"'THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK\n\nBy Rudyard Kipling\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n How Fear Came\n The Law of the Jungle\n The Miracle of Purun Bhagat\n A Song of Kabir\n Letting in the Jungle\n Mowgli\'s Song against People\n The Undertakers\n A Ripple Song\n The King\'s Ankus\n The Song of the Little Hunter\n Quiquern\n \'Angutivaun Taina\'\n Red Dog\n Chil\'s Song\n The Spring Running\n The Outsong\n\n\n\n\nHOW FEAR CAME\n\n The stream is shrunk--the pool is dry,\n And we be comrades, thou and I;\n With fevered jowl and dusty flank\n Each jostling each along the bank;\n And by one drouthy fear made still,\n Forgoing thought of quest or kill.\n Now \'neath his dam the fawn may see,\n The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,\n And the tall buck, unflinching, note\n The fangs that tore his father\'s throat.\n The pools are shrunk--the streams are dry,\n And we be playmates, thou and I,\n Till yonder cloud--Good Hunting!--loose\n The rain that breaks our Water Truce.\n\nThe Law of the Jungle--which is by far the oldest law in the world--has\narranged for almost every kind of accident that may befall the Jungle\nPeople, till now its code is as perfect as time and custom can make\nit. You will remember that Mowgli spent a great part of his life in the\nSeeonee Wolf-Pack, learning the Law from Baloo, the Brown Bear; and\nit was Baloo who told him, when the boy grew impatient at the constant\norders, that the Law was like the Giant Creeper, because it dropped\nacross every one\'s back and no one could escape. \"When thou hast lived\nas long as I have, Little Brother, thou wilt see how all the Jungle\nobeys at least one Law. And that will be no pleasant sight,\" said Baloo.\n\nThis talk went in at one ear and out at the other, for a boy who spends\nhis life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till it\nactually stares him in the face. But, one year, Baloo\'s words came true,\nand Mowgli saw all the Jungle working under the Law.\n\nIt began when the winter Rains failed almost entirely, and Ikki, the\nPorcupine, meeting Mowgli in a bamboo-thicket, told him that the wild\nyams were drying up. Now everybody knows that Ikki is ridiculously\nfastidious in his choice of food, and will eat nothing but the very best\nand ripest. So Mowgli laughed and said, \"What is that to me?\"\n\n\"Not much NOW,\" said Ikki, rattling his quills in a stiff, uncomfortable\nway, \"but later we shall see. Is there any more diving into the deep\nrock-pool below the Bee-Rocks, Little Brother?\"\n\n\"No. The foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish to break my\nhead,\" said Mowgli, who, in those days, was quite sure that he knew as\nmuch as any five of the Jungle People put together.\n\n\"That is thy loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom.\" Ikki ducked\nquickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling his nose-bristles, and Mowgli\ntold Baloo what Ikki had said. Baloo looked very grave, and mumbled\nhalf to himself: \"If I were alone I would change my hunting-grounds now,\nbefore the others began to think. And yet--hunting among strangers ends\nin fighting; and they might hurt the Man-cub. We must wait and see how\nthe mohwa blooms.\"\n\nThat spring the mohwa tree, that Baloo was so fond of, never flowered.\nThe greeny, cream-coloured, waxy blossoms were heat-killed before they\nwere born, and only a few bad-smelling petals came down when he stood\non his hind legs and shook the tree. Then, inch by inch, the untempered\nheat crept into the heart of the Jungle, turning it yellow, brown, and\nat last black. The green growths in the sides of the ravines burned up\nto broken wires and curled films of dead stuff; the hidden pools sank\ndown and caked over, keeping the last least footmark on their edges as\nif it had been cast in iron; the juicy-stemmed creepers fell away from\nthe trees they clung to and died at their feet; the bamboos withered,\nclanking when the hot winds blew, and the moss peeled off the rocks deep\nin the Jungle, till they were as bare and as hot as the quivering blue\nboulders in the bed of the stream.\n\nThe birds and the monkey-people went north early in the year, for they\nknew what was coming; and the deer and the wild pig broke far away to\nthe perished fields of the villages, dying sometimes before the eyes\nof men too weak to kill them. Chil, the Kite, stayed and grew fat, for\nthere was a great deal of carrion, and evening after evening he\nbrought the news to the beasts, too weak to force their way to fresh\nhunting-grounds, that the sun was killing the Jungle for three days\'\nflight in every direction.\n\nMowgli, who had never known what real hunger meant, fell back on stale\nhoney, three years old, scraped out of deserted rock-hives--honey black\nas a sloe, and dusty with dried sugar. He hunted, too, for deep-boring\ngrubs under the bark of the trees, and robbed the wasps of their new\nbroods. All the game in the jungle was no more than skin and bone, and\nBagheera could kill thrice in a night, and hardly get a full meal. But\nthe want of water was the worst, for though the Jungle People drink\nseldom they must drink deep.\n\nAnd the heat went on and on, and sucked up all the moisture, till at\nlast the main channel of the Waingunga was the only stream that carried\na trickle of water between its dead banks; and when Hathi, the wild\nelephant, who lives for a hundred years and more, saw a long, lean blue\nridge of rock show dry in the very centre of the stream, he knew that he\nwas looking at the Peace Rock, and then and there he lifted up his trunk\nand proclaimed the Water Truce, as his father before him had proclaimed\nit fifty years ago. The deer, wild pig, and buffalo took up the cry\nhoarsely; and Chil, the Kite, flew in great circles far and wide,\nwhistling and shrieking the warning.\n\nBy the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the drinking-places\nwhen once the Water Truce has been declared. The reason of this is that\ndrinking comes before eating. Every one in the Jungle can scramble along\nsomehow when only game is scarce; but water is water, and when there is\nbut one source of supply, all hunting stops while the Jungle People go\nthere for their needs. In good seasons, when water was plentiful, those\nwho came down to drink at the Waingunga--or anywhere else, for that\nmatter--did so at the risk of their lives, and that risk made no small\npart of the fascination of the night\'s doings. To move down so cunningly\nthat never a leaf stirred; to wade knee-deep in the roaring shallows\nthat drown all noise from behind; to drink, looking backward over one\nshoulder, every muscle ready for the first desperate bound of keen\nterror; to roll on the sandy margin, and return, wet-muzzled and well\nplumped out, to the admiring herd, was a thing that all tall-antlered\nyoung bucks took a delight in, precisely because they knew that at any\nmoment Bagheera or Shere Khan might leap upon them and bear them down.\nBut now all that life-and-death fun was ended, and the Jungle People\ncame up, starved and weary, to the shrunken river,--tiger, bear, deer,\nbuffalo, and pig, all together,--drank the fouled waters, and hung above\nthem, too exhausted to move off.\n\nThe deer and the pig had tramped all day in search of something better\nthan dried bark and withered leaves. The buffaloes had found no wallows\nto be cool in, and no green crops to steal. The snakes had left the\nJungle and come down to the river in the hope of finding a stray frog.\nThey curled round wet stones, and never offered to strike when the nose\nof a rooting pig dislodged them. The river-turtles had long ago been\nkilled by Bagheera, cleverest of hunters, and the fish had buried\nthemselves deep in the dry mud. Only the Peace Rock lay across the\nshallows like a long snake, and the little tired ripples hissed as they\ndried on its hot side.\n\nIt was here that Mowgli came nightly for the cool and the companionship.\nThe most hungry of his enemies would hardly have cared for the boy then,\nHis naked hide made him seem more lean and wretched than any of his\nfellows. His hair was bleached to tow colour by the sun; his ribs stood\nout like the ribs of a basket, and the lumps on his knees and elbows,\nwhere he was used to track on all fours, gave his shrunken limbs the\nlook of knotted grass-stems. But his eye, under his matted forelock, was\ncool and quiet, for Bagheera was his adviser in this time of trouble,\nand told him to go quietly, hunt slowly, and never, on any account, to\nlose his temper.\n\n\"It is an evil time,\" said the Black Panther, one furnace-hot evening,\n\"but it will go if we can live till the end. Is thy stomach full,\nMan-cub?\"\n\n\"There is stuff in my stomach, but I get no good of it. Think you,\nBagheera, the Rains have forgotten us and will never come again?\"\n\n\"Not I! We shall see the mohwa in blossom yet, and the little fawns all\nfat with new grass. Come down to the Peace Rock and hear the news. On my\nback, Little Brother.\"\n\n\"This is no time to carry weight. I can still stand alone, but--indeed\nwe be no fatted bullocks, we two.\"\n\nBagheera looked along his ragged, dusty flank and whispered. \"Last night\nI killed a bullock under the yoke. So low was I brought that I think I\nshould not have dared to spring if he had been loose. WOU!\"\n\nMowgli laughed. \"Yes, we be great hunters now,\" said he. \"I am very\nbold--to eat grubs,\" and the two came down together through the\ncrackling undergrowth to the river-bank and the lace-work of shoals that\nran out from it in every direction.\n\n\"The water cannot live long,\" said Baloo, joining them. \"Look across.\nYonder are trails like the roads of Man.\"\n\nOn the level plain of the farther bank the stiff jungle-grass had died\nstanding, and, dying, had mummied. The beaten tracks of the deer and\nthe pig, all heading toward the river, had striped that colourless plain\nwith dusty gullies driven through the ten-foot grass, and, early as it\nwas, each long avenue was full of first-comers hastening to the water.\nYou could hear the does and fawns coughing in the snuff-like dust.\n\nUp-stream, at the bend of the sluggish pool round the Peace Rock, and\nWarden of the Water Truce, stood Hathi, the wild elephant, with his\nsons, gaunt and gray in the moonlight, rocking to and fro--always\nrocking. Below him a little were the vanguard of the deer; below these,\nagain, the pig and the wild buffalo; and on the opposite bank, where the\ntall trees came down to the water\'s edge, was the place set apart for\nthe Eaters of Flesh--the tiger, the wolves, the panther, the bear, and\nthe others.\n\n\"We are under one Law, indeed,\" said Bagheera, wading into the water and\nlooking across at the lines of clicking horns and starting eyes where\nthe deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro. \"Good hunting, all\nyou of my blood,\" he added, lying own at full length, one flank thrust\nout of the shallows; and then, between his teeth, \"But for that which is\nthe Law it would be VERY good hunting.\"\n\nThe quick-spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence, and a\nfrightened whisper ran along the ranks. \"The Truce! Remember the Truce!\"\n\n\"Peace there, peace!\" gurgled Hathi, the wild elephant. \"The Truce\nholds, Bagheera. This is no time to talk of hunting.\"\n\n\"Who should know better than I?\" Bagheera answered, rolling his yellow\neyes up-stream. \"I am an eater of turtles--a fisher of frogs. Ngaayah!\nWould I could get good from chewing branches!\"\n\n\"WE wish so, very greatly,\" bleated a young fawn, who had only been born\nthat spring, and did not at all like it. Wretched as the Jungle People\nwere, even Hathi could not help chuckling; while Mowgli, lying on his\nelbows in the warm water, laughed aloud, and beat up the scum with his\nfeet.\n\n\"Well spoken, little bud-horn,\" Bagheera purred. \"When the Truce ends\nthat shall be remembered in thy favour,\" and he looked keenly through\nthe darkness to make sure of recognising the fawn again.\n\nGradually the talking spread up and down the drinking-places. One could\nhear the scuffling, snorting pig asking for more room; the buffaloes\ngrunting among themselves as they lurched out across the sand-bars, and\nthe deer telling pitiful stories of their long foot-sore wanderings in\nquest of food. Now and again they asked some question of the Eaters of\nFlesh across the river, but all the news was bad, and the roaring hot\nwind of the Jungle came and went between the rocks and the rattling\nbranches, and scattered twigs, and dust on the water.\n\n\"The men-folk, too, they die beside their ploughs,\" said a young\nsambhur. \"I passed three between sunset and night. They lay still, and\ntheir Bullocks with them. We also shall lie still in a little.\"\n\n\"The river has fallen since last night,\" said Baloo. \"O Hathi, hast thou\never seen the like of this drought?\"\n\n\"It will pass, it will pass,\" said Hathi, squirting water along his back\nand sides.\n\n\"We have one here that cannot endure long,\" said Baloo; and he looked\ntoward the boy he loved.\n\n\"I?\" said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. \"I have no long\nfur to cover my bones, but--but if THY hide were taken off, Baloo----\"\n\nHathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely:\n\n\"Man-cub, that is not seemly to tell a Teacher of the Law. Never have I\nbeen seen without my hide.\"\n\n\"Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it were, like\nthe cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked. Now that\nbrown husk of thine----\" Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and explaining\nthings with his forefinger in his usual way, when Bagheera put out a\npaddy paw and pulled him over backward into the water.\n\n\"Worse and worse,\" said the Black Panther, as the boy rose spluttering.\n\"First Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a cocoanut. Be careful that\nhe does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do.\"\n\n\"And what is that?\" said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute, though\nthat is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle.\n\n\"Break thy head,\" said Bagheera quietly, pulling him under again.\n\n\"It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher,\" said the bear, when\nMowgli had been ducked for the third time.\n\n\"Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing running to and fro makes\na monkey-jest of those who have once been good hunters, and pulls the\nbest of us by the whiskers for sport.\" This was Shere Khan, the Lame\nTiger, limping down to the water. He waited a little to enjoy the\nsensation he made among the deer on the opposite to lap, growling: \"The\njungle has become a whelping-ground for naked cubs now. Look at me,\nMan-cub!\"\n\nMowgli looked--stared, rather--as insolently as he knew how, and in\na minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. \"Man-cub this, and Man-cub\nthat,\" he rumbled, going on with his drink, \"the cub is neither man nor\ncub, or he would have been afraid. Next season I shall have to beg his\nleave for a drink. Augrh!\"\n\n\"That may come, too,\" said Bagheera, looking him steadily between the\neyes. \"That may come, too--Faugh, Shere Khan!--what new shame hast thou\nbrought here?\"\n\nThe Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and dark, oily\nstreaks were floating from it down-stream.\n\n\"Man!\" said Shere Khan coolly, \"I killed an hour since.\" He went on\npurring and growling to himself.\n\nThe line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper went\nup that grew to a cry. \"Man! Man! He has killed Man!\" Then all looked\ntowards Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed not to hear. Hathi never\ndoes anything till the time comes, and that is one of the reasons why he\nlives so long.\n\n\"At such a season as this to kill Man! Was no other game afoot?\" said\nBagheera scornfully, drawing himself out of the tainted water, and\nshaking each paw, cat-fashion, as he did so.\n\n\"I killed for choice--not for food.\" The horrified whisper began again,\nand Hathi\'s watchful little white eye cocked itself in Shere Khan\'s\ndirection. \"For choice,\" Shere Khan drawled. \"Now come I to drink and\nmake me clean again. Is there any to forbid?