under a white +floor of cloud that swayed and shifted and rolled on itself and bulged +upward, but never broke from its piers--the streaming flanks of the +valley. + +All that time he heard nothing but the sound of a million little +waters, overhead from the trees, and underfoot along the ground, +soaking through the pine-needles, dripping from the tongues of +draggled fern, and spouting in newly torn muddy channels down the +slopes. Then the sun came out, and drew forth the good incense of the +deodars and the rhododendrons, and that far-off, clean smell which the +Hill people call "the smell of the snows." The hot sunshine lasted for +a week, and then the rains gathered together for their last downpour, +and the water fell in sheets that flayed off the skin of the ground +and leaped back in mud. Purun Bhagat heaped his fire high that night, +for he was sure his brothers would need warmth; but never a beast came +to the shrine, though he called and called till he dropped asleep, +wondering what had happened in the woods. + +It was in the black heart of the night, the rain drumming like a +thousand drums, that he was roused by a plucking at his blanket, and, +stretching out, felt the little hand of a _langur_. "It is better here +than in the trees," he said sleepily, loosening a fold of blanket; +"take it and be warm." The monkey caught his hand and pulled hard. "Is +it food, then?" said Purun Bhagat. "Wait awhile, and I will prepare +some." As he kneeled to throw fuel on the fire the _langur_ ran to the +door of the shrine, crooned, and ran back again, plucking at the man's +knee. + +"What is it? What is thy trouble, Brother?" said Purun Bhagat, for the +_langur's_ eyes were full of things that he could not tell. "Unless +one of thy caste be in a trap--and none set traps here--I will not go +into that weather. Look, Brother, even the _barasingh_ comes for +shelter!" + +The deer's antlers clashed as he strode into the shrine, clashed +against the grinning statue of Kali. He lowered them in Purun Bhagat's +direction and stamped uneasily, hissing through his half-shut +nostrils. + +"Hai! Hai! Hai!" said the Bhagat, snapping his fingers. "Is _this_ +payment for a night's lodging?" But the deer pushed him toward the +door, and as he did so Purun Bhagat heard the sound of something +opening with a sigh, and saw two slabs of the floor draw away from +each other, while the sticky earth below smacked its lips. + +"Now I see," said Purun Bhagat. "No blame to my brothers that they did +not sit by the fire to-night. The mountain is falling. And yet--why +should I go?" His eye fell on the empty begging-bowl, and his face +changed. "They have given me good food daily since--since I came, and, +if I am not swift, to-morrow there will not be one mouth in the +valley. Indeed, I must go and warn them below. Back there, Brother! +Let me get to the fire." + +The _barasingh_ backed unwillingly as Purun Bhagat drove a pine torch +deep into the flame, twirling it till it was well lit. "Ah! ye came to +warn me," he said, rising. "Better than that we shall do; better than +that. Out, now, and lend me thy neck, Brother, for I have but two +feet." + +He clutched the bristling withers of the _barasingh_ with his right +hand, held the torch away with his left, and stepped out of the shrine +into the desperate night. There was no breath of wind, but the rain +nearly drowned the flare as the great deer hurried down the slope, +sliding on his haunches. As soon as they were clear of the forest +more of the Bhagat's brothers joined them. He heard, though he could +not see, the _langurs_ pressing about him, and behind them the _uhh! +uhh!_ of Sona. The rain matted his long white hair into ropes; the +water splashed beneath his bare feet, and his yellow robe clung to his +frail old body, but he stepped down steadily, leaning against the +_barasingh_. He was no longer a holy man, but Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., +Prime Minister of no small State, a man accustomed to command, +going out to save life. Down the steep, plashy path they poured all +together, the Bhagat and his brothers, down and down till the deer's +feet clicked and stumbled on the wall of a threshing-floor, and he +snorted because he smelt Man. Now they were at the head of the one +crooked village street, and the Bhagat beat with his crutch on the +barred windows of the blacksmith's house as his torch blazed up in the +shelter of the eaves. "Up and out!" cried Purun Bhagat; and he did not +know his own voice, for it was years since he had spoken aloud to a +man. "The hill falls! The hill is falling! Up and out, oh, you +within!" + +"It is our Bhagat," said the blacksmith's wife. "He stands among his +beasts. Gather the little ones and give the call." + +It ran from house to house, while the beasts, cramped in the narrow +way, surged and huddled round the Bhagat, and Sona puffed impatiently. + +The people hurried into the street--they were no more than seventy +souls all told--and in the glare of the torches they saw their Bhagat +holding back the terrified _barasingh_, while the monkeys plucked +piteously at his skirts, and Sona sat on his haunches and roared. + +"Across the valley and up the next hill!" shouted Purun Bhagat. "Leave +none behind! We follow!" + +Then the people ran as only Hill folk can run, for they knew that in a +landslip you must climb for the highest ground across the valley. They +fled, splashing through the little river at the bottom, and panted up +the terraced fields on the far side, while the Bhagat and his brethren +followed. Up and up the opposite mountain they climbed, calling to +each other by name--the roll-call of the village--and at their heels +toiled the big _barasingh_, weighted by the failing strength of Purun +Bhagat. At last the deer stopped in the shadow of a deep pine-wood, +five hundred feet up the hillside. His instinct, that had warned him +of the coming slide, told him he would be safe here. + +Purun Bhagat dropped fainting by his side, for the chill of the rain +and that fierce climb were killing him; but first he called to the +scattered torches ahead, "Stay and count your numbers"; then, +whispering to the deer as he saw the lights gather in a cluster: "Stay +with me, Brother. Stay--till--I--go!" + +There was a sigh in the air that grew to a mutter, and a mutter that +grew to a roar, and a roar that passed all sense of hearing, and the +hillside on which the villagers stood was hit in the darkness, and +rocked to the blow. Then a note as steady, deep, and true as the deep +C of the organ drowned everything for perhaps five minutes, while the +very roots of the pines quivered to it. It died away, and the sound of +the rain falling on miles of hard ground and grass changed to the +muffled drum of water on soft earth. That told its own tale. + +Never a villager--not even the priest--was bold enough to speak to the +Bhagat who had saved their lives. They crouched under the pines and +waited till the day. When it came they looked across the valley and +saw that what had been forest, and terraced field, and track-threaded +grazing-ground was one raw, red, fan-shaped smear, with a few trees +flung head-down on the scarp. That red ran high up the hill of their +refuge, damming back the little river, which had begun to spread into +a brick-colored lake. Of the village, of the road to the shrine, of +the shrine itself, and the forest behind, there was not trace. For one +mile in width and two thousand feet in sheer depth the mountain-side +had come away bodily, planed clean from head to heel. + +And the villagers, one by one, crept through the wood to pray before +their Bhagat. They saw the _barasingh_ standing over him, who fled +when they came near, and they heard the _langurs_ wailing in the +branches, and Sona moaning up the hill; but their Bhagat was dead, +sitting cross-legged, his back against a tree, his crutch under his +armpit, and his face turned to the northeast. + +The priest said: "Behold a miracle after a miracle, for in this very +attitude must all Sunnyasis be buried! Therefore where he now is we +will build the temple to our holy man." + +They built the temple before a year was ended--a little +stone-and-earth shrine--and they called the hill the Bhagat's Hill, +and they worship there with lights and flowers and offerings to this +day. But they do not know that the saint of their worship is the late +Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., D.C.L., Ph.D., etc., once Prime +Minister of the progressive and enlightened State of Mohiniwala, and +honorary or corresponding member of more learned and scientific +societies than will ever do any good in this world or the next. + +[Illustration] + + + + +A SONG OF KABIR + + + Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands! + Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands! + He has gone from the _guddee_ and put on the shroud, + And departed in guise of _bairagi_ avowed! + + Now the white road to Delhi is mat for his feet, + The _sal_ and the _kikar_ must guard him from heat; + His home is the camp, and the waste, and the crowd-- + He is seeking the Way as _bairagi_ avowed! + + He has looked upon Man, and his eyeballs are clear + (There was One; there is One, and but One, saith Kabir); + The Red Mist of Doing has thinned to a cloud-- + He has taken the Path for _bairagi_ avowed! + + To learn and discern of his brother the clod, + Of his brother the brute, and his brother the God. + He has gone from the council and put on the shroud + ("Can ye hear?" saith Kabir), a _bairagi_ avowed! + + + + + LETTING IN THE JUNGLE + + + + + Veil them, cover them, wall them round-- + Blossom, and creeper, and weed-- + Let us forget the sight and the sound, + The smell and the touch of the breed! + + Fat black ash by the altar-stone, + Here is the white-foot rain, + And the does bring forth in the fields unsown, + And none shall affright them again; + And the blind walls crumble, unknown, o'erthrown + And none shall inhabit again! + + + + +[Illustration] + +LETTING IN THE JUNGLE + + +You will remember, if you have read the tales in the first Jungle +Book, that, after Mowgli had pinned Shere Khan's hide to the Council +Rock, he told as many as were left of the Seeonee Pack that +henceforward he would hunt in the Jungle alone; and the four children +of Mother and Father Wolf said that they would hunt with him. But it +is not easy to change one's life all in a minute--particularly in the +Jungle. The first thing Mowgli did, when the disorderly Pack had slunk +off, was to go to the home-cave, and sleep for a day and a night. +Then he told Mother Wolf and Father Wolf as much as they could +understand of his adventures among men; and when he made the morning +sun flicker up and down the blade of his skinning-knife,--the same he +had skinned Shere Khan with,--they said he had learned something. Then +Akela and Gray Brother had to explain their share of the great +buffalo-drive in the ravine, and Baloo toiled up the hill to hear all +about it, and Bagheera scratched himself all over with pure delight at +the way in which Mowgli had managed his war. + +It was long after sunrise, but no one dreamed of going to sleep, and +from time to time, during the talk, Mother Wolf would throw up her +head, and sniff a deep snuff of satisfaction as the wind brought her +the smell of the tiger-skin on the Council Rock. + +"But for Akela and Gray Brother here," Mowgli said, at the end, "I +could have done nothing. Oh, mother, mother! if thou hadst seen the +black herd-bulls pour down the ravine, or hurry through the gates when +the Man-Pack flung stones at me!" + +"I am glad I did not see that last," said Mother Wolf, stiffly. "It is +not _my_ custom to suffer my cubs to be driven to and fro like +jackals. _I_ would have taken a price from the Man-Pack; but I would +have spared the woman who gave thee the milk. Yes, I would have spared +her alone." + +"Peace, peace, Raksha!" said Father Wolf, lazily. "Our Frog has come +back again--so wise that his own father must lick his feet; and what +is a cut, more or less, on the head? Leave Men alone." Baloo and +Bagheera both echoed: "Leave Men alone." + +Mowgli, his head on Mother Wolf's side, smiled contentedly, and said +that, for his own part, he never wished to see, or hear, or smell Man +again. + +"But what," said Akela, cocking one ear--"but what if men do not leave +thee alone, Little Brother?" + +"We be _five_," said Gray Brother, looking round at the company, and +snapping his jaws on the last word. + +"We also might attend to that hunting," said Bagheera, with a little +_switch-switch_ of his tail, looking at Baloo. "But why think of men +now, Akela?" + +"For this reason," the Lone Wolf answered: "when that yellow thief's +hide was hung up on the rock, I went back along our trail to the +village, stepping in my tracks, turning aside, and lying down, to +make a mixed trail in case one should follow us. But when I had fouled +the trail so that I myself hardly knew it again, Mang, the Bat, came +hawking between the trees, and hung up above me. Said Mang, 'The +village of the Man-Pack, where they cast out the Man-cub, hums like a +hornet's nest.'" + +"It was a big stone that I threw," chuckled Mowgli, who had often +amused himself by throwing ripe paw-paws into a hornet's nest, and +racing off to the nearest pool before the hornets caught him. + +"I asked of Mang what he had seen. He said the Red Flower blossomed at +the gate of the village, and men sat about it carrying guns. Now _I_ +know, for I have good cause,"--Akela looked down at the old dry scars +on his flank and side,--"that men do not carry guns for pleasure. +Presently, Little Brother, a man with a gun follows our trail--if, +indeed, he be not already on it." + +"But why should he? Men have cast me out. What more do they need?" +said Mowgli, angrily. + +"Thou art a man, Little Brother," Akela returned. "It is not for _us_, +the Free Hunters, to tell thee what thy brethren do, or why." + +He had just time to snatch up his paw as the skinning-knife cut deep +into the ground below. Mowgli struck quicker than an average human +eye could follow, but Akela was a wolf; and even a dog, who is very +far removed from the wild wolf, his ancestor, can be waked out of deep +sleep by a cart-wheel touching his flank, and can spring away unharmed +before that wheel comes on. + +"Another time," Mowgli said quietly, returning the knife to its +sheath, "speak of the Man-Pack and of Mowgli in _two_ breaths--not +one." + +"Phff! That is a sharp tooth," said Akela, snuffing at the blade's cut +in the earth, "but living with the Man-Pack has spoiled thine eye, +Little Brother. I could have killed a buck while thou wast striking." + +Bagheera sprang to his feet, thrust up his head as far as he could, +sniffed, and stiffened through every curve in his body. Gray Brother +followed his example quickly, keeping a little to his left to get the +wind that was blowing from the right, while Akela bounded fifty yards +up wind, and, half crouching, stiffened too. Mowgli looked on +enviously. He could smell things as very few human beings could, but +he had never reached the hair-trigger-like sensitiveness of a Jungle +nose; and his three months in the smoky village had set him back +sadly. However, he dampened his finger, rubbed it on his nose, and +stood erect to catch the upper scent, which, though it is the +faintest, is the truest. + +"Man!" Akela growled, dropping on his haunches. + +"Buldeo!" said Mowgli, sitting down. "He follows our trail, and yonder +is the sunlight on his gun. Look!" + +It was no more than a splash of sunlight, for a fraction of a second, +on the brass clamps of the old Tower musket, but nothing in the Jungle +winks with just that flash, except when the clouds race over the sky. +Then a piece of mica, or a little pool, or even a highly polished leaf +will flash like a heliograph. But that day was cloudless and still. + +"I knew men would follow," said Akela, triumphantly. "Not for nothing +have I led the Pack." + +The four cubs said nothing, but ran down hill on their bellies, +melting into the thorn and underbrush as a mole melts into a lawn. + +"Where go ye, and without word?" Mowgli called. + +"H'sh! We roll his skull here before midday!" Gray Brother answered. + +"Back! Back and wait! Man does not eat Man!" Mowgli shrieked. + +"Who was a wolf but now? Who drove the knife at me for thinking he +might be Man?" said Akela, as the four wolves turned back sullenly and +dropped to heel. + +"Am I to give a reason for all I choose to do?" said Mowgli, +furiously. + +"That is Man! There speaks Man!" Bagheera muttered under his whiskers. +"Even so did men talk round the King's cages at Oodeypore. We of the +Jungle know that Man is wisest of all. If we trusted our ears we +should know that of all things he is most foolish." Raising his voice, +he added, "The Man-cub is right in this. Men hunt in packs. To kill +one, unless we know what the others will do, is bad hunting. Come, let +us see what this Man means toward us." + +"We will not come," Gray Brother growled. "Hunt alone, Little Brother. +_We_ know our own minds. That skull would have been ready to bring by +now." + +Mowgli had been looking from one to the other of his friends, his +chest heaving and his eyes full of tears. He strode forward to the +wolves, and, dropping on one knee, said: "Do I not know my mind? Look +at me!" + +They looked uneasily, and when their eyes wandered, he called them +back again and again, till their hair stood up all over their bodies, +and they trembled in every limb, while Mowgli stared and stared. + +"Now," said he, "of us five, which is leader?" + +"Thou art leader, Little Brother," said Gray Brother, and he licked +Mowgli's foot. + +"Follow, then," said Mowgli, and the four followed at his heels with +their tails between their legs. + +"This comes of living with the Man-Pack," said Bagheera, slipping down +after them. "There is more in the Jungle now than Jungle Law, Baloo." + +The old bear said nothing, but he thought many things. + +Mowgli cut across noiselessly through the Jungle, at right angles to +Buldeo's path, till, parting the undergrowth, he saw the old man, his +musket on his shoulder, running up the trail of overnight at a +dog-trot. + +You will remember that Mowgli had left the village with the heavy +weight of Shere Khan's raw hide on his shoulders, while Akela and Gray +Brother trotted behind, so that the triple trail was very clearly +marked. Presently Buldeo came to where Akela, as you know, had gone +back and mixed it all up. Then he sat down, and coughed and grunted, +and made little casts round and about into the Jungle to pick it up +again, and all the time he could have thrown a stone over those who +were watching him. No one can be so silent as a wolf when he does not +care to be heard; and Mowgli, though the wolves thought he moved very +clumsily, could come and go like a shadow. They ringed the old man as +a school of porpoises ring a steamer at full speed, and as they ringed +him they talked unconcernedly, for their speech began below the lowest +end of the scale that untrained human beings can hear. [The other end +is bounded by the high squeak of Mang, the Bat, which very many people +cannot catch at all. From that note all the bird and bat and insect +talk takes on.] + +"This is better than any kill," said Gray Brother, as Buldeo stooped +and peered and puffed. "He looks like a lost pig in the Jungles by the +river. What does he say?" Buldeo was muttering savagely. + +Mowgli translated. "He says that packs of wolves must have danced +round me. He says that he never saw such a trail in his life. He says +he is tired." + +"He will be rested before he picks it up again," said Bagheera coolly, +as he slipped round a tree-trunk, in the game of blindman's-buff that +they were playing. "_Now_, what does the lean thing do?" + +"Eat or blow smoke out of his mouth. Men always play with their +mouths," said Mowgli; and the silent trailers saw the old man fill and +light and puff at a water-pipe, and they took good note of the smell +of the tobacco, so as to be sure of Buldeo in the darkest night, if +necessary. + +Then a little knot of charcoal-burners came down the path, and +naturally halted to speak to Buldeo, whose fame as a hunter reached +for at least twenty miles round. They all sat down and smoked, and +Bagheera and the others came up and watched while Buldeo began to tell +the story of Mowgli, the Devil-child, from one end to another, with +additions and inventions. How he himself had really killed Shere Khan; +and how Mowgli had turned himself into a wolf, and fought with him all +the afternoon, and changed into a boy again and bewitched Buldeo's +rifle, so that the bullet turned the corner, when he pointed it at +Mowgli, and killed one of Buldeo's own buffaloes; and how the village, +knowing him to be the bravest hunter in Seeonee, had sent him out to +kill this Devil-child. But meantime the village had got hold of Messua +and her husband, who were undoubtedly the father and mother of this +Devil-child, and had barricaded them in their own hut, and presently +would torture them to make them confess they were witch and wizard, +and then they would be burned to death. + +"When?" said the charcoal-burners, because they would very much like +to be present at the ceremony. + +Buldeo said that nothing would be done till he returned, because the +village wished him to kill the Jungle Boy first. After that they would +dispose of Messua and her husband, and divide their lands and +buffaloes among the village. Messua's husband had some remarkably fine +buffaloes, too. It was an excellent thing to destroy wizards, Buldeo +thought; and people who entertained Wolf-children out of the Jungle +were clearly the worst kind of witches. + +But, said the charcoal-burners, what would happen if the English heard +of it? The English, they had heard, were a perfectly mad people, who +would not let honest farmers kill witches in peace. + +Why, said Buldeo, the head-man of the village would report that Messua +and her husband had died of snake-bite. _That_ was all arranged, and +the only thing now was to kill the Wolf-child. They did not happen to +have seen anything of such a creature? + +The charcoal-burners looked round cautiously, and thanked their stars +they had not; but they had no doubt that so brave a man as Buldeo +would find him if any one could. The sun was getting rather low, and +they had an idea that they would push on to Buldeo's village and see +that wicked witch. Buldeo said that, though it was his duty to kill +the Devil-child, he could not think of letting a party of unarmed men +go through the Jungle, which might produce the Wolf-demon at any +minute, without his escort. He, therefore, would accompany them, and +if the sorcerer's child appeared--well, he would show them how the +best hunter in Seeonee dealt with such things. The Brahmin, he said, +had given him a charm against the creature that made everything +perfectly safe. + +"What says he? What says he? What says he?" the wolves repeated every +few minutes; and Mowgli translated until he came to the witch part of +the story, which was a little beyond him, and then he said that the +man and woman who had been so kind to him were trapped. + +"Does Man trap Man?" said Bagheera. + +"So he says. I cannot understand the talk. They are all mad together. +What have Messua and her man to do with me that they should be put in +a trap; and what is all this talk about the Red Flower? I must look to +this. Whatever they would do to Messua they will not do till Buldeo +returns. And so--" Mowgli thought hard, with his fingers playing round +the haft of the skinning-knife, while Buldeo and the charcoal-burners +went off very valiantly in single file. + +"I am going hot-foot back to the Man-Pack," Mowgli said at last. + +"And those?" said Gray Brother, looking hungrily after the brown backs +of the charcoal-burners. + +"Sing them home," said Mowgli with a grin; "I do not wish them to be +at the village gates till it is dark. Can ye hold them?" + +Gray Brother bared his white teeth in contempt. "We can head them +round and round in circles like tethered goats--if I know Man." + +"That I do not need. Sing to them a little, lest they be lonely on the +road, and, Gray Brother, the song need not be of the sweetest. Go with +them, Bagheera, and help make that song. When the night is shut down, +meet me by the village--Gray Brother knows the place." + +"It is no light hunting to work for a Man-cub. When shall I sleep?" +said Bagheera, yawning, though his eyes showed that he was delighted +with the amusement. "Me to sing to naked men! But let us try." + +He lowered his head so that the sound would travel, and cried a long, +long, "Good hunting"--a midnight call in the afternoon, which was +quite awful enough to begin with. Mowgli heard it rumble, and rise, +and fall, and die off in a creepy sort of whine behind him, and +laughed to himself as he ran through the Jungle. He could see the +charcoal-burners huddled in a knot; old Buldeo's gun-barrel waving, +like a banana-leaf, to every point of the compass at once. Then Gray +Brother gave the _Ya-la-hi! Yalaha!_ call for the buck-driving, when +the Pack drives the nilghai, the big blue cow, before them, and it +seemed to come from the very ends of the earth, nearer, and nearer, +and nearer, till it ended in a shriek snapped off short. The other +three answered, till even Mowgli could have vowed that the full Pack +was in full cry, and then they all broke into the magnificent +Morning-song in the Jungle, with every turn, and flourish, and +grace-note, that a deep-mouthed wolf of the Pack knows. This is a +rough rendering of the song, but you must imagine what it sounds like +when it breaks the afternoon hush of the Jungle: + + One moment past our bodies cast + No shadow on the plain; + Now clear and black they stride our track, + And we run home again. + In morning hush, each rock and bush + Stands hard, and high, and raw: + Then give the Call: "_Good rest to all + That keep the Jungle Law!_" + + Now horn and pelt our peoples melt + In covert to abide; + Now, crouched and still, to cave and hill + Our Jungle Barons glide. + Now, stark and plain, Man's oxen strain, + That draw the new-yoked plow; + Now, stripped and dread, the dawn is red + Above the lit _talao_. + + Ho! Get to lair! The sun's aflare + Behind the breathing grass: + And creaking through the young bamboo + The warning whispers pass. + By day made strange, the woods we range + With blinking eyes we scan; + While down the skies the wild duck cries: + "_The Day--the Day to Man!_" + + The dew is dried that drenched our hide, + Or washed about our way; + And where we drank, the puddled bank + Is crisping into clay. + The traitor Dark gives up each mark + Of stretched or hooded claw; + Then hear the Call: "_Good rest to all + That keep the Jungle Law!_" + +But no translation can give the effect of it, or the yelping scorn the +Four threw into every word of it, as they heard the trees crash when +the men hastily climbed up into the branches, and Buldeo began +repeating incantations and charms. Then they lay down and slept, for, +like all who live by their own exertions, they were of a methodical +cast of mind; and no one can work well without sleep. + +Meantime, Mowgli was putting the miles behind him, nine to the hour, +swinging on, delighted to find himself so fit after all his cramped +months among men. The one idea in his head was to get Messua and her +husband out of the trap, whatever it was; for he had a natural +mistrust of traps. Later on, he promised himself, he would pay his +debts to the village at large. + +It was at twilight when he saw the well-remembered grazing-grounds, +and the _dhak_-tree where Gray Brother had waited for him on the +morning that he killed Shere Khan. Angry as he was at the whole breed +and community of Man, something jumped up in his throat and made him +catch his breath when he looked at the village roofs. He noticed that +every one had come in from the fields unusually early, and that, +instead of getting to their evening cooking, they gathered in a crowd +under the village tree, and chattered, and shouted. + +"Men must always be making traps for men, or they are not content," +said Mowgli. "Last night it was Mowgli--but that night seems many +Rains ago. To-night it is Messua and her man. To-morrow, and for very +many nights after, it will be Mowgli's turn again." + +He crept along outside the wall till he came to Messua's hut, and +looked through the window into the room. There lay Messua, gagged, and +bound hand and foot, breathing hard, and groaning: her husband was +tied to the gaily painted bedstead. The door of the hut that opened +into the street was shut fast, and three or four people were sitting +with their backs to it. + +Mowgli knew the manners and customs of the villagers very fairly. He +argued that so long as they could eat, and talk, and smoke, they would +not do anything else; but as soon as they had fed they would begin to +be dangerous. Buldeo would be coming in before long, and if his +escort had done its duty, Buldeo would have a very interesting tale +to tell. So he went in through the window, and, stooping over the man +and the woman, cut their thongs, pulling out the gags, and looked +round the hut for some milk. + +Messua was half wild with pain and fear (she had been beaten and +stoned all the morning), and Mowgli put his hand over her mouth just +in time to stop a scream. Her husband was only bewildered and angry, +and sat picking dust and things out of his torn beard. + +"I knew--I knew he would come," Messua sobbed at last. "Now do I +_know_ that he is my son!" and she hugged Mowgli to her heart. Up to +that time Mowgli had been perfectly steady, but now he began to +tremble all over, and that surprised him immensely. + +"Why are these thongs? Why have they tied thee?" he asked, after a +pause. + +"To be put to the death for making a son of thee--what else?" said the +man, sullenly. "Look! I bleed." + +Messua said nothing, but it was at _her_ wounds that Mowgli looked, +and they heard him grit his teeth when he saw the blood. + +"Whose work is this?" said he. "There is a price to pay." + +"The work of all the village. I was too rich. I had too many cattle. +_Therefore_ she and I are witches, because we gave thee shelter." + +"I do not understand. Let Messua tell the tale." + +"I gave thee milk, Nathoo; dost thou remember?" Messua said timidly. +"Because thou wast my son, whom the tiger took, and because I loved +thee very dearly. They said that I was thy mother, the mother of a +devil, and therefore worthy of death." + +"And what is a devil?" said Mowgli. "Death I have seen." + +The man looked up gloomily, but Messua laughed. "See!" she said to her +husband, "I knew--I said that he was no sorcerer. He is my son--my +son!" + +"Son or sorcerer, what good will that do us?" the man answered. "We be +as dead already." + +"Yonder is the road to the Jungle"--Mowgli pointed through the window. +"Your hands and feet are free. Go now." + +"We do not know the Jungle, my son, as--as thou knowest," Messua +began. "I do not think that I could walk far." + +"And the men and women would be upon our backs and drag us here +again," said the husband. + +"H'm!" said Mowgli, and he tickled the palm of his hand with the tip +of his skinning-knife; "I have no wish to do harm to any one of this +village--_yet_. But I do not think they will stay thee. In a little +while they will have much else to think upon. Ah!" he lifted his head +and listened to shouting and trampling outside. "So they have let +Buldeo come home at last?" + +"He was sent out this morning to kill thee," Messua cried. "Didst thou +meet him?" + +"Yes--we--I met him. He has a tale to tell; and while he is telling it +there is time to do much. But first I will learn what they mean. Think +where ye would go, and tell me when I come back." + +He bounded through the window and ran along again outside the wall of +the village till he came within ear-shot of the crowd round the +peepul-tree. Buldeo was lying on the ground, coughing and groaning, +and every one was asking him questions. His hair had fallen about his +shoulders; his hands and legs were skinned from climbing up trees, and +he could hardly speak, but he felt the importance of his position +keenly. From time to time he said something about devils and singing +devils, and magic enchantment, just to give the crowd a taste of what +was coming. Then he called for water. + +"Bah!" said Mowgli. "Chatter--chatter! Talk, talk! Men are +blood-brothers of the _Bandar-log_. Now he must wash his mouth with +water; now he must blow smoke; and when all that is done he has still +his story to tell. They are very wise people--men. They will leave no +one to guard Messua till their ears are stuffed with Buldeo's tales. +And--I grow as lazy as they!" + +He shook himself and glided back to the hut. Just as he was at the +window he felt a touch on his foot. + +"Mother," said he, for he knew that tongue well, "what dost _thou_ +here?" + +"I heard my children singing through the woods, and I followed the one +I loved best. Little Frog, I have a desire to see that woman who gave +thee milk," said Mother Wolf, all wet with the dew. + +"They have bound and mean to kill her. I have cut those ties, and she +goes with her man through the Jungle." + +"I also will follow. I am old, but not yet toothless." Mother Wolf +reared herself up on end, and looked through the window into the dark +of the hut. + +In a minute she dropped noiselessly, and all she said was: "I gave +thee thy first milk; but Bagheera speaks truth: Man goes to Man at the +last." + +"Maybe," said Mowgli, with a very unpleasant look on his face; "but +to-night I am very far from that trail. Wait here, but do not let her +see." + +"_Thou_ wast never afraid of _me_, Little Frog," said Mother Wolf, +backing into the high grass, and blotting herself out, as she knew +how. + +"And now," said Mowgli, cheerfully, as he swung into the hut again, +"they are all sitting round Buldeo, who is saying that which did not +happen. When his talk is finished, they say they will assuredly come +here with the Red--with fire and burn you both. And then?" + +"I have spoken to my man," said Messua. "Kanhiwara is thirty miles +from here, but at Kanhiwara we may find the English--" + +"And what Pack are they?" said Mowgli. + +"I do not know. They be white, and it is said that they govern all the +land, and do not suffer people to burn or beat each other without +witnesses. If we can get thither to-night, we live. Otherwise we die." + +"Live, then. No man passes the gates to-night. But what does _he_ do?" +Messua's husband was on his hands and knees digging up the earth in +one corner of the hut. + +"It is his little money," said Messua. "We can take nothing else." + +"Ah, yes. The stuff that passes from hand to hand and never grows +warmer. Do they need it outside this place also?" said Mowgli. + +The man stared angrily. "He is a fool, and no devil," he muttered. +"With the money I can buy a horse. We are too bruised to walk far, and +the village will follow us in an hour." + +"I say they will _not_ follow till I choose; but the horse is well +thought of, for Messua is tired." Her husband stood up and knotted the +last of the rupees into his waist-cloth. Mowgli helped Messua through +the window, and the cool night air revived her, but the Jungle in the +starlight looked very dark and terrible. + +"Ye know the trail to Kanhiwara?" Mowgli whispered. + +They nodded. + +"Good. Remember, now, not to be afraid. And there is no need to go +quickly. Only--only there may be some small singing in the Jungle +behind you and before." + +"Think you we would have risked a night in the Jungle through anything +less than the fear of burning? It is better to be killed by beasts +than by men," said Messua's husband; but Messua looked at Mowgli and +smiled. + +"I say," Mowgli went on, just as though he were Baloo repeating an old +Jungle Law for the hundredth time to a foolish cub--"I say that not a +tooth in the Jungle is bared against you; not a foot in the Jungle is +lifted against you. Neither man nor beast shall stay you till ye come +within eye-shot of Kanhiwara. There will be a watch about you." He +turned quickly to Messua, saying, "_He_ does not believe, but thou +wilt believe?" + +"Ay, surely, my son. Man, ghost, or wolf of the Jungle, I believe." + +"_He_ will be afraid when he hears my people singing. Thou wilt know +and understand. Go now, and slowly, for there is no need of any haste. +The