\"\n\nBagheera\'s back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind, but Hathi\nlifted up his trunk and spoke quietly.\n\n\"Thy kill was from choice?\" he asked; and when Hathi asks a question it\nis best to answer.\n\n\"Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi.\" Shere\nKhan spoke almost courteously.\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" Hathi answered; and, after a little silence, \"Hast thou\ndrunk thy fill?\"\n\n\"For to-night, yes.\"\n\n\"Go, then. The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but the Lame\nTiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when--when we\nsuffer together--Man and Jungle People alike. Clean or unclean, get to\nthy lair, Shere Khan!\"\n\nThe last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi\'s three sons\nrolled forward half a pace, though there was no need. Shere Khan slunk\naway, not daring to growl, for he knew--what every one else knows--that\nwhen the last comes to the last, Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.\n\n\"What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?\" Mowgli whispered in\nBagheera\'s ear. \"To kill Man is always, shameful. The Law says so. And\nyet Hathi says----\"\n\n\"Ask him. I do not know, Little Brother. Right or no right, if Hathi had\nnot spoken I would have taught that lame butcher his lesson. To come\nto the Peace Rock fresh from a kill of Man--and to boast of it--is a\njackal\'s trick. Besides, he tainted the good water.\"\n\nMowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage, because no one cared\nto address Hathi directly, and then he cried: \"What is Shere Khan\'s\nright, O Hathi?\" Both banks echoed his words, for all the People of the\nJungle are intensely curious, and they had just seen something that none\nexcept Baloo, who looked very thoughtful, seemed to understand.\n\n\"It is an old tale,\" said Hathi; \"a tale older than the Jungle. Keep\nsilence along the banks and I will tell that tale.\"\n\nThere was a minute or two of pushing a shouldering among the pigs\nand the buffalo, and then the leaders of the herds grunted, one after\nanother, \"We wait,\" and Hathi strode forward, till he was nearly\nknee-deep in the pool by the Peace Rock. Lean and wrinkled and\nyellow-tusked though he was, he looked what the Jungle knew him to\nbe--their master.\n\n\"Ye know, children,\" he began, \"that of all things ye most fear Man;\"\nand there was a mutter of agreement.\n\n\"This tale touches thee, Little Brother,\" said Bagheera to Mowgli.\n\n\"I? I am of the Pack--a hunter of the Free People,\" Mowgli answered.\n\"What have I to do with Man?\"\n\n\"And ye do not know why ye fear Man?\" Hathi went on. \"This is the\nreason. In the beginning of the Jungle, and none know when that was, we\nof the Jungle walked together, having no fear of one another. In those\ndays there was no drought, and leaves and flowers and fruit grew on the\nsame tree, and we ate nothing at all except leaves and flowers and grass\nand fruit and bark.\"\n\n\"I am glad I was not born in those days,\" said Bagheera. \"Bark is only\ngood to sharpen claws.\"\n\n\"And the Lord of the Jungle was Tha, the First of the Elephants. He drew\nthe Jungle out of deep waters with his trunk; and where he made furrows\nin the ground with his tusks, there the rivers ran; and where he struck\nwith his foot, there rose ponds of good water; and when he blew through\nhis trunk,--thus,--the trees fell. That was the manner in which the\nJungle was made by Tha; and so the tale was told to me.\"\n\n\"It has not lost fat in the telling,\" Bagheera whispered, and Mowgli\nlaughed behind his hand.\n\n\"In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or sugar-cane,\nnor were there any little huts such as ye have all seen; and the Jungle\nPeople knew nothing of Man, but lived in the Jungle together, making\none people. But presently they began to dispute over their food, though\nthere was grazing enough for all. They were lazy. Each wished to eat\nwhere he lay, as sometimes we can do now when the spring rains are good.\nTha, the First of the Elephants, was busy making new jungles and leading\nthe rivers in their beds. He could not walk in all places; therefore he\nmade the First of the Tigers the master and the judge of the Jungle, to\nwhom the Jungle People should bring their disputes. In those days the\nFirst of the Tigers ate fruit and grass with the others. He was as large\nas I am, and he was very beautiful, in colour all over like the blossom\nof the yellow creeper. There was never stripe nor bar upon his hide in\nthose good days when this the Jungle was new. All the Jungle People came\nbefore him without fear, and his word was the Law of all the Jungle. We\nwere then, remember ye, one people.\n\n\"Yet upon a night there was a dispute between two bucks--a\ngrazing-quarrel such as ye now settle with the horns and the\nfore-feet--and it is said that as the two spoke together before the\nFirst of the First of the Tigers lying among the flowers, a buck pushed\nhim with his horns, and the First of the Tigers forgot that he was the\nmaster and judge of the Jungle, and, leaping upon that buck, broke his\nneck.\n\n\"Till that night never one of us had died, and the First of the Tigers,\nseeing what he had done, and being made foolish by the scent of the\nblood, ran away into the marshes of the North, and we of the Jungle,\nleft without a judge, fell to fighting among ourselves; and Tha heard\nthe noise of it and came back. Then some of us said this and some of us\nsaid that, but he saw the dead buck among the flowers, and asked who\nhad killed, and we of the Jungle would not tell because the smell of the\nblood made us foolish. We ran to and fro in circles, capering and crying\nout and shaking our heads. Then Tha gave an order to the trees that hang\nlow, and to the trailing creepers of the Jungle, that they should mark\nthe killer of the buck so that he should know him again, and he said,\n\'Who will now be master of the Jungle People?\' Then up leaped the Gray\nApe who lives in the branches, and said, \'I will now be master of the\nJungle.\'\"\n\nAt this Tha laughed, and said, \"So be it,\" and went away very angry.\n\n\"Children, ye know the Gray Ape. He was then as he is now. At the first\nhe made a wise face for himself, but in a little while he began to\nscratch and to leap up and down, and when Tha came back he found the\nGray Ape hanging, head down, from a bough, mocking those who stood\nbelow; and they mocked him again. And so there was no Law in the\nJungle--only foolish talk and senseless words.\n\n\"Then Tha called us all together and said: \'The first of your masters\nhas brought Death into the Jungle, and the second Shame. Now it is time\nthere was a Law, and a Law that ye must not break. Now ye shall know\nFear, and when ye have found him ye shall know that he is your master,\nand the rest shall follow.\' Then we of the jungle said, \'What is Fear?\'\nAnd Tha said, \'Seek till ye find.\' So we went up and down the Jungle\nseeking for Fear, and presently the buffaloes----\"\n\n\"Ugh!\" said Mysa, the leader of the buffaloes, from their sand-bank.\n\n\"Yes, Mysa, it was the buffaloes. They came back with the news that in a\ncave in the Jungle sat Fear, and that he had no hair, and went upon his\nhind legs. Then we of the Jungle followed the herd till we came to that\ncave, and Fear stood at the mouth of it, and he was, as the buffaloes\nhad said, hairless, and he walked upon his hinder legs. When he saw us\nhe cried out, and his voice filled us with the fear that we have now of\nthat voice when we hear it, and we ran away, tramping upon and tearing\neach other because we were afraid. That night, so it was told to me, we\nof the Jungle did not lie down together as used to be our custom, but\neach tribe drew off by itself--the pig with the pig, the deer with the\ndeer; horn to horn, hoof to hoof,--like keeping to like, and so lay\nshaking in the Jungle.\n\n\"Only the First of the Tigers was not with us, for he was still hidden\nin the marshes of the North, and when word was brought to him of the\nThing we had seen in the cave, he said. \'I will go to this Thing and\nbreak his neck.\' So he ran all the night till he came to the cave; but\nthe trees and the creepers on his path, remembering the order that Tha\nhad given, let down their branches and marked him as he ran, drawing\ntheir fingers across his back, his flank, his forehead, and his jowl.\nWherever they touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his yellow\nhide. AND THOSE STRIPES DO THIS CHILDREN WEAR TO THIS DAY! When he came\nto the cave, Fear, the Hairless One, put out his hand and called him\n\'The Striped One that comes by night,\' and the First of the Tigers was\nafraid of the Hairless One, and ran back to the swamps howling.\"\n\nMowgli chuckled quietly here, his chin in the water.\n\n\"So loud did he howl that Tha heard him and said, \'What is the sorrow?\'\nAnd the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to the new-made sky,\nwhich is now so old, said: \'Give me back my power, O Tha. I am made\nashamed before all the Jungle, and I have run away from a Hairless One,\nand he has called me a shameful name.\' \'And why?\' said Tha. \'Because I\nam smeared with the mud of the marshes,\' said the First of the Tigers.\n\'Swim, then, and roll on the wet grass, and if it be mud it will wash\naway,\' said Tha; and the First of the Tigers swam, and rolled and rolled\nupon the grass, till the Jungle ran round and round before his eyes, but\nnot one little bar upon all his hide was changed, and Tha, watching him,\nlaughed. Then the First of the Tigers said: \'What have I done that this\ncomes to me?\' Tha said, \'Thou hast killed the buck, and thou hast let\nDeath loose in the Jungle, and with Death has come Fear, so that the\npeople of the Jungle are afraid one of the other, as thou art afraid of\nthe Hairless One.\' The First of the Tigers said, \'They will never fear\nme, for I knew them since the beginning.\' Tha said, \'Go and see.\' And\nthe First of the Tigers ran to and fro, calling aloud to the deer and\nthe pig and the sambhur and the porcupine and all the Jungle Peoples,\nand they all ran away from him who had been their judge, because they\nwere afraid.\n\n\"Then the First of the Tigers came back, and his pride was broken in\nhim, and, beating his head upon the ground, he tore up the earth with\nall his feet and said: \'Remember that I was once the Master of the\nJungle. Do not forget me, O Tha! Let my children remember that I was\nonce without shame or fear!\' And Tha said: \'This much I will do, because\nthou and I together saw the Jungle made. For one night in each year\nit shall be as it was before the buck was killed--for thee and for thy\nchildren. In that one night, if ye meet the Hairless One--and his name\nis Man--ye shall not be afraid of him, but he shall be afraid of you, as\nthough ye were judges of the Jungle and masters of all things. Show him\nmercy in that night of his fear, for thou hast known what Fear is.\'\n\n\"Then the First of the Tigers answered, \'I am content\'; but when next\nhe drank he saw the black stripes upon his flank and his side, and he\nremembered the name that the Hairless One had given him, and he was\nangry. For a year he lived in the marshes waiting till Tha should keep\nhis promise. And upon a night when the jackal of the Moon [the Evening\nStar] stood clear of the Jungle, he felt that his Night was upon him,\nand he went to that cave to meet the Hairless One. Then it happened as\nTha promised, for the Hairless One fell down before him and lay along\nthe ground, and the First of the Tigers struck him and broke his back,\nfor he thought that there was but one such Thing in the Jungle, and that\nhe had killed Fear. Then, nosing above the kill, he heard Tha coming\ndown from the woods of the North, and presently the voice of the First\nof the Elephants, which is the voice that we hear now----\"\n\nThe thunder was rolling up and down the dry, scarred hills, but\nit brought no rain--only heat--lightning that flickered along the\nridges--and Hathi went on: \"THAT was the voice he heard, and it said:\n\'Is this thy mercy?\' The First of the Tigers licked his lips and said:\n\'What matter? I have killed Fear.\' And Tha said: \'O blind and foolish!\nThou hast untied the feet of Death, and he will follow thy trail till\nthou diest. Thou hast taught Man to kill!\'\n\n\"The First of the Tigers, standing stiffly to his kill, said. \'He is as\nthe buck was. There is no Fear. Now I will judge the Jungle Peoples once\nmore.\'\n\n\"And Tha said: \'Never again shall the Jungle Peoples come to thee. They\nshall never cross thy trail, nor sleep near thee, nor follow after thee,\nnor browse by thy lair. Only Fear shall follow thee, and with a blow\nthat thou canst not see he shall bid thee wait his pleasure. He shall\nmake the ground to open under thy feet, and the creeper to twist about\nthy neck, and the tree-trunks to grow together about thee higher than\nthou canst leap, and at the last he shall take thy hide to wrap his cubs\nwhen they are cold. Thou hast shown him no mercy, and none will he show\nthee.\'\n\n\"The First of the Tigers was very bold, for his Night was still on him,\nand he said: \'The Promise of Tha is the Promise of Tha. He will not take\naway my Night?\' And Tha said: \'The one Night is thine, as I have said,\nbut there is a price to pay. Thou hast taught Man to kill, and he is no\nslow learner.\'\n\n\"The First of the Tigers said: \'He is here under my foot, and his back\nis broken. Let the Jungle know I have killed Fear.\'\n\n\"Then Tha laughed, and said: \'Thou hast killed one of many, but thou\nthyself shalt tell the Jungle--for thy Night is ended.\'\n\n\"So the day came; and from the mouth of the cave went out another\nHairless One, and he saw the kill in the path, and the First of the\nTigers above it, and he took a pointed stick----\"\n\n\"They throw a thing that cuts now,\" said Ikki, rustling down the bank;\nfor Ikki was considered uncommonly good eating by the Gonds--they called\nhim Ho-Igoo--and he knew something of the wicked little Gondee axe that\nwhirls across a clearing like a dragon-fly.\n\n\"It was a pointed stick, such as they put in the foot of a pit-trap,\"\nsaid Hathi, \"and throwing it, he struck the First of the Tigers deep in\nthe flank. Thus it happened as Tha said, for the First of the Tigers ran\nhowling up and down the Jungle till he tore out the stick, and all the\nJungle knew that the Hairless One could strike from far off, and they\nfeared more than before. So it came about that the First of the Tigers\ntaught the Hairless One to kill--and ye know what harm that has since\ndone to all our peoples--through the noose, and the pitfall, and the\nhidden trap, and the flying stick and the stinging fly that comes out of\nwhite smoke [Hathi meant the rifle], and the Red Flower that drives us\ninto the open. Yet for one night in the year the Hairless One fears the\nTiger, as Tha promised, and never has the Tiger given him cause to be\nless afraid. Where he finds him, there he kills him, remembering how the\nFirst of the Tigers was made ashamed. For the rest, Fear walks up and\ndown the Jungle by day and by night.\"\n\n\"Ahi! Aoo!\" said the deer, thinking of what it all meant to them.\n\n\"And only when there is one great Fear over all, as there is now, can we\nof the Jungle lay aside our little fears, and meet together in one place\nas we do now.\"\n\n\"For one night only does Man fear the Tiger?\" said Mowgli.\n\n\"For one night only,\" said Hathi.\n\n\"But I--but we--but all the Jungle knows that Shere Khan kills Man twice\nand thrice in a moon.\"\n\n\"Even so. THEN he springs from behind and turns his head aside as he\nstrikes, for he is full of fear. If Man looked at him he would run. But\non his one Night he goes openly down to the village. He walks between\nthe houses and thrusts his head into the doorway, and the men fall on\ntheir faces, and there he does his kill. One kill in that Night.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mowgli to himself, rolling over in the water. \"NOW I see\nwhy it was Shere Khan bade me look at him! He got no good of it, for he\ncould not hold his eyes steady, and--and I certainly did not fall down\nat his feet. But then I am not a man, being of the Free People.\"\n\n\"Umm!\" said Bagheera deep in his furry throat. \"Does the Tiger know his\nNight?\"\n\n\"Never till the Jackal of the Moon stands clear of the evening\nmist. Sometimes it falls in the dry summer and sometimes in the wet\nrains--this one Night of the Tiger. But for the First of the Tigers,\nthis would never have been, nor would any of us have known fear.\"\n\nThe deer grunted sorrowfully and Bagheera\'s lips curled in a wicked\nsmile. \"Do men know this--tale?\" said he.\n\n\"None know it except the tigers, and we, the elephants--the children of\nTha. Now ye by the pools have heard it, and I have spoken.\"\n\nHathi dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not wish to\ntalk.\n\n\"But--but--but,\" said Mowgli, turning to Baloo, \"why did not the First\nof the Tigers continue to eat grass and leaves and trees? He did but\nbreak the buck\'s neck. He did not EAT. What led him to the hot meat?\"\n\n\"The trees and the creepers marked him, Little Brother, and made him\nthe striped thing that we see. Never again would he eat their fruit;\nbut from that day he revenged himself upon the deer, and the others, the\nEaters of Grass,\" said Baloo.\n\n\"Then THOU knowest the tale. Heh? Why have I never heard?\"\n\n\"Because the Jungle is full of such tales. If I made a beginning there\nwould never be an end to them. Let go my ear, Little Brother.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAW OF THE JUNGLE\n\nJust to give you an idea of the immense variety of the Jungle Law,\nI have translated into verse (Baloo always recited them in a sort of\nsing-song) a few of the laws that apply to the wolves. There are, of\ncourse, hundreds and hundreds more, but these will do for specimens of\nthe simpler rulings.\n\n Now this is the Law of the Jungle--as old and as true as\n the sky;\n And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf\n that shall break it must die.\n\n As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth\n forward and back--\n For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength\n of the Wolf is the Pack.\n\n Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but\n never too deep;\n And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not\n the day is for sleep.\n\n The jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy\n whiskers are grown,\n Remember the Wolf is a hunter--go forth and get food\n of thine own.\n\n Keep peace with the Lords of the Jungle--the Tiger, the\n Panther, the Bear;\n And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar\n in his lair.\n\n When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither\n will go from the trail,\n Lie down till the leaders have spoken--it may be fair\n words shall prevail.\n\n When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must\n fight him alone and afar,\n Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be\n diminished by war.\n\n The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has\n made him his home,\n Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council\n may come.\n\n The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has\n digged it too plain,\n The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall\n change it again.\n\n If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the\n woods with your bay,\n Lest ye frighten the deer from the crops, and the brothers\n go empty away.\n\n Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs\n as they need, and ye can;\n But kill not for pleasure of killing, and SEVEN TIMES NEVER\n KILL MAN.\n\n If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in\n thy pride;\n Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the\n head and the hide.\n\n The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must\n eat where it lies;\n And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or\n he dies.\n\n The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may\n do what he will,\n But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat\n of that Kill.\n\n Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his\n Pack he may claim\n Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may\n refuse him the same.\n\n Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her\n year she may claim\n One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may\n deny her the same.\n\n Cave-Right is the right of the Father--to hunt by himself\n for his own.\n He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the\n Council alone.\n\n Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe\n and his paw,\n In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of the Head\n Wolf is Law.\n\n Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and\n mighty are they;\n But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch\n and the hump is--Obey!\n\n\n\n\nTHE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT\n\n The night we felt the earth would move\n We stole and plucked him by the hand,\n Because we loved him with the love\n That knows but cannot understand.\n\n And when the roaring hillside broke,\n And all our world fell down in rain,\n We saved him, we the Little Folk;\n But lo! he does not come again!\n\n Mourn now, we saved him for the sake\n Of such poor love as wild ones may.\n Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake,\n And his own kind drive us away!\n\n Dirge of the Langurs.\n\n\nThere was once a man in India who was Prime Minister of one of the\nsemi-independent native States in the north-western part of the country.\nHe was a Brahmin, so high-caste that caste ceased to have any particular\nmeaning for him; and his father had been an important official in the\ngay-coloured tag-rag and bobtail of an old-fashioned Hindu Court. But\nas Purun Dass grew up he felt that the old order of things was changing,\nand that if any one wished to get on in the world he must stand well\nwith the English, and imitate all that the English believed to be good.\nAt the same time a native official must keep his own master\'s favour.\nThis was a difficult game, but the quiet, close-mouthed young Brahmin,\nhelped by a good English education at a Bombay University, played it\ncoolly, and rose, step by step, to be Prime Minister of the kingdom.\nThat is to say, he held more real power than his master the Maharajah.\n\nWhen the old king--who was suspicious of the English, their railways and\ntelegraphs--died, Purun Dass stood high with his young successor, who\nhad been tutored by an Englishman; and between them, though he always\ntook care that his master should have the credit, they established\nschools for little girls, made roads, and started State dispensaries and\nshows of agricultural implements, and published a yearly blue-book on\nthe \"Moral and Material Progress of the State,\" and the Foreign Office\nand the Government of India were delighted. Very few native States take\nup English progress altogether, for they will not believe, as Purun Dass\nshowed he did, that what was good for the Englishman must be twice as\ngood for the Asiatic. The Prime Minister became the honoured friend\nof Viceroys, and Governors, and Lieutenant-Governors, and medical\nmissionaries, and common missionaries, and hard-riding English officers\nwho came to shoot in the State preserves, as well as of whole hosts of\ntourists who travelled up and down India in the cold weather, showing\nhow things ought to be managed. In his spare time he would endow\nscholarships for the study of medicine and manufactures on strictly\nEnglish lines, and write letters to the \"Pioneer\", the greatest Indian\ndaily paper, explaining his master\'s aims and objects.\n\nAt last he went to England on a visit, and had to pay enormous sums to\nthe priests when he came back; for even so high-caste a Brahmin as Purun\nDass lost caste by crossing the black sea. In London he met and talked\nwith every one worth knowing--men whose names go all over the world--and\nsaw a great deal more than he said. He was given honorary degrees by\nlearned universities, and he made speeches and talked of Hindu social\nreform to English ladies in evening dress, till all London cried, \"This\nis the most fascinating man we have ever met at dinner since cloths were\nfirst laid.\"\n\nWhen he returned to India there was a blaze of glory, for the Viceroy\nhimself made a special visit to confer upon the Maharajah the Grand\nCross of the Star of India--all diamonds and ribbons and enamel; and at\nthe same ceremony, while the cannon boomed, Purun Dass was made a Knight\nCommander of the Order of the Indian Empire; so that his name stood Sir\nPurun Dass, K.C.I.E.\n\nThat evening, at dinner in the big Viceregal tent, he stood up with the\nbadge and the collar of the Order on his breast, and replying to the\ntoast of his master\'s health, made a speech few Englishmen could have\nbettered.\n\nNext month, when the city had returned to its sun-baked quiet, he did\na thing no Englishman would have dreamed of doing; for, so far as the\nworld\'s affairs went, he died. The jewelled order of his knighthood went\nback to the Indian Government, and a new Prime Minister was appointed to\nthe charge of affairs, and a great game of General Post began in all the\nsubordinate appointments. The priests knew what had happened, and the\npeople guessed; but India is the one place in the world where a man can\ndo as he pleases and nobody asks why; and the fact that Dewan Sir Purun\nDass, K.C.I.E., had resigned position, palace, and power, and taken up\nthe begging-bowl and ochre-coloured dress of a Sunnyasi, or holy man,\nwas considered nothing extraordinary. He had been, as the Old Law\nrecommends, twenty years a youth, twenty years a fighter,--though he\nhad never carried a weapon in his life,--and twenty years head of a\nhousehold. He had used his wealth and his power for what he knew both to\nbe worth; he had taken honour when it came his way; he had seen men and\ncities far and near, and men and cities had stood up and honoured him.\nNow he would let those things go, as a man drops the cloak he no longer\nneeds.\n\nBehind him, as he walked through the city gates, an antelope skin and\nbrass-handled crutch under his arm, and a begging-bowl of polished\nbrown coco-de-mer in his hand, barefoot, alone, with eyes cast on the\nground--behind him they were firing salutes from the bastions in honour\nof his happy successor. Purun Dass nodded. All that life was ended;\nand he bore it no more ill-will or good-will than a man bears to a\ncolourless dream of the night. He was a Sunnyasi--a houseless, wandering\nmendicant, depending on his neighbours for his daily bread; and so\nlong as there is a morsel to divide in India, neither priest nor beggar\nstarves. He had never in his life tasted meat, and very seldom eaten\neven fish. A five-pound note would have covered his personal expenses\nfor food through any one of the many years in which he had been absolute\nmaster of millions of money. Even when he was being lionised in London\nhe had held before him his dream of peace and quiet--the long, white,\ndusty Indian road, printed all over with bare feet, the incessant,\nslow-moving traffic, and the sharp-smelling wood smoke curling up under\nthe fig-trees in the twilight, where the wayfarers sit at their evening\nmeal.\n\nWhen the time came to make that dream true the Prime Minister took\nthe proper steps, and in three days you might more easily have found a\nbubble in the trough of the long Atlantic seas, than Purun Dass among\nthe roving, gathering, separating millions of India.\n\nAt night his antelope skin was spread where the darkness overtook\nhim--sometimes in a Sunnyasi monastery by the roadside; sometimes by a\nmud-pillar shrine of Kala Pir, where the Jogis, who are another misty\ndivision of holy men, would receive him as they do those who know what\ncastes and divisions are worth; sometimes on the outskirts of a little\nHindu village, where the children would steal up with the food\ntheir parents had prepared; and sometimes on the pitch of the bare\ngrazing-grounds, where the flame of his stick fire waked the drowsy\ncamels. It was all one to Purun Dass--or Purun Bhagat, as he called\nhimself now. Earth, people, and food were all one. But unconsciously\nhis feet drew him away northward and eastward; from the south to\nRohtak; from Rohtak to Kurnool; from Kurnool to ruined Samanah, and then\nup-stream along the dried bed of the Gugger river that fills only when\nthe rain falls in the hills, till one day he saw the far line of the\ngreat Himalayas.\n\nThen Purun Bhagat smiled, for he remembered that his mother was of\nRajput Brahmin birth, from Kulu way--a Hill-woman, always home-sick for\nthe snows--and that the least touch of Hill blood draws a man in the end\nback to where he belongs.\n\n\"Yonder,\" said Purun Bhagat, breasting the lower slopes of the Sewaliks,\nwhere the cacti stand up like seven-branched candlesticks-\"yonder I\nshall sit down and get knowledge\"; and the cool wind of the Himalayas\nwhistled about his ears as he trod the road that led to Simla.\n\nThe last time he had come that way it had been in state, with a\nclattering cavalry escort, to visit the gentlest and most affable of\nViceroys; and the two had talked for an hour together about mutual\nfriends in London, and what the Indian common folk really thought of\nthings. This time Purun Bhagat paid no calls, but leaned on the rail\nof the Mall, watching that glorious view of the Plains spread out\nforty miles below, till a native Mohammedan policeman told him he was\nobstructing traffic; and Purun Bhagat salaamed reverently to the Law,\nbecause he knew the value of it, and was seeking for a Law of his own.\nThen he moved on, and slept that night in an empty hut at Chota Simla,\nwhich looks like the very last end of the earth, but it was only the\nbeginning of his journey. He followed the Himalaya-Thibet road, the\nlittle ten-foot track that is blasted out of solid rock, or strutted out\non timbers over gulfs a thousand feet deep; that dips into warm, wet,\nshut-in valleys, and climbs out across bare, grassy hill-shoulders where\nthe sun strikes like a burning-glass; or turns through dripping, dark\nforests where the tree-ferns dress the trunks from head to heel, and the\npheasant calls to his mate. And he met Thibetan herdsmen with their dogs\nand flocks of sheep, each sheep with a little bag of borax on his back,\nand wandering wood-cutters, and cloaked and blanketed Lamas from\nThibet, coming into India on pilgrimage, and envoys of little solitary\nHill-states, posting furiously on ring-streaked and piebald ponies, or\nthe cavalcade of a Rajah paying a visit; or else for a long, clear day\nhe would see nothing more than a black bear grunting and rooting below\nin the valley. When he first started, the roar of the world he had left\nstill rang in his ears, as the roar of a tunnel rings long after the\ntrain has passed through; but when he had put the Mutteeanee Pass behind\nhim that was all done, and Purun Bhagat was alone with himself, walking,\nwondering, and thinking, his eyes on the ground, and his thoughts with\nthe clouds.\n\nOne evening he crossed the highest pass he had met till then--it had\nbeen a two-day\'s climb--and came out on a line of snow-peaks that banded\nall the horizon--mountains from fifteen to twenty thousand feet high,\nlooking almost near enough to hit with a stone, though they were\nfifty or sixty miles away. The pass was crowned with dense, dark\nforest--deodar, walnut, wild cherry, wild olive, and wild pear, but\nmostly deodar, which is the Himalayan cedar; and under the shadow of the\ndeodars stood a deserted shrine to Kali--who is Durga, who is Sitala,\nwho is sometimes worshipped against the smallpox.\n\nPurun Dass swept the stone floor clean, smiled at the grinning statue,\nmade himself a little mud fireplace at the back of the shrine,\nspread his antelope skin on a bed of fresh pine-needles, tucked his\nbairagi--his brass-handled crutch--under his armpit, and sat down to\nrest.