gates are shut." + +Messua flung herself sobbing at Mowgli's feet, but he lifted her very +quickly with a shiver. Then she hung about his neck and called him +every name of blessing she could think of, but her husband looked +enviously across his fields, and said: "_If_ we reach Kanhiwara, and I +get the ear of the English, I will bring such a lawsuit against the +Brahmin and old Buldeo and the others as shall eat the village to the +bone. They shall pay me twice over for my crops untilled and my +buffaloes unfed. I will have a great justice." + +Mowgli laughed. "I do not know what justice is, but--come next Rains +and see what is left." + +They went off toward the Jungle, and Mother Wolf leaped from her place +of hiding. + +"Follow!" said Mowgli; "and look to it that all the Jungle knows these +two are safe. Give tongue a little. I would call Bagheera." + +The long, low howl rose and fell, and Mowgli saw Messua's husband +flinch and turn, half minded to run back to the hut. + +"Go on," Mowgli called cheerfully. "I said there might be singing. The +call will follow up to Kanhiwara. It is Favor of the Jungle." + +Messua urged her husband forward, and the darkness of the Jungle shut +down on them and Mother Wolf as Bagheera rose up almost under Mowgli's +feet, trembling with delight of the night that drives the Jungle +People wild. + +"I am ashamed of thy brethren," he said, purring. + +"What? Did they not sing sweetly to Buldeo?" said Mowgli. + +"Too well! Too well! They made even _me_ forget my pride, and, by the +Broken Lock that freed me, I went singing through the Jungle as +though I were out wooing in the spring! Didst thou not hear us?" + +"I had other game afoot. Ask Buldeo if he liked the song. But where +are the Four? I do not wish one of the Man-Pack to leave the gates +to-night." + +"What need of the Four, then?" said Bagheera, shifting from foot to +foot, his eyes ablaze, and purring louder than ever. "I can hold them, +Little Brother. Is it killing at last? The singing and the sight of +the men climbing up the trees have made me very ready. What is Man +that we should care for him--the naked brown digger, the hairless and +toothless, the eater of earth? I have followed him all day--at +noon--in the white sunlight. I herded him as the wolves herd buck. I +am Bagheera! Bagheera! Bagheera! As I dance with my shadow, so danced +I with those men. Look!" The great panther leaped as a kitten leaps at +a dead leaf whirling overhead, struck left and right into the empty +air, that sung under the strokes, landed noiselessly, and leaped again +and again, while the half purr, half growl gathered head as steam +rumbles in a boiler. "I am Bagheera--in the Jungle--in the night, and +all my strength is in me. Who shall stay my stroke? Man-cub, with one +blow of my paw I could beat thy head flat as a dead frog in the +summer!" + +"Strike, then!" said Mowgli, in the dialect of the village, _not_ the +talk of the Jungle, and the human words brought Bagheera to a full +stop, flung back on haunches that quivered under him, his head just at +the level of Mowgli's. Once more Mowgli stared, as he had stared at +the rebellious cubs, full into the beryl-green eyes till the red glare +behind their green went out like the light of a lighthouse shut off +twenty miles across the sea; till the eyes dropped, and the big head +with them--dropped lower and lower, and the red rasp of a tongue +grated on Mowgli's instep. + +"Brother--Brother--Brother!" the boy whispered, stroking steadily and +lightly from the neck along the heaving back: "Be still, be still! It +is the fault of the night, and no fault of thine." + +"It was the smells of the night," said Bagheera penitently. "This air +cries aloud to me. But how dost _thou_ know?" + +Of course the air round an Indian village is full of all kinds of +smells, and to any creature who does nearly all his thinking through +his nose, smells are as maddening as music and drugs are to human +beings. Mowgli gentled the panther for a few minutes longer, and he +lay down like a cat before a fire, his paws tucked under his breast, +and his eyes half shut. + +"Thou art of the Jungle and _not_ of the Jungle," he said at last. +"And I am only a black panther. But I love thee, Little Brother." + +"They are very long at their talk under the tree," Mowgli said, +without noticing the last sentence. "Buldeo must have told many tales. +They should come soon to drag the woman and her man out of the trap +and put them into the Red Flower. They will find that trap sprung. Ho! +ho!" + +"Nay, listen," said Bagheera. "The fever is out of my blood now. Let +them find _me_ there! Few would leave their houses after meeting me. +It is not the first time I have been in a cage; and I do not think +they will tie _me_ with cords." + +"Be wise, then," said Mowgli, laughing; for he was beginning to feel +as reckless as the panther, who had glided into the hut. + +"Pah!" Bagheera grunted. "This place is rank with Man, but here is +just such a bed as they gave me to lie upon in the King's cages at +Oodeypore. Now I lie down." Mowgli heard the strings of the cot crack +under the great brute's weight. "By the Broken Lock that freed me, +they will think they have caught big game! Come and sit beside me, +Little Brother; we will give them 'good hunting' together!" + +"No; I have another thought in my stomach. The Man-Pack shall not know +what share I have in the sport. Make thine own hunt. I do not wish to +see them." + +"Be it so," said Bagheera. "Ah, now they come!" + +The conference under the peepul-tree had been growing noisier and +noisier, at the far end of the village. It broke in wild yells, and a +rush up the street of men and women, waving clubs and bamboos and +sickles and knives. Buldeo and the Brahmin were at the head of it, but +the mob was close at their heels, and they cried, "The witch and the +wizard! Let us see if hot coins will make them confess! Burn the hut +over their heads! We will teach them to shelter wolf-devils! Nay, beat +them first! Torches! More torches! Buldeo, heat the gun-barrels!" + +Here was some little difficulty with the catch of the door. It had +been very firmly fastened, but the crowd tore it away bodily, and the +light of the torches streamed into the room where, stretched at full +length on the bed, his paws crossed and lightly hung down over one +end, black as the Pit, and terrible as a demon, was Bagheera. There +was one half-minute of desperate silence, as the front ranks of the +crowd clawed and tore their way back from the threshold, and in that +minute Bagheera raised his head and yawned--elaborately, carefully, +and ostentatiously--as he would yawn when he wished to insult an +equal. The fringed lips drew back and up; the red tongue curled; the +lower jaw dropped and dropped till you could see half-way down the hot +gullet; and the gigantic dog-teeth stood clear to the pit of the gums +till they rang together, upper and under, with the snick of +steel-faced wards shooting home round the edges of a safe. Next +instant the street was empty; Bagheera had leaped back through the +window, and stood at Mowgli's side, while a yelling, screaming torrent +scrambled and tumbled one over another in their panic haste to get to +their own huts. + +"They will not stir till day comes," said Bagheera quietly. "And now?" + +The silence of the afternoon sleep seemed to have overtaken the +village, but, as they listened, they could hear the sound of heavy +grain-boxes being dragged over earthen floors and set down against +doors. Bagheera was quite right; the village would not stir till +daylight. Mowgli sat still, and thought, and his face grew darker and +darker. + +"What have I done?" said Bagheera, at last, coming to his feet, +fawning. + +"Nothing but great good. Watch them now till the day. I sleep." Mowgli +ran off into the Jungle, and dropped like a dead man across a rock, +and slept and slept the day round, and the night back again. + +When he waked, Bagheera was at his side, and there was a newly-killed +buck at his feet. Bagheera watched curiously while Mowgli went to work +with his skinning-knife, ate and drank, and turned over with his chin +in his hands. + +"The man and the woman are come safe within eye-shot of Kanhiwara," +Bagheera said. "Thy lair mother sent the word back by Chil, the Kite. +They found a horse before midnight of the night they were freed, and +went very quickly. Is not that well?" + +"That is well," said Mowgli. + +"And thy Man-Pack in the village did not stir till the sun was high +this morning. Then they ate their food and ran back quickly to their +houses." + +"Did they, by chance, see thee?" + +"It may have been. I was rolling in the dust before the gate at dawn, +and I may have made also some small song to myself. Now, Little +Brother, there is nothing more to do. Come hunting with me and Baloo. +He has new hives that he wishes to show, and we all desire thee back +again as of old. Take off that look which makes even me afraid! The +man and woman will not be put into the Red Flower, and all goes well +in the Jungle. Is it not true? Let us forget the Man-Pack." + +"They shall be forgotten in a little while. Where does Hathi feed +to-night?" + +"Where he chooses. Who can answer for the Silent One? But why? What is +there Hathi can do which we cannot?" + +"Bid him and his three sons come here to me." + +"But, indeed, and truly, Little Brother, it is not--it is not seemly +to say 'Come,' and 'Go,' to Hathi. Remember, he is the Master of the +Jungle, and before the Man-Pack changed the look on thy face, he +taught thee the Master-words of the Jungle." + +"That is all one. I have a Master-word for him now. Bid him come to +Mowgli, the Frog, and if he does not hear at first, bid him come +because of the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore." + +"The Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore," Bagheera repeated two or three +times to make sure. "I go. Hathi can but be angry at the worst, and I +would give a moon's hunting to hear a Master-word that compels the +Silent One." + +He went away, leaving Mowgli stabbing furiously with his +skinning-knife into the earth. Mowgli had never seen human blood in +his life before till he had seen, and--what meant much more to +him--smelled Messua's blood on the thongs that bound her. And Messua +had been kind to him, and, so far as he knew anything about love, he +loved Messua as completely as he hated the rest of mankind. But deeply +as he loathed them, their talk, their cruelty, and their cowardice, +not for anything the Jungle had to offer could he bring himself to +take a human life, and have that terrible scent of blood back again in +his nostrils. His plan was simpler but much more thorough; and he +laughed to himself when he thought that it was one of old Buldeo's +tales told under the peepul-tree in the evening that had put the idea +into his head. + +"It _was_ a Master-word," Bagheera whispered in his ear. "They were +feeding by the river, and they obeyed as though they were bullocks. +Look, where they come now!" + +Hathi and his three sons had arrived in their usual way, without a +sound. The mud of the river was still fresh on their flanks, and Hathi +was thoughtfully chewing the green stem of a young plantain-tree that +he had gouged up with his tusks. But every line in his vast body +showed to Bagheera, who could see things when he came across them, +that it was not the Master of the Jungle speaking to a Man-cub, but +one who was afraid coming before one who was not. His three sons +rolled side by side, behind their father. + +Mowgli hardly lifted his head as Hathi gave him "Good hunting." He +kept him swinging and rocking, and shifting from one foot to another, +for a long time before he spoke, and when he opened his mouth it was +to Bagheera, not to the elephants. + +"I will tell a tale that was told to me by the hunter ye hunted +to-day," said Mowgli. "It concerns an elephant, old and wise, who fell +into a trap, and the sharpened stake in the pit scarred him from a +little above his heel to the crest of his shoulder, leaving a white +mark." Mowgli threw out his hand, and as Hathi wheeled the moonlight +showed a long white scar on his slaty side, as though he had been +struck with a red-hot whip. "Men came to take him from the trap," +Mowgli continued, "but he broke his ropes, for he was strong, and +went away till his wound was healed. Then came he, angry, by night to +the fields of those hunters. And I remember now that he had three +sons. These things happened many, many Rains ago, and very far +away--among the fields of Bhurtpore. What came to those fields at the +next reaping, Hathi?" + +"They were reaped by me and by my three sons," said Hathi. + +"And to the plowing that follows the reaping?" said Mowgli. + +"There was no plowing," said Hathi. + +"And to the men that live by the green crops on the ground?" said +Mowgli. + +"They went away." + +"And to the huts in which the men slept?" said Mowgli. + +"We tore the roofs to pieces, and the Jungle swallowed up the walls," +said Hathi. + +"And what more?" said Mowgli. + +"As much good ground as I can walk over in two nights from the east to +the west, and from the north to the south as much as I can walk over +in three nights, the Jungle took. We let in the Jungle upon five +villages; and in those villages, and in their lands, the +grazing-ground and the soft crop-grounds, there is not one man to-day +who takes his food from the ground. That was the Sack of the Fields of +Bhurtpore, which I and my three sons did; and now I ask, Man-cub, how +the news of it came to thee?" said Hathi. + +"A man told me, and now I see even Buldeo can speak truth. It was well +done, Hathi with the white mark; but the second time it shall be done +better, for the reason that there is a man to direct. Thou knowest the +village of the Man-Pack that cast me out? They are idle, senseless, +and cruel; they play with their mouths, and they do not kill the +weaker for food, but for sport. When they are full-fed they would +throw their own breed into the Red Flower. This I have seen. It is not +well that they should live here any more. I hate them!" + +"Kill, then," said the youngest of Hathi's three sons, picking up a +tuft of grass, dusting it against his fore legs, and throwing it away, +while his little red eyes glanced furtively from side to side. + +"What good are white bones to me?" Mowgli answered angrily. "Am I the +cub of a wolf to play in the sun with a raw head? I have killed Shere +Khan, and his hide rots on the Council Rock; but--but I do not know +whither Shere Khan is gone, and my stomach is still empty. Now I will +take that which I can see and touch. Let in the Jungle upon that +village, Hathi!" + +Bagheera shivered, and cowered down. He could understand, if the worst +came to the worst, a quick rush down the village street, and a right +and left blow into a crowd, or a crafty killing of men as they plowed +in the twilight, but this scheme for deliberately blotting out an +entire village from the eyes of man and beast frightened him. Now he +saw why Mowgli had sent for Hathi. No one but the long-lived elephant +could plan and carry through such a war. + +"Let them run as the men ran from the fields of Bhurtpore, till we +have the rain-water for the only plow, and the noise of the rain on +the thick leaves for the pattering of their spindles--till Bagheera +and I lair in the house of the Brahmin, and the buck drink at the tank +behind the temple! Let in the Jungle, Hathi!" + +"But I--but we have no quarrel with them, and it needs the red rage of +great pain ere we tear down the places where men sleep," said Hathi, +doubtfully. + +"Are ye the only eaters of grass in the Jungle? Drive in your peoples. +Let the deer and the pig and the nilghai look to it. Ye need never +show a hand's-breadth of hide till the fields are naked. Let in the +Jungle, Hathi!" + +"There will be no killing? My tusks were red at the Sack of the Fields +of Bhurtpore, and I would not wake that smell again." + +"Nor I. I do not wish even their bones to lie on the clean earth. Let +them go and find a fresh lair. They cannot stay here. I have seen and +smelled the blood of the woman that gave me food--the woman whom they +would have killed but for me. Only the smell of the new grass on their +door-steps can take away that smell. It burns in my mouth. Let in the +Jungle, Hathi!" + +"Ah!" said Hathi. "So did the scar of the stake burn on my hide till +we watched the villages die under in the spring growth. Now I see. Thy +war shall be our war. We will let in the Jungle!" + +Mowgli had hardly time to catch his breath--he was shaking all over +with rage and hate--before the place where the elephants had stood was +empty, and Bagheera was looking at him with terror. + +"By the Broken Lock that freed me!" said the Black Panther at last. +"Art _thou_ the naked thing I spoke for in the Pack when all was +young? Master of the Jungle, when my strength goes, speak for +me--speak for Baloo--speak for us all! We are cubs before thee! +Snapped twigs under foot! Fawns that have lost their doe!" + +The idea of Bagheera being a stray fawn upset Mowgli altogether, and +he laughed and caught his breath, and sobbed and laughed again, till +he had to jump into a pool to make himself stop. Then he swam round +and round, ducking in and out of the bars of the moonlight like the +frog, his namesake. + +By this time Hathi and his three sons had turned, each to one point of +the compass, and were striding silently down the valleys a mile away. +They went on and on for two days' march--that is to say, a long sixty +miles--through the Jungle; and every step they took, and every wave of +their trunks, was known and noted and talked over by Mang and Chil and +the Monkey People and all the birds. Then they began to feed, and fed +quietly for a week or so. Hathi and his sons are like Kaa, the Rock +Python. They never hurry till they have to. + +At the end of that time--and none knew who had started it--a rumor +went through the Jungle that there was better food and water to be +found in such and such a valley. The pig--who, of course, will go to +the ends of the earth for a full meal--moved first by companies, +scuffling over the rocks, and the deer followed, with the small wild +foxes that live on the dead and dying of the herds; and the +heavy-shouldered nilghai moved parallel with the deer, and the wild +buffaloes of the swamps came after the nilghai. The least little thing +would have turned the scattered, straggling droves that grazed and +sauntered and drank and grazed again; but whenever there was an alarm +some one would rise up and soothe them. At one time it would be Sahi +the Porcupine, full of news of good feed just a little further on; at +another Mang would cry cheerily and flap down a glade to show it was +all empty; or Baloo, his mouth full of roots, would shamble alongside +a wavering line and half frighten, half romp it clumsily back to the +proper road. Very many creatures broke back or ran away or lost +interest, but very many were left to go forward. At the end of another +ten days or so the situation was this. The deer and the pig and the +nilghai were milling round and round in a circle of eight or ten miles +radius, while the Eaters of Flesh skirmished round its edge. And the +center of that circle was the village, and round the village the crops +were ripening, and in the crops sat men on what they call +_machans_--platforms like pigeon-perches, made of sticks at the top +of four poles--to scare away birds and other stealers. Then the deer +were coaxed no more. The Eaters of Flesh were close behind them, and +forced them forward and inward. + +It was a dark night when Hathi and his three sons slipped down from +the Jungle, and broke off the poles of the _machans_ with their +trunks; they fell as a snapped stalk of hemlock in bloom falls, and +the men that tumbled from them heard the deep gurgling of the +elephants in their ears. Then the vanguard of the bewildered armies of +the deer broke down and flooded into the village grazing-grounds and +the plowed fields; and the sharp-hoofed, rooting wild pig came with +them, and what the deer left the pig spoiled, and from time to time an +alarm of wolves would shake the herds, and they would rush to and fro +desperately, treading down the young barley, and cutting flat the +banks of the irrigating channels. Before the dawn broke the pressure +on the outside of the circle gave way at one point. The Eaters of +Flesh had fallen back and left an open path to the south, and drove +upon drove of buck fled along it. Others, who were bolder, lay up in +the thickets to finish their meal next night. + +But the work was practically done. When the villagers looked in the +morning they saw their crops were lost. And that meant death if they +did not get away, for they lived year in and year out as near to +starvation as the Jungle was near to them. When the buffaloes were +sent to graze the hungry brutes found that the deer had cleared the +grazing-grounds, and so wandered into the Jungle and drifted off with +their wild mates; and when twilight fell the three or four ponies that +belonged to the village lay in their stables with their heads beaten +in. Only Bagheera could have given those strokes, and only Bagheera +would have thought of insolently dragging the last carcass to the open +street. + +The villagers had no heart to make fires in the fields that night, so +Hathi and his three sons went gleaning among what was left; and where +Hathi gleans there is no need to follow. The men decided to live on +their stored seed-corn until the rains had fallen, and then to take +work as servants till they could catch up with the lost year; but as +the grain-dealer was thinking of his well-filled crates of corn, and +the prices he would levy at the sale of it, Hathi's sharp tusks were +picking out the corner of his mud house, and smashing open the big +wicker-chest, leeped with cow-dung, where the precious stuff lay. + +When that last loss was discovered, it was the Brahmin's turn to +speak. He had prayed to his own Gods without answer. It might be, he +said, that, unconsciously, the village had offended some one of the +Gods of the Jungle, for, beyond doubt, the Jungle was against them. So +they sent for the head man of the nearest tribe of wandering +Gonds--little, wise, and very black hunters, living in the deep +Jungle, whose fathers came of the oldest race in India--the aboriginal +owners of the land. They made the Gond welcome with what they had, and +he stood on one leg, his bow in his hand, and two or three poisoned +arrows stuck through his top-knot, looking half afraid and half +contemptuously at the anxious villagers and their ruined fields. They +wished to know whether his Gods--the Old Gods--were angry with them, +and what sacrifices should be offered. The Gond said nothing, but +picked up a trail of the _Karela_, the vine that bears the bitter wild +gourd, and laced it to and fro across the temple door in the face of +the staring red Hindu image. Then he pushed with his hand in the open +air along the road to Kanhiwara, and went back to his Jungle, and +watched the Jungle people drifting through it. He knew that when the +Jungle moves only white men can hope to turn it aside. + +There was no need to ask his meaning. The wild gourd would grow where +they had worshiped their God, and the sooner they saved themselves the +better. + +But it is hard to tear a village from its moorings. They stayed on as +long as any summer food was left to them, and they tried to gather +nuts in the Jungle, but shadows with glaring eyes watched them, and +rolled before them even at midday; and when they ran back afraid to +their walls, on the tree trunks they had passed not five minutes +before the bark would be stripped and chiseled with the stroke of some +great taloned paw. The more they kept to their village, the bolder +grew the wild things that gamboled and bellowed on the grazing-grounds +by the Waingunga. They had no time to patch and plaster the rear walls +of the empty byres that backed on to the Jungle; the wild pig trampled +them down, and the knotty-rooted vines hurried after and threw their +elbows over the new-won ground, and the coarse grass bristled behind +the vines like the lances of a goblin army following a retreat. The +unmarried men ran away first, and carried the news far and near that +the village was doomed. Who could fight, they said, against the +Jungle, or the Gods of the Jungle, when the very village cobra had +left his hole in the platform under the peepul-tree? So their little +commerce with the outside world shrunk as the trodden paths across the +open grew fewer and fainter. At last the nightly trumpetings of Hathi +and his three sons ceased to trouble them; for they had no more to be +robbed of. The crop on the ground and the seed in the ground had been +taken. The outlying fields were already losing their shape, and it was +time to throw themselves on the charity of the English at Kanhiwara. + +Native fashion, they delayed their departure from one day to another +till the first Rains caught them and the unmended roofs let in a +flood, and the grazing-ground stood ankle deep, and all life came on +with a rush after the heat of the summer. Then they waded out, men, +women, and children, through the blinding hot rain of the morning, but +turned naturally for one farewell look at their homes. + +They heard, as the last burdened family filed through the gate, a +crash of falling beams and thatch behind the walls. They saw a shiny, +snaky black trunk lifted for an instant, scattering sodden thatch. It +disappeared, and there was another crash, followed by a squeal. Hathi +had been plucking off the roofs of the huts as you pluck water-lilies, +and a rebounding beam had pricked him. He needed only this to unchain +his full strength, for of all things in the Jungle the wild elephant +enraged is the most wantonly destructive. He kicked backward at a mud +wall that crumbled at the stroke, and, crumbling, melted to yellow mud +under the torrent of rain. Then he wheeled and squealed, and tore +through the narrow streets, leaning against the huts right and left, +shivering the crazy doors, and crumpling up the eaves; while his three +sons raged behind as they had raged at the Sack of the Fields of +Bhurtpore. + +"The Jungle will swallow these shells," said a quiet voice in the +wreckage. "It is the outer wall that must lie down," and Mowgli, with +the rain sluicing over his bare shoulders and arms, leaped back from a +wall that was settling like a tired buffalo. + +"All in good time," panted Hathi. "Oh, but my tusks were red at +Bhurtpore! To the outer wall, children! With the head! Together! Now!" + +The four pushed side by side; the outer wall bulged, split, and fell, +and the villagers, dumb with horror, saw the savage, clay-streaked +heads of the wreckers in the ragged gap. Then they fled, houseless and +foodless, down the valley, as their village, shredded and tossed and +trampled, melted behind them. + +A month later the place was a dimpled mound, covered with soft, green +young stuff; and by the end of the Rains there was the roaring Jungle +in full blast on the spot that had been under plow not six months +before. + +[Illustration] + + + + +MOWGLI'S SONG AGAINST PEOPLE + + + I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines-- + I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines! + The roofs shall fade before it, + The house-beams shall fall, + And the _Karela_, the bitter _Karela_, + Shall cover it all! + + In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing, + In the doors of these your garners the Bat-folk shall cling; + And the snake shall be your watchman, + By a hearthstone unswept; + For the _Karela_, the bitter _Karela_, + Shall fruit where ye slept! + + Ye shall not see my strikers; ye shall hear them and guess; + By night, before the moon-rise, I will send for my cess, + And the wolf shall be your herdsman + By a landmark removed, + For the _Karela_, the bitter _Karela_, + Shall seed where ye loved! + + I will reap your fields before you at the hands of a host; + Ye shall glean behind my reapers for the bread that is lost; + And the deer shall be your oxen + By a headland untilled, + For the _Karela_, the bitter _Karela_, + Shall leaf where ye build! + + I have untied against you the club-footed vines, + I have sent in the Jungle to swamp out your lines + The trees--the trees are on you! + The house-beams shall fall, + And the _Karela_, the bitter _Karela_, + Shall cover you all! + + + + + THE UNDERTAKERS + + + + + When ye say to Tabaqui, "My Brother!" when ye call the Hyena + to meat, + Ye may cry the Full Truce with Jacala--the Belly that runs on + four feet. + + --_Jungle Law._ + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE UNDERTAKERS + + +"Respect the aged!" + +It was a thick voice--a muddy voice that would have made you +shudder--a voice like something soft breaking in two. There was a +quaver in it, a croak and a whine. + +"Respect the aged! O Companions of the River--respect the aged!" + +Nothing could be seen on the broad reach of the river except a little +fleet of square-sailed, wooden-pinned barges, loaded with +building-stone, that had just come under the railway bridge, and were +driving down-stream. They put their clumsy helms over to avoid the +sand-bar made by the scour of the bridge-piers, and as they passed, +three abreast, the horrible voice began again: + +"O Brahmins of the River--respect the aged and infirm!" + +A boatman turned where he sat on the gunwale, lifted up his hand, said +something that was not a blessing, and the boats creaked on through +the twilight. The broad Indian river, that looked more like a chain of +little lakes than a stream, was as smooth as glass, reflecting the +sandy-red sky in mid-channel, but splashed with patches of yellow and +dusky purple near and under the low banks. Little creeks ran into the +river in the wet season, but now their dry mouths hung clear above +water-line. On the left shore, and almost under the railway bridge, +stood a mud-and-brick and thatch-and-stick village, whose main street, +full of cattle going back to their byres, ran straight to the river, +and ended in a sort of rude brick pier-head, where people who wanted +to wash could wade in step by step. That was the Ghaut of the village +of Mugger-Ghaut. + +Night was falling fast over the fields of lentils and rice and cotton +in the low-lying ground yearly flooded by the river; over the reeds +that fringed the elbow of the bend, and the tangled low jungle of the +grazing-grounds behind the still reeds. The parrots and crows, who had +been chattering and shouting over their evening drink, had flown +inland to roost, crossing the out-going battalions of the +flying-foxes; and cloud upon cloud of water-birds came whistling and +"honking" to the cover of the reed-beds. There were geese, +barrel-headed and black-backed, teal, widgeon, mallard, and sheldrake, +with curlews, and here and there a flamingo. + +A lumbering Adjutant-crane brought up the rear, flying as though each +slow stroke would be his last. + +"Respect the aged! Brahmins of the River--respect the aged!" + +The Adjutant half turned his head, sheered a little in the direction +of the voice, and landed stiffly on the sand-bar below the bridge. +Then you saw what a ruffianly brute he really was. His back view was +immensely respectable, for he stood nearly six feet high, and looked +rather like a very proper bald-headed parson. In front it was +different, for his Ally Sloper-like head and neck had not a feather to +them, and there was a horrible raw-skin pouch on his neck under his +chin--a hold-all for the things his pickaxe beak might steal. His legs +were long and thin and skinny, but he moved them delicately, and +looked at them with pride as he preened down his ashy-gray +tail-feathers, glanced over the smooth of his shoulder, and stiffened +into "Stand at attention." + +A mangy little Jackal, who had been yapping hungrily on a low bluff, +cocked up his ears and tail, and scuttered across the shallows to join +the Adjutant. + +He was the lowest of his caste--not that the best of jackals are good +for much, but this one was peculiarly low, being half a beggar, half a +criminal--a cleaner up of village rubbish-heaps, desperately timid or +wildly bold, everlastingly hungry, and full of cunning that never did +him any good. + +"Ugh!" he said, shaking himself dolefully as he landed. "May the red +mange destroy the dogs of this village! I have three bites for each +flea upon me, and all because I looked--only looked, mark you--at an +old shoe in a cow-byre. Can I eat mud?" He scratched himself under his +left ear. + +"I heard," said the Adjutant, in a voice like a blunt saw going +through a thick board--"I _heard_ there was a new-born puppy in that +same shoe." + +"To hear is one thing; to know is another," said the Jackal, who had a +very fair knowledge of proverbs, picked up by listening to men round +the village fires of an evening. + +"Quite true. So, to make sure, I took care of that puppy while the +dogs were busy elsewhere." + +"They were _very_ busy," said the Jackal. "Well, I must not go to the +village hunting for scraps yet awhile. And so there truly was a blind +puppy in that shoe?" + +"It is here," said the Adjutant, squinting over his beak at his full +pouch. "A small thing, but acceptable now that charity is dead in the +world." + +"Ahai! The world is iron in these days," wailed the Jackal. Then his +restless eye caught the least possible ripple on the water, and he +went on quickly: "Life is hard for us all, and I doubt not that even +our excellent master, the Pride of the Ghaut and the Envy of the +River--" + +"A liar, a flatterer, and a Jackal were all hatched out of the same +egg," said the Adjutant to nobody in particular; for he was rather a +fine sort of a liar on his own account when he took the trouble. + +"Yes, the Envy of the River," the Jackal repeated, raising his voice. +"Even he, I doubt not, finds that since the bridge has been built good +food is more scarce. But on the other hand, though I would by no means +say this to his noble face, he is so wise and so virtuous--as I, +alas! am not--" + +"When the Jackal owns he is gray, how black must the Jackal be!" +muttered the Adjutant. He could not see what was coming. + +"That _his_ food never fails, and in consequence--" + +There was a soft grating sound, as though a boat had just touched in +shoal water. The Jackal spun round quickly and faced (it is always +best to face) the creature he had been talking about. It was a +twenty-four-foot crocodile, cased in what looked like treble-riveted +boiler-plate, studded and keeled and crested; the yellow points of his +upper teeth just overhanging his beautifully fluted lower jaw. It was +the blunt-nosed Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut, older than any man in the +village, who had given his name to the village; the demon of the ford +before the railway bridge came--murderer, man-eater, and local fetish +in one. He lay with his chin in the shallows, keeping his place by an +almost invisible rippling of his tail, and well the Jackal knew that +one stroke of that same tail in the water could carry the Mugger up +the bank with the rush of a steam-engine. + +"Auspiciously met, Protector of the Poor!" he fawned, backing at +every word. "A delectable voice was heard, and we came in the hopes of +sweet conversation. My tailless presumption, while waiting here, led +me, indeed, to speak of thee. It is my hope that nothing was +overheard." + +Now the Jackal had spoken just to be listened to, for he knew flattery +was the best way of getting things to eat, and the Mugger knew that +the Jackal had spoken for this end, and the Jackal knew that the +Mugger knew, and the Mugger knew that the Jackal knew that the Mugger +knew, and so they were all very contented together. + +The old brute pushed and panted and grunted up the bank, mumbling, +"Respect the aged and infirm!" and all the time his little eyes burned +like coals under the heavy, horny eyelids on the top of his triangular +head, as he shoved his bloated barrel-body along between his crutched +legs. Then he settled down, and, accustomed as the Jackal was to his +ways, he could not help starting, for the hundredth time, when he saw +how exactly the Mugger imitated a log adrift on the bar. He had even +taken pains to lie at the exact angle a naturally stranded log would +make with the water, having regard to the current of the season at the +time and place. All