\n\nImmediately below him the hillside fell away, clean and cleared for\nfifteen hundred feet, where a little village of stone-walled houses,\nwith roofs of beaten earth, clung to the steep tilt. All round it the\ntiny terraced fields lay out like aprons of patchwork on the knees of\nthe mountain, and cows no bigger than beetles grazed between the smooth\nstone circles of the threshing-floors. Looking across the valley, the\neye was deceived by the size of things, and could not at first realise\nthat what seemed to be low scrub, on the opposite mountain-flank, was\nin truth a forest of hundred-foot pines. Purun Bhagat saw an eagle swoop\nacross the gigantic hollow, but the great bird dwindled to a dot ere it\nwas half-way over. A few bands of scattered clouds strung up and down\nthe valley, catching on a shoulder of the hills, or rising up and dying\nout when they were level with the head of the pass. And \"Here shall I\nfind peace,\" said Purun Bhagat.\n\nNow, a Hill-man makes nothing of a few hundred feet up or down, and as\nsoon as the villagers saw the smoke in the deserted shrine, the village\npriest climbed up the terraced hillside to welcome the stranger.\n\nWhen he met Purun Bhagat\'s eyes--the eyes of a man used to control\nthousands--he bowed to the earth, took the begging-bowl without a word,\nand returned to the village, saying, \"We have at last a holy man.\nNever have I seen such a man. He is of the Plains--but pale-coloured--a\nBrahmin of the Brahmins.\" Then all the housewives of the village said,\n\"Think you he will stay with us?\" and each did her best to cook the\nmost savoury meal for the Bhagat. Hill-food is very simple, but with\nbuckwheat and Indian corn, and rice and red pepper, and little fish out\nof the stream in the valley, and honey from the flue-like hives built in\nthe stone walls, and dried apricots, and turmeric, and wild ginger, and\nbannocks of flour, a devout woman can make good things, and it was a\nfull bowl that the priest carried to the Bhagat. Was he going to stay?\nasked the priest. Would he need a chela--a disciple--to beg for him? Had\nhe a blanket against the cold weather? Was the food good?\n\nPurun Bhagat ate, and thanked the giver. It was in his mind to stay.\nThat was sufficient, said the priest. Let the begging-bowl be placed\noutside the shrine, in the hollow made by those two twisted roots, and\ndaily should the Bhagat be fed; for the village felt honoured that such\na man--he looked timidly into the Bhagat\'s face--should tarry among\nthem.\n\nThat day saw the end of Purun Bhagat\'s wanderings. He had come to the\nplace appointed for him--the silence and the space. After this, time\nstopped, and he, sitting at the mouth of the shrine, could not tell\nwhether he were alive or dead; a man with control of his limbs, or a\npart of the hills, and the clouds, and the shifting rain and sunlight.\nHe would repeat a Name softly to himself a hundred hundred times, till,\nat each repetition, he seemed to move more and more out of his body,\nsweeping up to the doors of some tremendous discovery; but, just as the\ndoor was opening, his body would drag him back, and, with grief, he felt\nhe was locked up again in the flesh and bones of Purun Bhagat.\n\nEvery morning the filled begging-bowl was laid silently in the crutch of\nthe roots outside the shrine. Sometimes the priest brought it; sometimes\na Ladakhi trader, lodging in the village, and anxious to get merit,\ntrudged up the path; but, more often, it was the woman who had cooked\nthe meal overnight; and she would murmur, hardly above her breath.\n\"Speak for me before the gods, Bhagat. Speak for such a one, the wife\nof so-and-so!\" Now and then some bold child would be allowed the honour,\nand Purun Bhagat would hear him drop the bowl and run as fast as his\nlittle legs could carry him, but the Bhagat never came down to the\nvillage. It was laid out like a map at his feet. He could see the\nevening gatherings, held on the circle of the threshing-floors, because\nthat was the only level ground; could see the wonderful unnamed green\nof the young rice, the indigo blues of the Indian corn, the dock-like\npatches of buckwheat, and, in its season, the red bloom of the amaranth,\nwhose tiny seeds, being neither grain nor pulse, make a food that can be\nlawfully eaten by Hindus in time of fasts.\n\nWhen the year turned, the roofs of the huts were all little squares of\npurest gold, for it was on the roofs that they laid out their cobs of\nthe corn to dry. Hiving and harvest, rice-sowing and husking, passed\nbefore his eyes, all embroidered down there on the many-sided plots of\nfields, and he thought of them all, and wondered what they all led to at\nthe long last.\n\nEven in populated India a man cannot a day sit still before the wild\nthings run over him as though he were a rock; and in that wilderness\nvery soon the wild things, who knew Kali\'s Shrine well, came back to\nlook at the intruder. The langurs, the big gray-whiskered monkeys of\nthe Himalayas, were, naturally, the first, for they are alive with\ncuriosity; and when they had upset the begging-bowl, and rolled it round\nthe floor, and tried their teeth on the brass-handled crutch, and made\nfaces at the antelope skin, they decided that the human being who sat so\nstill was harmless. At evening, they would leap down from the pines, and\nbeg with their hands for things to eat, and then swing off in graceful\ncurves. They liked the warmth of the fire, too, and huddled round it\ntill Purun Bhagat had to push them aside to throw on more fuel; and\nin the morning, as often as not, he would find a furry ape sharing his\nblanket. All day long, one or other of the tribe would sit by his side,\nstaring out at the snows, crooning and looking unspeakably wise and\nsorrowful.\n\nAfter the monkeys came the barasingh, that big deer which is like our\nred deer, but stronger. He wished to rub off the velvet of his horns\nagainst the cold stones of Kali\'s statue, and stamped his feet when he\nsaw the man at the shrine. But Purun Bhagat never moved, and, little by\nlittle, the royal stag edged up and nuzzled his shoulder. Purun Bhagat\nslid one cool hand along the hot antlers, and the touch soothed the\nfretted beast, who bowed his head, and Purun Bhagat very softly rubbed\nand ravelled off the velvet. Afterward, the barasingh brought his doe\nand fawn--gentle things that mumbled on the holy man\'s blanket--or would\ncome alone at night, his eyes green in the fire-flicker, to take his\nshare of fresh walnuts. At last, the musk-deer, the shyest and almost\nthe smallest of the deerlets, came, too, her big rabbity ears erect;\neven brindled, silent mushick-nabha must needs find out what the\nlight in the shrine meant, and drop out her moose-like nose into Purun\nBhagat\'s lap, coming and going with the shadows of the fire. Purun\nBhagat called them all \"my brothers,\" and his low call of \"Bhai! Bhai!\"\nwould draw them from the forest at noon if they were within ear shot.\nThe Himalayan black bear, moody and suspicious--Sona, who has the\nV-shaped white mark under his chin--passed that way more than once; and\nsince the Bhagat showed no fear, Sona showed no anger, but watched him,\nand came closer, and begged a share of the caresses, and a dole of bread\nor wild berries. Often, in the still dawns, when the Bhagat would climb\nto the very crest of the pass to watch the red day walking along the\npeaks of the snows, he would find Sona shuffling and grunting at his\nheels, thrusting, a curious fore-paw under fallen trunks, and bringing\nit away with a WHOOF of impatience; or his early steps would wake Sona\nwhere he lay curled up, and the great brute, rising erect, would think\nto fight, till he heard the Bhagat\'s voice and knew his best friend.\n\nNearly all hermits and holy men who live apart from the big cities have\nthe reputation of being able to work miracles with the wild things, but\nall the miracle lies in keeping still, in never making a hasty movement,\nand, for a long time, at least, in never looking directly at a visitor.\nThe villagers saw the outline of the barasingh stalking like a shadow\nthrough the dark forest behind the shrine; saw the minaul, the Himalayan\npheasant, blazing in her best colours before Kali\'s statue; and the\nlangurs on their haunches, inside, playing with the walnut shells. Some\nof the children, too, had heard Sona singing to himself, bear-fashion,\nbehind the fallen rocks, and the Bhagat\'s reputation as miracle-worker\nstood firm.\n\nYet nothing was farther from his mind than miracles. He believed that\nall things were one big Miracle, and when a man knows that much he knows\nsomething to go upon. He knew for a certainty that there was nothing\ngreat and nothing little in this world: and day and night he strove to\nthink out his way into the heart of things, back to the place whence his\nsoul had come.\n\nSo thinking, his untrimmed hair fell down about his shoulders, the stone\nslab at the side of the antelope skin was dented into a little hole\nby the foot of his brass-handled crutch, and the place between the\ntree-trunks, where the begging-bowl rested day after day, sunk and wore\ninto a hollow almost as smooth as the brown shell itself; and each beast\nknew his exact place at the fire. The fields changed their colours with\nthe seasons; the threshing-floors filled and emptied, and filled again\nand again; and again and again, when winter came, the langurs frisked\namong the branches feathered with light snow, till the mother-monkeys\nbrought their sad-eyed little babies up from the warmer valleys with the\nspring. There were few changes in the village. The priest was older, and\nmany of the little children who used to come with the begging-dish sent\ntheir own children now; and when you asked of the villagers how long\ntheir holy man had lived in Kali\'s Shrine at the head of the pass, they\nanswered, \"Always.\"\n\nThen came such summer rains as had not been known in the Hills for many\nseasons. Through three good months the valley was wrapped in cloud\nand soaking mist--steady, unrelenting downfall, breaking off into\nthunder-shower after thunder-shower. Kali\'s Shrine stood above the\nclouds, for the most part, and there was a whole month in which the\nBhagat never caught a glimpse of his village. It was packed away under\na white floor of cloud that swayed and shifted and rolled on itself and\nbulged upward, but never broke from its piers--the streaming flanks of\nthe valley.\n\nAll that time he heard nothing but the sound of a million little waters,\noverhead from the trees, and underfoot along the ground, soaking through\nthe pine-needles, dripping from the tongues of draggled fern, and\nspouting in newly-torn muddy channels down the slopes. Then the sun\ncame out, and drew forth the good incense of the deodars and the\nrhododendrons, and that far-off, clean smell which the Hill people call\n\"the smell of the snows.\" The hot sunshine lasted for a week, and then\nthe rains gathered together for their last downpour, and the water fell\nin sheets that flayed off the skin of the ground and leaped back in\nmud. Purun Bhagat heaped his fire high that night, for he was sure his\nbrothers would need warmth; but never a beast came to the shrine, though\nhe called and called till he dropped asleep, wondering what had happened\nin the woods.\n\nIt was in the black heart of the night, the rain drumming like a\nthousand drums, that he was roused by a plucking at his blanket, and,\nstretching out, felt the little hand of a langur. \"It is better here\nthan in the trees,\" he said sleepily, loosening a fold of blanket; \"take\nit and be warm.\" The monkey caught his hand and pulled hard. \"Is it\nfood, then?\" said Purun Bhagat. \"Wait awhile, and I will prepare some.\"\nAs he kneeled to throw fuel on the fire the langur ran to the door of\nthe shrine, crooned and ran back again, plucking at the man\'s knee.\n\n\"What is it? What is thy trouble, Brother?\" said Purun Bhagat, for the\nlangur\'s eyes were full of things that he could not tell. \"Unless one of\nthy caste be in a trap--and none set traps here--I will not go into that\nweather. Look, Brother, even the barasingh comes for shelter!\"\n\nThe deer\'s antlers clashed as he strode into the shrine, clashed against\nthe grinning statue of Kali. He lowered them in Purun Bhagat\'s direction\nand stamped uneasily, hissing through his half-shut nostrils.\n\n\"Hai! Hai! Hai!\" said the Bhagat, snapping his fingers, \"Is THIS payment\nfor a night\'s lodging?\" But the deer pushed him toward the door, and as\nhe did so Purun Bhagat heard the sound of something opening with a sigh,\nand saw two slabs of the floor draw away from each other, while the\nsticky earth below smacked its lips.\n\n\"Now I see,\" said Purun Bhagat. \"No blame to my brothers that they did\nnot sit by the fire to-night. The mountain is falling. And yet--why\nshould I go?\" His eye fell on the empty begging-bowl, and his face\nchanged. \"They have given me good food daily since--since I came, and,\nif I am not swift, to-morrow there will not be one mouth in the valley.\nIndeed, I must go and warn them below. Back there, Brother! Let me get\nto the fire.\"\n\nThe barasingh backed unwillingly as Purun Bhagat drove a pine torch deep\ninto the flame, twirling it till it was well lit. \"Ah! ye came to warn\nme,\" he said, rising. \"Better than that we shall do; better than that.\nOut, now, and lend me thy neck, Brother, for I have but two feet.\"\n\nHe clutched the bristling withers of the barasingh with his right hand,\nheld the torch away with his left, and stepped out of the shrine into\nthe desperate night. There was no breath of wind, but the rain nearly\ndrowned the flare as the great deer hurried down the slope, sliding\non his haunches. As soon as they were clear of the forest more of the\nBhagat\'s brothers joined them. He heard, though he could not see, the\nlangurs pressing about him, and behind them the uhh! uhh! of Sona. The\nrain matted his long white hair into ropes; the water splashed beneath\nhis bare feet, and his yellow robe clung to his frail old body, but he\nstepped down steadily, leaning against the barasingh. He was no longer\na holy man, but Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., Prime Minister of no small\nState, a man accustomed to command, going out to save life. Down\nthe steep, plashy path they poured all together, the Bhagat and his\nbrothers, down and down till the deer\'s feet clicked and stumbled on the\nwall of a threshing-floor, and he snorted because he smelt Man. Now they\nwere at the head of the one crooked village street, and the Bhagat beat\nwith his crutch on the barred windows of the blacksmith\'s house, as his\ntorch blazed up in the shelter of the eaves. \"Up and out!\" cried Purun\nBhagat; and he did not know his own voice, for it was years since he had\nspoken aloud to a man. \"The hill falls! The hill is falling! Up and out,\noh, you within!\"\n\n\"It is our Bhagat,\" said the blacksmith\'s wife. \"He stands among his\nbeasts. Gather the little ones and give the call.\"\n\nIt ran from house to house, while the beasts, cramped in the narrow way,\nsurged and huddled round the Bhagat, and Sona puffed impatiently.\n\nThe people hurried into the street--they were no more than seventy souls\nall told--and in the glare of the torches they saw their Bhagat holding\nback the terrified barasingh, while the monkeys plucked piteously at his\nskirts, and Sona sat on his haunches and roared.\n\n\"Across the valley and up the next hill!\" shouted Purun Bhagat. \"Leave\nnone behind! We follow!\"\n\nThen the people ran as only Hill folk can run, for they knew that in a\nlandslip you must climb for the highest ground across the valley. They\nfled, splashing through the little river at the bottom, and panted up\nthe terraced fields on the far side, while the Bhagat and his brethren\nfollowed. Up and up the opposite mountain they climbed, calling to each\nother by name--the roll-call of the village--and at their heels toiled\nthe big barasingh, weighted by the failing strength of Purun Bhagat.\nAt last the deer stopped in the shadow of a deep pinewood, five hundred\nfeet up the hillside. His instinct, that had warned him of the coming\nslide, told him he would he safe here.\n\nPurun Bhagat dropped fainting by his side, for the chill of the rain and\nthat fierce climb were killing him; but first he called to the scattered\ntorches ahead, \"Stay and count your numbers\"; then, whispering to the\ndeer as he saw the lights gather in a cluster: \"Stay with me, Brother.\nStay--till--I--go!\"\n\nThere was a sigh in the air that grew to a mutter, and a mutter that\ngrew to a roar, and a roar that passed all sense of hearing, and the\nhillside on which the villagers stood was hit in the darkness, and\nrocked to the blow. Then a note as steady, deep, and true as the deep C\nof the organ drowned everything for perhaps five minutes, while the very\nroots of the pines quivered to it. It died away, and the sound of the\nrain falling on miles of hard ground and grass changed to the muffled\ndrum of water on soft earth. That told its own tale.\n\nNever a villager--not even the priest--was bold enough to speak to the\nBhagat who had saved their lives. They crouched under the pines and\nwaited till the day. When it came they looked across the valley and\nsaw that what had been forest, and terraced field, and track-threaded\ngrazing-ground was one raw, red, fan-shaped smear, with a few trees\nflung head-down on the scarp. That red ran high up the hill of their\nrefuge, damming back the little river, which had begun to spread into a\nbrick-coloured lake. Of the village, of the road to the shrine, of the\nshrine itself, and the forest behind, there was no trace. For one mile\nin width and two thousand feet in sheer depth the mountain-side had come\naway bodily, planed clean from head to heel.\n\nAnd the villagers, one by one, crept through the wood to pray before\ntheir Bhagat. They saw the barasingh standing over him, who fled when\nthey came near, and they heard the langurs wailing in the branches,\nand Sona moaning up the hill; but their Bhagat was dead, sitting\ncross-legged, his back against a tree, his crutch under his armpit, and\nhis face turned to the north-east.\n\nThe priest said: \"Behold a miracle after a miracle, for in this very\nattitude must all Sunnyasis be buried! Therefore where he now is we will\nbuild the temple to our holy man.\"\n\nThey built the temple before a year was ended--a little stone-and-earth\nshrine--and they called the hill the Bhagat\'s hill, and they worship\nthere with lights and flowers and offerings to this day. But they do\nnot know that the saint of their worship is the late Sir Purun Dass,\nK.C.I.E., D.C.L., Ph.D., etc., once Prime Minister of the progressive\nand enlightened State of Mohiniwala, and honorary or corresponding\nmember of more learned and scientific societies than will ever do any\ngood in this world or the next.\n\n\n\n\nA SONG OF KABIR\n\n Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands!\n Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands!\n He has gone from the guddee and put on the shroud,\n And departed in guise of bairagi avowed!\n\n Now the white road to Delhi is mat for his feet,\n The sal and the kikar must guard him from heat;\n His home is the camp, and the waste, and the crowd--\n He is seeking the Way as bairagi avowed!\n\n He has looked upon Man, and his eyeballs are clear\n (There was One; there is One, and but One, saith Kabir);\n The Red Mist of Doing has thinned to a cloud--\n He has taken the Path for bairagi avowed!\n\n To learn and discern of his brother the clod,\n Of his brother the brute, and his brother the God.\n He has gone from the council and put on the shroud\n (\"Can ye hear?\" saith Kabir), a bairagi avowed!\n\n\n\n\nLETTING IN THE JUNGLE\n\n Veil them, cover them, wall them round--\n Blossom, and creeper, and weed--\n Let us forget the sight and the sound,\n The smell and the touch of the breed!\n\n Fat black ash by the altar-stone,\n Here is the white-foot rain,\n And the does bring forth in the fields unsown,\n And none shall affright them again;\n And the blind walls crumble, unknown, o\'erthrown\n And none shall inhabit again!\n\n\nYou will remember that after Mowgli had pinned Shere Khan\'s hide to\nthe Council Rock, he told as many as were left of the Seeonee Pack that\nhenceforward he would hunt in the Jungle alone; and the four children of\nMother and Father Wolf said that they would hunt with him. But it is not\neasy to change one\'s life all in a minute--particularly in the Jungle.\nThe first thing Mowgli did, when the disorderly Pack had slunk off, was\nto go to the home-cave, and sleep for a day and a night. Then he told\nMother Wolf and Father Wolf as much as they could understand of his\nadventures among men; and when he made the morning sun flicker up and\ndown the blade of his skinning-knife,--the same he had skinned Shere\nKhan with,--they said he had learned something. Then Akela and Gray\nBrother had to explain their share of the great buffalo-drive in the\nravine, and Baloo toiled up the hill to hear all about it, and Bagheera\nscratched himself all over with pure delight at the way in which Mowgli\nhad managed his war.\n\nIt was long after sunrise, but no one dreamed of going to sleep, and\nfrom time to time, during the talk, Mother Wolf would throw up her head,\nand sniff a deep snuff of satisfaction as the wind brought her the smell\nof the tiger-skin on the Council Rock.\n\n\"But for Akela and Gray Brother here,\" Mowgli said, at the end, \"I could\nhave done nothing. Oh, mother, mother! if thou hadst seen the black\nherd-bulls pour down the ravine, or hurry through the gates when the\nMan-Pack flung stones at me!\"\n\n\"I am glad I did not see that last,\" said Mother Wolf stiffly. \"It is\nnot MY custom to suffer my cubs to be driven to and fro like jackals.\n_I_ would have taken a price from the Man-Pack; but I would have spared\nthe woman who gave thee the milk. Yes, I would have spared her alone.\"\n\n\"Peace, peace, Raksha!\" said Father Wolf, lazily. \"Our Frog has come\nback again--so wise that his own father must lick his feet; and what is\na cut, more or less, on the head? Leave Men alone.\" Baloo and Bagheera\nboth echoed: \"Leave Men alone.\"\n\nMowgli, his head on Mother Wolf\'s side, smiled contentedly, and said\nthat, for his own part, he never wished to see, or hear, or smell Man\nagain.\n\n\"But what,\" said Akela, cocking one ear--\"but what if men do not leave\nthee alone, Little Brother?\"\n\n\"We be FIVE,\" said Gray Brother, looking round at the company, and\nsnapping his jaws on the last word.\n\n\"We also might attend to that hunting,\" said Bagheera, with a little\nswitch-switch of his tail, looking at Baloo. \"But why think of men now,\nAkela?\"\n\n\"For this reason,\" the Lone Wolf answered: \"when that yellow chief\'s\nhide was hung up on the rock, I went back along our trail to the\nvillage, stepping in my tracks, turning aside, and lying down, to make\na mixed trail in case one should follow us. But when I had fouled the\ntrail so that I myself hardly knew it again, Mang, the Bat, came hawking\nbetween the trees, and hung up above me.\" Said Mang, \"The village of the\nMan-Pack, where they cast out the Man-cub, hums like a hornet\'s nest.\"\n\n\"It was a big stone that I threw,\" chuckled Mowgli, who had often amused\nhimself by throwing ripe paw-paws into a hornet\'s nest, and racing off\nto the nearest pool before the hornets caught him.\n\n\"I asked of Mang what he had seen. He said that the Red Flower blossomed\nat the gate of the village, and men sat about it carrying guns. Now _I_\nknow, for I have good cause,\"--Akela looked down at the old dry scars\non his flank and side,--\"that men do not carry guns for pleasure.\nPresently, Little Brother, a man with a gun follows our trail--if,\nindeed, he be not already on it.\"\n\n\"But why should he? Men have cast me out. What more do they need?\" said\nMowgli angrily.\n\n\"Thou art a man, Little Brother,\" Akela returned. \"It is not for US, the\nFree Hunters, to tell thee what thy brethren do, or why.\"\n\nHe had just time to snatch up his paw as the skinning-knife cut deep\ninto the ground below. Mowgli struck quicker than an average human\neye could follow but Akela was a wolf; and even a dog, who is very far\nremoved from the wild wolf, his ancestor, can be waked out of deep sleep\nby a cart-wheel touching his flank, and can spring away unharmed before\nthat wheel comes on.\n\n\"Another time,\" Mowgli said quietly, returning the knife to its sheath,\n\"speak of the Man-Pack and of Mowgli in TWO breaths--not one.\"\n\n\"Phff! That is a sharp tooth,\" said Akela, snuffing at the blade\'s\ncut in the earth, \"but living with the Man-Pack has spoiled thine eye,\nLittle Brother. I could have killed a buck while thou wast striking.\"\n\nBagheera sprang to his feet, thrust up his head as far as he could,\nsniffed, and stiffened through every curve in his body. Gray Brother\nfollowed his example quickly, keeping a little to his left to get the\nwind that was blowing from the right, while Akela bounded fifty yards up\nwind, and, half-crouching, stiffened too. Mowgli looked on enviously.\nHe could smell things as very few human beings could, but he had never\nreached the hair-trigger-like sensitiveness of a Jungle nose; and his\nthree months in the smoky village had set him back sadly. However, he\ndampened his finger, rubbed it on his nose, and stood erect to catch the\nupper scent, which, though it is the faintest, is the truest.\n\n\"Man!\" Akela growled, dropping on his haunches.\n\n\"Buldeo!\" said Mowgli, sitting down. \"He follows our trail, and yonder\nis the sunlight on his gun. Look!\"\n\nIt was no more than a splash of sunlight, for a fraction of a second,\non the brass clamps of the old Tower musket, but nothing in the Jungle\nwinks with just that flash, except when the clouds race over the sky.\nThen a piece of mica, or a little pool, or even a highly-polished leaf\nwill flash like a heliograph. But that day was cloudless and still.\n\n\"I knew men would follow,\" said Akela triumphantly. \"Not for nothing\nhave I led the Pack.\"\n\nThe four cubs said nothing, but ran down hill on their bellies, melting\ninto the thorn and under-brush as a mole melts into a lawn.\n\n\"Where go ye, and without word?\" Mowgli called.\n\n\"H\'sh! We roll his skull here before mid-day!\" Gray Brother answered.\n\n\"Back! Back and wait! Man does not eat Man!\" Mowgli shrieked.\n\n\"Who was a wolf but now? Who drove the knife at me for thinking he might\nbe Man?\" said Akela, as the four wolves turned back sullenly and dropped\nto heel.\n\n\"Am I to give reason for all I choose to, do?\" said Mowgli furiously.\n\n\"That is Man! There speaks Man!\" Bagheera muttered under his whiskers.\n\"Even so did men talk round the King\'s cages at Oodeypore. We of the\nJungle know that Man is wisest of all. If we trusted our ears we should\nknow that of all things he is most foolish.\" Raising his voice, he\nadded, \"The Man-cub is right in this. Men hunt in packs. To kill one,\nunless we know what the others will do, is bad hunting. Come, let us see\nwhat this Man means toward us.\"\n\n\"We will not come,\" Gray Brother growled. \"Hunt alone, Little Brother.\nWE know our own minds. The skull would have been ready to bring by now.\"\n\nMowgli had been looking from one to the other of his friends, his chest\nheaving and his eyes full of tears. He strode forward to the wolves,\nand, dropping on one knee, said: \"Do I not know my mind? Look at me!\"\n\nThey looked uneasily, and when their eyes wandered, he called them back\nagain and again, till their hair stood up all over their bodies, and\nthey trembled in every limb, while Mowgli stared and stared.\n\n\"Now,\" said he, \"of us five, which is leader?\"\n\n\"Thou art leader, Little Brother,\" said Gray Brother, and he licked\nMowgli\'s foot.\n\n\"Follow, then,\" said Mowgli, and the four followed at his heels with\ntheir tails between their legs.\n\n\"This comes of living with the Man-Pack,\" said Bagheera, slipping down\nafter them. \"There is more in the Jungle now than Jungle Law, Baloo.\"\n\nThe old bear said nothing, but he thought many things.\n\nMowgli cut across noiselessly through the Jungle, at right angles to\nBuldeo\'s path, till, parting the undergrowth, he saw the old man, his\nmusket on his shoulder, running up the trail of overnight at a dog-trot.\n\nYou will remember that Mowgli had left the village with the heavy weight\nof Shere Khan\'s raw hide on his shoulders, while Akela and Gray Brother\ntrotted behind, so that the triple trail was very clearly marked.\nPresently Buldeo came to where Akela, as you know, had gone back and\nmixed it all up. Then he sat down, and coughed and grunted, and made\nlittle casts round and about into the Jungle to pick it up again, and,\nall the time he could have thrown a stone over those who were watching\nhim. No one can be so silent as a wolf when he does not care to be\nheard; and Mowgli, though the wolves thought he moved very clumsily,\ncould come and go like a shadow. They ringed the old man as a school\nof porpoises ring a steamer at full speed, and as they ringed him they\ntalked unconcernedly, for their speech began below the lowest end of the\nscale that untrained human beings can hear. [The other end is bounded by\nthe high squeak of Mang, the Bat, which very many people cannot catch at\nall. From that note all the bird and bat and insect talk takes on.]\n\n\"This is better than any kill,\" said Gray Brother, as Buldeo stooped\nand peered and puffed. \"He looks like a lost pig in the Jungles by the\nriver. What does he say?\" Buldeo was muttering savagely.\n\nMowgli translated. \"He says that packs of wolves must have danced round\nme. He says that he never saw such a trail in his life. He says he is\ntired.\"\n\n\"He will be rested before he picks it up again,\" said Bagheera coolly,\nas he slipped round a tree-trunk, in the game of blindman\'s-buff that\nthey were playing. \"NOW, what does the lean thing do?\"\n\n\"Eat or blow smoke out of his mouth. Men always play with their mouths,\"\nsaid Mowgli; and the silent trailers saw the old man fill and light\nand puff at a water-pipe, and they took good note of the smell of the\ntobacco, so as to be sure of Buldeo in the darkest night, if necessary.\n\nThen a little knot of charcoal-burners came down the path, and naturally\nhalted to speak to Buldeo, whose fame as a hunter reached for at least\ntwenty miles round. They all sat down and smoked, and Bagheera and\nthe others came up and watched while Buldeo began to tell the story of\nMowgli, the Devil-child, from one end to another, with additions and\ninventions. How he himself had really killed Shere Khan; and how Mowgli\nhad turned himself into a wolf, and fought with him all the afternoon,\nand changed into a boy again and bewitched Buldeo\'s rifle, so that the\nbullet turned the corner, when he pointed it at Mowgli, and killed one\nof Buldeo\'s own buffaloes; and how the village, knowing him to be the\nbravest hunter in Seeonee, had sent him out to kill this Devil-child.\nBut meantime the village had got hold of Messua and her husband, who\nwere undoubtedly the father and mother of this Devil-child, and had\nbarricaded them in their own hut, and presently would torture them to\nmake them confess they were witch and wizard, and then they would be\nburned to death.\n\n\"When?\" said the charcoal-burners, because they would very much like to\nbe present at the ceremony.\n\nBuldeo said that nothing would be done till he returned, because the\nvillage wished him to kill the Jungle Boy first. After that they would\ndispose of Messua and her husband, and divide their lands and buffaloes\namong the village. Messua\'s husband had some remarkably fine buffaloes,\ntoo. It was an excellent thing to destroy wizards, Buldeo thought; and\npeople who entertained Wolf-children out of the Jungle were clearly the\nworst kind of witches.\n\nBut, said the charcoal-burners, what would happen if the English heard\nof it? The English, they had heard, were a perfectly mad people, who\nwould not let honest farmers kill witches in peace.\n\nWhy, said Buldeo, the head-man of the village would report that Messua\nand her husband had died of snake-bite. THAT was all arranged, and the\nonly thing now was to kill the Wolf-child. They did not happen to have\nseen anything of such a creature?\n\nThe charcoal-burners looked round cautiously, and thanked their stars\nthey had not; but they had no doubt that so brave a man as Buldeo would\nfind him if any one could. The sun was getting rather low, and they had\nan idea that they would push on to Buldeo\'s village and see that wicked\nwitch. Buldeo said that, though it was his duty to kill the Devil-child,\nhe could not think of letting a party of unarmed men go through the\nJungle, which might produce the Wolf-demon at any minute, without his\nescort. He, therefore, would accompany them, and if the sorcerer\'s child\nappeared--well, he would show them how the best hunter in Seeonee dealt\nwith such things. The Brahmin, he said, had given him a charm against\nthe creature that made everything perfectly safe.