this was only a matter of habit, of course, +because the Mugger had come ashore for pleasure; but a crocodile is +never quite full, and if the Jackal had been deceived by the likeness +he would not have lived to philosophize over it. + +"My child, I heard nothing," said the Mugger, shutting one eye. "The +water was in my ears, and also I was faint with hunger. Since the +railway bridge was built my people at my village have ceased to love +me; and that is breaking my heart." + +"Ah, shame!" said the Jackal. "So noble a heart, too! But men are all +alike, to my mind." + +"Nay, there are very great differences indeed," the Mugger answered +gently. "Some are as lean as boat-poles. Others again are fat as young +ja--dogs. Never would I causelessly revile men. They are of all +fashions, but the long years have shown me that, one with another, +they are very good. Men, women, and children--I have no fault to find +with them. And remember, child, he who rebukes the World is rebuked by +the World." + +"Flattery is worse than an empty tin can in the belly. But that which +we have just heard is wisdom," said the Adjutant, bringing down one +foot. + +"Consider, though, their ingratitude to this excellent one," began the +Jackal tenderly. + +"Nay, nay, not ingratitude!" the Mugger said. "They do not think for +others; that is all. But I have noticed, lying at my station below the +ford, that the stairs of the new bridge are cruelly hard to climb, +both for old people and young children. The old, indeed, are not so +worthy of consideration, but I am grieved--I am truly grieved--on +account of the fat children. Still, I think, in a little while, when +the newness of the bridge has worn away, we shall see my people's bare +brown legs bravely splashing through the ford as before. Then the old +Mugger will be honored again." + +"But surely I saw marigold wreaths floating off the edge of the Ghaut +only this noon," said the Adjutant. + +Marigold wreaths are a sign of reverence all India over. + +"An error--an error. It was the wife of the sweetmeat-seller. She +loses her eyesight year by year, and cannot tell a log from me--the +Mugger of the Ghaut. I saw the mistake when she threw the garland, for +I was lying at the very foot of the Ghaut, and had she taken another +step I might have shown her some little difference. Yet she meant +well, and we must consider the spirit of the offering." + +"What good are marigold wreaths when one is on the rubbish-heap?" said +the Jackal, hunting for fleas, but keeping one wary eye on his +Protector of the Poor. + +"True, but they have not yet begun to make the rubbish-heap that shall +carry _me_. Five times have I seen the river draw back from the +village and make new land at the foot of the street. Five times have I +seen the village rebuilt on the banks, and I shall see it built yet +five times more. I am no faithless, fish-hunting Gavial, I, at Kasi +to-day and Prayag to-morrow, as the saying is, but the true and +constant watcher of the ford. It is not for nothing, child, that the +village bears my name, and 'he who watches long,' as the saying is, +'shall at last have his reward.'" + +"_I_ have watched long--very long--nearly all my life, and my reward +has been bites and blows," said the Jackal. + +"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the Adjutant. + + "In August was the Jackal born; + The Rains fell in September; + 'Now such a fearful flood as this,' + Says he, 'I can't remember!'" + +There is one very unpleasant peculiarity about the Adjutant. At +uncertain times he suffers from acute attacks of the fidgets or cramp +in his legs, and though he is more virtuous to behold than any of the +cranes, who are all immensely respectable, he flies off into wild, +cripple-stilt war-dances, half opening his wings and bobbing his bald +head up and down; while for reasons best known to himself he is very +careful to time his worst attacks with his nastiest remarks. At the +last word of his song he came to attention again, ten times +adjutaunter than before. + +The Jackal winced, though he was full three seasons old, but you +cannot resent an insult from a person with a beak a yard long, and the +power of driving it like a javelin. The Adjutant was a most notorious +coward, but the Jackal was worse. + +"We must live before we can learn," said the Mugger, "and there is +this to say: Little jackals are very common, child, but such a mugger +as I am is not common. For all that, I am not proud, since pride is +destruction; but take notice, it is Fate, and against his Fate no one +who swims or walks or runs should say anything at all. I am well +contented with Fate. With good luck, a keen eye, and the custom of +considering whether a creek or a backwater has an outlet to it ere +you ascend, much may be done." + +"Once I heard that even the Protector of the Poor made a mistake," +said the Jackal viciously. + +"True; but there my Fate helped me. It was before I had come to my +full growth--before the last famine but three (by the Right and Left +of Gunga, how full used the streams to be in those days!). Yes, I was +young and unthinking, and when the flood came, who so pleased as I? A +little made me very happy then. The village was deep in flood, and I +swam above the Ghaut and went far inland, up to the rice-fields, and +they were deep in good mud. I remember also a pair of bracelets (glass +they were, and troubled me not a little) that I found that evening. +Yes, glass bracelets; and, if my memory serves me well, a shoe. I +should have shaken off both shoes, but I was hungry. I learned better +later. Yes. And so I fed and rested me; but when I was ready to go to +the river again the flood had fallen, and I walked through the mud of +the main street. Who but I? Came out all my people, priests and women +and children, and I looked upon them with benevolence. The mud is not +a good place to fight in. Said a boatman, 'Get axes and kill him, for +he is the Mugger of the ford.' 'Not so,' said the Brahmin. 'Look, he +is driving the flood before him! He is the godling of the village.' +Then they threw many flowers at me, and by happy thought one led a +goat across the road." + +"How good--how very good is goat!" said the Jackal. + +"Hairy--too hairy, and when found in the water more than likely to +hide a cross-shaped hook. But that goat I accepted, and went down to +the Ghaut in great honor. Later, my Fate sent me the boatman who had +desired to cut off my tail with an axe. His boat grounded upon an old +shoal which you would not remember." + +"We are not _all_ jackals here," said the Adjutant. "Was it the shoal +made where the stone-boats sank in the year of the great drouth--a +long shoal that lasted three floods?" + +"There were two," said the Mugger; "an upper and a lower shoal." + +"Ay, I forgot. A channel divided them, and later dried up again," said +the Adjutant, who prided himself on his memory. + +"On the lower shoal my well-wisher's craft grounded. He was sleeping +in the bows, and, half awake, leaped over to his waist--no, it was no +more than to his knees--to push off. His empty boat went on and +touched again below the next reach, as the river ran then. I followed, +because I knew men would come out to drag it ashore." + +"And did they do so?" said the Jackal, a little awe-stricken. This was +hunting on a scale that impressed him. + +"There and lower down they did. I went no further, but that gave me +three in one day--well-fed _manjis_ (boatmen) all, and, except in the +case of the last (then I was careless), never a cry to warn those on +the bank." + +"Ah, noble sport! But what cleverness and great judgment it requires!" +said the Jackal. + +"Not cleverness, child, but only thought. A little thought in life is +like salt upon rice, as the boatmen say, and I have thought deeply +always. The Gavial, my cousin, the fish-eater, has told me how hard it +is for him to follow his fish, and how one fish differs from the +other, and how he must know them all, both together and apart. I say +that is wisdom; but, on the other hand, my cousin, the Gavial, lives +among his people. _My_ people do not swim in companies, with their +mouths out of the water, as Rewa does; nor do they constantly rise to +the surface of the water, and turn over on their sides, like Mohoo and +little Chapta; nor do they gather in shoals after flood, like Batchua +and Chilwa." + +"All are very good eating," said the Adjutant, clattering his beak. + +"So my cousin says, and makes a great to-do over hunting them, but +they do not climb the banks to escape his sharp nose. _My_ people are +otherwise. Their life is on the land, in the houses, among the cattle. +I must know what they do, and what they are about to do; and, adding +the tail to the trunk, as the saying is, I make up the whole elephant. +Is there a green branch and an iron ring hanging over a doorway? The +old Mugger knows that a boy has been born in that house, and must some +day come down to the Ghaut to play. Is a maiden to be married? The old +Mugger knows, for he sees the men carry gifts back and forth; and she, +too, comes down to the Ghaut to bathe before her wedding, and--he is +there. Has the river changed its channel, and made new land where +there was only sand before? The Mugger knows." + +"Now, of what use is that knowledge?" said the Jackal. "The river has +shifted even in my little life." Indian rivers are nearly always +moving about in their beds, and will shift, sometimes, as much as two +or three miles in a season, drowning the fields on one bank, and +spreading good silt on the other. + +"There is no knowledge so useful," said the Mugger, "for new land +means new quarrels. The Mugger knows. Oho! the Mugger knows. As soon +as the water has drained off, he creeps up the little creeks that men +think would not hide a dog, and there he waits. Presently comes a +farmer saying he will plant cucumbers here, and melons there, in the +new land that the river has given him. He feels the good mud with his +bare toes. Anon comes another, saying he will put onions, and carrots, +and sugar-cane in such and such places. They meet as boats adrift +meet, and each rolls his eye at the other under the big blue turban. +The old Mugger sees and hears. Each calls the other 'Brother,' and +they go to mark out the boundaries of the new land. The Mugger hurries +with them from point to point, shuffling very low through the mud. Now +they begin to quarrel! Now they say hot words! Now they pull turbans! +Now they lift up their _lathis_ (clubs), and, at last, one falls +backward into the mud, and the other runs away. When he comes back the +dispute is settled, as the iron-bound bamboo of the loser witnesses. +Yet they are not grateful to the Mugger. No, they cry 'Murder!' and +their families fight with sticks, twenty a side. My people are good +people--upland Jats--Malwais of the Bet. They do not give blows for +sport, and, when the fight is done, the old Mugger waits far down the +river, out of sight of the village, behind the _kikar_-scrub yonder. +Then come they down, my broad-shouldered Jats--eight or nine together +under the stars, bearing the dead man upon a bed. They are old men +with gray beards, and voices as deep as mine. They light a little +fire--ah! how well I know that fire!--and they drink tobacco, and they +nod their heads together forward in a ring, or sideways toward the +dead man upon the bank. They say the English Law will come with a rope +for this matter, and that such a man's family will be ashamed, because +such a man must be hanged in the great square of the Jail. Then say +the friends of the dead, 'Let him hang!' and the talk is all to do +over again--once, twice, twenty times in the long night. Then says +one, at last, 'The fight was a fair fight. Let us take blood-money, a +little more than is offered by the slayer, and we will say no more +about it.' Then do they haggle over the blood-money, for the dead was +a strong man, leaving many sons. Yet before _amratvela_ (sunrise) they +put the fire to him a little, as the custom is, and the dead man +comes to me, and _he_ says no more about it. Aha! my children, the +Mugger knows--the Mugger knows--and my Malwah Jats are a good people!" + +"They are too close--too narrow in the hand for my crop," croaked the +Adjutant. "They waste not the polish on the cow's horn, as the saying +is; and, again, who can glean after a Malwai?" + +"Ah, I--glean--_them_," said the Mugger. + +"Now, in Calcutta of the South, in the old days," the Adjutant went +on, "everything was thrown into the streets, and we picked and chose. +Those were dainty seasons. But to-day they keep their streets as clean +as the outside of an egg, and my people fly away. To be clean is one +thing; to dust, sweep, and sprinkle seven times a day wearies the very +Gods themselves." + +"There was a down-country jackal had it from a brother, who told me, +that in Calcutta of the South all the jackals were as fat as otters in +the Rains," said the Jackal, his mouth watering at the bare thought of +it. + +"Ah, but the white-faces are there--the English, and they bring dogs +from somewhere down the river, in boats--big fat dogs--to keep those +same jackals lean," said the Adjutant. + +"They are, then, as hard-hearted as these people? I might have known. +Neither earth, sky, nor water shows charity to a jackal. I saw the +tents of a white-face last season, after the Rains, and I also took a +new yellow bridle to eat. The white-faces do not dress their leather +in the proper way. It made me very sick." + +"That was better than my case," said the Adjutant. "When I was in my +third season, a young and a bold bird, I went down to the river where +the big boats come in. The boats of the English are thrice as big as +this village." + +"He has been as far as Delhi, and says all the people there walk on +their heads," muttered the Jackal. The Mugger opened his left eye, and +looked keenly at the Adjutant. + +"It is true," the big bird insisted. "A liar only lies when he hopes +to be believed. No one who had not seen those boats _could_ believe +this truth." + +"_That_ is more reasonable," said the Mugger. "And then?" + +"From the insides of this boat they were taking out great pieces of +white stuff, which, in a little while, turned to water. Much split +off, and fell about on the shore, and the rest they swiftly put into a +house with thick walls. But a boatman, who laughed, took a piece no +larger than a small dog, and threw it to me. I--all my people--swallow +without reflection, and that piece I swallowed as is our custom. +Immediately I was afflicted with an excessive cold which, beginning in +my crop, ran down to the extreme end of my toes, and deprived me even +of speech, while the boatmen laughed at me. Never have I felt such +cold. I danced in my grief and amazement till I could recover my +breath, and then I danced and cried out against the falseness of this +world; and the boatmen derided me till they fell down. The chief +wonder of the matter, setting aside that marvelous coldness, was that +there was nothing at all in my crop when I had finished my +lamentings!" + +The Adjutant had done his very best to describe his feelings after +swallowing a seven-pound lump of Wenham Lake ice, off an American +ice-ship, in the days before Calcutta made her ice by machinery; but +as he did not know what ice was, and as the Mugger and the Jackal knew +rather less, the tale missed fire. + +"Anything," said the Mugger, shutting his left eye again--"_anything_ +is possible that comes out of a boat thrice the size of Mugger-Ghaut. +My village is not a small one." + +There was a whistle overhead on the bridge, and the Delhi Mail slid +across, all the carriages gleaming with light, and the shadows +faithfully following along the river. It clanked away into the dark +again; but the Mugger and the Jackal were so well used to it that they +never turned their heads. + +"Is that anything less wonderful than a boat thrice the size of +Mugger-Ghaut?" said the bird, looking up. + +"I saw that built, child. Stone by stone I saw the bridge-piers rise, +and when the men fell off (they were wondrous sure-footed for the most +part--but _when_ they fell) I was ready. After the first pier was made +they never thought to look down the stream for the body to burn. +There, again, I saved much trouble. There was nothing strange in the +building of the bridge," said the Mugger. + +"But that which goes across, pulling the roofed carts! That is +strange," the Adjutant repeated. + +"It is, past any doubt, a new breed of bullock. Some day it will not +be able to keep its foothold up yonder, and will fall as the men did. +The old Mugger will then be ready." + +The Jackal looked at the Adjutant, and the Adjutant looked at the +Jackal. If there was one thing they were more certain of than +another, it was that the engine was everything in the wide world +except a bullock. The Jackal had watched it time and again from the +aloe-hedges by the side of the line, and the Adjutant had seen engines +since the first locomotive ran in India. But the Mugger had only +looked up at the thing from below, where the brass dome seemed rather +like a bullock's hump. + +"M--yes, a new kind of bullock," the Mugger repeated ponderously, to +make himself quite sure in his own mind; and "Certainly it is a +bullock," said the Jackal. + +"And again it might be--" began the Mugger pettishly. + +"Certainly--most certainly," said the Jackal, without waiting for the +other to finish. + +"What?" said the Mugger angrily, for he could feel that the others +knew more than he did. "What might it be? _I_ never finished my words. +You said it was a bullock." + +"It is anything the Protector of the Poor pleases. I am _his_ +servant--not the servant of the thing that crosses the river." + +"Whatever it is, it is white-face work," said the Adjutant; "and for +my own part, I would not lie out upon a place so near to it as this +bar." + +"You do not know the English as I do," said the Mugger. "There was a +white-face here when the bridge was built, and he would take a boat in +the evenings and shuffle with his feet on the bottom-boards, and +whisper: 'Is he here? Is he there? Bring me my gun.' I could hear him +before I could see him--each sound that he made--creaking and puffing +and rattling his gun, up and down the river. As surely as I had picked +up one of his workmen, and thus saved great expense in wood for the +burning, so surely would he come down to the Ghaut, and shout in a +loud voice that he would hunt me, and rid the river of me--the Mugger +of Mugger-Ghaut! _Me!_ Children, I have swum under the bottom of his +boat for hour after hour, and heard him fire his gun at logs; and when +I was well sure he was wearied, I have risen by his side and snapped +my jaws in his face. When the bridge was finished he went away. All +the English hunt in that fashion, except when they are hunted." + +"Who hunts the white-faces?" yapped the Jackal excitedly. + +"No one now, but I have hunted them in my time." + +"I remember a little of that Hunting. I was young then," said the +Adjutant, clattering his beak significantly. + +"I was well established here. My village was being builded for the +third time, as I remember, when my cousin, the Gavial, brought me word +of rich waters above Benares. At first I would not go, for my cousin, +who is a fish-eater, does not always know the good from the bad; but I +heard my people talking in the evenings, and what they said made me +certain." + +"And what did they say?" the Jackal asked. + +"They said enough to make me, the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut, leave water +and take to my feet. I went by night, using the littlest streams as +they served me; but it was the beginning of the hot weather and all +streams were low. I crossed dusty roads; I went through tall grass; I +climbed hills in the moonlight. Even rocks did I climb, +children--consider this well. I crossed the tail of Sirhind, the +waterless, before I could find the set of the little rivers that flow +Gungaward. I was a month's journey from my own people and the river +that I knew. That was very marvelous!" + +"What food on the way?" said the Jackal, who kept his soul in his +little stomach, and was not a bit impressed by the Mugger's land +travels. + +"That which I could find--_cousin_," said the Mugger slowly, dragging +each word. + +Now you do not call a man a cousin in India unless you think you can +establish some kind of blood-relationship, and as it is only in old +fairy-tales that the Mugger ever marries a jackal, the Jackal knew for +what reason he had been suddenly lifted into the Mugger's family +circle. If they had been alone he would not have cared, but the +Adjutant's eyes twinkled with mirth at the ugly jest. + +"Assuredly, Father, I might have known," said the Jackal. A Mugger +does not care to be called a father of jackals, and the Mugger of +Mugger-Ghaut said as much--and a great deal more which there is no use +in repeating here. + +"The Protector of the Poor has claimed kinship. How can I remember the +precise degree? Moreover, we eat the same food. He has said it," was +the Jackal's reply. + +That made matters rather worse, for what the Jackal hinted at was that +the Mugger must have eaten his food on that land march fresh and fresh +every day, instead of keeping it by him till it was in a fit and +proper condition, as every self-respecting mugger and most wild beasts +do when they can. Indeed, one of the worst terms of contempt along the +River-bed is "eater of fresh meat." It is nearly as bad as calling a +man a cannibal. + +"That food was eaten thirty seasons ago," said the Adjutant quietly. +"If we talk for thirty seasons more it will never come back. Tell us, +now, what happened when the good waters were reached after thy most +wonderful land journey. If we listened to the howling of every jackal +the business of the town would stop, as the saying is." + +The Mugger must have been grateful for the interruption, because he +went on, with a rush: + +"By the Right and Left of Gunga! when I came there never did I see +such waters!" + +"Were they better, then, than the big flood of last season?" said the +Jackal. + +"Better! That flood was no more than comes every five years--a handful +of drowned strangers, some chickens, and a dead bullock in muddy water +with cross-currents. But the season I think of, the river was low, +smooth, and even, and, as the Gavial had warned me, the dead English +came down, touching each other. I got my girth in that season--my +girth and my depth. From Agra, by Etawah and the broad waters by +Allahabad--" + +"Oh, the eddy that set under the walls of the fort at Allahabad!" said +the Adjutant. "They came in there like widgeon to the reeds, and round +and round they swung--thus!" + +He went off into his horrible dance again, while the Jackal looked on +enviously. He naturally could not remember the terrible year of the +Mutiny they were talking about. The Mugger continued: + +"Yes, by Allahabad one lay still in the slack-water and let twenty go +by to pick one; and, above all, the English were not cumbered with +jewelry and nose-rings and anklets as my women are nowadays. To +delight in ornaments is to end with a rope for necklace, as the saying +is. All the muggers of all the rivers grew fat then, but it was my +Fate to be fatter than them all. The news was that the English were +being hunted into the rivers, and by the Right and Left of Gunga! we +believed it was true. So far as I went south I believed it to be true; +and I went down-stream beyond Monghyr and the tombs that look over the +river." + +"I know that place," said the Adjutant. "Since those days Monghyr is a +lost city. Very few live there now." + +"Thereafter I worked up-stream very slowly and lazily, and a little +above Monghyr there came down a boatful of white-faces--alive! They +were, as I remember, women, lying under a cloth spread over sticks, +and crying aloud. There was never a gun fired at us the watchers of +the fords in those days. All the guns were busy elsewhere. We could +hear them day and night inland, coming and going as the wind shifted. +I rose up full before the boat, because I had never seen white-faces +alive, though I knew them well--otherwise. A naked white child kneeled +by the side of the boat, and, stooping over, must needs try to trail +his hands in the river. It is a pretty thing to see how a child loves +running water. I had fed that day, but there was yet a little unfilled +space within me. Still, it was for sport and not for food that I rose +at the child's hands. They were so clear a mark that I did not even +look when I closed; but they were so small that though my jaws rang +true--I am sure of that--the child drew them up swiftly, unhurt. They +must have passed between tooth and tooth--those small white hands. I +should have caught him crosswise at the elbows; but, as I said, it was +only for sport and desire to see new things that I rose at all. They +cried out one after another in the boat, and presently I rose again to +watch them. Their boat was too heavy to push over. They were only +women, but he who trusts a woman will walk on duckweed in a pool, as +the saying is: and by the Right and Left of Gunga, that is truth!" + +"Once a woman gave me some dried skin from a fish," said the Jackal. +"I had hoped to get her baby, but horse-food is better than the kick +of a horse, as the saying is. What did thy woman do?" + +"She fired at me with a short gun of a kind I have never seen before +or since. Five times, one after another" (the Mugger must have met +with an old-fashioned revolver); "and I stayed open-mouthed and +gaping, my head in the smoke. Never did I see such a thing. Five +times, as swiftly as I wave my tail--thus!" + +The Jackal, who had been growing more and more interested in the +story, had just time to leap back as the long tail swung by like a +scythe. + +"Not before the fifth shot," said the Mugger, as though he had never +dreamed of stunning one of his listeners--"not before the fifth shot +did I sink, and I rose in time to hear a boatman telling all those +white women that I was most certainly dead. One bullet had gone under +a neckplate of mine. I know not if it is there still, for the reason I +cannot turn my head. Look and see, child. It will show that my tale is +true." + +"I?" said the Jackal. "Shall an eater of old shoes, a bone-cracker, +presume to doubt the word of the Envy of the River? May my tail be +bitten off by blind puppies if the shadow of such a thought has +crossed my humble mind. The Protector of the Poor has condescended to +inform me, his slave, that once in his life he has been wounded by a +woman. That is sufficient, and I will tell the tale to all my +children, asking for no proof." + +"Over-much civility is sometimes no better than over-much discourtesy, +for, as the saying is, one can choke a guest with curds. I do _not_ +desire that any children of thine should know that the Mugger of +Mugger-Ghaut took his only wound from a woman. They will have much +else to think of if they get their meat as miserably as does their +father." + +"It is forgotten long ago! It was never said! There never was a white +woman! There was no boat! Nothing whatever happened at all." + +The Jackal waved his brush to show how completely everything was wiped +out of his memory, and sat down with an air. + +"Indeed, very many things happened," said the Mugger, beaten in his +second attempt that night to get the better of his friend. (Neither +bore malice, however. Eat and be eaten was fair law along the river, +and the Jackal came in for his share of plunder when the Mugger had +finished a meal.) "I left that boat and went up-stream, and, when I +had reached Arrah and the backwaters behind it, there were no more +dead English. The river was empty for a while. Then came one or two +dead, in red coats, not English, but of one kind all--Hindus and +Purbeeahs--then five and six abreast, and at last, from Arrah to the +North beyond Agra, it was as though whole villages had walked into the +water. They came out of little creeks one after another, as the logs +come down in the Rains. When the river rose they rose also in +companies from the shoals they had rested upon; and the falling flood +dragged them with it across the fields and through the jungle by the +long hair. All night, too, going North, I heard the guns, and by day +the shod feet of men crossing fords, and that noise which a heavy +cart-wheel makes on sand under water; and every ripple brought more +dead. At last even I was afraid, for I said: 'If this thing happen to +men how shall the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut escape?' There were boats, +too, that came up behind me without sails, burning continually, as the +cotton-boats sometimes burn, but never sinking." + +"Ah!" said the Adjutant. "Boats like those come to Calcutta of the +South. They are tall and black, they beat up the water behind them +with a tail, and they--" + +"Are thrice as big as my village. _My_ boats were low and white; they +beat up the water on either side of them, and were no larger than the +boats of one who speaks truth should be. They made me very afraid, and +I left water and went back to this my river, hiding by day and walking +by night, when I could not find little streams to help me. I came to +my village again, but I did not hope to see any of my people there. +Yet they were plowing and sowing and reaping, and going to and fro in +their fields, as quietly as their own cattle." + +"Was there still good food in the river?" said the Jackal. + +"More than I had any desire for. Even I--and I do not eat mud--even I +was tired, and, as I remember, a little frightened of this constant +coming down of the silent ones. I heard my people say in my village +that all the English were dead; but those that came, face-down, with +the current were _not_ English, as my people saw. Then my people said +that it was best to say nothing at all, but to pay the tax and plow +the land. After a long time the river cleared, and those that came +down it had been clearly drowned by the floods, as I could well see; +and, though it was not so easy then to get food, I was heartily glad +of it. A little killing here and there is no bad thing--but even the +Mugger is sometimes satisfied, as the saying is." + +"Marvelous! Most truly marvelous!" said the Jackal. "I am become fat +through merely hearing about so much good eating. And afterward what, +if it be permitted to ask, did the Protector of the Poor do?" + +"I said to myself--and by the Right and Left of Gunga! I locked my +jaws on that vow--I said I would never go roving any more. So I lived +by the Ghaut, very close to my own people, and I watched over them +year after year; and they loved me so much that they threw marigold +wreaths at my head whenever they saw it lift. Yes, and my Fate has +been very kind to me, and the river is good enough to respect my poor +and infirm presence; only--" + +"No one is all happy from his beak to his tail," said the Adjutant +sympathetically. "What does the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut need more?" + +"That little white child which I did not get," said the Mugger, with a +deep sigh. "He was very small, but I have not forgotten. I am old now, +but before I die it is my desire to try one new thing. It is true +they are a heavy-footed, noisy, and foolish people, and the sport +would be small, but I remember the old days above Benares, and, if the +child lives, he will remember still. It may be he goes up and down the +bank of some river, telling how he once passed his hands between the +teeth of the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut and lived to make a tale of it. My +Fate has been very kind, but that plagues me sometimes in my +dreams--the thought of the little white child in the bows of that +boat." He yawned, and closed his jaws. "And now I will rest and think. +Keep silent, my children, and respect the aged." + +He turned stiffly, and shuffled to the top of the sand-bar, while the +Jackal drew back with the Adjutant to the shelter of a tree stranded +on the end nearest the railway bridge. + +"That was a pleasant and profitable life," he grinned, looking up +inquiringly at the bird who towered above him. "And not once, mark +you, did he think fit to tell me where a morsel might have been left +along the banks. Yet I have told _him_ a hundred times of good things +wallowing down-stream. How true is the saying, 'All the world forgets +the Jackal and the Barber when the news has been told!' Now he is +going to sleep! _Arrh!_" + +"How can a Jackal hunt with a Mugger?" said the Adjutant coolly. "Big +thief and little thief; it is easy to say who gets the pickings." + +The Jackal turned, whining impatiently, and was going to curl himself +up under the tree trunk, when suddenly he cowered, and looked up +through the draggled branches at the bridge almost above his head. + +"What now?" said the Adjutant, opening his wings uneasily. + +"Wait till we see. The wind blows from us to them, but they are not +looking for us--those two men." + +"Men, is it? My office protects me. All India knows I am holy." The +Adjutant, being a first-class scavenger, is allowed to go where he +pleases, and so this one never flinched. + +"I am not worth a blow from anything greater than an old shoe," said +the Jackal, and listened again. "Hark to that footfall!" he went on. +"That was no country leather, but the shod foot of a white-face. +Listen again! Iron hits iron up there! It is a gun! Friend, those +heavy-footed, foolish English are coming to speak with the Mugger." + +"Warn him, then. He was called Protector of the Poor by some one not +unlike a starving Jackal but a little time ago." + +"Let my cousin protect his own hide. He has told me again and again +there is nothing to fear from the white-faces. They must be +white-faces. Not a villager of Mugger-Ghaut would dare to come after +him. See, I said it was a gun! Now, with good luck, we shall feed +before daylight. He cannot hear well out of water, and--this time it +is not a woman!" + +A shiny barrel glittered for a minute in the moonlight on the girders. +The Mugger was lying on the sand-bar as still as his own shadow, his +fore feet spread out a little, his head dropped between them, snoring +like a--mugger. + +A voice on the bridge whispered: "It's an odd shot--straight down +almost--but as safe as houses. Better try behind the neck. Golly! what +a brute! The villagers will be wild if he's shot, though. He's the +_deota_ (godling) of these parts." + +"Don't care a rap," another voice answered; "he took about fifteen of +my best coolies while the bridge was building, and it's time he was +put a stop to. I've been after him in a boat for weeks. Stand by with +the Martini as soon as I've given him both barrels of this." + +"Mind the kick, then. A double four-bore's no joke." + +"That's for him to decide. Here goes!" + +There was a roar like the sound of a small cannon (the biggest sort of +elephant-rifle is not very different from some artillery), and a +double streak of flame, followed by the stinging crack of a Martini, +whose long bullet makes nothing of a crocodile's plates. But the +explosive bullets did the work. One of them struck just behind the +Mugger's neck, a hand's breadth to the left of the backbone, while the +other burst a little lower down, at the beginning of the tail. In +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a mortally wounded crocodile can +scramble to deep water and get away; but the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut +was literally broken into three pieces. He hardly moved his head +before the life went out of him, and he lay as flat as the Jackal. + +"Thunder and lightning! Lightning and thunder!" said that miserable +little beast. "Has the thing that pulls the covered carts over the +bridge tumbled at last?" + +"It is no more than a gun," said the Adjutant, though his very +tail-feathers quivered. "Nothing more than a gun. He is certainly +dead. Here come the white-faces." + +The two Englishmen had hurried down from the bridge and across to the +sand-bar, where they stood admiring the length of the Mugger. Then a +native with an axe cut off the big head, and four men dragged it +across the spit. + +"The last time that I had my hand in a Mugger's mouth," said one of +the Englishmen, stooping down (he was the man who had built the +bridge), "it was when I was about five years old--coming down the +river by boat to Monghyr. I was a Mutiny baby, as they call it. Poor +mother was in the boat, too, and she often told me how she fired dad's +old pistol at the beast's head." + +"Well, you've certainly had your revenge on the chief of the +clan--even if the gun has made your nose bleed. Hi, you boatman! Haul +that head up the bank, and we'll boil it for the skull. The skin's too +knocked about to keep. Come along to bed now. This was worth sitting +up all night for, wasn't it?" + + * * * * * + +Curiously enough, the Jackal and the Adjutant made the very same +remark not three minutes after the men had left. + +[Illustration] + + + + +A RIPPLE SONG + + + Once a ripple came to land + In the golden sunset burning-- + Lapped against a maiden's hand, + By the ford returning. + + _Dainty foot and gentle breast-- + Here, across, be glad and rest. + "Maiden, wait," the ripple saith; + "Wait awhile, for I am Death!"