\n\n\"What says he? What says he? What says he?\" the wolves repeated every\nfew minutes; and Mowgli translated until he came to the witch part of\nthe story, which was a little beyond him, and then he said that the man\nand woman who had been so kind to him were trapped.\n\n\"Does Man trap Man?\" said Bagheera.\n\n\"So he says. I cannot understand the talk. They are all mad together.\nWhat have Messua and her man to do with me that they should be put in\na trap; and what is all this talk about the Red Flower? I must look\nto this. Whatever they would do to Messua they will not do till Buldeo\nreturns. And so----\" Mowgli thought hard, with his fingers playing round\nthe haft of the skinning-knife, while Buldeo and the charcoal-burners\nwent off very valiantly in single file.\n\n\"I go hot-foot back to the Man-Pack,\" Mowgli said at last.\n\n\"And those?\" said Gray Brother, looking hungrily after the brown backs\nof the charcoal-burners.\n\n\"Sing them home,\" said Mowgli, with a grin; \"I do not wish them to be at\nthe village gates till it is dark. Can ye hold them?\"\n\nGray Brother bared his white teeth in contempt. \"We can head them round\nand round in circles like tethered goats--if I know Man.\"\n\n\"That I do not need. Sing to them a little, lest they be lonely on the\nroad, and, Gray Brother, the song need not be of the sweetest. Go with\nthem, Bagheera, and help make that song. When night is shut down, meet\nme by the village--Gray Brother knows the place.\"\n\n\"It is no light hunting to work for a Man-cub. When shall I sleep?\" said\nBagheera, yawning, though his eyes showed that he was delighted with the\namusement. \"Me to sing to naked men! But let us try.\"\n\nHe lowered his head so that the sound would travel, and cried a long,\nlong, \"Good hunting\"--a midnight call in the afternoon, which was quite\nawful enough to begin with. Mowgli heard it rumble, and rise, and fall,\nand die off in a creepy sort of whine behind him, and laughed to himself\nas he ran through the Jungle. He could see the charcoal-burners huddled\nin a knot; old Buldeo\'s gun-barrel waving, like a banana-leaf, to every\npoint of the compass at once. Then Gray Brother gave the Ya-la-hi!\nYalaha! call for the buck-driving, when the Pack drives the nilghai, the\nbig blue cow, before them, and it seemed to come from the very ends of\nthe earth, nearer, and nearer, and nearer, till it ended in a shriek\nsnapped off short. The other three answered, till even Mowgli could have\nvowed that the full Pack was in full cry, and then they all broke\ninto the magnificent Morning-song in the Jungle, with every turn, and\nflourish, and grace-note that a deep-mouthed wolf of the Pack knows.\nThis is a rough rendering of the song, but you must imagine what it\nsounds like when it breaks the afternoon hush of the Jungle:--\n\n One moment past our bodies cast\n No shadow on the plain;\n Now clear and black they stride our track,\n And we run home again.\n In morning hush, each rock and bush\n Stands hard, and high, and raw:\n Then give the Call: \"Good rest to all\n That keep The Jungle Law!\"\n\n Now horn and pelt our peoples melt\n In covert to abide;\n Now, crouched and still, to cave and hill\n Our Jungle Barons glide.\n Now, stark and plain, Man\'s oxen strain,\n That draw the new-yoked plough;\n Now, stripped and dread, the dawn is red\n Above the lit talao.\n\n Ho! Get to lair! The sun\'s aflare\n Behind the breathing grass:\n And cracking through the young bamboo\n The warning whispers pass.\n By day made strange, the woods we range\n With blinking eyes we scan;\n While down the skies the wild duck cries\n \"The Day--the Day to Man!\"\n\n The dew is dried that drenched our hide\n Or washed about our way;\n And where we drank, the puddled bank\n Is crisping into clay.\n The traitor Dark gives up each mark\n Of stretched or hooded claw;\n Then hear the Call: \"Good rest to all\n That keep the Jungle Law!\"\n\nBut no translation can give the effect of it, or the yelping scorn the\nFour threw into every word of it, as they heard the trees crash when\nthe men hastily climbed up into the branches, and Buldeo began repeating\nincantations and charms. Then they lay down and slept, for, like all who\nlive by their own exertions, they were of a methodical cast of mind; and\nno one can work well without sleep.\n\nMeantime, Mowgli was putting the miles behind him, nine to the hour,\nswinging on, delighted to find himself so fit after all his cramped\nmonths among men. The one idea in his head was to get Messua and her\nhusband out of the trap, whatever it was; for he had a natural mistrust\nof traps. Later on, he promised himself, he would pay his debts to the\nvillage at large.\n\nIt was at twilight when he saw the well-remembered grazing-grounds, and\nthe dhak-tree where Gray Brother had waited for him on the morning that\nhe killed Shere Khan. Angry as he was at the whole breed and community\nof Man, something jumped up in his throat and made him catch his breath\nwhen he looked at the village roofs. He noticed that every one had come\nin from the fields unusually early, and that, instead of getting to\ntheir evening cooking, they gathered in a crowd under the village tree,\nand chattered, and shouted.\n\n\"Men must always be making traps for men, or they are not content,\" said\nMowgli. \"Last night it was Mowgli--but that night seems many Rains ago.\nTo-night it is Messua and her man. To-morrow, and for very many nights\nafter, it will be Mowgli\'s turn again.\"\n\nHe crept along outside the wall till he came to Messua\'s hut, and looked\nthrough the window into the room. There lay Messua, gagged, and bound\nhand and foot, breathing hard, and groaning: her husband was tied to the\ngaily-painted bedstead. The door of the hut that opened into the street\nwas shut fast, and three or four people were sitting with their backs to\nit.\n\nMowgli knew the manners and customs of the villagers very fairly. He\nargued that so long as they could eat, and talk, and smoke, they would\nnot do anything else; but as soon as they had fed they would begin to be\ndangerous. Buldeo would be coming in before long, and if his escort had\ndone its duty, Buldeo would have a very interesting tale to tell. So he\nwent in through the window, and, stooping over the man and the woman,\ncut their thongs, pulling out the gags, and looked round the hut for\nsome milk.\n\nMessua was half wild with pain and fear (she had been beaten and stoned\nall the morning), and Mowgli put his hand over her mouth just in time\nto stop a scream. Her husband was only bewildered and angry, and sat\npicking dust and things out of his torn beard.\n\n\"I knew--I knew he would come,\" Messua sobbed at last. \"Now do I KNOW\nthat he is my son!\" and she hugged Mowgli to her heart. Up to that time\nMowgli had been perfectly steady, but now he began to tremble all over,\nand that surprised him immensely.\n\n\"Why are these thongs? Why have they tied thee?\" he asked, after a\npause.\n\n\"To be put to the death for making a son of thee--what else?\" said the\nman sullenly. \"Look! I bleed.\"\n\nMessua said nothing, but it was at her wounds that Mowgli looked, and\nthey heard him grit his teeth when he saw the blood.\n\n\"Whose work is this?\" said he. \"There is a price to pay.\"\n\n\"The work of all the village. I was too rich. I had too many cattle.\nTHEREFORE she and I are witches, because we gave thee shelter.\"\n\n\"I do not understand. Let Messua tell the tale.\"\n\n\"I gave thee milk, Nathoo; dost thou remember?\" Messua said timidly.\n\"Because thou wast my son, whom the tiger took, and because I loved thee\nvery dearly. They said that I was thy mother, the mother of a devil, and\ntherefore worthy of death.\"\n\n\"And what is a devil?\" said Mowgli. \"Death I have seen.\"\n\nThe man looked up gloomily, but Messua laughed. \"See!\" she said to her\nhusband, \"I knew--I said that he was no sorcerer. He is my son--my son!\"\n\n\"Son or sorcerer, what good will that do us?\" the man answered. \"We be\nas dead already.\"\n\n\"Yonder is the road to the Jungle\"--Mowgli pointed through the window.\n\"Your hands and feet are free. Go now.\"\n\n\"We do not know the Jungle, my son, as--as thou knowest,\" Messua began.\n\"I do not think that I could walk far.\"\n\n\"And the men and women would be upon our backs and drag us here again,\"\nsaid the husband.\n\n\"H\'m!\" said Mowgli, and he tickled the palm of his hand with the tip\nof his skinning-knife; \"I have no wish to do harm to any one of this\nvillage--YET. But I do not think they will stay thee. In a little while\nthey will have much else to think upon. Ah!\" he lifted his head and\nlistened to shouting and trampling outside. \"So they have let Buldeo\ncome home at last?\"\n\n\"He was sent out this morning to kill thee,\" Messua cried. \"Didst thou\nmeet him?\"\n\n\"Yes--we--I met him. He has a tale to tell and while he is telling it\nthere is time to do much. But first I will learn what they mean. Think\nwhere ye would go, and tell me when I come back.\"\n\nHe bounded through the window and ran along again outside the wall\nof the village till he came within ear-shot of the crowd round the\npeepul-tree. Buldeo was lying on the ground, coughing and groaning,\nand every one was asking him questions. His hair had fallen about his\nshoulders; his hands and legs were skinned from climbing up trees,\nand he could hardly speak, but he felt the importance of his position\nkeenly. From time to time he said something about devils and singing\ndevils, and magic enchantment, just to give the crowd a taste of what\nwas coming. Then he called for water.\n\n\"Bah!\" said Mowgli. \"Chatter--chatter! Talk, talk! Men are\nblood-brothers of the Bandar-log. Now he must wash his mouth with water;\nnow he must blow smoke; and when all that is done he has still his story\nto tell. They are very wise people--men. They will leave no one to guard\nMessua till their ears are stuffed with Buldeo\'s tales. And--I grow as\nlazy as they!\"\n\nHe shook himself and glided back to the hut. Just as he was at the\nwindow he felt a touch on his foot.\n\n\"Mother,\" said he, for he knew that tongue well, \"what dost THOU here?\"\n\n\"I heard my children singing through the woods, and I followed the one I\nloved best. Little Frog, I have a desire to see that woman who gave thee\nmilk,\" said Mother Wolf, all wet with the dew.\n\n\"They have bound and mean to kill her. I have cut those ties, and she\ngoes with her man through the Jungle.\"\n\n\"I also will follow. I am old, but not yet toothless.\" Mother Wolf\nreared herself up on end, and looked through the window into the dark of\nthe hut.\n\nIn a minute she dropped noiselessly, and all she said was: \"I gave thee\nthy first milk; but Bagheera speaks truth: Man goes to Man at the last.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" said Mowgli, with a very unpleasant look on his face; \"but\nto-night I am very far from that trail. Wait here, but do not let her\nsee.\"\n\n\"THOU wast never afraid of ME, Little Frog,\" said Mother Wolf, backing\ninto the high grass, and blotting herself out, as she knew how.\n\n\"And now,\" said Mowgli cheerfully, as he swung into the hut again, \"they\nare all sitting round Buldeo, who is saying that which did not happen.\nWhen his talk is finished, they say they will assuredly come here with\nthe Red--with fire and burn you both. And then?\"\n\n\"I have spoken to my man,\" said Messua. \"Khanhiwara is thirty miles from\nhere, but at Khanhiwara we may find the English--\"\n\n\"And what Pack are they?\" said Mowgli.\n\n\"I do not know. They be white, and it is said that they govern all\nthe land, and do not suffer people to burn or beat each other without\nwitnesses. If we can get thither to-night, we live. Otherwise we die.\"\n\n\"Live, then. No man passes the gates to-night. But what does HE do?\"\nMessua\'s husband was on his hands and knees digging up the earth in one\ncorner of the hut.\n\n\"It is his little money,\" said Messua. \"We can take nothing else.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. The stuff that passes from hand to hand and never grows\nwarmer. Do they need it outside this place also?\" said Mowgli.\n\nThe man stared angrily. \"He is a fool, and no devil,\" he muttered. \"With\nthe money I can buy a horse. We are too bruised to walk far, and the\nvillage will follow us in an hour.\"\n\n\"I say they will NOT follow till I choose; but a horse is well thought\nof, for Messua is tired.\" Her husband stood up and knotted the last\nof the rupees into his waist-cloth. Mowgli helped Messua through the\nwindow, and the cool night air revived her, but the Jungle in the\nstarlight looked very dark and terrible.\n\n\"Ye know the trail to Khanhiwara?\" Mowgli whispered.\n\nThey nodded.\n\n\"Good. Remember, now, not to be afraid. And there is no need to go\nquickly. Only--only there may be some small singing in the Jungle behind\nyou and before.\"\n\n\"Think you we would have risked a night in the Jungle through anything\nless than the fear of burning? It is better to be killed by beasts than\nby men,\" said Messua\'s husband; but Messua looked at Mowgli and smiled.\n\n\"I say,\" Mowgli went on, just as though he were Baloo repeating an old\nJungle Law for the hundredth time to a foolish cub--\"I say that not a\ntooth in the Jungle is bared against you; not a foot in the Jungle is\nlifted against you. Neither man nor beast shall stay you till you come\nwithin eye-shot of Khanhiwara. There will be a watch about you.\" He\nturned quickly to Messua, saying, \"HE does not believe, but thou wilt\nbelieve?\"\n\n\"Ay, surely, my son. Man, ghost, or wolf of the Jungle, I believe.\"\n\n\"HE will be afraid when he hears my people singing. Thou wilt know and\nunderstand. Go now, and slowly, for there is no need of any haste. The\ngates are shut.\"\n\nMessua flung herself sobbing at Mowgli\'s feet, but he lifted her very\nquickly with a shiver. Then she hung about his neck and called him every\nname of blessing she could think of, but her husband looked enviously\nacross his fields, and said: \"IF we reach Khanhiwara, and I get the ear\nof the English, I will bring such a lawsuit against the Brahmin and old\nBuldeo and the others as shall eat the village to the bone. They shall\npay me twice over for my crops untilled and my buffaloes unfed. I will\nhave a great justice.\"\n\nMowgli laughed. \"I do not know what justice is, but--come next Rains.\nand see what is left.\"\n\nThey went off toward the Jungle, and Mother Wolf leaped from her place\nof hiding.\n\n\"Follow!\" said Mowgli; \"and look to it that all the Jungle knows these\ntwo are safe. Give tongue a little. I would call Bagheera.\"\n\nThe long, low howl rose and fell, and Mowgli saw Messua\'s husband flinch\nand turn, half minded to run back to the hut.\n\n\"Go on,\" Mowgli called cheerfully. \"I said there might be singing. That\ncall will follow up to Khanhiwara. It is Favour of the Jungle.\"\n\nMessua urged her husband forward, and the darkness shut down on them and\nMother Wolf as Bagheera rose up almost under Mowgli\'s feet, trembling\nwith delight of the night that drives the Jungle People wild.\n\n\"I am ashamed of thy brethren,\" he said, purring. \"What? Did they not\nsing sweetly to Buldeo?\" said Mowgli.\n\n\"Too well! Too well! They made even ME forget my pride, and, by the\nBroken Lock that freed me, I went singing through the Jungle as though I\nwere out wooing in the spring! Didst thou not hear us?\"\n\n\"I had other game afoot. Ask Buldeo if he liked the song. But where\nare the Four? I do not wish one of the Man-Pack to leave the gates\nto-night.\"\n\n\"What need of the Four, then?\" said Bagheera, shifting from foot to\nfoot, his eyes ablaze, and purring louder than ever. \"I can hold them,\nLittle Brother. Is it killing at last? The singing and the sight of the\nmen climbing up the trees have made me very ready. Who is Man that we\nshould care for him--the naked brown digger, the hairless and toothless,\nthe eater of earth? I have followed him all day--at noon--in the white\nsunlight. I herded him as the wolves herd buck. I am Bagheera! Bagheera!\nBagheera! As I dance with my shadow, so danced I with those men. Look!\"\nThe great panther leaped as a kitten leaps at a dead leaf whirling\noverhead, struck left and right into the empty air, that sang under the\nstrokes, landed noiselessly, and leaped again and again, while the\nhalf purr, half growl gathered head as steam rumbles in a boiler. \"I\nam Bagheera--in the jungle--in the night, and my strength is in me. Who\nshall stay my stroke? Man-cub, with one blow of my paw I could beat thy\nhead flat as a dead frog in the summer!\"\n\n\"Strike, then!\" said Mowgli, in the dialect of the village, NOT the\ntalk of the Jungle, and the human words brought Bagheera to a full stop,\nflung back on haunches that quivered under him, his head just at the\nlevel of Mowgli\'s. Once more Mowgli stared, as he had stared at the\nrebellious cubs, full into the beryl-green eyes till the red glare\nbehind their green went out like the light of a lighthouse shut off\ntwenty miles across the sea; till the eyes dropped, and the big head\nwith them--dropped lower and lower, and the red rasp of a tongue grated\non Mowgli\'s instep.\n\n\"Brother--Brother--Brother!\" the boy whispered, stroking steadily and\nlightly from the neck along the heaving back. \"Be still, be still! It is\nthe fault of the night, and no fault of thine.\"\n\n\"It was the smells of the night,\" said Bagheera penitently. \"This air\ncries aloud to me. But how dost THOU know?\"\n\nOf course the air round an Indian village is full of all kinds of\nsmells, and to any creature who does nearly all his thinking through his\nnose, smells are as maddening as music and drugs are to human beings.\nMowgli gentled the panther for a few minutes longer, and he lay down\nlike a cat before a fire, his paws tucked under his breast, and his eyes\nhalf shut.\n\n\"Thou art of the Jungle and NOT of the Jungle,\" he said at last. \"And I\nam only a black panther. But I love thee, Little Brother.\"\n\n\"They are very long at their talk under the tree,\" Mowgli said, without\nnoticing the last sentence. \"Buldeo must have told many tales. They\nshould come soon to drag the woman and her man out of the trap and put\nthem into the Red Flower. They will find that trap sprung. Ho! ho!\"\n\n\"Nay, listen,\" said Bagheera. \"The fever is out of my blood now. Let\nthem find ME there! Few would leave their houses after meeting me. It is\nnot the first time I have been in a cage; and I do not think they will\ntie ME with cords.\"\n\n\"Be wise, then,\" said Mowgli, laughing; for he was beginning to feel as\nreckless as the panther, who had glided into the hut.\n\n\"Pah!\" Bagheera grunted. \"This place is rank with Man, but here is just\nsuch a bed as they gave me to lie upon in the King\'s cages at Oodeypore.\nNow I lie down.\" Mowgli heard the strings of the cot crack under the\ngreat brute\'s weight. \"By the Broken Lock that freed me, they will think\nthey have caught big game! Come and sit beside me, Little Brother; we\nwill give them \'good hunting\' together!\"\n\n\"No; I have another thought in my stomach. The Man-Pack shall not know\nwhat share I have in the sport. Make thine own hunt. I do not wish to\nsee them.\"\n\n\"Be it so,\" said Bagheera. \"Ah, now they come!\"\n\nThe conference under the peepul-tree had been growing noisier and\nnoisier, at the far end of the village. It broke in wild yells, and\na rush up the street of men and women, waving clubs and bamboos and\nsickles and knives. Buldeo and the Brahmin were at the head of it, but\nthe mob was close at their heels, and they cried, \"The witch and the\nwizard! Let us see if hot coins will make them confess! Burn the hut\nover their heads! We will teach them to shelter wolf-devils! Nay, beat\nthem first! Torches! More torches! Buldeo, heat the gun-barrels!\"\n\nHere was some little difficulty with the catch of the door. It had been\nvery firmly fastened, but the crowd tore it away bodily, and the light\nof the torches streamed into the room where, stretched at full length on\nthe bed, his paws crossed and lightly hung down over one end, black\nas the Pit, and terrible as a demon, was Bagheera. There was one\nhalf-minute of desperate silence, as the front ranks of the crowd clawed\nand tore their way back from the threshold, and in that minute\nBagheera raised his head and yawned--elaborately, carefully, and\nostentatiously--as he would yawn when he wished to insult an equal.\nThe fringed lips drew back and up; the red tongue curled; the lower jaw\ndropped and dropped till you could see half-way down the hot gullet; and\nthe gigantic dog-teeth stood clear to the pit of the gums till they rang\ntogether, upper and under, with the snick of steel-faced wards shooting\nhome round the edges of a safe. Next instant the street was empty;\nBagheera had leaped back through the window, and stood at Mowgli\'s\nside, while a yelling, screaming torrent scrambled and tumbled one over\nanother in their panic haste to get to their own huts.\n\n\"They will not stir till day comes,\" said Bagheera quietly. \"And now?\"\n\nThe silence of the afternoon sleep seemed to have overtaken the village;\nbut, as they listened, they could hear the sound of heavy grain-boxes\nbeing dragged over earthen floors and set down against doors. Bagheera\nwas quite right; the village would not stir till daylight. Mowgli sat\nstill, and thought, and his face grew darker and darker.\n\n\"What have I done?\" said Bagheera, at last coming to his feet, fawning.\n\n\"Nothing but great good. Watch them now till the day. I sleep.\" Mowgli\nran off into the Jungle, and dropped like a dead man across a rock, and\nslept and slept the day round, and the night back again.\n\nWhen he waked, Bagheera was at his side, and there was a newly-killed\nbuck at his feet. Bagheera watched curiously while Mowgli went to work\nwith his skinning-knife, ate and drank, and turned over with his chin in\nhis hands.\n\n\"The man and the woman are come safe within eye-shot of Khanhiwara,\"\nBagheera said. \"Thy lair mother sent the word back by Chil, the Kite.\nThey found a horse before midnight of the night they were freed, and\nwent very quickly. Is not that well?\"\n\n\"That is well,\" said Mowgli.\n\n\"And thy Man-Pack in the village did not stir till the sun was high this\nmorning. Then they ate their food and ran back quickly to their houses.\"\n\n\"Did they, by chance, see thee?\"\n\n\"It may have been. I was rolling in the dust before the gate at dawn,\nand I may have made also some small song to myself. Now, Little Brother,\nthere is nothing more to do. Come hunting with me and Baloo. He has new\nhives that he wishes to show, and we all desire thee back again as of\nold. Take off that look which makes even me afraid! The man and woman\nwill not be put into the Red Flower, and all goes well in the Jungle. Is\nit not true? Let us forget the Man-Pack.\"\n\n\"They shall be forgotten in a little while. Where does Hathi feed\nto-night?\"\n\n\"Where he chooses. Who can answer for the Silent One? But why? What is\nthere Hathi can do which we cannot?\"\n\n\"Bid him and his three sons come here to me.\"\n\n\"But, indeed, and truly, Little Brother, it is not--it is not seemly\nto say \'Come,\' and \'Go,\' to Hathi. Remember, he is the Master of the\nJungle, and before the Man-Pack changed the look on thy face, he taught\nthee the Master-words of the Jungle.\"\n\n\"That is all one. I have a Master-word for him now. Bid him come to\nMowgli, the Frog: and if he does not hear at first, bid him come because\nof the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore.\"\n\n\"The Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore,\" Bagheera repeated two or three\ntimes to make sure. \"I go. Hathi can but be angry at the worst, and\nI would give a moon\'s hunting to hear a Master-word that compels the\nSilent One.\"\n\nHe went away, leaving Mowgli stabbing furiously with his skinning-knife\ninto the earth. Mowgli had never seen human blood in his life before\ntill he had seen, and--what meant much more to him--smelled Messua\'s\nblood on the thongs that bound her. And Messua had been kind to\nhim, and, so far as he knew anything about love, he loved Messua as\ncompletely as he hated the rest of mankind. But deeply as he loathed\nthem, their talk, their cruelty, and their cowardice, not for anything\nthe Jungle had to offer could he bring himself to take a human life, and\nhave that terrible scent of blood back again in his nostrils. His plan\nwas simpler, but much more thorough; and he laughed to himself when he\nthought that it was one of old Buldeo\'s tales told under the peepul-tree\nin the evening that had put the idea into his head.\n\n\"It WAS a Master-word,\" Bagheera whispered in his ear. \"They were\nfeeding by the river, and they obeyed as though they were bullocks. Look\nwhere they come now!\"\n\nHathi and his three sons had arrived, in their usual way, without a\nsound. The mud of the river was still fresh on their flanks, and Hathi\nwas thoughtfully chewing the green stem of a young plantain-tree that he\nhad gouged up with his tusks. But every line in his vast body showed to\nBagheera, who could see things when he came across them, that it was not\nthe Master of the Jungle speaking to a Man-cub, but one who was afraid\ncoming before one who was not. His three sons rolled side by side,\nbehind their father.\n\nMowgli hardly lifted his head as Hathi gave him \"Good hunting.\" He kept\nhim swinging and rocking, and shifting from one foot to another, for\na long time before he spoke; and when he opened his mouth it was to\nBagheera, not to the elephants.\n\n\"I will tell a tale that was told to me by the hunter ye hunted to-day,\"\nsaid Mowgli. \"It concerns an elephant, old and wise, who fell into a\ntrap, and the sharpened stake in the pit scarred him from a little above\nhis heel to the crest of his shoulder, leaving a white mark.\" Mowgli\nthrew out his hand, and as Hathi wheeled the moonlight showed a long\nwhite scar on his slaty side, as though he had been struck with a\nred-hot whip. \"Men came to take him from the trap,\" Mowgli continued,\n\"but he broke his ropes, for he was strong, and went away till his\nwound was healed. Then came he, angry, by night to the fields of\nthose hunters. And I remember now that he had three sons. These things\nhappened many, many Rains ago, and very far away--among the fields of\nBhurtpore. What came to those fields at the next reaping, Hathi?\"\n\n\"They were reaped by me and by my three sons,\" said Hathi.\n\n\"And to the ploughing that follows the reaping?\" said Mowgli.\n\n\"There was no ploughing,\" said Hathi.\n\n\"And to the men that live by the green crops on the ground?\" said\nMowgli.\n\n\"They went away.\"\n\n\"And to the huts in which the men slept?\" said Mowgli.\n\n\"We tore the roofs to pieces, and the Jungle swallowed up the walls,\"\nsaid Hathi.\n\n\"And what more?\" said Mowgli.\n\n\"As much good ground as I can walk over in two nights from the east to\nthe west, and from the north to the south as much as I can walk over in\nthree nights, the Jungle took. We let in the Jungle upon five villages;\nand in those villages, and in their lands, the grazing-ground and the\nsoft crop-grounds, there is not one man to-day who takes his food from\nthe ground. That was the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore, which I and\nmy three sons did; and now I ask, Man-cub, how the news of it came to\nthee?\" said Hathi.\n\n\"A man told me, and now I see even Buldeo can speak truth. It was well\ndone, Hathi with the white mark; but the second time it shall be done\nbetter, for the reason that there is a man to direct. Thou knowest the\nvillage of the Man-Pack that cast me out? They are idle, senseless, and\ncruel; they play with their mouths, and they do not kill the weaker for\nfood, but for sport. When they are full-fed they would throw their own\nbreed into the Red Flower. This I have seen. It is not well that they\nshould live here any more. I hate them!\"\n\n\"Kill, then,\" said the youngest of Hathi\'s three sons, picking up a tuft\nof grass, dusting it against his fore-legs, and throwing it away, while\nhis little red eyes glanced furtively from side to side.\n\n\"What good are white bones to me?\" Mowgli answered angrily. \"Am I the\ncub of a wolf to play in the sun with a raw head? I have killed Shere\nKhan, and his hide rots on the Council Rock; but--but I do not know\nwhither Shere Khan is gone, and my stomach is still empty. Now I\nwill take that which I can see and touch. Let in the Jungle upon that\nvillage, Hathi!\"\n\nBagheera shivered, and cowered down. He could understand, if the worst\ncame to the worst, a quick rush down the village street, and a right and\nleft blow into a crowd, or a crafty killing of men as they ploughed in\nthe twilight; but this scheme for deliberately blotting out an entire\nvillage from the eyes of man and beast frightened him. Now he saw why\nMowgli had sent for Hathi. No one but the long-lived elephant could plan\nand carry through such a war.\n\n\"Let them run as the men ran from the fields of Bhurtpore, till we have\nthe rain-water for the only plough, and the noise of the rain on the\nthick leaves for the pattering of their spindles--till Bagheera and I\nlair in the house of the Brahmin, and the buck drink at the tank behind\nthe temple! Let in the Jungle, Hathi!\"\n\n\"But I--but we have no quarrel with them, and it needs the red rage\nof great pain ere we tear down the places where men sleep,\" said Hathi\ndoubtfully.\n\n\"Are ye the only eaters of grass in the Jungle? Drive in your peoples.\nLet the deer and the pig and the nilghai look to it. Ye need never show\na hand\'s-breadth of hide till the fields are naked. Let in the Jungle,\nHathi!\"\n\n\"There will be no killing? My tusks were red at the Sack of the Fields\nof Bhurtpore, and I would not wake that smell again.\"\n\n\"Nor I. I do not wish even their bones to lie on the clean earth. Let\nthem go and find a fresh lair. They cannot stay here. I have seen and\nsmelled the blood of the woman that gave me food--the woman whom they\nwould have killed but for me. Only the smell of the new grass on their\ndoor-steps can take away that smell. It burns in my mouth. Let in the\nJungle, Hathi!\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Hathi. \"So did the scar of the stake burn on my hide till we\nwatched the villages die under in the spring growth. Now I see. Thy war\nshall be our war. We will let in the jungle!\"\n\nMowgli had hardly time to catch his breath--he was shaking all over with\nrage and hate before the place where the elephants had stood was empty,\nand Bagheera was looking at him with terror.\n\n\"By the Broken Lock that freed me!\" said the Black Panther at last. \"Art\nTHOU the naked thing I spoke for in the Pack when all was young?\nMaster of the Jungle, when my strength goes, speak for me--speak for\nBaloo--speak for us all! We are cubs before thee! Snapped twigs under\nfoot! Fawns that have lost their doe!\"\n\nThe idea of Bagheera being a stray fawn upset Mowgli altogether, and he\nlaughed and caught his breath, and sobbed and laughed again, till he had\nto jump into a pool to make himself stop. Then he swam round and round,\nducking in and out of the bars of the moonlight like the frog, his\nnamesake.\n\nBy this time Hathi and his three sons had turned, each to one point of\nthe compass, and were striding silently down the valleys a mile away.\nThey went on and on for two days\' march--that is to say, a long sixty\nmiles--through the Jungle; and every step they took, and every wave of\ntheir trunks, was known and noted and talked over by Mang and Chil and\nthe Monkey People and all the birds. Then they began to feed, and fed\nquietly for a week or so. Hathi and his sons are like Kaa, the Rock\nPython. They never hurry till they have to.\n\nAt the end of that time--and none knew who had started it--a rumour went\nthrough the Jungle that there was better food and water to be found in\nsuch and such a valley. The pig--who, of course, will go to the ends of\nthe earth for a full meal--moved first by companies, scuffling over the\nrocks, and the deer followed, with the small wild foxes that live on\nthe dead and dying of the herds; and the heavy-shouldered nilghai moved\nparallel with the deer, and the wild buffaloes of the swamps came after\nthe nilghai. The least little thing would have turned the scattered,\nstraggling droves that grazed and sauntered and drank and grazed again;\nbut whenever there was an alarm some one would rise up and soothe them.