_ + + "Where my lover calls I go-- + Shame it were to treat him coldly-- + 'Twas a fish that circled so, + Turning over boldly." + + _Dainty foot and tender heart, + Wait the loaded ferry-cart. + "Wait, ah, wait!" the ripple saith; + "Maiden, wait, for I am Death!"_ + + "When my lover calls I haste-- + Dame Disdain was never wedded!" + Ripple-ripple round her waist, + Clear the current eddied. + + _Foolish heart and faithful hand, + Little feet that touched no land. + Far away the ripple sped, + Ripple--ripple--running red!_ + + + + + THE KING'S ANKUS + + + + + These are the Four that are never content, that have never been + filled since the Dews began-- + Jacala's mouth, and the glut of the Kite, and the hands of the + Ape, and the Eyes of Man. + + --_Jungle Saying._ + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE KING'S ANKUS + + +Kaa, the big Rock Python, had changed his skin for perhaps the two +hundredth time since his birth; and Mowgli, who never forgot that he +owed his life to Kaa for a night's work at Cold Lairs, which you may +perhaps remember, went to congratulate him. Skin-changing always makes +a snake moody and depressed till the new skin begins to shine and look +beautiful. Kaa never made fun of Mowgli any more, but accepted him, as +the other Jungle People did, for the Master of the Jungle, and brought +him all the news that a python of his size would naturally hear. What +Kaa did not know about the Middle Jungle, as they call it,--the life +that runs close to the earth or under it, the boulder, burrow, and the +tree-bole life,--might have been written upon the smallest of his +scales. + +That afternoon Mowgli was sitting in the circle of Kaa's great coils, +fingering the flaked and broken old skin that lay all looped and +twisted among the rocks just as Kaa had left it. Kaa had very +courteously packed himself under Mowgli's broad, bare shoulders, so +that the boy was really resting in a living arm-chair. + +"Even to the scales of the eyes it is perfect," said Mowgli, under his +breath, playing with the old skin. "Strange to see the covering of +one's own head at one's own feet!" + +"Aye, but I lack feet," said Kaa; "and since this is the custom of all +my people, I do not find it strange. Does thy skin never feel old and +harsh?" + +"Then go I and wash, Flathead; but, it is true, in the great heats I +have wished I could slough my skin without pain, and run skinless." + +"I wash, and _also_ I take off my skin. How looks the new coat?" + +Mowgli ran his hand down the diagonal checkerings of the immense +back. "The Turtle is harder-backed, but not so gay," he said +judgmatically. "The Frog, my name-bearer, is more gay, but not so +hard. It is very beautiful to see--like the mottling in the mouth of a +lily." + +"It needs water. A new skin never comes to full color before the first +bath. Let us go bathe." + +"I will carry thee," said Mowgli; and he stooped down, laughing, to +lift the middle section of Kaa's great body, just where the barrel was +thickest. A man might just as well have tried to heave up a two-foot +water-main; and Kaa lay still, puffing with quiet amusement. Then the +regular evening game began--the boy in the flush of his great +strength, and the Python in his sumptuous new skin, standing up one +against the other for a wrestling-match--a trial of eye and strength. +Of course, Kaa could have crushed a dozen Mowglis if he had let +himself go; but he played carefully, and never loosed one tenth of his +power. Ever since Mowgli was strong enough to endure a little rough +handling, Kaa had taught him this game, and it suppled his limbs as +nothing else could. Sometimes Mowgli would stand lapped almost to his +throat in Kaa's shifting coils, striving to get one arm free and +catch him by the throat. Then Kaa would give way limply, and Mowgli, +with both quick-moving feet, would try to cramp the purchase of that +huge tail as it flung backward feeling for a rock or a stump. They +would rock to and fro, head to head, each waiting for his chance, till +the beautiful, statue-like group melted in a whirl of black-and-yellow +coils and struggling legs and arms, to rise up again and again. "Now! +now! now!" said Kaa, making feints with his head that even Mowgli's +quick hand could not turn aside. "Look! I touch thee here, Little +Brother! Here, and here! Are thy hands numb? Here again!" + +The game always ended in one way--with a straight, driving blow of the +head that knocked the boy over and over. Mowgli could never learn the +guard for that lightning lunge, and, as Kaa said, there was not the +least use in trying. + +"Good hunting!" Kaa grunted at last; and Mowgli, as usual, was shot +away half a dozen yards, gasping and laughing. He rose with his +fingers full of grass, and followed Kaa to the wise snake's pet +bathing-place--a deep, pitchy-black pool surrounded with rocks, and +made interesting by sunken tree-stumps. The boy slipped in, +Jungle-fashion, without a sound, and dived across; rose, too, without +a sound, and turned on his back, his arms behind his head, watching +the moon rising above the rocks, and breaking up her reflection in the +water with his toes. Kaa's diamond-shaped head cut the pool like a +razor, and came out to rest on Mowgli's shoulder. They lay still, +soaking luxuriously in the cool water. + +"It is _very_ good," said Mowgli at last, sleepily. "Now, in the +Man-Pack, at this hour, as I remember, they laid them down upon hard +pieces of wood in the inside of a mud-trap, and, having carefully shut +out all the clean winds, drew foul cloth over their heavy heads, and +made evil songs through their noses. It is better in the Jungle." + +A hurrying cobra slipped down over a rock and drank, gave them "Good +hunting!" and went away. + +"Sssh!" said Kaa, as though he had suddenly remembered something. "So +the Jungle gives thee all that thou hast ever desired, Little +Brother?" + +"Not all," said Mowgli, laughing; "else there would be a new and +strong Shere Khan to kill once a moon. Now, I could kill with my own +hands, asking no help of buffaloes. And also I have wished the sun to +shine in the middle of the Rains, and the Rains to cover the sun in +the deep of summer; and also I have never gone empty but I wished +that I had killed a goat; and also I have never killed a goat but I +wished it had been buck; nor buck but I wished it had been nilghai. +But thus do we feel, all of us." + +"Thou hast no other desire?" the big snake demanded. + +"What more can I wish? I have the Jungle, and the favor of the Jungle! +Is there more anywhere between sunrise and sunset?" + +"Now, the Cobra said--" Kaa began. + +"What cobra? He that went away just now said nothing. He was hunting." + +"It was another." + +"Hast thou many dealings with the Poison People? I give them their own +path. They carry death in the fore-tooth, and that is not good--for +they are so small. But what hood is this thou hast spoken with?" + +Kaa rolled slowly in the water like a steamer in a beam sea. "Three or +four moons since," said he, "I hunted in Cold Lairs, which place thou +hast not forgotten. And the thing I hunted fled shrieking past the +tanks and to that house whose side I once broke for thy sake, and ran +into the ground." + +"But the people of Cold Lairs do not live in burrows." Mowgli knew +that Kaa was talking of the Monkey People. + +"This thing was not living, but seeking to live," Kaa replied, with a +quiver of his tongue. "He ran into a burrow that led very far. I +followed, and having killed, I slept. When I waked I went forward." + +"Under the earth?" + +"Even so, coming at last upon a White Hood [a white cobra], who spoke +of things beyond my knowledge, and showed me many things I had never +before seen." + +"New game? Was it good hunting?" Mowgli turned quickly on his side. + +"It was no game, and would have broken all my teeth; but the White +Hood said that a man--he spoke as one that knew the breed--that a man +would give the breath under his ribs for only the sight of those +things." + +"We will look," said Mowgli. "I now remember that I was once a man." + +"Slowly--slowly. It was haste killed the Yellow Snake that ate the +sun. We two spoke together under the earth, and I spoke of thee, +naming thee as a man. Said the White Hood (and he is indeed as old as +the Jungle): 'It is long since I have seen a man. Let him come, and +he shall see all these things, for the least of which very many men +would die.'" + +"That _must_ be new game. And yet the Poison People do not tell us +when game is afoot. They are an unfriendly folk." + +"It is _not_ game. It is--it is--I cannot say what it is." + +"We will go there. I have never seen a White Hood, and I wish to see +the other things. Did he kill them?" + +"They are all dead things. He says he is the keeper of them all." + +"Ah! As a wolf stands above meat he has taken to his own lair. Let us +go." + +Mowgli swam to bank, rolled on the grass to dry himself, and the two +set off for Cold Lairs, the deserted city of which you may have heard. +Mowgli was not the least afraid of the Monkey People in those days, +but the Monkey People had the liveliest horror of Mowgli. Their +tribes, however, were raiding in the Jungle, and so Cold Lairs stood +empty and silent in the moonlight. Kaa led up to the ruins of the +queen's pavilion that stood on the terrace, slipped over the rubbish, +and dived down the half-choked staircase that went underground from +the center of the pavilion. Mowgli gave the snake-call--"We be of one +blood, ye and I,"--and followed on his hands and knees. They crawled a +long distance down a sloping passage that turned and twisted several +times, and at last came to where the root of some great tree, growing +thirty feet overhead, had forced out a solid stone in the wall. They +crept through the gap, and found themselves in a large vault, whose +domed roof had been also broken away by tree-roots so that a few +streaks of light dropped down into the darkness. + +"A safe lair," said Mowgli, rising to his firm feet, "but over far to +visit daily. And now what do we see?" + +"Am I nothing?" said a voice in the middle of the vault; and Mowgli +saw something white move till, little by little, there stood up the +hugest cobra he had ever set eyes on--a creature nearly eight feet +long, and bleached by being in darkness to an old ivory-white. Even +the spectacle-marks of his spread hood had faded to faint yellow. His +eyes were as red as rubies, and altogether he was most wonderful. + +"Good hunting!" said Mowgli, who carried his manners with his knife, +and that never left him. + +"What of my city?" said the White Cobra, without answering the +greeting. "What of the great, the walled city--the city of a hundred +elephants and twenty thousand horses, and cattle past counting--the +city of the King of Twenty Kings? I grow deaf here, and it is long +since I heard their war-gongs." + +"The Jungle is above our heads," said Mowgli. "I know only Hathi and +his sons among elephants. Bagheera has slain all the horses in one +village, and--what is a King?" + +"I told thee," said Kaa softly to the Cobra--"I told thee, four moons +ago, that thy city was not." + +"The city--the great city of the forest whose gates are guarded by the +King's towers--can never pass. They builded it before my father's +father came from the egg, and it shall endure when my son's sons are +as white as I! Salomdhi, son of Chandrabija, son of Viyeja, son of +Yegasuri, made it in the days of Bappa Rawal. Whose cattle are _ye_?" + +"It is a lost trail," said Mowgli, turning to Kaa. "I know not his +talk." + +"Nor I. He is very old. Father of Cobras, there is only the Jungle +here, as it has been since the beginning." + +"Then who is _he_," said the White Cobra, "sitting down before me, +unafraid, knowing not the name of the King, talking our talk through a +man's lips? Who is he with the knife and the snake's tongue?" + +"Mowgli they call me," was the answer. "I am of the Jungle. The Wolves +are my people, and Kaa here is my brother. Father of Cobras, who art +thou?" + +"I am the Warden of the King's Treasure. Kurrun Raja builded the stone +above me, in the days when my skin was dark, that I might teach death +to those who came to steal. Then they let down the treasure through +the stone, and I heard the song of the Brahmins my masters." + +"Umm!" said Mowgli to himself. "I have dealt with one Brahmin already, +in the Man-Pack, and--I know what I know. Evil comes here in a +little." + +"Five times since I came here has the stone been lifted, but always to +let down more, and never to take away. There are no riches like these +riches--the treasures of a hundred kings. But it is long and long +since the stone was last moved, and I think that my city has +forgotten." + +"There is no city. Look up. Yonder are roots of the great trees +tearing the stones apart. Trees and men do not grow together," Kaa +insisted. + +"Twice and thrice have men found their way here," the White Cobra +answered savagely; "but they never spoke till I came upon them groping +in the dark, and then they cried only a little time. But ye come with +lies, Man and Snake both, and would have me believe the city is not, +and that my wardship ends. Little do men change in the years. But _I_ +change never! Till the stone is lifted, and the Brahmins come down +singing the songs that I know, and feed me with warm milk, and take me +to the light again, I--I--_I_, and no other, am the Warden of the +King's Treasure! The city is dead, ye say, and here are the roots of +the trees? Stoop down, then, and take what ye will. Earth has no +treasure like to these. Man with the snake's tongue, if thou canst go +alive by the way that thou hast entered at, the lesser Kings will be +thy servants!" + +"Again the trail is lost," said Mowgli, coolly. "Can any jackal have +burrowed so deep and bitten this great White Hood? He is surely mad. +Father of Cobras, I see nothing here to take away." + +"By the Gods of the Sun and Moon, it is the madness of death upon the +boy!" hissed the Cobra. "Before thine eyes close I will allow thee +this favor. Look thou, and see what man has never seen before!" + +"They do not well in the Jungle who speak to Mowgli of favors," said +the boy, between his teeth; "but the dark changes all, as I know. I +will look, if that please thee." + +He stared with puckered-up eyes round the vault, and then lifted up +from the floor a handful of something that glittered. + +"Oho!" said he, "this is like the stuff they play with in the +Man-Pack: only this is yellow and the other was brown." + +He let the gold pieces fall, and moved forward. The floor of the vault +was buried some five or six feet deep in coined gold and silver that +had burst from the sacks it had been originally stored in, and, in the +long years, the metal had packed and settled as sand packs at low +tide. On it and in it, and rising through it, as wrecks lift through +the sand, were jeweled elephant-howdahs of embossed silver, studded +with plates of hammered gold, and adorned with carbuncles and +turquoises. There were palanquins and litters for carrying queens, +framed and braced with silver and enamel, with jade-handled poles and +amber curtain-rings; there were golden candlesticks hung with pierced +emeralds that quivered on the branches; there were studded images, +five feet high, of forgotten gods, silver with jeweled eyes; there +were coats of mail, gold inlaid on steel, and fringed with rotted and +blackened seed-pearls; there were helmets, crested and beaded with +pigeon's-blood rubies; there were shields of lacquer, of +tortoise-shell and rhinoceros-hide, strapped and bossed with red gold +and set with emeralds at the edge; there were sheaves of +diamond-hilted swords, daggers, and hunting-knives; there were golden +sacrificial bowls and ladles, and portable altars of a shape that +never see the light of day; there were jade cups and bracelets; there +were incense-burners, combs, and pots for perfume, henna, and +eye-powder, all in embossed gold; there were nose-rings, armlets, +head-bands, finger-rings, and girdles past any counting; there were +belts, seven fingers broad, of square-cut diamonds and rubies, and +wooden boxes, trebly clamped with iron, from which the wood had fallen +away in powder, showing the pile of uncut star-sapphires, opals, +cat's-eyes, sapphires, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and garnets within. + +The White Cobra was right. No mere money would begin to pay the value +of this treasure, the sifted pickings of centuries of war, plunder, +trade, and taxation. The coins alone were priceless, leaving out of +count all the precious stones; and the dead weight of the gold and +silver alone might be two or three hundred tons. Every native ruler +in India to-day, however poor, has a hoard to which he is always +adding; and though, once in a long while, some enlightened prince may +send off forty or fifty bullock-cart loads of silver to be exchanged +for Government securities, the bulk of them keep their treasure and +the knowledge of it very closely to themselves. + +[Illustration] + +But Mowgli naturally did not understand what these things meant. The +knives interested him a little, but they did not balance so well as +his own, and so he dropped them. At last he found something really +fascinating laid on the front of a howdah half buried in the coins. It +was a three-foot ankus, or elephant-goad--something like a small +boat-hook. The top was one round shining ruby, and twelve inches of +the handle below it were studded with rough turquoises close together, +giving a most satisfactory grip. Below them was a rim of jade with a +flower-pattern running round it--only the leaves were emeralds, and +the blossoms were rubies sunk in the cool, green stone. The rest of +the handle was a shaft of pure ivory, while the point--the spike and +hook--was gold-inlaid steel with pictures of elephant-catching; and +the pictures attracted Mowgli, who saw that they had something to do +with his friend Hathi the Silent. + +The White Cobra had been following him closely. + +"Is this not worth dying to behold?" he said. "Have I not done thee a +great favor?" + +"I do not understand," said Mowgli. "The things are hard and cold, and +by no means good to eat. But this"--he lifted the ankus--"I desire to +take away, that I may see it in the sun. Thou sayest they are all +thine? Wilt thou give it to me, and I will bring thee frogs to eat?" + +The White Cobra fairly shook with evil delight. "Assuredly I will give +it," he said. "All that is here I will give thee--till thou goest +away." + +"But I go now. This place is dark and cold, and I wish to take the +thorn-pointed thing to the Jungle." + +"Look by thy foot! What is that there?" + +Mowgli picked up something white and smooth. "It is the bone of a +man's head," he said quietly. "And here are two more." + +"They came to take the treasure away many years ago. I spoke to them +in the dark, and they lay still." + +"But what do I need of this that is called treasure? If thou wilt give +me the ankus to take away, it is good hunting. If not, it is good +hunting none the less. I do not fight with the Poison People, and I +was also taught the Master-word of thy tribe." + +"There is but one Master-word here. It is mine!" + +Kaa flung himself forward with blazing eyes. "Who bade me bring the +Man?" he hissed. + +"I surely," the old Cobra lisped. "It is long since I have seen Man, +and this Man speaks our tongue." + +"But there was no talk of killing. How can I go to the Jungle and say +that I have led him to his death?" said Kaa. + +"I talk not of killing till the time. And as to thy going or not +going, there is the hole in the wall. Peace, now, thou fat +monkey-killer! I have but to touch thy neck, and the Jungle will know +thee no longer. Never Man came here that went away with the breath +under his ribs. I am the Warden of the Treasure of the King's City!" + +"But, thou white worm of the dark, I tell thee there is neither king +nor city! The Jungle is all about us!" cried Kaa. + +"There is still the Treasure. But this can be done. Wait a while, Kaa +of the Rocks, and see the boy run. There is room for great sport here. +Life is good. Run to and fro a while, and make sport, boy!" + +Mowgli put his hand on Kaa's head quietly. + +"The white thing has dealt with men of the Man-Pack until now. He does +not know me," he whispered. "He has asked for this hunting. Let him +have it." Mowgli had been standing with the ankus held point down. He +flung it from him quickly, and it dropped crossways just behind the +great snake's hood, pinning him to the floor. In a flash, Kaa's weight +was upon the writhing body, paralyzing it from hood to tail. The red +eyes burned, and the six spare inches of the head struck furiously +right and left. + +"Kill!" said Kaa, as Mowgli's hand went to his knife. + +"No," he said, as he drew the blade; "I will never kill again save for +food. But look you, Kaa!" He caught the snake behind the hood, forced +the mouth open with the blade of the knife, and showed the terrible +poison-fangs of the upper jaw lying black and withered in the gum. The +White Cobra had outlived his poison, as a snake will. + +"_Thuu_" ("It is dried up"),[1] said Mowgli; and motioning Kaa away, +he picked up the ankus, setting the White Cobra free. + +[1] Literally, a rotted out tree-stump. + +"The King's Treasure needs a new Warden," he said gravely. "Thuu, thou +hast not done well. Run to and fro and make sport, Thuu!" + +"I am ashamed. Kill me!" hissed the White Cobra. + +"There has been too much talk of killing. We will go now. I take the +thorn-pointed thing, Thuu, because I have fought and worsted thee." + +"See, then, that the thing does not kill thee at last. It is Death! +Remember, it is Death! There is enough in that thing to kill the men +of all my city. Not long wilt thou hold it, Jungle Man, nor he who +takes it from thee. They will kill, and kill, and kill for its sake! +My strength is dried up, but the ankus will do my work. It is Death! +It is Death! It is Death!" + +Mowgli crawled out through the hole into the passage again, and the +last that he saw was the White Cobra striking furiously with his +harmless fangs at the stolid golden faces of the gods that lay on the +floor, and hissing, "It is Death!" + +They were glad to get to the light of day once more; and when they +were back in their own Jungle and Mowgli made the ankus glitter in the +morning light, he was almost as pleased as though he had found a bunch +of new flowers to stick in his hair. + +"This is brighter than Bagheera's eyes," he said delightedly, as he +twirled the ruby. "I will show it to him; but what did the Thuu mean +when he talked of death?" + +"I cannot say. I am sorrowful to my tail's tail that he felt not thy +knife. There is always evil at Cold Lairs--above ground or below. But +now I am hungry. Dost thou hunt with me this dawn?" said Kaa. + +"No; Bagheera must see this thing. Good hunting!" Mowgli danced off, +flourishing the great ankus, and stopping from time to time to admire +it, till he came to that part of the Jungle Bagheera chiefly used, and +found him drinking after a heavy kill. Mowgli told him all his +adventures from beginning to end, and Bagheera sniffed at the ankus +between whiles. When Mowgli came to the White Cobra's last words, the +Panther purred approvingly. + +"Then the White Hood spoke the thing which is?" Mowgli asked quickly. + +"I was born in the King's cages at Oodeypore, and it is in my stomach +that I know some little of Man. Very many men would kill thrice in a +night for the sake of that one big red stone alone." + +"But the stone makes it heavy to the hand. My little bright knife is +better; and--see! the red stone is not good to eat. Then _why_ would +they kill?" + +"Mowgli, go thou and sleep. Thou hast lived among men, and--" + +"I remember. Men kill because they are not hunting;--for idleness and +pleasure. Wake again, Bagheera. For what use was this thorn-pointed +thing made?" + +Bagheera half opened his eyes--he was very sleepy--with a malicious +twinkle. + +"It was made by men to thrust into the head of the sons of Hathi, so +that the blood should pour out. I have seen the like in the street of +Oodeypore, before our cages. That thing has tasted the blood of many +such as Hathi." + +"But why do they thrust into the heads of elephants?" + +"To teach them Man's Law. Having neither claws nor teeth, men make +these things--and worse." + +"Always more blood when I come near, even to the things the Man-Pack +have made," said Mowgli, disgustedly. He was getting a little tired of +the weight of the ankus. "If I had known this, I would not have taken +it. First it was Messua's blood on the thongs, and now it is Hathi's. +I will use it no more. Look!" + +The ankus flew sparkling, and buried itself point down thirty yards +away, between the trees. "So my hands are clean of Death," said +Mowgli, rubbing his palms on the fresh, moist earth. "The Thuu said +Death would follow me. He is old and white and mad." + +"White or black, or death or life, _I_ am going to sleep, Little +Brother. I cannot hunt all night and howl all day, as do some folk." + +Bagheera went off to a hunting-lair that he knew, about two miles off. +Mowgli made an easy way for himself up a convenient tree, knotted +three or four creepers together, and in less time than it takes to +tell was swinging in a hammock fifty feet above ground. Though he had +no positive objection to strong daylight, Mowgli followed the custom +of his friends, and used it as little as he could. When he waked +among the very loud-voiced peoples that live in the trees, it was +twilight once more, and he had been dreaming of the beautiful pebbles +he had thrown away. + +"At least I will look at the thing again," he said, and slid down a +creeper to the earth; but Bagheera was before him. Mowgli could hear +him snuffing in the half light. + +"Where is the thorn-pointed thing?" cried Mowgli. + +"A man has taken it. Here is the trail." + +"Now we shall see whether the Thuu spoke truth. If the pointed thing +is Death, that man will die. Let us follow." + +"Kill first," said Bagheera. "An empty stomach makes a careless eye. +Men go very slowly, and the Jungle is wet enough to hold the lightest +mark." + +They killed as soon as they could, but it was nearly three hours +before they finished their meat and drink and buckled down to the +trail. The Jungle People know that nothing makes up for being hurried +over your meals. + +"Think you the pointed thing will turn in the man's hand and kill +him?" Mowgli asked. "The Thuu said it was Death." + +"We shall see when we find," said Bagheera, trotting with his head +low. "It is single-foot" (he meant that there was only one man), "and +the weight of the thing has pressed his heel far into the ground." + +"Hai! This is as clear as summer lightning," Mowgli answered; and they +fell into the quick, choppy trail-trot in and out through the checkers +of the moonlight, following the marks of those two bare feet. + +"Now he runs swiftly," said Mowgli. "The toes are spread apart." They +went on over some wet ground. "Now why does he turn aside here?" + +"Wait!" said Bagheera, and flung himself forward with one superb bound +as far as ever he could. The first thing to do when a trail ceases to +explain itself is to cast forward without leaving your own confusing +foot-marks on the ground. Bagheera turned as he landed, and faced +Mowgli, crying, "Here comes another trail to meet him. It is a smaller +foot, this second trail, and the toes turn inward." + +Then Mowgli ran up and looked. "It is the foot of a Gond hunter," he +said. "Look! Here he dragged his bow on the grass. That is why the +first trail turned aside so quickly. Big Foot hid from Little Foot." + +"That is true," said Bagheera. "Now, lest by crossing each other's +tracks we foul the signs, let each take one trail. I am Big Foot, +Little Brother, and thou art Little Foot, the Gond." + +Bagheera leaped back to the original trail, leaving Mowgli stooping +above the curious narrow track of the wild little man of the woods. + +"Now," said Bagheera, moving step by step along the chain of +footprints, "I, Big Foot, turn aside here. Now I hide me behind a rock +and stand still, not daring to shift my feet. Cry thy trail, Little +Brother." + +"Now, I, Little Foot, come to the rock," said Mowgli, running up his +trail. "Now, I sit down under the rock, leaning upon my right hand, +and resting my bow between my toes. I wait long, for the mark of my +feet is deep here." + +"I also," said Bagheera, hidden behind the rock. "I wait, resting the +end of the thorn-pointed thing upon a stone. It slips, for here is a +scratch upon the stone. Cry thy trail, Little Brother." + +"One, two twigs and a big branch are broken here," said Mowgli, in an +undertone. "Now, how shall I cry _that_? Ah! It is plain now. I, +Little Foot, go away making noises and tramplings so that Big Foot may +hear me." He moved away from the rock pace by pace among the trees, +his voice rising in the distance as he approached a little cascade. +"I--go--far--away--to--where--the--noise--of--falling--water--covers-- +my--noise; and--here--I--wait. Cry thy trail, Bagheera, Big Foot!" + +The panther had been casting in every direction to see how Big Foot's +trail led away from behind the rock. Then he gave tongue: + +"I come from behind the rock upon my knees, dragging the thorn-pointed +thing. Seeing no one, I run. I, Big Foot, run swiftly. The trail is +clear. Let each follow his own. I run!" + +Bagheera swept on along the clearly marked trail, and Mowgli followed +the steps of the Gond. For some time there was silence in the Jungle. + +"Where art thou, Little Foot?" cried Bagheera. Mowgli's voice answered +him not fifty yards to the right. + +"Um!" said the panther, with a deep cough. "The two run side by side, +drawing nearer!" + +They raced on another half mile, always keeping about the same +distance, till Mowgli, whose head was not so close to the ground as +Bagheera's, cried: "They have met. Good hunting--look! Here stood +Little Foot, with his knee on a rock--and yonder is Big Foot indeed!" + +Not ten yards in front of them, stretched across a pile of broken +rocks, lay the body of a villager of the district, a long, +small-feathered Gond arrow through his back and breast. + +"Was the Thuu so old and so mad, Little Brother?" said Bagheera +gently. "Here is one death, at least." + +"Follow on. But where is the drinker of elephant's blood--the red-eyed +thorn?" + +"Little Foot has it--perhaps. It is single-foot again now." + +The single trail of a light man who had been running quickly and +bearing a burden on his left shoulder, held on round a long, low spur +of dried grass, where each footfall seemed, to the sharp eyes of the +trackers, marked in hot iron. + +Neither spoke till the trail ran up to the ashes of a camp-fire hidden +in a ravine. + +"Again!" said Bagheera, checking as though he had been turned into +stone. + +The body of a little wizened Gond lay with its feet in the ashes, and +Bagheera looked inquiringly at Mowgli. + +"That was done with a bamboo," said the boy, after one glance. "I have +used such a thing among the buffaloes when I served in the Man-Pack. +The Father of Cobras--I am sorrowful that I made a jest of him--knew +the breed well, as I might have known. Said I not that men kill for +idleness?" + +"Indeed, they killed for the sake of the red and blue stones," +Bagheera answered. "Remember, I was in the King's cages at Oodeypore." + +"One, two, three, four tracks," said Mowgli, stooping over the ashes. +"Four tracks of men with shod feet. They do not go so quickly as +Gonds. Now, what evil had the little woodman done to them? See, they +talked together, all five, standing up, before they killed him. +Bagheera, let us go back. My stomach is heavy in me, and yet it heaves +up and down like an oriole's nest at the end of a branch." + +"It is not good hunting to leave game afoot. Follow!" said the +panther. "Those eight shod feet have not gone far." + +No more was said for fully an hour, as they worked up the broad trail +of the four men with shod feet. + +It was clear, hot daylight now, and Bagheera said, "I smell smoke." + +"Men are always more ready to eat than to run," Mowgli answered, +trotting in and out between the low scrub bushes of the new Jungle +they were exploring. Bagheera, a little to his left, made an +indescribable noise in his throat. + +"Here is one that has done with feeding," said he. A tumbled bundle of +gay-colored clothes lay under a bush, and round it was some spilt +flour. + +"That was done by the bamboo again," said Mowgli. "See! that white +dust is what men eat. They have taken the kill from this one,--he +carried their food,--and given him for a kill to Chil, the Kite." + +"It is the third," said Bagheera. + +"I will go with new, big frogs to the Father of Cobras, and feed him +fat," said Mowgli to himself. "The drinker of elephant's blood is +Death himself--but still I do not understand!" + +"Follow!" said Bagheera. + +They had not gone half a mile further when they heard Ko, the Crow, +singing the death-song in the top of a tamarisk under whose shade +three men were lying. A half-dead fire smoked in the center of the +circle, under an iron plate which held a blackened and burned cake of +unleavened bread. Close to the fire, and blazing in the sunshine, lay +the ruby-and-turquoise ankus. + +"The thing works quickly; all ends here," said Bagheera. "How did +_these_ die, Mowgli? There is no mark on any." + +A Jungle-dweller gets to learn by experience as much as many doctors +know of poisonous plants and berries. Mowgli sniffed the smoke that +came up from the fire, broke off a morsel of the blackened bread, +tasted it, and spat it out again. + +"Apple of Death," he coughed. "The first must have made it ready in +the food for _these_, who killed him, having first killed the Gond." + +"Good hunting, indeed! The kills follow close," said Bagheera. + +"Apple of Death" is what the Jungle call thorn-apple or dhatura, the +readiest poison in all India. + +"What now?" said the panther. "Must thou and I kill each other for +yonder red-eyed slayer?" + +"Can it speak?" said Mowgli, in a whisper. "Did I do it a wrong when I +threw it away? Between us two it can do no wrong, for we do not desire +what men desire. If it be left here, it will assuredly continue to +kill men one after another as fast as nuts fall in a high wind. I have +no love to men, but even I would not have them die six in a night." + +"What matter? They are only men. They killed one another and were well +pleased," said Bagheera. "That first little woodman hunted well." + +"They are cubs none the less; and a cub will drown himself to bite +the moon's light on the water. The fault was mine," said Mowgli, who +spoke as though he knew all about everything. "I will never again +bring into the Jungle strange things--not though they be as beautiful +as flowers. This"--he handled the ankus gingerly--"goes back to the +Father of Cobras. But first we must sleep, and we cannot sleep near +these sleepers. Also we must bury _him_, lest he run away and kill +another six. Dig me a hole under that tree." + +"But, Little Brother," said Bagheera, moving off to the spot, "I tell +thee it is no fault of the blood-drinker. The trouble is with men." + +"All one," said Mowgli. "Dig the hole deep. When we wake I will take +him up and carry him back." + + * * * * * + +Two nights later, as the White Cobra sat mourning in the darkness of +the vault, ashamed, and robbed, and alone, the turquoise ankus whirled +through the hole in the wall, and clashed on the floor of golden +coins. + +"Father of Cobras," said Mowgli (he was careful to keep the other side +of the wall), "get thee a young and ripe one of thine own people to +help thee guard the King's Treasure so that no man may come away +alive any more." + +"Ah-ha! It returns, then. I said the thing was Death. How comes it +that thou art still alive?" the old Cobra mumbled, twining lovingly +round the ankus-haft. + +"By the Bull that bought me, I do not know! That thing has killed six +times in a night. Let him go out no more." + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE SONG OF THE LITTLE HUNTER + + + Ere Mor the Peacock flutters, ere the Monkey People cry, + Ere Chil the Kite swoops down a furlong sheer, + Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh-- + He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear! + Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade, + And the whisper spreads and widens far and near; + And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now-- + He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear! + + Ere the moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks are ribbed + with light, + When the downward-dipping trails are dank and drear, + Comes a breathing hard behind thee--_snuffle-snuffle_ through the + night-- + It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear! + On thy knees and draw the bow; bid the shrilling arrow go; + In the empty, mocking thicket plunge the spear; + But thy hands are loosed and weak, and the blood has left thy cheek-- + It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear! + + When the heat-cloud sucks the tempest, when the slivered pine-trees + fall, + When the blinding, blaring rain-squalls lash and veer; + Through the war-gongs of the thunder rings a voice more loud than + all-- + It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear! + Now the spates are banked and deep; now the footless boulders leap-- + Now the lightning shows each littlest leaf-rib clear-- + But thy throat is shut and dried, and thy heart against thy side + Hammers: Fear, O Little Hunter--this is Fear! + +[Illustration] + + + + + QUIQUERN + + + + + The People of the Eastern Ice, they are melting like the snow-- + They beg for coffee and sugar; they go where the white men go. + The People of the Western Ice, they learn to steal and fight; + They sell their furs to the trading-post; they sell their souls to + the white. + The People of the Southern Ice, they trade with the whaler's crew; + Their women have many ribbons, but their tents are torn and few. + But the People of the Elder Ice, beyond the white man's ken-- + Their spears are made of the narwhal-horn, and they are the last of + the Men! + + --_Translation._ + + + + +[Illustration] + +QUIQUERN + + +"He has opened his eyes. Look!" + +"Put him in the skin again. He will be a strong dog. On the fourth +month we will name him." + +"For whom?" said Amoraq. + +Kadlu's eye rolled round the skin-lined snow-house till it fell on +fourteen-year-old Kotuko sitting on the sleeping-bench, making a +button out of walrus ivory. "Name him for me," said Kotuko, with a +grin. "I shall need him one day." + +Kadlu grinned back till his eyes were almost buried in the fat of his +flat cheeks, and nodded to Amoraq, while the puppy's fierce mother +whined to see her baby wriggling far out of reach in the little +sealskin pouch hung above the warmth of the blubber-lamp. Kotuko went +on with his carving, and Kadlu threw a rolled bundle of leather +dog-harnesses into a tiny little room that opened from one side of the +house, slipped off his heavy deerskin hunting-suit, put it into a +whalebone-net that hung above another lamp, and dropped down on the +sleeping-bench to whittle at a piece of frozen seal-meat till Amoraq, +his wife, should bring the regular dinner of boiled meat and +blood-soup. He had been out since early dawn at the seal-holes, eight +miles away, and had come home with three big seal. Halfway down the +long, low snow passage or tunnel that led to the inner door of the +house you could hear snappings and yelpings, as the dogs of his +sleigh-team, released from the day's work, scuffled for warm places. + +When the yelpings grew too loud Kotuko lazily rolled off the +sleeping-bench, and picked up a whip with an eighteen-inch handle of +springy whalebone, and twenty-five feet of heavy, plaited thong. He +dived into the passage, where it sounded as though all the dogs were +eating him alive; but that was no more than their regular grace +before meals. When he crawled out at the far end half a dozen furry +heads followed him with their eyes as he went to a sort of gallows of +whale-jawbones, from which the dog's meat was hung; split off the +frozen stuff in big lumps with a broad-headed spear; and stood, his +whip in one hand and the meat in the other. Each beast was called by +name, the weakest first, and woe betide any dog that moved out of his +turn; for the tapering lash would shoot out like thonged lightning, +and flick away an inch or so of hair and hide. Each beast growled, +snapped, choked once over his portion, and hurried back to the +protection of the passage, while the boy stood upon the snow under the +blazing Northern Lights and dealt out justice. The last to be served +was the big black leader of the team, who kept order when the dogs +were harnessed; and to him Kotuko gave a double allowance of meat as +well as an extra crack of the whip. + +"Ah!" said Kotuko, coiling up the lash, "I have a little one over the +lamp that will make a great many howlings. _Sarpok!_ Get in!" + +He crawled back over the huddled dogs, dusted the dry snow from his +furs with the whalebone beater that Amoraq kept by the door, tapped +the skin-lined roof of the house to shake off any icicles that might +have fallen from the dome of snow above, and curled up on the bench. +The dogs in the passage snored and whined in their sleep, the boy-baby +in Amoraq's deep fur hood kicked and choked and gurgled, and the +mother of the newly named puppy lay at Kotuko's side, her eyes fixed +on the bundle of sealskin, warm and safe above the broad yellow flame +of the lamp. + +And all this happened far away to the north, beyond Labrador, beyond +Hudson's Strait, where the great tides heave the ice about, north of +Melville Peninsula--north even of the narrow Fury and Hecla +Straits--on the north shore of Baffin Land, where Bylot's Island +stands above the ice of Lancaster Sound like a pudding-bowl wrong side +up. North of Lancaster Sound there is little we know anything about, +except North Devon and Ellesmere Land; but even there live a few +scattered people, next door, as it were, to the very Pole. + +Kadlu was an Inuit,--what you call an Esquimau,--and his tribe, some +thirty persons all told, belonged to the Tununirmiut--"the country +lying at the back of something." In the maps that desolate coast is +written Navy Board Inlet, but the Inuit name is best, because the +country lies at the very back of everything in the world. For nine +months of the year there is only ice, snow, and gale after gale, with +a cold that no one can realize who has never seen the thermometer even +at zero. For six months of those nine it is dark; and that is what +makes it so horrible. In the three months of the summer it only +freezes every other day and every night, and then the snow begins to +weep off on the southerly slopes, and a few ground-willows put out +their woolly buds, a tiny stonecrop or so makes believe to blossom, +beaches of fine gravel and rounded stones run down to the open sea, +and polished boulders and streaked rocks lift up above the granulated +snow. But all that is gone in a few weeks, and the wild winter locks +down again on the land; while at sea the ice tears up and down the +offing, jamming and ramming, and splitting and hitting, and pounding +and grounding, till it all freezes together, ten feet thick, from the +land outward to deep water. + +In the winter Kadlu would follow the seal to the edge of this +land-ice, and spear them as they came up to breathe at their +blow-holes. The seal must have open water to live and catch fish in, +and in the deep of winter the ice would sometimes run eighty miles +without a break from the nearest shore. In the spring he and his +people retreated from the floes to the rocky mainland, where they put +up tents of skins, and snared the sea-birds, or speared the young seal +basking on the beaches. Later, they would go south into Baffin Land +after the reindeer, and to get their year's store of salmon from the +hundreds of streams and lakes of the interior; coming back north in +September or October for the musk-ox hunting and the regular winter +sealery. This traveling was done with dog-sleighs, twenty and thirty +miles a day, or sometimes down the coast in big skin "woman-boats," +when the dogs and the babies lay among the feet of the rowers, and the +women sang songs as they glided from cape to cape over the glassy, +cold waters. All the luxuries that the Tununirmiut knew came from the +south--driftwood for sleigh-runners, rod-iron for harpoon-tips, steel +knives, tin kettles that cooked food much better than the old +soapstone affairs, flint and steel, and even matches, as well as +colored ribbons for the women's hair, little cheap mirrors, and red +cloth for the edging of deerskin dress-jackets. Kadlu traded the rich, +creamy, twisted narwhal-horn and musk-ox teeth (these are just as +valuable as pearls) to the Southern Inuit, and they, in turn, traded +with the whalers and the missionary-posts of Exeter and Cumberland +Sounds; and so the chain went on, till a kettle picked up by a ship's +cook in the Bhendy Bazaar might end its days over a blubber-lamp +somewhere on the cool side of the Arctic Circle. + +Kadlu, being a good hunter, was rich in iron harpoons, snow-knives, +bird-darts, and all the other things that make life easy up there in +the great cold; and he was the head of this tribe, or, as they say, +"the man who knows all about it by practice." This did not give him +any authority, except now and then he could advise his friends to +change their hunting-grounds; but Kotuko used it to domineer a little, +in the lazy, fat Inuit fashion, over the other boys, when they came +out at night to play ball in the moonlight, or to sing the Child's +Song to the Aurora Borealis. + +But at fourteen an Inuit feels himself a man, and Kotuko was tired of +making snares for wild fowl and kit-foxes, and most tired of all of +helping the women to chew seal- and deerskins (that supples them as +nothing else can) the long day through, while the men were out +hunting. He wanted to go into the _quaggi_, the Singing-House, when +the hunters gathered there for their mysteries, and the _angekok_, the +sorcerer, frightened them into the most delightful fits after the +lamps were put out, and you could hear the Spirit of the Reindeer +stamping on the roof; and when a spear was thrust out into the open +black night it came back covered with hot blood. He wanted to throw +his big boots into the net with the tired air of a head of a family, +and to gamble with the hunters when they dropped in of an evening and +played a sort of home-made roulette with a tin pot and a nail. There +were hundreds of things that he wanted to do, but the grown men +laughed at him and said, "Wait till you have been in the buckle, +Kotuko. Hunting is not _all_ catching." + +Now that his father had named a puppy for him, things looked brighter. +An Inuit does not waste a good dog on his son till the boy knows +something of dog-driving; and Kotuko was more than sure that he knew +more than everything. + +If the puppy had not had an iron constitution he would have died from +over-stuffing and over-handling. Kotuko made him a tiny harness with a +trace to it, and hauled him all over the house floor, shouting: "Aua! +Ja aua!" (Go to the right.) "Choiachoi! Ja choiachoi!" (Go to the +left.) "Ohaha!" (Stop.) The puppy did not like it at all, but being +fished for in this way was pure happiness beside being put to the +sleigh for the first time. He just sat down on the snow, and played +with the seal-hide trace that ran from his harness to the _pitu_, the +big thong in the bows of the sleigh. Then the team started, and the +puppy found the heavy ten-foot sleigh running up his back, and +dragging him along the snow, while Kotuko laughed till the tears ran +down his face. There followed days and days of the cruel whip that +hisses like the wind over ice, and his companions all bit him because +he did not know his work, and the harness chafed him, and he was not +allowed to sleep with Kotuko any more, but had to take the coldest +place in the passage. It was a sad time for the puppy. + +The boy learned, too, as fast as the dog; though a dog-sleigh is a +heartbreaking thing to manage. Each beast is harnessed, the weakest +nearest to the driver, by his own separate trace, which runs under his +left fore-leg to the main thong, where it is fastened by a sort of +button and loop which can be slipped by a turn of the wrist, thus +freeing one dog at a time. This is very necessary, because young dogs +often get the trace between their hind legs, where it cuts to the +bone. And they one and all _will_ go visiting their friends as they +run, jumping in and out among the traces. Then they fight, and the +result is more mixed than a wet fishing-line next morning. A great +deal of trouble can be avoided by scientific use of the whip. Every +Inuit boy prides himself as being a master of the long lash; but it is +easy to flick at a mark on the ground, and difficult to lean forward +and catch a shirking dog just behind the shoulders when the sleigh is +going at full speed. If you call one dog's name for "visiting," and +accidentally lash another, the two will fight it out at once, and stop +all the others. Again, if you travel with a companion and begin to +talk, or by yourself and sing, the dogs will halt, turn round, and sit +down to hear what you have to say. Kotuko was run away from once or +twice through forgetting to block the sleigh when he stopped; and he +broke many lashings, and ruined a few thongs, before he could be +trusted with a full team of eight and the light sleigh. Then he felt +himself a person of consequence, and on smooth, black ice, with a bold +heart and a quick elbow, he smoked along over the levels as fast as a +pack in full cry. He would go ten miles to the seal-holes, and when +he was on the hunting-grounds he would twitch a trace loose from the +_pitu_, and free the big black leader, who was the cleverest dog in +the team. As soon as the dog had scented a breathing-hole Kotuko would +reverse the sleigh, driving a couple of sawed-off antlers, that stuck +up like perambulator-handles from the back-rest, deep into the snow, +so that the team could not get away. Then he would crawl forward inch +by inch, and wait till the seal came up to breathe. Then he would stab +down swiftly with his spear and running-line, and presently would haul +his seal up to the lip of the ice, while the black leader came up and +helped to pull the carcass across the ice to the sleigh. That was the +time when the harnessed dogs yelled and foamed with excitement, and +Kotuko laid the long lash like a red-hot bar across all their faces, +till the carcass froze stiff. Going home was the heavy work. The +loaded sleigh had to be humored among the rough ice, and the dogs sat +down and looked hungrily at the seal instead of pulling. At last they +would strike the well-worn sleigh-road to the village, and toodle-kiyi +along the ringing ice, heads down and tails up, while Kotuko struck up +the "Angutivaun tai-na tau-na-ne taina" (The Song of the Returning +Hunter), and voices hailed him from house to house under all that +dim, star-litten sky. + +When Kotuko the dog came to his full growth he enjoyed himself too. He +fought his way up the team steadily, fight after fight, till one fine +evening, over their food, he tackled the big, black leader (Kotuko the +boy saw fair play), and made second dog of him, as they say. So he was +promoted to the long thong of the leading dog, running five feet in +advance of all the others: it was his bounden duty to stop all +fighting, in harness or out of it, and he wore a collar of copper +wire, very thick and heavy. On special occasions he was fed with +cooked food inside the house, and sometimes was allowed to sleep on +the bench with Kotuko. He was a good seal-dog, and would keep a +musk-ox at bay by running round him and snapping at his heels. He +would even--and this for a sleigh-dog is the last proof of bravery--he +would even stand up to the gaunt Arctic wolf, whom all dogs of the +North, as a rule, fear beyond anything that walks the snow. He and his +master--they did not count the team of ordinary dogs as +company--hunted together, day after day and night after night, +fur-wrapped boy and savage, long-haired, narrow-eyed, white-fanged, +yellow brute. All an Inuit has to do is to get food and skins for +himself and his family. The women-folk make the skins into clothing, +and occasionally help in trapping small game; but the bulk of the +food--and they eat enormously--must be found by the men. If the supply +fails there is no one up there to buy or beg or borrow from. The +people must die. + +An Inuit does not think of these chances till he is forced to. Kadlu, +Kotuko, Amoraq, and the boy-baby who kicked about in Amoraq's fur hood +and chewed pieces of blubber all day, were as happy together as any +family in the world. They came of a very gentle race--an Inuit seldom +loses his temper, and almost never strikes a child--who did not know +exactly what telling a real lie meant, still less how to steal. They +were content to spear their living out of the heart of the bitter, +hopeless cold; to smile oily smiles, and tell queer ghost and fairy +tales of evenings, and eat till they could eat no more, and sing the +endless woman's song, "Amna aya, aya amna, ah! ah!" through the long, +lamp-lighted days as they mended their clothes and their hunting-gear. + +But one terrible winter everything betrayed them. The Tununirmiut +returned from the yearly salmon-fishing, and made their houses on the +early ice to the north of Bylot's Island, ready to go after the seal +as soon as the sea froze. But it was an early and savage autumn. All +through September there were continuous gales that broke up the smooth +seal-ice when it was only four or five feet thick, and forced it +inland, and piled a great barrier, some twenty miles broad, of lumped +and ragged and needly ice, over which it was impossible to draw the +dog-sleighs. The edge of the floe off which the seal were used to fish +in winter lay, perhaps, twenty miles beyond this barrier, and out of +reach of the Tununirmiut. Even so, they might have managed to scrape +through the winter on their stock of frozen salmon and stored blubber, +and what the traps gave them, but in December one of their hunters +came across a _tupik_ (a skin-tent) of three women and a girl nearly +dead, whose men had come down from the far North and been crushed in +their little skin hunting-boats while they were out after the +long-horned narwhal. Kadlu, of course, could only distribute the women +among the huts of the winter village, for no Inuit dare refuse a meal +to a stranger. He never knows when his own turn may come to beg. +Amoraq took the girl, who was about fourteen, into her own house as a +sort of servant. From the cut of her sharp-pointed hood, and the long +diamond pattern of her white deerskin leggings, they supposed she came +from Ellesmere Land. She had never seen tin cooking-pots or +wooden-shod sleighs before; but Kotuko the boy and Kotuko the dog were +rather fond of her. + +Then all the foxes went south, and even the wolverine, that growling, +blunt-headed little thief of the snow, did not take the trouble to +follow the line of empty traps that Kotuko set. The tribe lost a +couple of their best hunters, who were badly crippled in a fight with +a musk-ox, and this threw more work on the others. Kotuko went out, +day after day, with a light hunting-sleigh and six or seven of the +strongest dogs, looking till his eyes ached for some patch of clear +ice where a seal might perhaps have scratched a breathing-hole. Kotuko +the dog ranged far and wide, and in the dead stillness of the +ice-fields Kotuko the boy could hear his half-choked whine of +excitement, above a seal-hole three miles away, as plainly as though +he were at his elbow. When the dog found a hole the boy would build +himself a little, low snow wall to keep off the worst of the bitter +wind, and there he would wait ten, twelve, twenty hours for the seal +to come up to breathe, his eyes glued to the tiny mark he had made +above the hole to guide the downward thrust of his harpoon, a little +sealskin mat under his feet, and his legs tied together in the +_tutareang_ (the buckle that the old hunters had talked about). This +helps to keep a man's legs from twitching as he waits and waits and +waits for the quick-eared seal to rise. Though there is no excitement +in it, you can easily believe that the sitting still in the buckle +with the thermometer perhaps forty degrees below zero is the hardest +work an Inuit knows. When a seal was caught Kotuko the dog would bound +forward, his trace trailing behind him, and help to pull the body to +the sleigh, where the tired and hungry dogs lay sullenly under the lee +of the broken ice. + +A seal did not go very far, for each mouth in the little village had a +right to be filled, and neither bone, hide, nor sinew was wasted. The +dogs' meat was taken for human use, and Amoraq fed the team with +pieces of old summer skin-tents raked out from under the +sleeping-bench, and they howled and howled again, and waked to howl +hungrily. One could tell by the soapstone lamps in the huts that +famine was near. In good seasons, when blubber was plentiful, the +light in the boat-shaped lamps would be two feet high--cheerful, oily, +and yellow. Now it was a bare six inches: Amoraq carefully pricked +down the moss wick when an unwatched flame brightened for a moment, +and the eyes of all the family followed her hand. The horror of famine +up there in the great cold is not so much dying, as dying in the dark. +All the Inuit dread the dark that presses on them without a break for +six months in each year; and when the lamps are low in the houses the +minds of people begin to be shaken and confused. + +But worse was to come. + +The underfed dogs snapped and growled in the passages, glaring at the +cold stars, and snuffing into the bitter wind, night after night. When +they stopped howling the silence fell down again as solid and as heavy +as a snowdrift against a door, and men could hear the beating of their +blood in the thin passages of the ear, and the thumping of their own +hearts, that sounded as loud as the noise of sorcerers' drums beaten +across the snow. One night Kotuko the dog, who had been unusually +sullen in harness, leaped up and pushed his head against Kotuko's +knee. Kotuko patted him, but the dog still pushed blindly forward, +fawning. Then Kadlu waked, and gripped the heavy wolf-like head, and +stared into the glassy eyes. The dog whimpered and shivered between +Kadlu's knees. The hair rose about his neck, and he growled as though +a stranger were at the door; then he barked joyously, and rolled on +the ground, and bit at Kotuko's boot like a puppy. + +"What is it?" said Kotuko; for he was beginning to be afraid. + +"The sickness," Kadlu answered. "It is the dog-sickness." Kotuko the +dog lifted his nose, and howled and howled again. + +"I have not seen this before. What will he do?" said Kotuko. + +Kadlu shrugged one shoulder a little, and crossed the hut for his +short stabbing-harpoon. The big dog looked at him, howled again, and +slunk away down the passage, while the other dogs drew aside right and +left to give him ample room. When he was out on the snow he barked +furiously, as though on the trail of a musk-ox, and, barking and +leaping and frisking, passed out of sight. This was not hydrophobia, +but simple, plain madness. The cold and the hunger, and, above all, +the dark, had turned his head; and when the terrible dog-sickness once +shows itself in a team, it spreads like wildfire. Next hunting-day +another dog sickened, and was killed then and there by Kotuko as he +bit and struggled among the traces. Then the black second dog, who had +been the leader in the old days, suddenly gave tongue on an imaginary +reindeer-track, and when they slipped him from the _pitu_ he flew at +the throat of an ice-cliff, and ran away as his leader had done, his +harness on his back. After that no one would take the dogs out again. +They needed them for something else, and the dogs knew it; and though +they were tied down and fed by hand, their eyes were full of despair +and fear. To make things worse, the old women began to tell +ghost-tales, and to say that they had met the spirits of the dead +hunters lost that autumn, who prophesied all sorts of horrible things. + +Kotuko grieved more for the loss of his dog than anything else; for, +though an Inuit eats enormously, he also knows how to starve. But the +hunger, the darkness, the cold, and the exposure told on his strength, +and he began to hear voices inside his head, and to see people who +were not there, out of the tail of his eye. One night--he had +unbuckled himself after ten hours' waiting above a "blind" seal-hole, +and was staggering back to the village faint and dizzy--he halted to +lean his back against a boulder which happened to be supported like a +rocking-stone on a single jutting point of ice. His weight disturbed +the balance of the thing, it rolled over ponderously, and as Kotuko +sprang aside to avoid it, slid after him, squeaking and hissing on the +ice slope. + +That was enough for Kotuko. He had been brought up to believe that +every rock and boulder had its owner (its _inua_), who was generally a +one-eyed kind of a Woman-Thing called a _tornaq_, and that when a +_tornaq_ meant to help a man she rolled after him inside her stone +house, and asked him whether he would take her for a guardian spirit. +(In summer thaws the ice-propped rocks and boulders roll and slip all +over the face of the land, so you can easily see how the idea of live +stones arose.) Kotuko heard the blood beating in his ears as he had +heard it all day, and he thought that was the _tornaq_ of the stone +speaking to him. Before he reached home he was quite certain that he +had held a long conversation with her, and as all his people believed +that this was quite possible, no one contradicted him. + +"She said to me, 'I jump down, I jump down from my place on the +snow,'" cried Kotuko, with hollow eyes, leaning forward in the +half-lighted hut. "She said, 'I will be a guide.' She says, 'I will +guide you to the good seal-holes.' To-morrow I go out, and the +_tornaq_ will guide me." + +Then the _angekok_, the village sorcerer, came in, and Kotuko told him +the tale a second time. It lost nothing in the telling. + +"Follow the _tornait_ [the spirits of the stones], and they will bring +us food again," said the _angekok_. + +Now the girl from the North had been lying near the lamp, eating very +little and saying less for days past; but when Amoraq and Kadlu next +morning packed and lashed a little hand-sleigh for Kotuko, and loaded +it with his hunting-gear and as much blubber and frozen seal-meat as +they could spare, she took the pulling-rope, and stepped out boldly at +the boy's side. + +"Your house is my house," she said, as the little bone-shod sleigh +squeaked and bumped behind them in the awful Arctic night. + +"My house is your house," said Kotuko; "but _I_ think that we shall +both go to Sedna together." + +Now Sedna is the Mistress of the Under-world, and the Inuit believe +that every one who dies must spend a year in her horrible country +before going to Quadliparmiut, the Happy Place, where it never +freezes and the fat reindeer trot up when you call. + +Through the village people were shouting: "The _tornait_ have spoken +to Kotuko. They will show him open ice. He will bring us the seal +again!" Their voices were soon swallowed up by the cold, empty dark, +and Kotuko and the girl shouldered close together as they strained on +the pulling-rope or humored the sleigh through the broken ice in the +direction of the Polar Sea. Kotuko insisted that the _tornaq_ of the +stone had told him to go north, and north they went under Tuktuqdjung +the Reindeer--those stars that we call the Great Bear. + +No European could have made five miles a day over the ice-rubbish and +the sharp-edged drifts; but those two knew exactly the turn of the +wrist that coaxes a sleigh round a hummock, the jerk that neatly lifts +it out of an ice-crack, and the exact strength that goes to the few +quiet strokes of the spear-head that make a path possible when +everything looks hopeless. + +The girl said nothing, but bowed her head, and the long wolverine-fur +fringe of her ermine hood blew across her broad, dark face. The sky +above them was an intense velvety-black, changing to bands of Indian +red on the horizon, where the great stars burned like street lamps. +From time to time a greenish wave of the Northern Lights would roll +across the hollow of the high heavens, flick like a flag, and +disappear; or a meteor would crackle from darkness to darkness, +trailing a shower of sparks behind. Then they could see the ridged and +furrowed surface of the floe tipped and laced with strange +colors--red, copper, and bluish; but in the ordinary starlight +everything turned to one frost-bitten gray. The floe, as you will +remember, had been battered and tormented by the autumn gales till it +was one frozen earthquake. There were gullies and ravines, and holes +like gravel-pits, cut in ice; lumps and scattered pieces frozen down +to the original floor of the floe; blotches of old black ice that had +been thrust under the floe in some gale and heaved up again; roundish +boulders of ice; saw-like edges of ice carved by the snow that flies +before the wind; and sunken pits where thirty or forty acres lay below +the level of the rest of the field. From a little distance you might +have taken the lumps for seal or walrus, overturned sleighs or men on +a hunting expedition, or even the great Ten-legged White Spirit-Bear +himself; but in spite of these fantastic shapes, all on the very edge +of starting into life, there was neither sound nor the least faint +echo of sound. And through this silence and through this waste, where +the sudden lights flapped and went out again, the sleigh and the two +that pulled it crawled like things in a nightmare--a nightmare of the +end of the world at the end of the world. + +When they were tired Kotuko would make what the hunters call a +"half-house," a very small snow hut, into which they would huddle with +the traveling-lamp, and try to thaw out the frozen seal-meat. When +they had slept the march began again--thirty miles a day to get ten +miles northward. The girl was always very silent, but Kotuko muttered +to himself and broke out into songs he had learned in the +Singing-House--summer songs, and reindeer and salmon songs--all +horribly out of place at that season. He would declare that he heard +the _tornaq_ growling to him, and would run wildly up a hummock, +tossing his arms and speaking in loud, threatening tones. To tell the +truth, Kotuko was very nearly crazy for the time being; but the girl +was sure that he was being guided by his guardian spirit, and that +everything would come right. She was not surprised, therefore, when at +the end of the fourth march Kotuko, whose eyes were burning like +fire-balls in his head, told her that his tornaq was following them +across the snow in the shape of a two-headed dog. The girl looked +where Kotuko pointed, and something seemed to slip into a ravine. It +was certainly not human, but everybody knew that the _tornait_ +preferred to appear in the shape of bear and seal, and such like. + +It might have been the Ten-legged White Spirit-Bear himself, or it +might have been anything, for Kotuko and the girl were so starved that +their eyes were untrustworthy. They had trapped nothing, and seen no +trace of game since they had left the village; their food would not +hold out for another week, and there was a gale coming. A Polar storm +can blow for ten days without a break, and all that while it is +certain death to be abroad. Kotuko laid up a snow-house large enough +to take in the hand-sleigh (never be separated from your meat), and +while he was shaping the last irregular block of ice that makes the +key-stone of the roof, he saw a Thing looking at him from a little +cliff of ice half a mile away. The air was hazy, and the Thing seemed +to be forty feet long and ten feet high, with twenty feet of tail and +a shape that quivered all along the outlines. The girl saw it too, but +instead of crying aloud with terror, said quietly, "That is Quiquern. +What comes after?" + +"He will speak to me," said Kotuko; but the snow-knife trembled in his +hand as he spoke, because however much a man may believe that he is a +friend of strange and ugly spirits, he seldom likes to be taken quite +at his word. Quiquern, too, is the phantom of a gigantic toothless dog +without any hair, who is supposed to live in the far North, and to +wander about the country just before things are going to happen. They +may be pleasant or unpleasant things, but not even the sorcerers care +to speak about Quiquern. He makes the dogs go mad. Like the +Spirit-Bear he has several extra pairs of legs,--six or eight,--and +this Thing jumping up and down in the haze had more legs than any real +dog needed. Kotuko and the girl huddled into their hut quickly. Of +course if Quiquern had wanted them, he could have torn it to pieces +above their heads, but the sense of a foot-thick snow wall between +themselves and the wicked dark was great comfort. The gale broke with +a shriek of wind like the shriek of a train, and for three days and +three nights it held, never varying one point, and never lulling even +for a minute. They fed the stone lamp between their knees, and nibbled +at the half-warm seal-meat, and watched the black soot gather on the +roof for seventy-two long hours. The girl counted up the food in the +sleigh; there was not more than two days' supply, and Kotuko looked +over the iron heads and the deer-sinew fastenings of his harpoon and +his seal-lance and his bird-dart. There was nothing else to do. + +"We shall go to Sedna soon--very soon," the girl whispered. "In three +days we shall lie down and go. Will your _tornaq_ do nothing? Sing her +an _angekok's_ song to make her come here." + +He began to sing in the high-pitched howl of the magic songs, and the +gale went down slowly. In the middle of his song the girl started, +laid her mittened hand and then her head to the ice floor of the hut. +Kotuko followed her example, and the two kneeled, staring into each +other's eyes, and listening with every nerve. He ripped a thin sliver +of whalebone from the rim of a bird-snare that lay on the sleigh, and, +after straightening, set it upright in a little hole in the ice, +firming it down with his mitten. It was almost as delicately adjusted +as a compass-needle, and now instead of listening they watched. The +thin rod quivered a little--the least little jar in the world; then it +vibrated steadily for a few seconds, came to rest, and vibrated +again, this time nodding to another point of the compass. + +"Too soon!" said Kotuko. "Some big floe has broken far away outside." + +The girl pointed at the rod, and shook her head. "It is the big +breaking," she said. "Listen to the ground-ice. It knocks." + +When they kneeled this time they heard the most curious muffled grunts +and knockings, apparently under their feet. Sometimes it sounded as +though a blind puppy were squeaking above the lamp; then as if a stone +were being ground on hard ice; and again, like muffled blows on a +drum: but all dragged out and made small, as though they traveled +through a little horn a weary distance away. + +"We shall not go to Sedna lying down," said Kotuko. "It is the +breaking. The _tornaq_ has cheated us. We shall die." + +All this may sound absurd enough, but the two were face to face with a +very real danger. The three days' gale had driven the deep water of +Baffin's Bay southerly, and piled it on to the edge of the +far-reaching land-ice that stretches from Bylot's Island to the west. +Also, the strong current which sets east out of Lancaster Sound +carried with it mile upon mile of what they call pack-ice--rough ice +that has not frozen into fields; and this pack was bombarding the floe +at the same time that the swell and heave of the storm-worked sea was +weakening and undermining it. What Kotuko and the girl had been +listening to were the faint echoes of that fight thirty or forty miles +away, and the little telltale rod quivered to the shock of it. + +Now, as the Inuit say, when the ice once wakes after its long winter +sleep, there is no knowing what may happen, for solid floe-ice changes +shape almost as quickly as a cloud. The gale was evidently a spring +gale sent out of time, and anything was possible. + +Yet the two were happier in their minds than before. If the floe broke +up there would be no more waiting and suffering. Spirits, goblins, and +witch-people were moving about on the racking ice, and they might find +themselves stepping into Sedna's country side by side with all sorts +of wild Things, the flush of excitement still on them. When they left +the hut after the gale, the noise on the horizon was steadily growing, +and the tough ice moaned and buzzed all round them. + +"It is still waiting," said Kotuko. + +On the top of a hummock sat or crouched the eight-legged Thing that +they had seen three days before--and it howled horribly. + +"Let us follow," said the girl. "It may know some way that does not +lead to Sedna"; but she reeled from weakness as she took the +pulling-rope. The Thing moved off slowly and clumsily across the +ridges, heading always toward the westward and the land, and they +followed, while the growling thunder at the edge of the floe rolled +nearer and nearer. The floe's lip was split and cracked in every +direction for three or four miles inland, and great pans of +ten-foot-thick ice, from a few yards to twenty acres square, were +jolting and ducking and surging into one another, and into the yet +unbroken floe, as the heavy swell took and shook and spouted between +them. This battering-ram ice was, so to speak, the first army that the +sea was flinging against the floe. The incessant crash and jar of +these cakes almost drowned the ripping sound of sheets of pack-ice +driven bodily under the floe as cards are hastily pushed under a +table-cloth. Where the water was shallow these sheets would be piled +one atop of the other till the bottom-most touched mud fifty feet +down, and the discolored sea banked behind the muddy ice till the +increasing pressure drove all forward again. In addition to the floe +and the pack-ice, the gale and the currents were bringing down true +bergs, sailing mountains of ice, snapped off from the Greenland side +of the water or the north shore of Melville Bay. They pounded in +solemnly, the waves breaking white round them, and advanced on the +floe like an old-time fleet under full sail. A berg that seemed ready +to carry the world before it would ground helplessly in deep water, +reel over, and wallow in a lather of foam and mud and flying frozen +spray, while a much smaller and lower one would rip and ride into the +flat floe, flinging tons of ice on either side, and cutting a track +half a mile long before it was stopped. Some fell like swords, +shearing a raw-edged canal; and others splintered into a shower of +blocks, weighing scores of tons apiece, that whirled and skirled among +the hummocks. Others, again, rose up bodily out of the water when they +shoaled, twisted as though in pain, and fell solidly on their sides, +while the sea threshed over their shoulders. This trampling and +crowding and bending and buckling and arching of the ice into every +possible shape was going on as far as the eye could reach all along +the north line of the floe. From where Kotuko and the girl were the +confusion looked no more than an uneasy, rippling, crawling movement +under the horizon; but it came toward them each moment, and they could +hear, far away to landward, a heavy booming, as it might have been the +boom of artillery through a fog. That showed that the floe was being +jammed home against the iron cliffs of Bylot's Island, the land to the +southward behind them. + +"This has never been before," said Kotuko, staring stupidly. "This is +not the time. How can the floe break _now_?" + +"Follow _that_!" the girl cried, pointing to the Thing, half limping, +half running distractedly before them. They followed, tugging at the +hand-sleigh, while nearer and nearer came the roaring march of the +ice. At last the fields round them cracked and starred in every +direction, and the cracks opened and snapped like the teeth of wolves. +But where the Thing rested, on a mound of old and scattered ice-blocks +some fifty feet high, there was no motion. Kotuko leaped forward +wildly, dragging the girl after him, and crawled to the bottom of the +mound. The talking of the ice grew louder and louder round them, but +the mound stayed fast, and, as the girl looked at him, he threw his +right elbow upward and outward, making the Inuit sign for land in the +shape of an island. And land it was that the eight-legged, limping +Thing had led them to--some granite-tipped, sand-beached islet off the +coast, shod and sheathed and masked with ice so that no man could have +told it from the floe, but at the bottom solid earth, and not shifting +ice! The smashing and rebound of the floes as they grounded and +splintered marked the borders of it, and a friendly shoal ran out to +the northward, and turned aside the rush of the heaviest ice, exactly +as a ploughshare turns over loam. There was danger, of course, that +some heavily squeezed ice-field might shoot up the beach, and plane +off the top of the islet bodily; but that did not trouble Kotuko and +the girl when they made their snow-house and began to eat, and heard +the ice hammer and skid along the beach. The Thing had disappeared, +and Kotuko was talking excitedly about his power over spirits as he +crouched round the lamp. In the middle of his wild sayings the girl +began to laugh, and rock herself backward and forward. + +Behind her shoulder, crawling into the hut crawl by crawl, there were +two heads, one yellow and one black, that belonged to two of the most +sorrowful and ashamed dogs that ever you saw. Kotuko the dog was one, +and the black leader was the other. Both were now fat, well-looking, +and quite restored to their proper minds, but coupled to each other in +an extraordinary fashion. When the black leader ran off, you remember, +his harness was still on him. He must have met Kotuko the dog, and +played or fought with him, for his shoulder-loop had caught in the +plaited copper wire of Kotuko's collar, and had drawn tight, so that +neither could get at the trace to gnaw it apart, but each was fastened +sidelong to his neighbor's neck. That, with the freedom of hunting on +their own account, must have helped to cure their madness. They were +very sober. + +The girl pushed the two shamefaced creatures toward Kotuko, and, +sobbing with laughter, cried, "That is Quiquern, who led us to safe +ground. Look at his eight legs and double head!" + +Kotuko cut them free, and they fell into his arms, yellow and black +together, trying to explain how they had got their senses back again. +Kotuko ran a hand down their ribs, which were round and well clothed. +"They have found food," he said, with a grin. "I do not think we shall +go to Sedna so soon. My _tornaq_ sent these. The sickness has left +them." + +As soon as they had greeted Kotuko, these two, who had been forced to +sleep and eat and hunt together for the past few weeks, flew at each +other's throat, and there was a beautiful battle in the snow-house. +"Empty dogs do not fight," Kotuko said. "They have found the seal. Let +us sleep. We shall find food." + +When they waked there was open water on the north beach of the island, +and all the loosened ice had been driven landward. The first sound of +the surf is one of the most delightful that the Inuit can hear, for it +means that spring is on the road. Kotuko and the girl took hold of +hands and smiled, for the clear, full roar of the surge among the ice +reminded them of salmon and reindeer time and the smell of blossoming +ground-willows. Even as they looked, the sea began to skim over +between the floating cakes of ice, so intense was the cold; but on the +horizon there was a vast red glare, and that was the light of the +sunken sun. It was more like hearing him yawn in his sleep than seeing +him rise, and the glare only lasted for a few minutes, but it marked +the turn of the year. Nothing, they felt, could alter that. + +Kotuko found the dogs fighting over a fresh-killed seal who was +following the fish that a gale always disturbs. He was the first of +some twenty or thirty seal that landed on the island in the course of +the day, and till the sea froze hard there were hundreds of keen black +heads rejoicing in the shallow free water and floating about with the +floating ice. + +It was good to eat seal-liver again; to fill the lamps recklessly with +blubber, and watch the flame blaze three feet in the air; but as soon +as the new sea-ice bore, Kotuko and the girl loaded the hand-sleigh, +and made the two dogs pull as they had never pulled in their lives, +for they feared what might have happened in their village. The weather +was as pitiless as usual; but it is easier to draw a sleigh loaded +with good food than to hunt starving. They left five-and-twenty seal +carcasses buried in the ice of the beach, all ready for use, and +hurried back to their people. The dogs showed them the way as soon as +Kotuko told them what was expected, and though there was no sign of a +landmark, in two days they were giving tongue outside Kadlu's house. +Only three dogs answered them; the others had been eaten, and the +houses were all dark. But when Kotuko shouted, "Ojo!" (boiled meat), +weak voices replied, and when he called the muster of the village name +by name, very distinctly, there were no gaps in it. + +An hour later the lamps blazed in Kadlu's house; snow-water was +heating; the pots were beginning to simmer, and the snow was dripping +from the roof, as Amoraq made ready a meal for all the village, and +the boy-baby in the hood chewed at a strip of rich nutty blubber, and +the hunters slowly and methodically filled themselves to the very brim +with seal-meat. Kotuko and the girl told their tale. The two dogs sat +between them, and whenever their names came in, they cocked an ear +apiece and looked most thoroughly ashamed of themselves. A dog who has +once gone mad and recovered, the Inuit say, is safe against all +further attacks. + +"So the _tornaq_ did not forget us," said Kotuko. "The storm blew, the +ice broke, and the seal swam in behind the fish that were frightened +by the storm. Now the new seal-holes are not two days' distant. Let +the good hunters go to-morrow and bring back the seal I have +speared--twenty-five seal buried in the ice. When we have eaten those +we will all follow the seal on the floe." + +"What do _you_ do?" said the sorcerer in the same sort of voice as he +used to Kadlu, richest of the Tununirmiut. + +Kotuko looked at the girl from the North, and said quietly, "_We_ +build a house." He pointed to the northwest side of Kadlu's house, for +that is the side on which the married son or daughter always lives. + +The girl turned her hands palm upward, with a little despairing shake +of her head. She was a foreigner, picked up starving, and could bring +nothing to the housekeeping. + +Amoraq jumped from the bench where she sat, and began to sweep things +into the girl's lap--stone lamps, iron skin-scrapers, tin kettles, +deerskins embroidered with musk-ox teeth, and real canvas-needles such +as sailors use--the finest dowry that has ever been given on the far +edge of the Arctic Circle, and the girl from the North bowed her head +down to the very floor. + +"Also these!" said Kotuko, laughing and signing to the dogs, who +thrust their cold muzzles into the girl's face. + +"Ah," said the _angekok_, with an important cough, as though he had +been thinking it all over. "As soon as Kotuko left the village I went +to the Singing-House and sang magic. I sang all the long nights, and +called upon the Spirit of the Reindeer. _My_ singing made the gale +blow that broke the ice and drew the two dogs toward Kotuko when the +ice would have crushed his bones. _My_ song drew the seal in behind +the broken ice. My body lay still in the _quaggi_, but my spirit ran +about on the ice, and guided Kotuko and the dogs in all the things +they did. I did it." + +Everybody was full and sleepy, so no one contradicted; and the +_angekok_, by virtue of his office, helped himself to yet another lump +of boiled meat, and lay down to sleep with the others in the warm, +well-lighted, oil-smelling home. + + * * * * * + +Now Kotuko, who drew very well in the Inuit fashion, scratched +pictures of all these adventures on a long, flat piece of ivory with a +hole at one end. When he and the girl went north to Ellesmere Land in +the year of the Wonderful Open Winter, he left the picture-story with +Kadlu, who lost it in the shingle when his dog-sleigh broke down one +summer on the beach of Lake Netilling at Nikosiring, and there a Lake +Inuit found it next spring and sold it to a man at Imigen who was +interpreter on a Cumberland Sound whaler, and he sold it to Hans +Olsen, who was afterward a quartermaster on board a big steamer that +took tourists to the North Cape in Norway. When the tourist season was +over, the steamer ran between London and Australia, stopping at +Ceylon, and there Olsen sold the ivory to a Cingalese jeweler for two +imitation sapphires. I found it under some rubbish in a house at +Colombo, and have translated it from one end to the other. + + + + +"ANGUTIVUN TINA" + +[This is a very free translation of the Song of the Returning Hunter, +as the men used to sing it after seal-spearing. The Inuit always +repeat things over and over again.] + + + Our gloves are stiff with the frozen blood, + Our furs with the drifted snow, + As we come in with the seal--the seal! + In from the edge of the floe. + + _Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq!_ + And the yelping dog-teams go, + And the long whips crack, and the men come back, + Back from the edge of the floe! + + We tracked our seal to his secret place, + We heard him scratch below, + We made our mark, and we watched beside, + Out on the edge of the floe. + + We raised our lance when he rose to breathe, + We drove it downward--so! + And we played him thus, and we killed him thus + Out on the edge of the floe. + + Our gloves are glued with the frozen blood, + Our eyes with the drifting snow; + But we come back to our wives again, + Back from the edge of the floe! + + _Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq! + And the loaded dog-teams go, + And the wives can hear their men come back, + Back from the edge of the floe!_ + +[Illustration] + + + + + RED DOG + + + + + For our white and our excellent nights--for the nights of swift + running, + Fair ranging, far-seeing, good hunting, sure cunning! + For the smells of the dawning, untainted, ere dew has departed! + For the rush through the mist, and the quarry blind-started! + For the cry of our mates when the sambhur has wheeled and is standing + at bay, + For the risk and the riot of night! + For the sleep at the lair-mouth by day, + It is met, and we go to the fight. + Bay! O bay! + + + + +[Illustration] + +RED DOG + + +It was after the letting in of the Jungle that the pleasantest part of +Mowgli's life began. He had the good conscience that comes from paying +debts; all the Jungle was his friend, and just a little afraid of him. +The things that he did and saw and heard when he was wandering from +one people to another, with or without his four companions, would make +many stories, each as long as this one. So you will never be told how +he met the Mad Elephant of Mandla, who killed two-and-twenty bullocks +drawing eleven carts of coined silver to the Government Treasury, and +scattered the shiny rupees in the dust; how he fought Jacala, the +Crocodile, all one long night in the Marshes of the North, and broke +his skinning-knife on the brute's back-plates; how he found a new and +longer knife round the neck of a man who had been killed by a wild +boar, and how he tracked that boar and killed him as a fair price for +the knife; how he was caught up once in the Great Famine, by the +moving of the deer, and nearly crushed to death in the swaying hot +herds; how he saved Hathi the Silent from being once more trapped in a +pit with a stake at the bottom, and how, next day, he himself fell +into a very cunning leopard-trap, and how Hathi broke the thick wooden +bars to pieces above him; how he milked the wild buffaloes in the +swamp, and how-- + +But we must tell one tale at a time. Father and Mother Wolf died, and +Mowgli rolled a big boulder against the mouth of their cave, and cried +the Death Song over them; Baloo grew very old and stiff, and even +Bagheera, whose nerves were steel, and whose muscles were iron, was a +shade slower on the kill than he had been. Akela turned from gray to +milky white with pure age; his ribs stuck out, and he walked as +though he had been made of wood, and Mowgli killed for him. But the +young wolves, the children of the disbanded Seeonee Pack, throve and +increased, and when there were about forty of them, masterless, +full-voiced, clean-footed five-year-olds, Akela told them that they +ought to gather themselves together and follow the Law, and run under +one head, as befitted the Free People. + +This was not a question in which Mowgli concerned himself, for, as he +said, he had eaten sour fruit, and he knew the tree it hung from; but +when Phao, son of Phaona (his father was the Gray Tracker in the days +of Akela's headship), fought his way to the leadership of the Pack, +according to Jungle Law, and the old calls and songs began to ring +under the stars once more, Mowgli came to the Council Rock for +memory's sake. When he chose to speak the Pack waited till he had +finished, and he sat at Akela's side on the rock above Phao. Those +were days of good hunting and good sleeping. No stranger cared to +break into the jungles that belonged to Mowgli's people, as they +called the Pack, and the young wolves grew fat and strong, and there +were many cubs to bring to the Looking-over. Mowgli always attended a +Looking-over, remembering the night when a black panther bought a +naked brown baby into the Pack, and the long call, "Look, look well, O +Wolves," made his heart flutter. Otherwise, he would be far away in +the Jungle with his four brothers, tasting, touching, seeing, and +feeling new things. + +One twilight when he was trotting leisurely across the ranges to give +Akela the half of a buck that he had killed, while the Four jogged +behind him, sparring a little, and tumbling one another over for joy +of being alive, he heard a cry that had never been heard since the bad +days of Shere Khan. It was what they call in the Jungle the _pheeal_, +a hideous kind of shriek that the jackal gives when he is hunting +behind a tiger, or when there is a big killing afoot. If you can +imagine a mixture of hate, triumph, fear, and despair, with a kind of +leer running through it, you will get some notion of the _pheeal_ that +rose and sank and wavered and quavered far away across the Waingunga. +The Four stopped at once, bristling and growling. Mowgli's hand went +to his knife, and he checked, the blood in his face, his eyebrows +knotted. + +"There is no Striped One dare kill here," he said. + +"That is not the cry of the Forerunner," answered Gray Brother. "It +is some great killing. Listen!" + +It broke out again, half sobbing and half chuckling, just as though +the jackal had soft human lips. Then Mowgli drew deep breath, and ran +to the Council Rock, overtaking on his way hurrying wolves of the +Pack. Phao and Akela were on the Rock together, and below them, every +nerve strained, sat the others. The mothers and the cubs were +cantering off to their lairs; for when the _pheeal_ cries it is no +time for weak things to be abroad. + +They could hear nothing except the Waingunga rushing and gurgling in +the dark, and the light evening winds among the tree-tops, till +suddenly across the river a wolf called. It was no wolf of the Pack, +for they were all at the Rock. The note changed to a long, despairing +bay; and "Dhole!" it said, "Dhole! dhole! dhole!" They heard tired +feet on the rocks, and a gaunt wolf, streaked with red on his flanks, +his right fore-paw useless, and his jaws white with foam, flung +himself into the circle and lay gasping at Mowgli's feet. + +"Good hunting! Under whose Headship?" said Phao gravely. + +"Good hunting! Won-tolla am I," was the answer. He meant that he was +a solitary wolf, fending for himself, his mate, and his cubs in some +lonely lair, as do many wolves in the south. Won-tolla means an +Outlier--one who lies out from any Pack. Then he panted, and they +could see his heart-beats shake him backward and forward. + +"What moves?" said Phao, for that is the question all the Jungle asks +after the _pheeal_ cries. + +"The dhole, the dhole of the Dekkan--Red Dog, the Killer! They came +north from the south saying the Dekkan was empty and killing out by +the way. When this moon was new there were four to me--my mate and +three cubs. She would teach them to kill on the grass plains, hiding +to drive the buck, as we do who are of the open. At midnight I heard +them together, full tongue on the trail. At the dawn-wind I found them +stiff in the grass--four, Free People, four when this moon was new. +Then sought I my Blood-Right and found the dhole." + +"How many?" said Mowgli quickly; the Pack growled deep in their +throats. + +"I do not know. Three of them will kill no more, but at the last they +drove me like the buck; on my three legs they drove me. Look, Free +People!" + +He thrust out his mangled fore-foot, all dark with dried blood. There +were cruel bites low down on his side, and his throat was torn and +worried. + +"Eat," said Akela, rising up from the meat Mowgli had brought him, and +the Outlier flung himself on it. + +"This shall be no loss," he said humbly, when he had taken off the +first edge of his hunger. "Give me a little strength, Free People, and +I also will kill. My lair is empty that was full when this moon was +new, and the Blood Debt is not all paid." + +Phao heard his teeth crack on a haunch-bone and grunted approvingly. + +"We shall need those jaws," said he. "Were their cubs with the dhole?" + +"Nay, nay. Red Hunters all: grown dogs of their Pack, heavy and +strong, for all that they eat lizards in the Dekkan." + +What Won-tolla had said meant that the dhole, the red hunting-dog of +the Dekkan, was moving to kill, and the Pack knew well that even the +tiger will surrender a new kill to the dhole. They drive straight +through the Jungle, and what they meet they pull down and tear to +pieces. Though they are not as big nor half as cunning as the wolf, +they are very strong and very numerous. The dhole, for instance, do +not begin to call themselves a pack till they are a hundred strong; +whereas forty wolves make a very fair pack indeed. Mowgli's wanderings +had taken him to the edge of the high grassy downs of the Dekkan, and +he had seen the fearless dholes sleeping and playing and scratching +themselves in the little hollows and tussocks that they use for lairs. +He despised and hated them because they did not smell like the Free +People, because they did not live in caves, and, above all, because +they had hair between their toes while he and his friends were +clean-footed. But he knew, for Hathi had told him, what a terrible +thing a dhole hunting-pack was. Even Hathi moves aside from their +line, and until they are killed, or till game is scarce, they will go +forward. + +Akela knew something of the dholes, too, for he said to Mowgli +quietly. "It is better to die in a Full Pack than leaderless and +alone. This is good hunting, and--my last. But, as men live, thou hast +very many more nights and days, Little Brother. Go north and lie down, +and if any live after the dhole has gone by he shall bring thee word +of the fight." + +"Ah," said Mowgli, quite gravely, "must I go to the marshes and catch +little fish and sleep in a tree, or must I ask help of the Bandar-log +and crack nuts, while the Pack fight below?" + +"It is to the death," said Akela. "Thou hast never met the dhole--the +Red Killer. Even the Striped One--" + +"_Aowa! Aowa!_" said Mowgli pettingly. "I have killed one striped ape, +and sure am I in my stomach that Shere Khan would have left his own +mate for meat to the dhole if he had winded a pack across three +ranges. Listen now: There was a wolf, my father, and there was a wolf, +my mother, and there was an old gray wolf (not too wise: he is white +now) was my father and my mother. Therefore I--" he raised his voice, +"I say that when the dhole come, and if the dhole come, Mowgli and the +Free People are of one skin for that hunting; and I say, by the Bull +that bought me--by the Bull Bagheera paid for me in the old days which +ye of the Pack do not remember--_I_ say, that the Trees and the River +may hear and hold fast if I forget; _I_ say that this my knife shall +be as a tooth to the Pack--and I do not think it is so blunt. This is +my Word which has gone from me." + +"Thou dost not know the dhole, man with a wolf's tongue," said +Won-tolla. "I look only to clear the Blood Debt against them ere they +have me in many pieces. They move slowly, killing out as they go, but +in two days a little strength will come back to me and I turn again +for the Blood Debt. But for _ye_, Free People, my word is that ye go +north and eat but little for a while till the dhole are gone. There is +no meat in this hunting." + +"Hear the Outlier!" said Mowgli with a laugh. "Free People, we must go +north and dig lizards and rats from the bank, lest by any chance we +meet the dhole. He must kill out our hunting-grounds, while we lie hid +in the north till it please him to give us our own again. He is a +dog--and the pup of a dog--red, yellow-bellied, lairless, and haired +between every toe! He counts his cubs six and eight at the litter, as +though he were Chikai, the little leaping rat. Surely we must run +away, Free People, and beg leave of the peoples of the north for the +offal of dead cattle! Ye know the saying: 'North are the vermin; south +are the lice. _We_ are the Jungle.' Choose ye, O choose. It is good +hunting! For the Pack--for the Full Pack--for the lair and the litter; +for the in-kill and the out-kill; for the mate that drives the doe and +the little, little cub within the cave; it is met!--it is met!--it is +met!" + +The Pack answered with one deep, crashing bark that sounded in the +night like a big tree falling. "It is met!" they cried. + +"Stay with these," said Mowgli to the Four. "We shall need every +tooth. Phao and Akela must make ready the battle. I go to count the +dogs." + +"It is death!" Won-tolla cried, half rising. "What can such a hairless +one do against the Red Dog? Even the Striped One, remember--" + +"Thou art indeed an Outlier," Mowgli called back; "but we will speak +when the dholes are dead. Good hunting all!" + +He hurried off into the darkness, wild with excitement, hardly looking +where he set foot, and the natural consequence was that he tripped +full length over Kaa's great coils where the python lay watching a +deer-path near the river. + +"_Kssha!_" said Kaa angrily. "Is this jungle-work, to stamp and tramp +and undo a night's hunting--when the game are moving so well, too?" + +"The fault was mine," said Mowgli, picking himself up. "Indeed I was +seeking thee, Flathead, but each time we meet thou art longer and +broader by the length of my arm. There is none like thee in the +Jungle, wise, old, strong, and most beautiful Kaa." + +"Now, whither does _this_ trail lead?" Kaa's voice was gentler. "Not a +moon since there was a Manling with a knife threw stones at my head, +and called me bad little tree-cat names, because I lay asleep in the +open." + +"Ay, and turned every driven deer to all the winds, and Mowgli was +hunting, and this same Flathead was too deaf to hear his whistle, and +leave the deer-roads free," Mowgli answered composedly, sitting down +among the painted coils. + +"Now this same Manling comes with soft, tickling words to this same +Flathead, telling him that he is wise and strong and beautiful, and +this same old Flathead believes and makes a place, thus, for this same +stone-throwing Manling, and--. Art thou at ease now? Could Bagheera +give thee so good a resting-place?" + +Kaa had, as usual, made a sort of soft, half-hammock of himself under +Mowgli's weight. The boy reached out in the darkness, and gathered in +the supple cable-like neck till Kaa's head rested on his shoulder, and +then he told him all that had happened in the Jungle that night. + +"Wise I may be," said Kaa at the end; "but deaf I surely am. Else I +should have heard the _pheeal_. Small wonder the Eaters of Grass are +uneasy. How many be the dhole?" + +"I have not yet seen. I came hot-foot to thee. Thou art older than +Hathi. But oh, Kaa,"--here Mowgli wriggled with sheer joy,--"it will +be good hunting. Few of us will see another moon." + +"Dost _thou_ strike in this? Remember thou art a Man; and remember +what Pack cast thee out. Let the Wolf look to the Dog. Thou art a +Man." + +"Last year's nuts are this year's black earth," said Mowgli. "It is +true that I am a Man, but it is in my stomach that this night I have +said that I am a Wolf. I called the River and the Trees to remember. I +am of the Free People, Kaa, till the dhole has gone by." + +"Free People," Kaa grunted. "Free thieves! And thou hast tied thyself +into the death-knot for the sake of the memory of the dead wolves? +This is no good hunting." + +"It is my Word which I have spoken. The Trees know, the River knows. +Till the dhole have gone by my Word comes not back to me." + +"_Ngssh!_ This changes all trails. I had thought to take thee away +with me to the northern marshes, but the Word--even the Word of a +little, naked, hairless manling--is the Word. Now I, Kaa, say--" + +"Think well, Flathead, lest thou tie thyself into the death-knot also. +I need no Word from thee, for well I know--" + +"Be it so, then," said Kaa. "I will give no Word; but what is in thy +stomach to do when the dhole come?" + +"They must swim the Waingunga. I thought to meet them with my knife in +the shallows, the Pack behind me; and so stabbing and thrusting we a +little might turn them down-stream, or cool their throats." + +"The dhole do not turn and their throats are hot," said Kaa. "There +will be neither Manling nor Wolf-cub when that hunting is done, but +only dry bones." + +"_Alala!_ If we die, we die. It will be most good hunting. But my +stomach is young, and I have not seen many Rains. I am not wise nor +strong. Hast thou a better plan, Kaa?" + +"I have seen a hundred and a hundred Rains. Ere Hathi cast his +milk-tushes my trail was big in the dust. By the First Egg I am older +than many trees, and I have seen all that the Jungle has done." + +"But _this_ is new hunting," said Mowgli. "Never before have the +dhole crossed our trail." + +"What is has been. What will be is no more than a forgotten year +striking backward. Be still while I count those my years." + +For a long hour Mowgli lay back among the coils, while Kaa, his head +motionless on the ground, thought of all that he had seen and known +since the day he came from the egg. The light seemed to go out of his +eyes and leave them like stale opals, and now and again he made little +stiff passes with his head, right and left, as though he were hunting +in his sleep. Mowgli dozed quietly, for he knew that there is nothing +like sleep before hunting, and he was trained to take it at any hour +of the day or night. + +Then he felt Kaa's back grow bigger and broader below him as the huge +python puffed himself out, hissing with the noise of a sword drawn +from a steel scabbard. + +"I have seen all the dead seasons," Kaa said at last, "and the great +trees and the old elephants, and the rocks that were bare and +sharp-pointed ere the moss grew. Art _thou_ still alive, Manling?" + +"It is only a little after moonset," said Mowgli. "I do not +understand--" + +"_Hssh!_ I am again Kaa. I knew it was but a little time. Now we will +go to the river, and I will show thee what is to be done against the +dhole." + +He turned, straight as an arrow, for the main stream of the Waingunga, +plunging in a little above the pool that hid the Peace Rock, Mowgli at +his side. + +"Nay, do not swim. I go swiftly. My back, Little Brother!" + +Mowgli tucked his left arm round Kaa's neck, dropped his right close +to his body, and straightened his feet. Then Kaa breasted the current +as he alone could, and the ripple of the checked water stood up in a +frill round Mowgli's neck, and his feet were waved to and fro in the +eddy under the python's lashing sides. A mile or two above the Peace +Rock the Waingunga narrows between a gorge of marble rocks from eighty +to a hundred feet high, and the current runs like a mill-race between +and over all manner of ugly stones. But Mowgli did not trouble his +head about the water; little water in the world could have given him a +moment's fear. He was looking at the gorge on either side and sniffing +uneasily, for there was a sweetish-sourish smell in the air, very like +the smell of a big ant-hill on a hot day. Instinctively he lowered +himself in the water, only raising his head to breathe from time to +time, and Kaa came to anchor with a double twist of his tail round a +sunken rock, holding Mowgli in the hollow of a coil, while the water +raced on. + +"This is the Place of Death," said the boy. "Why do we come here?" + +"They sleep," said Kaa. "Hathi will not turn aside for the Striped +One. Yet Hathi and the Striped One together turn aside for the dhole, +and the dhole they say turn aside for nothing. And yet for whom do the +Little People of the Rocks turn aside? Tell me, Master of the Jungle, +who is the Master of the Jungle?" + +"These," Mowgli whispered. "It is the Place of Death. Let us go." + +"Nay, look well, for they are asleep. It is as it was when I was not +the length of thy arm." + +The split and weatherworn rocks of the gorge of the Waingunga had been +used since the beginning of the Jungle by the Little People of the +Rocks--the busy, furious, black wild bees of India; and, as Mowgli +knew well, all trails turned off half a mile before they reached the +gorge. For centuries the Little People had hived and swarmed from +cleft to cleft, and swarmed again, staining the white marble with +stale honey, and made their combs tall and deep in the dark of the +inner caves, where neither man nor beast nor fire nor water had ever +touched them. The length of the gorge on both sides was hung as it +were with black shimmery velvet curtains, and Mowgli sank as he +looked, for those were the clotted millions of the sleeping bees. +There were other lumps and festoons and things like decayed +tree-trunks studded on the face of the rock, the old combs of past +years, or new cities built in the shadow of the windless gorge, and +huge masses of spongy, rotten trash had rolled down and stuck among +the trees and creepers that clung to the rock-face. As he listened he +heard more than once the rustle and slide of a honey-loaded comb +turning over or falling away somewhere in the dark galleries; then a +booming of angry wings and the sullen drip, drip, drip, of the wasted +honey, guttering along till it lipped over some ledge in the open air +and sluggishly trickled down on the twigs. There was a tiny little +beach, not five feet broad, on one side of the river, and that was +piled high with the rubbish of uncounted years. There were dead bees, +drones, sweepings, and stale combs, and wings of marauding moths that +had strayed in after honey, all tumbled in smooth piles of the finest +black dust. The mere sharp smell of it was enough to frighten anything +that had no wings, and knew what the Little People were. + +Kaa moved up-stream again till he came to a sandy bar at the head of +the gorge. + +"Here is this season's kill," said he. "Look!" + +On the bank lay the skeletons of a couple of young deer and a buffalo. +Mowgli could see that neither wolf nor jackal had touched the bones, +which were laid out naturally. + +"They came beyond the line: they did not know the Law," murmured +Mowgli, "and the Little People killed them. Let us go ere they wake." + +"They do not wake till the dawn," said Kaa. "Now I will tell thee. A +hunted buck from the south, many, many Rains ago, came hither from the +south, not knowing the Jungle, a Pack on his trail. Being made blind +by fear, he leaped from above, the Pack running by sight, for they +were hot and blind on the trail. The sun was high, and the Little +People were many and very angry. Many too were those of the Pack who +leaped into the Waingunga, but they were dead ere they took water. +Those who did not leap died also in the rocks above. But the buck +lived." + +"How?" + +"Because he came first, running for his life, leaping ere the Little +People were aware, and was in the river when they gathered to kill. +The Pack, following, was altogether lost under the weight of the +Little People." + +"The buck lived?" Mowgli repeated slowly. + +"At least he did not die _then_, though none waited his coming down +with a strong body to hold him safe against the water, as a certain +old fat, deaf, yellow Flathead would wait for a Manling--yea, though +there were all the dholes of the Dekkan on his trail. What is in thy +stomach?" Kaa's head was close to Mowgli's ear; and it was a little +time before the boy answered. + +"It is to pull the very whiskers of Death, but--Kaa, thou art, indeed, +the wisest of all the Jungle." + +"So many have said. Look now, if the dhole follow thee--" + +"As surely they will follow. Ho! ho! I have many little thorns under +my tongue to prick into their hides." + +"If they follow thee hot and blind, looking only at thy shoulders, +those who do not die up above will take water either here or lower +down, for the Little People will rise up and cover them. Now the +Waingunga is hungry water, and they will have no Kaa to hold them, but +will go down, such as live, to the shallows by the Seeonee lairs, and +there thy Pack may meet them by the throat." + +"_Ahai! Eowawa!_ Better could not be till the Rains fall in the dry +season. There is now only the little matter of the run and the leap. I +will make me known to the dholes, so that they shall follow me very +closely." + +"Hast thou seen the rocks above thee? From the landward side?" + +"Indeed, no. That I had forgotten." + +"Go look. It is all rotten ground, cut and full of holes. One of thy +clumsy feet set down without seeing would end the hunt. See, I leave +thee here, and for thy sake only I will carry word to the Pack that +they may know where to look for the dhole. For myself, I am not of one +skin with _any_ wolf." + +When Kaa disliked an acquaintance he could be more unpleasant than any +of the Jungle People, except perhaps Bagheera. He swam down-stream and +opposite the Rock he came on Phao and Akela listening to the night +noises. + +"_Hssh!_ Dogs," he said cheerfully. "The dholes will come down-stream. +If ye be not afraid ye can kill them in the shallows." + +"When come they?" said Phao. "And where is my Man-cub?" said Akela. + +"They come when they come," said Kaa. "Wait and see. As for _thy_ +Man-cub, from whom thou hast taken a Word and so laid him open to +Death, _thy_ Man-cub is with _me_, and if he be not already dead the +fault is none of thine, bleached dog! Wait here for the dhole, and be +glad that the Man-cub and I strike on thy side." + +He flashed up-stream again, and moored himself in the middle of the +gorge, looking upward at the line of the cliff. Presently he saw +Mowgli's head move against the stars, and then there was a whizz in +the air, the keen, clean _schloop_ of a body falling feet first, and +next minute the boy was at rest again in the loop of Kaa's body. + +"It is no leap by night," said Mowgli quietly. "I have jumped twice as +far for sport; but that is an evil place above--low bushes and gullies +that go down very deep, all full of the Little People. I have put big +stones one above the other by the side of three gullies. These I shall +throw down with my feet in running, and the Little People will rise up +behind me, very angry." + +"That is Man's talk and Man's cunning," said Kaa. "Thou art wise, but +the Little People are always angry." + +"Nay, at twilight all wings near and far rest for a while. I will play +with the dhole at twilight, for the dhole hunts best by day. He +follows now Won-tolla's blood-trail." + +"Chil does not leave a dead ox, nor the dhole the blood-trail," said +Kaa. + +"Then I will make him a new blood-trail, of his own blood, if I can, +and give him dirt to eat. Thou wilt stay here, Kaa, till I come again +with my dholes?" + +"Ay, but what if they kill thee in the Jungle, or the Little People +kill thee before thou canst leap down to the river?" + +"When to-morrow comes we will kill for to-morrow," said Mowgli, +quoting a Jungle saying; and again, "When I am dead it is time to sing +the Death Song. Good hunting, Kaa!" + +He loosed his arm from the python's neck and went down the gorge like +a log in a freshet, paddling toward the far bank, where he found +slack-water, and laughing aloud from sheer happiness. There was +nothing Mowgli liked better than, as he himself said, "to pull the +whiskers of Death," and make the Jungle know that he was their +overlord. He had often, with Baloo's help, robbed bees' nests in +single trees, and he knew that the Little People hated the smell of +wild garlic. So he gathered a small bundle of it, tied it up with a +bark string, and then followed Won-tolla's blood-trail as it ran +southerly from the lairs, for some five miles, looking at the trees +with his head on one side, and chuckling as he looked. + +"Mowgli the Frog have I been," said he to himself; "Mowgli the Wolf +have I said that I am. Now Mowgli the Ape must I be before I am Mowgli +the Buck. At the end I shall be Mowgli the Man. Ho!" and he slid his +thumb along the eighteen-inch blade of his knife. + +Won-tolla's trail, all rank with dark blood-spots, ran under a forest +of thick trees that grew close together and stretched away +northeastward, gradually growing thinner and thinner to within two +miles of the Bee Rocks. From the last tree to the low scrub of the Bee +Rocks was open country, where there was hardly cover enough to hide a +wolf. Mowgli trotted along under the trees, judging distances between +branch and branch, occasionally climbing up a trunk and taking a trial +leap from one tree to another, till he came to the open ground, which +he studied very carefully for an hour. Then he turned, picked up +Won-tolla's trail where he had left it, settled himself in a tree with +an outrunning branch some eight feet from the ground, and sat still, +sharpening his knife on the sole of his foot and singing to himself. + +A little before midday, when the sun was very warm, he heard the +patter of feet and smelt the abominable smell of the dhole pack as +they trotted pitilessly along Won-tolla's trail. Seen from above, the +red dhole does not look half the size of a wolf, but Mowgli knew how +strong his feet and jaws were. He watched the sharp bay head of the +leader snuffing along the trail and gave him "Good hunting!" + +The brute looked up, and his companions halted behind him, scores and +scores of red dogs with low-hung tails, heavy shoulders, weak +quarters, and bloody mouths. The dholes are a silent people as a rule, +and they have no manners even in their own Jungle. Fully two hundred +must have gathered below him, but he could see that the leaders +sniffed hungrily on Won-tolla's trail, and tried to drag the Pack +forward. That would never do, or they would be at the Lairs in broad +daylight, and Mowgli intended to hold them under his tree till dusk. + +"By whose leave do ye come here?" said Mowgli. + +"All Jungles are our Jungle," was the reply, and the dhole that gave +it bared his white teeth. Mowgli looked down with a smile, and +imitated perfectly the sharp chitter-chatter of Chikai, the leaping +rat of the Dekkan, meaning the dholes to understand that he considered +them no better than Chikai. The Pack closed up round the tree-trunk +and the leader bayed savagely, calling Mowgli a tree-ape. For all +answer Mowgli stretched down one naked leg and wriggled his bare toes +just above the leader's head. That was enough, and more than enough, +to wake the Pack to stupid rage. Those who have hair between their +toes do not care to be reminded of it. Mowgli caught his foot away as +the leader leaped up, and said sweetly: "Dog, red dog! Go back to the +Dekkan and eat lizards. Go to Chikai thy brother--dog, dog--red, red, +dog! There is hair between every toe!" He twiddled his toes a second +time. + +"Come down ere we starve thee out, hairless ape!" yelled the Pack, and +this was exactly what Mowgli wanted. He laid himself down along the +branch, his cheek to the bark, his right arm free, and there he told +the Pack what he thought and knew about them, their manners, their +customs, their mates, and their puppies. There is no speech in the +world so rancorous and so stinging as the language the Jungle People +use to show scorn and contempt. When you come to think of it you will +see how this must be so. As Mowgli told Kaa, he had many little +thorns under his tongue, and slowly and deliberately he drove the +dholes from silence to growls, from growls to yells, and from yells to +hoarse slavery ravings. They tried to answer his taunts, but a cub +might as well have tried to answer Kaa in a rage; and all the while +Mowgli's right hand lay crooked at his side, ready for action, his +feet locked round the branch. The big bay leader had leaped many times +in the air, but Mowgli dared not risk a false blow. At last, made +furious beyond his natural strength, he bounded up seven or eight feet +clear of the ground. Then Mowgli's hand shot out like the head of a +tree-snake, and gripped him by the scruff of his neck, and the branch +shook with the jar as his weight fell back, almost wrenching Mowgli to +the ground. But he never loosed his grasp, and inch by inch he hauled +the beast, hanging like a drowned jackal, up on the branch. With his +left hand he reached for his knife and cut off the red, bushy tail, +flinging the dhole back to earth again. That was all he needed. The +Pack would not go forward on Won-tolla's trail now till they had +killed Mowgli or Mowgli had killed them. He saw them settle down in +circles with a quiver of the haunches that meant they were going to +stay, and so he climbed to a higher crotch, settled his back +comfortably, and went to sleep. + +After four or five hours he waked and counted the Pack. They were all +there, silent, husky, and dry, with eyes of steel. The sun was +beginning to sink. In half an hour the Little People of the Rocks +would be ending their labors, and, as he knew, the dhole does not +fight best in the twilight. + +"I did not need such faithful watchers," he said politely, standing up +on a branch, "but I will remember this. Ye be true dholes, but to my +thinking over much of one kind. For that reason I do not give the big +lizard-eater his tail again. Art thou not pleased, Red Dog?" + +"I myself will tear out thy stomach!" yelled the leader, scratching at +the foot of the tree. + +"Nay, but consider, wise rat of the Dekkan. There will now be many +litters of little tailless red dogs, yea, with raw red stumps that +sting when the sand is hot. Go home, Red Dog, and cry that an ape has +done this. Ye will not go? Come, then, with me, and I will make you +very wise!" + +He moved, Bandar-log fashion, into the next tree, and so on into the +next and the next, the Pack following with lifted hungry heads. Now +and then he would pretend to fall, and the Pack would tumble one over +the other in their haste to be at the death. It was a curious +sight--the boy with the knife that shone in the low sunlight as it +shifted through the upper branches, and the silent Pack with their red +coats all aflame, huddling and following below. When he came to the +last tree he took the garlic and rubbed himself all over carefully, +and the dholes yelled with scorn. "Ape with a wolf's tongue, dost thou +think to cover thy scent?" they said. "We follow to the death." + +"Take thy tail," said Mowgli, flinging it back along the course he had +taken. The Pack instinctively rushed after it. "And follow now--to the +death." + +He had slipped down the tree-trunk, and headed like the wind in bare +feet for the Bee Rocks, before the dholes saw what he would do. + +They gave one deep howl, and settled down to the long, lobbing canter +that can at the last run down anything that runs. Mowgli knew their +pack-pace to be much slower than that of the wolves, or he would never +have risked a two-mile run in full sight. They were sure that the boy +was theirs at last, and he was sure that he held them to play with as +he pleased. All his trouble was to keep them sufficiently hot behind +him to prevent their turning off too soon. He ran cleanly, evenly, +and springily; the tailless leader not five yards behind him; and the +Pack tailing out over perhaps a quarter of a mile of ground, crazy and +blind with the rage of slaughter. So he kept his distance by ear, +reserving his last effort for the rush across the Bee Rocks. + +The Little People had gone to sleep in the early twilight, for it was +not the season of late-blossoming flowers; but as Mowgli's first +footfalls rang hollow on the hollow ground he heard a sound as though +all the earth were humming. Then he ran as he had never run in his +life before, spurned aside one--two--three of the piles of stones into +the dark, sweet-smelling gullies; heard a roar like the roar of the +sea in a cave; saw with the tail of his eye the air grow dark behind +him; saw the current of the Waingunga far below and a flat, +diamond-shaped head in the water; leaped outward with all his +strength, the tailless dhole snapping at his shoulder in mid-air, and +dropped feet first to the safety of the river, breathless and +triumphant. There was not a sting upon him, for the smell of the +garlic had checked the Little People for just the few seconds that he +was among them. When he rose Kaa's coils were steadying him and things +were bounding over the edge of the cliff--great lumps, it seemed, of +clustered bees falling like plummets; but before any lump touched +water the bees flew upward and the body of a dhole whirled +down-stream. Overhead they could hear furious short yells that were +drowned in a roar like breakers--the roar of the wings of the Little +People of the Rocks. Some of the dholes, too, had fallen into the +gullies that communicated with the underground caves, and there choked +and fought and snapped among the tumbled honeycombs, and at last, +borne up even when they were dead on the heaving waves of bees beneath +them, shot out of some hole in the river-face, to roll over on the +black rubbish-heaps. There were dholes who had leaped short into the +trees on the cliffs, and the bees blotted out their shapes; but the +greater number of them, maddened by the stings, had flung themselves +into the river; and, as Kaa said, the Waingunga was hungry water. + +Kaa held Mowgli fast till the boy had recovered his breath. + +"We may not stay here," he said. "The Little People are roused indeed. +Come!" + +Swimming low and diving as often as he could, Mowgli went down the +river, knife in hand. + +"Slowly, slowly," said Kaa. "One tooth does not kill a hundred unless +it be a cobra's, and many of the dholes took water swiftly when they +saw the Little People rise." + +"The more work for my knife, then. _Phai!_ How the Little People +follow!" Mowgli sank again. The face of the water was blanketed with +wild bees, buzzing sullenly and stinging all they found. + +"Nothing was ever yet lost by silence," said Kaa--no sting could +penetrate his scales--"and thou hast all the long night for the +hunting. Hear them howl!" + +Nearly half the pack had seen the trap their fellows rushed into, and +turning sharp aside had flung themselves into the water where the +gorge broke down in steep banks. Their cries of rage and their threats +against the "tree-ape" who had brought them to their shame mixed with +the yells and growls of those who had been punished by the Little +People. To remain ashore was death, and every dhole knew it. Their +pack was swept along the current, down to the deep eddies of the Peace +Pool, but even there the angry Little People followed and forced them +to the water again. Mowgli could hear the voice of the tailless leader +bidding his people hold on and kill out every wolf in Seeonee. But he +did not waste his time in listening. + +"One kills in the dark behind us!" snapped a dhole. "Here is tainted +water." + +Mowgli had dived forward like an otter, twitched a struggling dhole +under water before he could open his mouth, and dark rings rose as the +body plopped up, turning on its side. The dholes tried to turn, but +the current prevented them, and the Little People darted at their +heads and ears, and they could hear the challenge of the Seeonee Pack +growing louder and deeper in the gathering darkness. Again Mowgli +dived, and again a dhole went under, and rose dead, and again the +clamor broke out at the rear of the pack; some howling that it was +best to go ashore, others calling on their leader to lead them back to +the Dekkan, and others bidding Mowgli show himself and be killed. + +"They come to the fight with two stomachs and several voices," said +Kaa. "The rest is with thy brethren below yonder. The Little People go +back to sleep. They have chased us far. Now I, too, turn back, for I +am not of one skin with any wolf. Good hunting, Little Brother, and +remember the dhole bites low." + +A wolf came running along the bank on three legs, leaping up and down, +laying his head sideways close to the ground, hunching his back, and +breaking high into the air, as though he were playing with his cubs. +It was Won-tolla, the Outlier, and he said never a word, but continued +his horrible sport beside the dholes. They had been long in the water +now, and were swimming wearily, their coats drenched and heavy, their +bushy tails dragging like sponges, so tired and shaken that they, too, +were silent, watching the pair of blazing eyes that moved abreast. + +"This is no good hunting," said one, panting. + +"Good hunting!" said Mowgli, as he rose boldly at the brute's side, +and sent the long knife home behind the shoulder, pushing hard to +avoid his dying snap. + +"Art thou there, Man-cub?" said Won-tolla across the water. + +"Ask of the dead, Outlier," Mowgli replied. "Have none come +down-stream? I have filled these dogs' mouths with dirt; I have +tricked them in the broad daylight, and their leader lacks his tail, +but here be some few for thee still. Whither shall I drive them?" + +"I will wait," said Won-tolla. "The night is before me." + +Nearer and nearer came the bay of the Seeonee wolves. "For the Pack, +for the Full Pack it is met!" and a bend in the river drove the +dholes forward among the sands and shoals opposite the Lairs. + +Then they saw their mistake. They should have landed half a mile +higher up, and rushed the wolves on dry ground. Now it was too late. +The bank was lined with burning eyes, and except for the horrible +_pheeal_ that had never stopped since sundown, there was no sound in +the Jungle. It seemed as though Won-tolla were fawning on them to come +ashore; and "Turn and take hold!" said the leader of the dholes. The +entire Pack flung themselves at the shore, threshing and squattering +through the shoal water, till the face of the Waingunga was all white +and torn, and the great ripples went from side to side, like bow-waves +from a boat. Mowgli followed the rush, stabbing and slicing as the +dholes, huddled together, rushed up the river-beach in one wave. + +Then the long fight began, heaving and straining and splitting and +scattering and narrowing and broadening along the red, wet sands, and +over and between the tangled tree-roots, and through and among the +brushes, and in and out of the grass clumps; for even now the dholes +were two to one. But they met wolves fighting for all that made the +Pack, and not only the short, high, deep-chested, white-tusked hunters +of the Pack, but the anxious-eyed lahinis--the she-wolves of the +lair, as the saying is--fighting for their litters, with here and +there a yearling wolf, his first coat still half woolly, tugging and +grappling by their sides. A wolf, you must know, flies at the throat +or snaps at the flank, while a dhole, by preference, bites at the +belly; so when the dholes were struggling out of the water and had to +raise their heads, the odds were with the wolves. On dry land the +wolves suffered; but in the water or ashore, Mowgli's knife came and +went without ceasing. The Four had worried their way to his side. Gray +Brother, crouched between the boy's knees, was protecting his stomach, +while the others guarded his back and either side, or stood over him +when the shock of a leaping, yelling dhole who had thrown himself full +on the steady blade, bore him down. For the rest, it was one tangled +confusion--a locked and swaying mob that moved from right to left and +from left to right along the bank; and also ground round and round +slowly on its own center. Here would be a heaving mound, like a +water-blister in a whirlpool, which would break like a water-blister, +and throw up four or five mangled dogs, each striving to get back to +the center; here would be a single wolf borne down by two or three +dholes, laboriously dragging them forward, and sinking the while; +here a yearling cub would be held up by the pressure round him, though +he had been killed early, while his mother, crazed with dumb rage, +rolled over and over, snapping, and passing on; and in the middle of +the thickest press, perhaps, one wolf and one dhole, forgetting +everything else, would be manoeuvering for first hold till they were +whirled away by a rush of furious fighters. Once Mowgli passed Akela, +a dhole on either flank, and his all but toothless jaws closed over +the loins of a third; and once he saw Phao, his teeth set in the +throat of a dhole, tugging the unwilling beast forward till the +yearlings could finish him. But the bulk of the fight was blind flurry +and smother in the dark; hit, trip, and tumble, yelp, groan, and +worry-worry-worry, round him and behind him and above him. As the +night wore on, the quick, giddy-go-round motion increased. The dholes +were cowed and afraid to attack the stronger wolves, but did not yet +dare to run away. Mowgli felt that the end was coming soon, and +contented himself with striking merely to cripple. The yearlings were +growing bolder; there was time now and again to breathe, and pass a +word to a friend, and the mere flicker of the knife would sometimes +turn a dog aside. + +"The meat is very near the bone," Gray Brother yelled. He was bleeding +from a score of flesh-wounds. + +"But the bone is yet to be cracked," said Mowgli. "_Eowawa! Thus_ do +we do in the Jungle!" The red blade ran like a flame along the side of +a dhole whose hind-quarters were hidden by the weight of a clinging +wolf. + +"My kill!" snorted the wolf through his wrinkled nostrils. "Leave him +to me." + +"Is thy stomach still empty, Outlier?" said Mowgli. Won-tolla was +fearfully punished, but his grip had paralyzed the dhole, who could +not turn round and reach him. + +"By the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli, with a bitter laugh, "it is +the tailless one!" And indeed it was the big bay-colored leader. + +"It is not wise to kill cubs and lahinis," Mowgli went on, +philosophically, wiping the blood out of his eyes, "unless one has +also killed the Outlier; and it is in my stomach that this Won-tolla +kills thee." + +A dhole leaped to his leader's aid; but before his teeth had found +Won-tolla's flank, Mowgli's knife was in his throat, and Gray Brother +took what was left. + +"And thus do we do in the Jungle," said Mowgli. + +Won-tolla said not a word, only his jaws were closing and closing on +the backbone as his life ebbed. The dhole shuddered, his head dropped, +and he lay still, and Won-tolla dropped above him. + +"_Huh!_ The Blood Debt is paid," said Mowgli. "Sing the song, +Won-tolla." + +"He hunts no more," said Gray Brother; "and Akela, too, is silent this +long time." + +"The bone is cracked!" thundered Phao, son of Phaona. "They go! Kill, +kill out, O hunters of the Free People!" + +Dhole after dhole was slinking away from those dark and bloody sands +to the river, to the thick Jungle, up-stream or down-stream as he saw +the road clear. + +"The debt! The debt!" shouted Mowgli. "Pay the debt! They have slain +the Lone Wolf! Let not a dog go!" + +He was flying to the river, knife in hand, to check any dhole who +dared to take water, when, from under a mound of nine dead, rose +Akela's red head and fore-quarters, and Mowgli dropped on his knees +beside the Lone Wolf. + +"Said I not it would be my last fight?" Akela panted. "It is good +hunting. And thou, Little Brother?" + +"I live, having killed many." + +"Even so. I die, and I would--I would die by thee, Little Brother." + +Mowgli took the terrible scarred head on his knees, and put his arms +round the torn neck. + +"It is long since the old days of Shere Khan, and a Man-cub that +rolled naked in the dust." + +"Nay, nay, I am a wolf. I am of one skin with the Free People," Mowgli +cried. "It is no will of mine that I am a man." + +"Thou art a man, Little Brother, wolfling of my watching. Thou art a +man, or else the Pack had fled before the dhole. My life I owe to +thee, and to-day thou hast saved the Pack even as once I saved thee. +Hast thou forgotten? All debts are paid now. Go to thine own people. I +tell thee again, eye of my eye, this hunting is ended. Go to thine own +people." + +"I will never go. I will hunt alone in the Jungle. I have said it." + +"After the summer come the Rains, and after the Rains comes the +spring. Go back before thou art driven." + +"Who will drive me?" + +"Mowgli will drive Mowgli. Go back to thy people. Go to Man." + +"When Mowgli drives Mowgli I will go," Mowgli answered. + +"There is no more to say," said Akela. "Little Brother, canst thou +raise me to my feet? I also was a leader of the Free People." + +Very carefully and gently Mowgli lifted the bodies aside, and raised +Akela to his feet, both arms round him, and the Lone Wolf drew a long +breath, and began the Death Song that a leader of the Pack should sing +when he dies. It gathered strength as he went on, lifting and lifting, +and ringing far across the river, till it came to the last "Good +hunting!" and Akela shook himself clear of Mowgli for an instant, and, +leaping into the air, fell backward dead upon his last and most +terrible kill. + +Mowgli sat with the head on his knees, careless of anything else, +while the remnant of the flying dholes were being overtaken and run +down by the merciless lahinis. Little by little the cries died away, +and the wolves returned limping, as their wounds stiffened, to take +stock of the losses. Fifteen of the Pack, as well as half a dozen +lahinis, lay dead by the river, and of the others not one was +unmarked. And Mowgli sat through it all till the cold daybreak, when +Phao's wet, red muzzle was dropped in his hand, and Mowgli drew back +to show the gaunt body of Akela. + +"Good hunting!" said Phao, as though Akela were still alive, and then +over his bitten shoulder to the others: "Howl, dogs! A Wolf has died +to-night!" + +But of all the Pack of two hundred fighting dholes, whose boast was +that all Jungles were their Jungle, and that no living thing could +stand before them, not one returned to the Dekkan to carry that word. + + + + +CHIL'S SONG + +[This is the song that Chil sang as the kites dropped down one after +another to the river-bed, when the great fight was finished. Chil is +good friends with everybody, but he is a cold-blooded kind of creature +at heart, because he knows that almost everybody in the Jungle comes +to him in the long run.] + + + These were my companions going forth by night-- + (_For Chil! Look you, for Chil!_) + Now come I to whistle them the ending of the fight. + (_Chil! Vanguards of Chil!_) + Word they gave me overhead of quarry newly slain, + Word I gave them underfoot of buck upon the plain. + Here's an end of every trail--they shall not speak again! + + They that called the hunting-cry--they that followed fast-- + (_For Chil! Look you, for Chil!_) + They that bade the sambhur wheel, and pinned him as he passed-- + (_Chil! Vanguards of Chil!_) + They that lagged behind the scent--they that ran before, + They that shunned the level horn--they that overbore. + Here's an end of every trail--they shall not follow more. + + These were my companions. Pity 'twas they died! + (_For Chil! Look you, for Chil!_) + Now come I to comfort them that knew them in their pride. + (_Chil! Vanguards of Chil!_) + Tattered flank and sunken eye, open mouth and red, + Locked and lank and lone they lie, the dead upon their dead. + Here's an end of every trail--and here my hosts are fed! + + + + + THE SPRING RUNNING + + + + + Man goes to Man! Cry the challenge through the Jungle! + He that was our Brother goes away. + Hear, now, and judge, O ye People of the Jungle,-- + Answer, who shall turn him--who shall stay? + + Man goes to Man! He is weeping in the Jungle: + He that was our Brother sorrows sore! + Man goes to Man! (Oh, we loved him in the Jungle!) + To the Man-Trail where we may not follow more. + + + + +[Illustration] + +THE SPRING RUNNING + + +The second year after the great fight with Red Dog and the death of +Akela, Mowgli must have been nearly seventeen years old. He looked +older, for hard exercise, the best of good eating, and baths whenever +he felt in the least hot or dusty, had given him strength and growth +far beyond his age. He could swing by one hand from a top branch for +half an hour at a time, when he had occasion to look along the +tree-roads. He could stop a young buck in mid-gallop and throw him +sideways by the head. He could even jerk over the big, blue wild boars +that lived in the Marshes of the North. The Jungle People who used to +fear him for his wits feared him now for his strength, and when he +moved quietly on his own affairs the mere whisper of his coming +cleared the wood-paths. And yet the look in his eyes was always +gentle. Even when he fought, his eyes never blazed as Bagheera's did. +They only grew more and more interested and excited; and that was one +of the things that Bagheera himself did not understand. + +He asked Mowgli about it, and the boy laughed and said: "When I miss +the kill I am angry. When I must go empty for two days I am very +angry. Do not my eyes talk then?" + +"The mouth is angry," said Bagheera, "but the eyes say nothing. +Hunting, eating, or swimming, it is all one--like a stone in wet or +dry weather." Mowgli looked at him lazily from under his long +eyelashes, and, as usual, the panther's head dropped. Bagheera knew +his master. + +They were lying out far up the side of a hill overlooking the +Waingunga, and the morning mist hung below them in bands of white and +green. As the sun rose it changed into bubbling seas of red gold, +churned off, and let the low rays stripe the dried grass on which +Mowgli and Bagheera were resting. It was the end of the cold weather, +the leaves and the trees looked worn and faded, and there was a dry, +ticking rustle everywhere when the wind blew. A little leaf +tap-tap-tapped furiously against a twig, as a single leaf caught in a +current will. It roused Bagheera, for he snuffed the morning air with +a deep, hollow cough, threw himself on his back, and struck with his +fore-paws at the nodding leaf above. + +"The year turns," he said. "The Jungle goes forward. The Time of New +Talk is near. That leaf knows. It is very good." + +"The grass is dry," Mowgli answered, pulling up a tuft. "Even +Eye-of-the-Spring [that is a little trumpet-shaped, waxy red flower +that runs in and out among the grasses]--even Eye-of-the Spring is +shut, and ... Bagheera, _is_ it well for the Black Panther so to lie +on his back and beat with his paws in the air, as though he were the +tree-cat?" + +"Aowh?" said Bagheera. He seemed to be thinking of other things. + +"I say, _is_ it well for the Black Panther so to mouth and cough, and +howl and roll? Remember, we be the Masters of the Jungle, thou and +I." + +"Indeed, yes: I hear, Man-cub." Bagheera rolled over hurriedly and sat +up, the dust on his ragged, black flanks. (He was just casting his +winter coat.) "We be surely the Masters of the Jungle! Who is so +strong as Mowgli? Who so wise?" There was a curious drawl in the voice +that made Mowgli turn to see whether by any chance the Black Panther +were making fun of him, for the Jungle is full of words that sound +like one thing, but mean another. "I said we be beyond question the +Masters of the Jungle," Bagheera repeated. "Have I done wrong? I did +not know that the Man-cub no longer lay upon the ground. Does he fly, +then?" + +Mowgli sat with his elbows on his knees, looking out across the valley +at the daylight. Somewhere down in the woods below a bird was trying +over in a husky, reedy voice the first few notes of his spring song. +It was no more than a shadow of the liquid, tumbling call he would be +pouring later, but Bagheera heard it. + +"I said the Time of New Talk is near," growled the panther, switching +his tail. + +"I hear," Mowgli answered. "Bagheera, why dost thou shake all over? +The sun is warm." + +"That is Ferao, the scarlet woodpecker," said Bagheera. "_He_ has not +forgotten. Now I, too, must remember my song," and he began purring +and crooning to himself, harking back dissatisfied again and again. + +"There is no game afoot," said Mowgli. + +"Little Brother, are _both_ thine ears stopped? That is no +killing-word, but my song that I make ready against the need." + +"I had forgotten. I shall know when the Time of New Talk is here, +because then thou and the others all run away and leave me alone." +Mowgli spoke rather savagely. + +"But, indeed, Little Brother," Bagheera began, "we do not always--" + +"I say ye do," said Mowgli, shooting out his forefinger angrily. "Ye +_do_ run away, and I, who am the Master of the Jungle, must needs walk +alone. How was it last season, when I would gather sugar-cane from the +fields of a Man-Pack? I sent a runner--I sent thee!--to Hathi, bidding +him to come upon such a night and pluck the sweet grass for me with +his trunk." + +"He came only two nights later," said Bagheera, cowering a little; +"and of that long, sweet grass that pleased thee so he gathered more +than any Man-cub could eat in all the nights of the Rains. That was no +fault of mine." + +"He did not come upon the night when I sent him the word. No, he was +trumpeting and running and roaring through the valleys in the +moonlight. His trail was like the trail of three elephants, for he +would not hide among the trees. He danced in the moonlight before the +houses of the Man-Pack. I saw him, and yet he would not come to me; +and _I_ am the Master of the Jungle!" + +"It was the Time of New Talk," said the panther, always very humble. +"Perhaps, Little Brother, thou didst not that time call him by a +Master-word? Listen to Ferao, and be glad!" + +Mowgli's bad temper seemed to have boiled itself away. He lay back +with his head on his arms, his eyes shut. "I do not know--nor do I +care," he said sleepily. "Let us sleep, Bagheera. My stomach is heavy +in me. Make me a rest for my head." + +The panther lay down again with a sigh, because he could hear Ferao +practising and repractising his song against the Springtime of New +Talk, as they say. + +In an Indian Jungle the seasons slide one into the other almost +without division. There seem to be only two--the wet and the dry; but +if you look closely below the torrents of rain and the clouds of char +and dust you will find all four going round in their regular ring. +Spring is the most wonderful, because she has not to cover a clean, +bare field with new leaves and flowers, but to drive before her and to +put away the hanging-on, over-surviving raffle of half-green things +which the gentle winter has suffered to live, and to make the partly +dressed stale earth feel new and young once more. And this she does so +well that there is no spring in the world like the Jungle spring. + +There is one day when all things are tired, and the very smells, as +they drift on the heavy air, are old and used. One cannot explain +this, but it feels so. Then there is another day--to the eye nothing +whatever has changed--when all the smells are new and delightful, and +the whiskers of the Jungle People quiver to their roots, and the +winter hair comes away from their sides in long, draggled locks. Then, +perhaps, a little rain falls, and all the trees and the bushes and the +bamboos and the mosses and the juicy-leaved plants wake with a noise +of growing that you can almost hear, and under this noise runs, day +and night, a deep hum. _That_ is the noise of the spring--a vibrating +boom which is neither bees, nor falling water, nor the wind in +tree-tops, but the purring of the warm, happy world. + +Up to this year Mowgli had always delighted in the turn of the +seasons. It was he who generally saw the first Eye-of-the-Spring deep +down among the grasses, and the first bank of spring clouds which are +like nothing else in the Jungle. His voice could be heard in all sorts +of wet, star-lighted, blossoming places, helping the big frogs through +their choruses, or mocking the little upside-down owls that hoot +through the white nights. Like all his people, spring was the season +he chose for his flittings--moving, for the mere joy of rushing +through the warm air, thirty, forty, or fifty miles between twilight +and the morning star, and coming back panting and laughing and +wreathed with strange flowers. The Four did not follow him on these +wild ringings of the Jungle, but went off to sing songs with other +wolves. The Jungle People are very busy in the spring, and Mowgli +could hear them grunting and screaming and whistling according to +their kind. Their voices then are different from their voices at other +times of the year, and that is one of the reasons why spring in the +Jungle is called the Time of New Talk. + +But that spring, as he told Bagheera, his stomach was changed in him. +Ever since the bamboo shoots turned spotty-brown he had been looking +forward to the morning when the smells should change. But when the +morning came, and Mor the Peacock, blazing in bronze and blue and +gold, cried it aloud all along the misty woods, and Mowgli opened his +mouth to send on the cry, the words choked between his teeth, and a +feeling came over him that began at his toes and ended in his hair--a +feeling of pure unhappiness, so that he looked himself over to be sure +that he had not trod on a thorn. Mor cried the new smells, the other +birds took it over, and from the rocks by the Waingunga he heard +Bagheera's hoarse scream--something between the scream of an eagle and +the neighing of a horse. There was a yelling and scattering of +_bandar-log_ in the new-budding branches above, and there stood +Mowgli, his chest, filled to answer Mor, sinking in little gasps as +the breath was driven out of it by this unhappiness. + +He stared all round him, but he could see no more than the mocking +_bandar-log_ scudding through the trees, and Mor, his tail spread in +full splendor, dancing on the slopes below. + +"The smells have changed," screamed Mor. "Good hunting, Little +Brother! Where is thy answer?" + +"Little Brother, good hunting!" whistled Chil the Kite and his mate, +swooping down together. The two baffed under Mowgli's nose so close +that a pinch of downy white feathers brushed away. + +A light spring rain--elephant-rain they call it--drove across the +Jungle in a belt half a mile wide, left the new leaves wet and nodding +behind, and died out in a double rainbow and a light roll of thunder. +The spring hum broke out for a minute, and was silent, but all the +Jungle Folk seemed to be giving tongue at once. All except Mowgli. + +"I have eaten good food," he said to himself. "I have drunk good +water. Nor does my throat burn and grow small, as it did when I bit +the blue-spotted root that Oo the Turtle said was clean food. But my +stomach is heavy, and I have given very bad talk to Bagheera and +others, people of the Jungle and my people. Now, too, I am hot and now +I am cold, and now I am neither hot nor cold, but angry with that +which I cannot see. Huhu! It is time to make a running! To-night I +will cross the ranges; yes, I will make a spring running to the +Marshes of the North, and back again. I have hunted too easily too +long. The Four shall come with me, for they grow as fat as white +grubs." + +He called, but never one of the Four answered. They were far beyond +earshot, singing over the spring songs--the Moon and Sambhur +Songs--with the wolves of the Pack; for in the springtime the Jungle +People make very little difference between the day and the night. He +gave the sharp, barking note, but his only answer was the mocking +_maiou_ of the little spotted tree-cat winding in and out among the +branches for early birds' nests. At this he shook all over with rage, +and half drew his knife. Then he became very haughty, though there was +no one to see him, and stalked severely down the hillside, chin up and +eyebrows down. But never a single one of his people asked him a +question, for they were all too busy with their own affairs. + +"Yes," said Mowgli to himself, though in his heart he knew that he had +no reason. "Let the Red Dhole come from the Dekkan, or the Red Flower +dance among the bamboos, and all the Jungle runs whining to Mowgli, +calling him great elephant-names. But now, because Eye-of-the-Spring +is red, and Mor, forsooth, must show his naked legs in some spring +dance, the Jungle goes mad as Tabaqui.... By the Bull that bought me! +am I the Master of the Jungle, or am I not? Be silent! What do ye +here?" + +A couple of young wolves of the Pack were cantering down a path, +looking for open ground in which to fight. (You will remember that the +Law of the Jungle forbids fighting where the Pack can see.) Their +neck-bristles were as stiff as wire, and they bayed furiously, +crouching for the first grapple. Mowgli leaped forward, caught one +outstretched throat in either hand, expecting to fling the creatures +backward as he had often done in games or Pack hunts. But he had never +before interfered with a spring fight. The two leaped forward and +dashed him aside, and without word to waste rolled over and over close +locked. + +Mowgli was on his feet almost before he fell, his knife and his white +teeth were bared, and at that minute he would have killed both for no +reason but that they were fighting when he wished them to be quiet, +although every wolf has full right under the Law to fight. He danced +round them with lowered shoulders and quivering hand, ready to send in +a double blow when the first flurry of the scuffle should be over; but +while he waited the strength seemed to ebb from his body, the +knife-point lowered, and he sheathed the knife and watched. + +"I have surely eaten poison," he sighed at last. "Since I broke up the +Council with the Red Flower--since I killed Shere Khan--none of the +Pack could fling me aside. And these be only tail-wolves in the Pack, +little hunters! My strength is gone from me, and presently I shall +die. Oh, Mowgli, why dost thou not kill them both?" + +The fight went on till one wolf ran away, and Mowgli was left alone on +the torn and bloody ground, looking now at his knife, and now at his +legs and arms, while the feeling of unhappiness he had never known +before covered him as water covers a log. + +He killed early that evening and eat but little, so as to be in good +fettle for his spring running, and he eat alone because all the Jungle +People were away singing or fighting. It was a perfect white night, as +they call it. All green things seemed to have made a month's growth +since the morning. The branch that was yellow-leaved the day before +dripped sap when Mowgli broke it. The mosses curled deep and warm over +his feet, the young grass had no cutting edges, and all the voices of +the Jungle boomed like one deep harp-string touched by the moon--the +Moon of New Talk, who splashed her light full on rock and pool, +slipped it between trunk and creeper, and sifted it through a million +leaves. Forgetting his unhappiness, Mowgli sang aloud with pure +delight as he settled into his stride. It was more like flying than +anything else, for he had chosen the long downward slope that leads to +the Northern Marshes through the heart of the main Jungle, where the +springy ground deadened the fall of his feet. A man-taught man would +have picked his way with many stumbles through the cheating moonlight, +but Mowgli's muscles, trained by years of experience, bore him up as +though he were a feather. When a rotten log or a hidden stone turned +under his foot he saved himself, never checking his pace, without +effort and without thought. When he tired of ground-going he threw up +his hands monkey-fashion to the nearest creeper, and seemed to float +rather than to climb up into the thin branches, whence he would follow +a tree-road till his mood changed, and he shot downward in a long, +leafy curve to the levels again. There were still, hot hollows +surrounded by wet rocks where he could hardly breathe for the heavy +scents of the night flowers and the bloom along the creeper-buds; dark +avenues where the moonlight lay in belts as regular as checkered +marbles in a church aisle; thickets where the wet young growth stood +breast-high about him and threw its arms round his waist; and +hilltops crowned with broken rock, where he leaped from stone to stone +above the lairs of the frightened little foxes. He would hear, very +faint and far off, the _chug-drug_ of a boar sharpening his tusks on a +bole; and would come across the great gray brute all alone, scribing +and rending the bark of a tall tree, his mouth dripping with foam, and +his eyes blazing like fire. Or he would turn aside to the sound of +clashing horns and hissing grunts, and dash past a couple of furious +sambhur, staggering to and fro with lowered heads, striped with blood +that showed black in the moonlight. Or at some rushing ford he would +hear Jacala the Crocodile bellowing like a bull, or disturb a twined +knot of the Poison People, but before they could strike he would be +away and across the glistening shingle, deep in the Jungle again. + +So he ran, sometimes shouting, sometimes singing to himself, the +happiest thing in all the Jungle that night, till the smell of the +flowers warned him that he was near the marshes, and those lay far +beyond his furthest hunting-grounds. + +Here, again, a man-trained man would have sunk overhead in three +strides, but Mowgli's feet had eyes in them, and they passed him from +tussock to tussock and clump to quaking clump without asking help +from the eyes in his head. He ran out to the middle of the swamp, +disturbing the duck as he ran, and sat down on a moss-coated +tree-trunk lapped in the black water. The marsh was awake all round +him, for in the spring the Bird-People sleep very lightly, and +companies of them were coming or going the night through. But no one +took any notice of Mowgli sitting among the tall reeds humming songs +without words, and looking at the soles of his hard brown feet in case +of neglected thorns. All his unhappiness seemed to have been left +behind in his own jungle, and he was just beginning a full-throat song +when it came back again--ten times worse than before. + +This time Mowgli was frightened. "It is here also!" he said half +aloud. "It has followed me," and he looked over his shoulder to see +whether the It were not standing behind him. "There is no one here." +The night noises of the marsh went on, but never a bird or beast spoke +to him, and the new feeling of misery grew. + +"I have surely eaten poison," he said in an awe-stricken voice. "It +must be that carelessly I have eaten poison, and my strength is going +from me. I was afraid--and yet it was not _I_ that was afraid--Mowgli +was afraid when the two wolves fought. Akela, or even Phao, would +have silenced them; yet Mowgli was afraid. That is true sign I have +eaten poison.... But what do they care in the Jungle? They sing and +howl and fight, and run in companies under the moon, and +I--_Hai-mai!_--I am dying in the marshes, of that poison which I have +eaten." He was so sorry for himself that he nearly wept. "And after," +he went on, "they will find me lying in the black water. Nay, I will +go back to my own Jungle, and I will die upon the Council Rock, and +Bagheera, whom I love, if he is not screaming in the valley--Bagheera, +perhaps, may watch by what is left for a little, lest Chil use me as +he used Akela." + +A large, warm tear splashed down on his knee, and, miserable as he +was, Mowgli felt happy that he was so miserable, if you can understand +that upside-down sort of happiness. "As Chil the Kite used Akela," he +repeated, "on the night I saved the Pack from Red Dog." He was quiet +for a little, thinking of the last words of the Lone Wolf, which you, +of course, remember. "Now Akela said to me many foolish things before +he died, for when we die our stomachs change. He said.... None the +less, I _am_ of the Jungle!" + +In his excitement, as he remembered the fight on Waingunga bank, he +shouted the last words aloud, and a wild buffalo-cow among the reeds +sprang to her knees, snorting, "Man!" + +"Uhh!" said Mysa the Wild Buffalo (Mowgli could hear him turn in his +wallow), "_that_ is no man. It is only the hairless wolf of the +Seeonee Pack. On such nights runs he to and fro." + +"Uhh!" said the cow, dropping her head again to graze, "I thought it +was Man." + +"I say no. Oh, Mowgli, is it danger?" lowed Mysa. + +"Oh, Mowgli, is it danger?" the boy called back mockingly. "That is +all Mysa thinks for: Is it danger? But for Mowgli, who goes to and fro +in the Jungle by night, watching, what do ye care?" + +"How loud he cries!" said the cow. + +"Thus do they cry," Mysa answered contemptuously, "who, having torn up +the grass, know not how to eat it." + +"For less than this," Mowgli groaned to himself--"for less than this +even last Rains I had pricked Mysa out of his wallow, and ridden him +through the swamp on a rush halter." He stretched a hand to break one +of the feathery reeds, but drew it back with a sigh. Mysa went on +steadily chewing the cud, and the long grass ripped where the cow +grazed. "I will not die _here_," he said angrily. "Mysa, who is of one +blood with Jacala and the pig, would see me. Let us go beyond the +swamp, and see what comes. Never have I run such a spring running--hot +and cold together. Up, Mowgli!" + +He could not resist the temptation of stealing across the reeds to +Mysa and pricking him with the point of his knife. The great dripping +bull broke out of his wallow like a shell exploding, while Mowgli +laughed till he sat down. + +"Say now that the hairless wolf of the Seeonee Pack once herded thee, +Mysa," he called. + +"Wolf! _Thou?_" the bull snorted, stamping in the mud. "All the Jungle +knows thou wast a herder of tame cattle--such a man's brat as shouts +in the dust by the crops yonder. _Thou_ of the Jungle! What hunter +would have crawled like a snake among the leeches, and for a muddy +jest--a jackal's jest--have shamed me before my cow? Come to firm +ground, and I will--I will...." Mysa frothed at the mouth, for Mysa +has nearly the worst temper of any one in the Jungle. + +Mowgli watched him puff and blow with eyes that never changed. When he +could make himself heard through the spattering mud, he said: "What +Man-Pack lair here by the marshes, Mysa? This is new jungle to me." + +"Go north, then," roared the angry bull, for Mowgli had pricked him +rather sharply. "It was a naked cowherd's jest. Go and tell them at +the village at the foot of the marsh." + +"The Man-Pack do not love jungle-tales, nor do I think, Mysa, that a +scratch more or less on thy hide is any matter for a council. But I +will go and look at this village. Yes, I will go. Softly now. It is +not every night that the Master of the Jungle comes to herd thee." + +He stepped out to the shivering ground on the edge of the marsh, well +knowing that Mysa would never charge over it, and laughed, as he ran, +to think of the bull's anger. + +"My strength is not altogether gone," he said. "It may be that the +poison is not to the bone. There is a star sitting low yonder." He +looked at it between his half-shut hands. "By the Bull that bought me, +it is the Red Flower--the Red Flower that I lay beside before--before +I came even to the first Seeonee Pack! Now that I have seen, I will +finish the running." + +The marsh ended in a broad plain where a light twinkled. It was a long +time since Mowgli had concerned himself with the doings of men, but +this night the glimmer of the Red Flower drew him forward. + +"I will look," said he, "as I did in the old days, and I will see how +far the Man-Pack has changed." + +Forgetting that he was no longer in his own jungle, where he could do +what he pleased, he trod carelessly through the dew-loaded grasses +till he came to the hut where the light stood. Three or four yelping +dogs gave tongue, for he was on the outskirts of a village. + +"Ho!" said Mowgli, sitting down noiselessly, after sending back a deep +wolf-growl that silenced the curs. "What comes will come. Mowgli, what +hast thou to do any more with the lairs of the Man-Pack?" He rubbed +his mouth, remembering where a stone had struck it years ago when the +other Man-Pack had cast him out. + +The door of the hut opened, and a woman stood peering out into the +darkness. A child cried, and the woman said over her shoulder, "Sleep. +It was but a jackal that waked the dogs. In a little time morning +comes." + +Mowgli in the grass began to shake as though he had fever. He knew +that voice well, but to make sure he cried softly, surprised to find +how man's talk came back, "Messua! O Messua!" + +"Who calls?" said the woman, a quiver in her voice. + +"Hast thou forgotten?" said Mowgli. His throat was dry as he spoke. + +"If it be _thou_, what name did I give thee? Say!" She had half shut +the door, and her hand was clutching at her breast. + +"Nathoo! Ohe Nathoo!" said Mowgli, for, as you remember, that was the +name Messua gave him when he first came to the Man-Pack. + +"Come, my son," she called, and Mowgli stepped into the light, and +looked full at Messua, the woman who had been good to him, and whose +life he had saved from the Man-Pack so long before. She was older, and +her hair was gray, but her eyes and her voice had not changed. +Woman-like, she expected to find Mowgli where she had left him, and +her eyes traveled upward in a puzzled way from his chest to his head, +that touched the top of the door. + +"My son," she stammered; and then, sinking to his feet: "But it is no +longer my son. It is a Godling of the Woods! Ahai!" + +As he stood in the red light of the oil-lamp, strong, tall, and +beautiful, his long black hair sweeping over his shoulders, the knife +swinging at his neck, and his head crowned with a wreath of white +jasmine, he might easily have been mistaken for some wild god of a +jungle legend. The child half asleep on a cot sprang up and shrieked +aloud with terror. Messua turned to soothe him, while Mowgli stood +still, looking in at the water-jars and the cooking-pots, the +grain-bin, and all the other human belongings that he found himself +remembering so well. + +"What wilt thou eat or drink?" Messua murmured. "This is all thine. We +owe our lives to thee. But art thou him I called Nathoo, or a Godling, +indeed?" + +"I am Nathoo," said Mowgli, "I am very far from my own place. I saw +this light, and came hither. I did not know thou wast here." + +"After we came to Kanhiwara," Messua said timidly, "the English would +have helped us against those villagers that sought to burn us. +Rememberest thou?" + +"Indeed, I have not forgotten." + +"But when the English Law was made ready, we went to the village of +those evil people, and it was no more to be found." + +"That also I remember," said Mowgli, with a quiver of his nostril. + +"My man, therefore, took service in the fields, and at last--for, +indeed, he was a strong man--we held a little land here. It is not so +rich as the old village, but we do not need much--we two." + +"Where is he--the man that dug in the dirt when he was afraid on that +night?" + +"He is dead--a year." + +"And he?" Mowgli pointed to the child. + +"My son that was born two Rains ago. If thou art a Godling, give him +the Favor of the Jungle, that he may be safe among thy--thy people, as +we were safe on that night." + +She lifted up the child, who, forgetting his fright, reached out to +play with the knife that hung on Mowgli's chest, and Mowgli put the +little fingers aside very carefully. + +"And if thou art Nathoo whom the tigers carried away," Messua went on, +choking, "he is then thy younger brother. Give him an elder brother's +blessing." + +"_Hai-mai!_ What do I know of the thing called a blessing? I am +neither a Godling nor his brother, and--O mother, mother, my heart is +heavy in me." He shivered as he set down the child. + +"Like enough," said Messua, bustling among the cooking-pots. "This +comes of running about the marshes by night. Beyond question, the +fever has soaked thee to the marrow." Mowgli smiled a little at the +idea of anything in the Jungle hurting him. "I will make a fire, and +thou shalt drink warm milk. Put away the jasmine wreath: the smell is +heavy in so small a place." + +Mowgli sat down, muttering, with his face in his hands. All manner of +strange feelings that he had never felt before were running over him, +exactly as though he had been poisoned, and he felt dizzy and a little +sick. He drank the warm milk in long gulps, Messua patting him on the +shoulder from time to time, not quite sure whether he were her son +Nathoo of the long ago days, or some wonderful Jungle being, but glad +to feel that he was at least flesh and blood. + +"Son," she said at last,--her eyes were full of pride,--"have any told +thee that thou art beautiful beyond all men?" + +"Hah?" said Mowgli, for naturally he had never heard anything of the +kind. Messua laughed softly and happily. The look in his face was +enough for her. + +"I am the first, then? It is right, though it comes seldom, that a +mother should tell her son these good things. Thou art very beautiful. +Never have I looked upon such a man." + +Mowgli twisted his head and tried to see over his own hard shoulder, +and Messua laughed again so long that Mowgli, not knowing why, was +forced to laugh with her, and the child ran from one to the other, +laughing too. + +"Nay, thou must not mock thy brother," said Messua, catching him to +her breast. "When thou art one half as fair we will marry thee to the +youngest daughter of a king, and thou shalt ride great elephants." + +Mowgli could not understand one word in three of the talk here; the +warm milk was taking effect on him after his long run, so he curled up +and in a minute was deep asleep, and Messua put the hair back from his +eyes, threw a cloth over him, and was happy. Jungle-fashion, he slept +out the rest of that night and all the next day; for his instincts, +which never wholly slept, warned him there was nothing to fear. He +waked at last with a bound that shook the hut, for the cloth over his +face made him dream of traps; and there he stood, his hand on his +knife, the sleep all heavy in his rolling eyes, ready for any fight. + +Messua laughed, and set the evening meal before him. There were only a +few coarse cakes baked over the smoky fire, some rice, and a lump of +sour preserved tamarinds--just enough to go on with till he could get +to his evening kill. The smell of the dew in the marshes made him +hungry and restless. He wanted to finish his spring running, but the +child insisted on sitting in his arms, and Messua would have it that +his long, blue-black hair must be combed out. So she sang, as she +combed, foolish little baby-songs, now calling Mowgli her son, and now +begging him to give some of his jungle power to the child. The hut +door was closed, but Mowgli heard a sound he knew well, and saw +Messua's jaw drop with horror as a great gray paw came under the +bottom of the door, and Gray Brother outside whined a muffled and +penitent whine of anxiety and fear. + +"Out and wait! Ye would not come when I called," said Mowgli in +jungle-talk, without turning his head, and the great gray paw +disappeared. + +"Do not--do not bring thy--thy servants with thee," said Messua. +"I--we have always lived at peace with the Jungle." + +"It is peace," said Mowgli, rising. "Think of that night on the road +to Kanhiwara. There were scores of such folk before thee and behind +thee. But I see that even in springtime the Jungle People do not +always forget. Mother, I go." + +Messua drew aside humbly--he was indeed a wood-god, she thought; but +as his hand was on the door the mother in her made her throw her arms +round Mowgli's neck again and again. + +"Come back!" she whispered. "Son or no son, come back, for I love +thee--Look, he too grieves." + +The child was crying because the man with the shiny knife was going +away. + +"Come back again," Messua repeated. "By night or by day this door is +never shut to thee." + +Mowgli's throat worked as though the cords in it were being pulled, +and his voice seemed to be dragged from it as he answered, "I will +surely come back." + +"And now," he said, as he put by the head of the fawning wolf on the +threshold, "I have a little cry against thee, Gray Brother. Why came +ye not all four when I called so long ago?" + +"So long ago? It was but last night. I--we--were singing in the Jungle +the new songs, for this is the Time of New Talk. Rememberest thou?" + +"Truly, truly." + +"And as soon as the songs were sung," Gray Brother went on earnestly, +"I followed thy trail. I ran from all the others and followed +hot-foot. But, O Little Brother, what hast _thou_ done, eating and +sleeping with the Man-Pack?" + +"If ye had come when I called, this had never been," said Mowgli, +running much faster. + +"And now what is to be?" said Gray Brother. + +Mowgli was just going to answer when a girl in a white cloth came down +some path that led from the outskirts of the village. Gray Brother +dropped out of sight at once, and Mowgli backed noiselessly into a +field of high-springing crops. He could almost have touched her with +his hand when the warm, green stalks closed before his face and he +disappeared like a ghost. The girl screamed, for she thought she had +seen a spirit, and then she gave a deep sigh. Mowgli parted the stalks +with his hands and watched her till she was out of sight. + +"And now I do not know," he said, sighing in his turn. "_Why_ did ye +not come when I called?" + +"We follow thee--we follow thee," Gray Brother mumbled, licking at +Mowgli's heel. "We follow thee always, except in the Time of the New +Talk." + +"And would ye follow me to the Man-Pack?" Mowgli whispered. + +"Did I not follow thee on the night our old Pack cast thee out? Who +waked thee lying among the crops?" + +"Ay, but again?" + +"Have I not followed thee to-night?" + +"Ay, but again and again, and it may be again, Gray Brother?" + +Gray Brother was silent. When he spoke he growled to himself, "The +Black One spoke truth." + +"And he said?" + +"Man goes to Man at the last. Raksha, our mother, said--" + +"So also said Akela on the night of Red Dog," Mowgli muttered. + +"So also says Kaa, who is wiser than us all." + +"What dost thou say, Gray Brother?" + +"They cast thee out once, with bad talk. They cut thy mouth with +stones. They sent Buldeo to slay thee. They would have thrown thee +into the Red Flower. Thou, and not I, hast said that they are evil and +senseless. Thou, and not I--I follow my own people--didst let in the +Jungle upon them. Thou, and not I, didst make song against them more +bitter even than our song against Red Dog." + +"I ask thee what _thou_ sayest?" + +They were talking as they ran. Gray Brother cantered on a while +without replying, and then he said,--between bound and bound as it +were,--"Man-cub--Master of the Jungle--Son of Raksha, Lair-brother to +me--though I forget for a little while in the spring, thy trail is my +trail, thy lair is my lair, thy kill is my kill, and thy death-fight +is my death-fight. I speak for the Three. But what wilt thou say to +the Jungle?" + +"That is well thought. Between the sight and the kill it is not good +to wait. Go before and cry them all to the Council Rock, and I will +tell them what is in my stomach. But they may not come--in the Time of +New Talk they may forget me." + +"Hast thou, then, forgotten nothing?" snapped Gray Brother over his +shoulder, as he laid himself down to gallop, and Mowgli followed, +thinking. + +At any other season the news would have called all the Jungle together +with bristling necks, but now they were busy hunting and fighting and +killing and singing. From one to another Gray Brother ran, crying, +"The Master of the Jungle goes back to Man! Come to the Council Rock." +And the happy, eager People only answered, "He will return in the +summer heats. The Rains will drive him to lair. Run and sing with us, +Gray Brother." + +"But the Master of the Jungle goes back to Man," Gray Brother would +repeat. + +"Eee--Yoawa? Is the Time of New Talk any less sweet for that?" they +would reply. So when Mowgli, heavy-hearted, came up through the +well-remembered rocks to the place where he had been brought into the +Council, he found only the Four, Baloo, who was nearly blind with age, +and the heavy, cold-blooded Kaa coiled around Akela's empty seat. + +"Thy trail ends here, then, Manling?" said Kaa, as Mowgli threw +himself down, his face in his hands. "Cry thy cry. We be of one blood, +thou and I--man and snake together." + +"Why did I not die under Red Dog?" the boy moaned. "My strength is +gone from me, and it is not any poison. By night and by day I hear a +double step upon my trail. When I turn my head it is as though one had +hidden himself from me that instant. I go to look behind the trees, +and he is not there. I call and none cry again; but it is as though +one listened and kept back the answer. I lie down, but I do not rest. +I run the spring running, but I am not made still. I bathe, but I am +not made cool. The kill sickens me, but I have no heart to fight +except I kill. The Red Flower is in my body, my bones are +water--and--I know not what I know." + +"What need of talk?" said Baloo slowly, turning his head to where +Mowgli lay. "Akela by the river said it, that Mowgli should drive +Mowgli back to the Man-Pack. I said it. But who listens now to Baloo? +Bagheera--where is Bagheera this night?--he knows also. It is the +Law." + +"When we met at Cold Lairs, Manling, I knew it," said Kaa, turning a +little in his mighty coils. "Man goes to Man at the last, though the +Jungle does not cast him out." + +The Four looked at one another and at Mowgli, puzzled but obedient. + +"The Jungle does not cast me out, then?" Mowgli stammered. + +Gray Brother and the Three growled furiously, beginning, "So long as +we live none shall dare--" But Baloo checked them. + +"I taught thee the Law. It is for me to speak," he said; "and, though +I cannot now see the rocks before me, I see far. Little Frog, take +thine own trail; make thy lair with thine own blood and pack and +people; but when there is need of foot or tooth or eye, or a word +carried swiftly by night, remember, Master of the Jungle, the Jungle +is thine at call." + +"The Middle Jungle is thine also," said Kaa. "I speak for no small +people." + +"_Hai-mai_, my brothers," cried Mowgli, throwing up his arms with a +sob. "I know not what I know! I would not go; but I am drawn by both +feet. How shall I leave these nights?" + +"Nay, look up, Little Brother," Baloo repeated. "There is no shame in +this hunting. When the honey is eaten we leave the empty hive." + +"Having cast the skin," said Kaa, "we may not creep into it afresh. It +is the Law." + +"Listen, dearest of all to me," said Baloo. "There is neither word nor +will here to hold thee back. Look up! Who may question the Master of +the Jungle? I saw thee playing among the white pebbles yonder when +thou wast a little frog; and Bagheera, that bought thee for the price +of a young bull newly killed, saw thee also. Of that Looking Over we +two only remain; for Raksha, thy lair-mother, is dead with thy +lair-father; the old Wolf Pack is long since dead; thou knowest +whither Shere Khan went, and Akela died among the dholes, where, but +for thy wisdom and strength, the second Seeonee Pack would also have +died. There remains nothing but old bones. It is no longer the +Man-cub that asks leave of his Pack, but the Master of the Jungle +that changes his trail. Who shall question Man in his ways?" + +"But Bagheera and the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli. "I would +not--" + +His words were cut short by a roar and a crash in the thicket below, +and Bagheera, light, strong, and terrible as always, stood before him. + +"_Therefore_," he said, stretching out a dripping right paw, "I did +not come. It was a long hunt, but he lies dead in the bushes now--a +bull in his second year--the Bull that frees thee, Little Brother. All +debts are paid now. For the rest, my word is Baloo's word." He licked +Mowgli's foot. "Remember, Bagheera loved thee," he cried and bounded +away. At the foot of the hill he cried again long and loud, "Good +hunting on a new trail, Master of the Jungle! Remember, Bagheera loved +thee." + +"Thou hast heard," said Baloo. "There is no more. Go now; but first +come to me. O wise Little Frog, come to me!" + +"It is hard to cast the skin," said Kaa as Mowgli sobbed and sobbed, +with his head on the blind bear's side and his arms round his neck, +while Baloo tried feebly to lick his feet. + +"The stars are thin," said Gray Brother, snuffing at the dawn-wind. +"Where shall we lair to-day? For, from now, we follow new trails." + + * * * * * + +And this is the last of the Mowgli stories. + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE OUTSONG + + +This is the song that Mowgli heard behind him in the Jungle till he +came to Messua's door again: + +BALOO-- + + For the sake of him who showed + One wise Frog the Jungle-Road, + Keep the Law the Man-Pack make-- + For thy blind old Baloo's sake! + Clean or tainted, hot or stale, + Hold it as it were the Trail, + Through the day and through the night + Questing neither left nor right. + For the sake of him who loves + Thee beyond all else that moves, + When thy Pack would make thee pain, + Say: "Tabaqui sings again." + When thy Pack would work thee ill, + Say: "Shere Khan is yet to kill." + When the knife is drawn to slay, + Keep the Law and go thy way. + (Root and honey, palm and spathe, + Guard a cub from harm and scathe!) + _Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, + Jungle-Favor go with thee!_ + +KAA-- + + Anger is the egg of Fear-- + Only lidless eyes are clear. + Cobra-poison none may leech; + Even so with Cobra-speech. + Open talk shall call to thee + Strength, whose mate is Courtesy. + Send no lunge beyond thy length; + Lend no rotten bough thy strength. + Gauge thy gape with buck or goat, + Lest thine eye should choke thy throat + After gorging, wouldst thou sleep, + Look the den is hid and deep, + Lest a wrong, by thee forgot, + Draw thy killer to the spot. + East and West and North and South, + Wash thy hide and close thy mouth. + (Pit and rift and blue pool-brim, + Middle Jungle follow him!) + _Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, + Jungle-Favor go with thee!_ + +BAGHEERA-- + + In the cage my life began; + Well I know the worth of Man. + By the Broken Lock that freed-- + Man-cub, 'ware the Man-cub's breed! + Scenting-dew or starlight pale, + Choose no tangled tree-cat trail. + Pack or council, hunt or den, + Cry no truce with Jackal-Men. + Feed them silence when they say: + "Come with us an easy way." + Feed them silence when they seek + Help of thine to hurt the weak. + Make no _bandar's_ boast of skill; + Hold thy peace above the kill. + Let nor call nor song nor sign + Turn thee from thy hunting-line. + (Morning mist or twilight clear, + Serve him, Wardens of the Deer!) + _Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, + Jungle-Favor go with thee!_ + +THE THREE-- + + _On the trail that thou must tread + To the thresholds of our dread. + Where the Flower blossoms red; + Through the nights when thou shalt lie + Prisoned from our Mother-sky, + Hearing us, thy loves, go by; + In the dawns, when thou shalt wake + To the toil thou canst not break, + Heartsick for the Jungle's sake: + Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, + Wisdom, Strength, and Courtesy, + Jungle-Favor go with thee!_ + +[Illustration] + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Second Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK *** + +***** This file should be named 37364.txt or 37364.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/3/6/37364/ + +Produced by Melissa McDaniel, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://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. 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