\nAt one time it would be Ikki the Porcupine, full of news of good feed\njust a little farther on; at another Mang would cry cheerily and flap\ndown a glade to show it was all empty; or Baloo, his mouth full of\nroots, would shamble alongside a wavering line and half frighten, half\nromp it clumsily back to the proper road. Very many creatures broke back\nor ran away or lost interest, but very many were left to go forward. At\nthe end of another ten days or so the situation was this. The deer and\nthe pig and the nilghai were milling round and round in a circle of\neight or ten miles radius, while the Eaters of Flesh skirmished round\nits edge. And the centre of that circle was the village, and round the\nvillage the crops were ripening, and in the crops sat men on what they\ncall machans--platforms like pigeon-perches, made of sticks at the top\nof four poles--to scare away birds and other stealers. Then the deer\nwere coaxed no more. The Eaters of Flesh were close behind them, and\nforced them forward and inward.\n\nIt was a dark night when Hathi and his three sons slipped down from the\nJungle, and broke off the poles of the machans with their trunks; they\nfell as a snapped stalk of hemlock in bloom falls, and the men that\ntumbled from them heard the deep gurgling of the elephants in their\nears. Then the vanguard of the bewildered armies of the deer broke down\nand flooded into the village grazing-grounds and the ploughed fields;\nand the sharp-hoofed, rooting wild pig came with them, and what the deer\nleft the pig spoiled, and from time to time an alarm of wolves would\nshake the herds, and they would rush to and fro desperately, treading\ndown the young barley, and cutting flat the banks of the irrigating\nchannels. Before the dawn broke the pressure on the outside of the\ncircle gave way at one point. The Eaters of Flesh had fallen back and\nleft an open path to the south, and drove upon drove of buck fled along\nit. Others, who were bolder, lay up in the thickets to finish their meal\nnext night.\n\nBut the work was practically done. When the villagers looked in the\nmorning they saw their crops were lost. And that meant death if they did\nnot get away, for they lived year in and year out as near to starvation\nas the Jungle was near to them. When the buffaloes were sent to graze\nthe hungry brutes found that the deer had cleared the grazing-grounds,\nand so wandered into the Jungle and drifted off with their wild mates;\nand when twilight fell the three or four ponies that belonged to the\nvillage lay in their stables with their heads beaten in. Only Bagheera\ncould have given those strokes, and only Bagheera would have thought of\ninsolently dragging the last carcass to the open street.\n\nThe villagers had no heart to make fires in the fields that night, so\nHathi and his three sons went gleaning among what was left; and where\nHathi gleans there is no need to follow. The men decided to live on\ntheir stored seed-corn until the rains had fallen, and then to take\nwork as servants till they could catch up with the lost year; but as\nthe grain-dealer was thinking of his well-filled crates of corn, and the\nprices he would levy at the sale of it, Hathi\'s sharp tusks were picking\nout the corner of his mud-house, and smashing open the big wicker chest,\nleeped with cow-dung, where the precious stuff lay.\n\nWhen that last loss was discovered, it was the Brahmin\'s turn to speak.\nHe had prayed to his own Gods without answer. It might be, he said,\nthat, unconsciously, the village had offended some one of the Gods of\nthe Jungle, for, beyond doubt, the Jungle was against them. So they sent\nfor the head-man of the nearest tribe of wandering Gonds--little, wise,\nand very black hunters, living in the deep Jungle, whose fathers came of\nthe oldest race in India--the aboriginal owners of the land. They made\nthe Gond welcome with what they had, and he stood on one leg, his bow in\nhis hand, and two or three poisoned arrows stuck through his top-knot,\nlooking half afraid and half contemptuously at the anxious villagers\nand their ruined fields. They wished to know whether his Gods--the Old\nGods--were angry with them and what sacrifices should be offered. The\nGond said nothing, but picked up a trail of the Karela, the vine that\nbears the bitter wild gourd, and laced it to and fro across the temple\ndoor in the face of the staring red Hindu image. Then he pushed with his\nhand in the open air along the road to Khanhiwara, and went back to his\nJungle, and watched the Jungle People drifting through it. He knew that\nwhen the Jungle moves only white men can hope to turn it aside.\n\nThere was no need to ask his meaning. The wild gourd would grow where\nthey had worshipped their God, and the sooner they saved themselves the\nbetter.\n\nBut it is hard to tear a village from its moorings. They stayed on as\nlong as any summer food was left to them, and they tried to gather nuts\nin the Jungle, but shadows with glaring eyes watched them, and rolled\nbefore them even at mid-day; and when they ran back afraid to their\nwalls, on the tree-trunks they had passed not five minutes before the\nbark would be stripped and chiselled with the stroke of some great\ntaloned paw. The more they kept to their village, the bolder grew the\nwild things that gambolled and bellowed on the grazing-grounds by the\nWaingunga. They had no time to patch and plaster the rear walls of the\nempty byres that backed on to the Jungle; the wild pig trampled them\ndown, and the knotty-rooted vines hurried after and threw their elbows\nover the new-won ground, and the coarse grass bristled behind the vines\nlike the lances of a goblin army following a retreat. The unmarried men\nran away first, and carried the news far and near that the village was\ndoomed. Who could fight, they said, against the Jungle, or the Gods\nof the Jungle, when the very village cobra had left his hole in the\nplatform under the peepul-tree? So their little commerce with the\noutside world shrunk as the trodden paths across the open grew fewer\nand fainter. At last the nightly trumpetings of Hathi and his three sons\nceased to trouble them; for they had no more to be robbed of. The crop\non the ground and the seed in the ground had been taken. The outlying\nfields were already losing their shape, and it was time to throw\nthemselves on the charity of the English at Khanhiwara.\n\nNative fashion, they delayed their departure from one day to another\ntill the first Rains caught them and the unmended roofs let in a flood,\nand the grazing-ground stood ankle deep, and all life came on with a\nrush after the heat of the summer. Then they waded out--men, women,\nand children--through the blinding hot rain of the morning, but turned\nnaturally for one farewell look at their homes.\n\nThey heard, as the last burdened family filed through the gate, a crash\nof falling beams and thatch behind the walls. They saw a shiny,\nsnaky black trunk lifted for an instant, scattering sodden thatch. It\ndisappeared, and there was another crash, followed by a squeal. Hathi\nhad been plucking off the roofs of the huts as you pluck water-lilies,\nand a rebounding beam had pricked him. He needed only this to unchain\nhis full strength, for of all things in the Jungle the wild elephant\nenraged is the most wantonly destructive. He kicked backward at a mud\nwall that crumbled at the stroke, and, crumbling, melted to yellow\nmud under the torrent of rain. Then he wheeled and squealed, and tore\nthrough the narrow streets, leaning against the huts right and left,\nshivering the crazy doors, and crumpling up the caves; while his\nthree sons raged behind as they had raged at the Sack of the Fields of\nBhurtpore.\n\n\"The Jungle will swallow these shells,\" said a quiet voice in the\nwreckage. \"It is the outer wall that must lie down,\" and Mowgli, with\nthe rain sluicing over his bare shoulders and arms, leaped back from a\nwall that was settling like a tired buffalo.\n\n\"All in good time,\" panted Hathi. \"Oh, but my tusks were red at\nBhurtpore; To the outer wall, children! With the head! Together! Now!\"\n\nThe four pushed side by side; the outer wall bulged, split, and fell,\nand the villagers, dumb with horror, saw the savage, clay-streaked\nheads of the wreckers in the ragged gap. Then they fled, houseless and\nfoodless, down the valley, as their village, shredded and tossed and\ntrampled, melted behind them.\n\nA month later the place was a dimpled mound, covered with soft, green\nyoung stuff; and by the end of the Rains there was the roaring jungle in\nfull blast on the spot that had been under plough not six months before.\n\n\n\n\nMOWGLI\'S SONG AGAINST PEOPLE\n\n I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines--\n I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines!\n The roofs shall fade before it,\n The house-beams shall fall,\n And the Karela, the bitter Karela,\n Shall cover it all!\n\n In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing,\n In the doors of these your garners the Bat-folk shall cling;\n And the snake shall be your watchman,\n By a hearthstone unswept;\n For the Karela, the bitter Karela,\n Shall fruit where ye slept!\n\n Ye shall not see my strikers; ye shall hear them and guess;\n By night, before the moon-rise, I will send for my cess,\n And the wolf shall be your herdsman\n By a landmark removed,\n For the Karela, the bitter Karela,\n Shall seed where ye loved!\n\n I will reap your fields before you at the hands of a host;\n Ye shall glean behind my reapers, for the bread that is lost,\n And the deer shall be your oxen\n By a headland untilled,\n For the Karela, the bitter Karela,\n Shall leaf where ye build!\n\n I have untied against you the club-footed vines,\n I have sent in the Jungle to swamp out your lines.\n The trees--the trees are on you!\n The house-beams shall fall,\n And the Karela, the bitter Karela,\n Shall cover you all!\n\n\n\n\nTHE UNDERTAKERS\n\n When ye say to Tabaqui, \"My Brother!\" when ye call the\n Hyena to meat,\n Ye may cry the Full Truce with Jacala--the Belly that runs\n on four feet.\n Jungle Law\n\n\"Respect the aged!\"\n\n\"It was a thick voice--a muddy voice that would have made you shudder--a\nvoice like something soft breaking in two. There was a quaver in it, a\ncroak and a whine.\n\n\"Respect the aged! O Companions of the River--respect the aged!\"\n\nNothing could be seen on the broad reach of the river except a\nlittle fleet of square-sailed, wooden-pinned barges, loaded with\nbuilding-stone, that had just come under the railway bridge, and were\ndriving down-stream. They put their clumsy helms over to avoid the\nsand-bar made by the scour of the bridge-piers, and as they passed,\nthree abreast, the horrible voice began again:\n\n\"O Brahmins of the River--respect the aged and infirm!\"\n\nA boatman turned where he sat on the gunwale, lifted up his hand, said\nsomething that was not a blessing, and the boats creaked on through\nthe twilight. The broad Indian river, that looked more like a chain\nof little lakes than a stream, was as smooth as glass, reflecting the\nsandy-red sky in mid-channel, but splashed with patches of yellow and\ndusky purple near and under the low banks. Little creeks ran into the\nriver in the wet season, but now their dry mouths hung clear above\nwater-line. On the left shore, and almost under the railway bridge,\nstood a mud-and-brick and thatch-and-stick village, whose main street,\nfull of cattle going back to their byres, ran straight to the river, and\nended in a sort of rude brick pier-head, where people who wanted to\nwash could wade in step by step. That was the Ghaut of the village of\nMugger-Ghaut.\n\nNight was falling fast over the fields of lentils and rice and cotton\nin the low-lying ground yearly flooded by the river; over the reeds\nthat fringed the elbow of the bend, and the tangled jungle of the\ngrazing-grounds behind the still reeds. The parrots and crows, who had\nbeen chattering and shouting over their evening drink, had flown inland\nto roost, crossing the out-going battalions of the flying-foxes; and\ncloud upon cloud of water-birds came whistling and \"honking\" to\nthe cover of the reed-beds. There were geese, barrel-headed and\nblack-backed, teal, widgeon, mallard, and sheldrake, with curlews, and\nhere and there a flamingo.\n\nA lumbering Adjutant-crane brought up the rear, flying as though each\nslow stroke would be his last.\n\n\"Respect the aged! Brahmins of the River--respect the aged!\"\n\nThe Adjutant half turned his head, sheered a little in the direction of\nthe voice, and landed stiffly on the sand-bar below the bridge. Then you\nsaw what a ruffianly brute he really was. His back view was immensely\nrespectable, for he stood nearly six feet high, and looked rather like a\nvery proper bald-headed parson. In front it was different, for his Ally\nSloper-like head and neck had not a feather to them, and there was a\nhorrible raw-skin pouch on his neck under his chin--a hold-all for the\nthings his pick-axe beak might steal. His legs were long and thin and\nskinny, but he moved them delicately, and looked at them with pride as\nhe preened down his ashy-gray tail-feathers, glanced over the smooth of\nhis shoulder, and stiffened into \"Stand at attention.\"\n\nA mangy little Jackal, who had been yapping hungrily on a low bluff,\ncocked up his ears and tail, and scuttered across the shallows to join\nthe Adjutant.\n\nHe was the lowest of his caste--not that the best of jackals are good\nfor much, but this one was peculiarly low, being half a beggar, half a\ncriminal--a cleaner-up of village rubbish-heaps, desperately timid or\nwildly bold, everlastingly hungry, and full of cunning that never did\nhim any good.\n\n\"Ugh!\" he said, shaking himself dolefully as he landed. \"May the red\nmange destroy the dogs of this village! I have three bites for each flea\nupon me, and all because I looked--only looked, mark you--at an old shoe\nin a cow-byre. Can I eat mud?\" He scratched himself under his left ear.\n\n\"I heard,\" said the Adjutant, in a voice like a blunt saw going through\na thick board--\"I HEARD there was a new-born puppy in that same shoe.\"\n\n\"To hear is one thing; to know is another,\" said the Jackal, who had a\nvery fair knowledge of proverbs, picked up by listening to men round the\nvillage fires of an evening.\n\n\"Quite true. So, to make sure, I took care of that puppy while the dogs\nwere busy elsewhere.\"\n\n\"They were VERY busy,\" said the Jackal. \"Well, I must not go to the\nvillage hunting for scraps yet awhile. And so there truly was a blind\npuppy in that shoe?\"\n\n\"It is here,\" said the Adjutant, squinting over his beak at his full\npouch. \"A small thing, but acceptable now that charity is dead in the\nworld.\"\n\n\"Ahai! The world is iron in these days,\" wailed the Jackal. Then his\nrestless eye caught the least possible ripple on the water, and he went\non quickly: \"Life is hard for us all, and I doubt not that even our\nexcellent master, the Pride of the Ghaut and the Envy of the River----\"\n\n\"A liar, a flatterer, and a Jackal were all hatched out of the same\negg,\" said the Adjutant to nobody in particular; for he was rather a\nfine sort of a liar on his own account when he took the trouble.\n\n\"Yes, the Envy of the River,\" the Jackal repeated, raising his voice.\n\"Even he, I doubt not, finds that since the bridge has been built good\nfood is more scarce. But on the other hand, though I would by no means\nsay this to his noble face, he is so wise and so virtuous--as I, alas I\nam not----\"\n\n\"When the Jackal owns he is gray, how black must the Jackal be!\"\nmuttered the Adjutant. He could not see what was coming.\n\n\"That his food never fails, and in consequence----\"\n\nThere was a soft grating sound, as though a boat had just touched in\nshoal water. The Jackal spun round quickly and faced (it is always\nbest to face) the creature he had been talking about. It was a\ntwenty-four-foot crocodile, cased in what looked like treble-riveted\nboiler-plate, studded and keeled and crested; the yellow points of his\nupper teeth just overhanging his beautifully fluted lower jaw. It\nwas the blunt-nosed Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut, older than any man in the\nvillage, who had given his name to the village; the demon of the ford\nbefore the railway bridge, came--murderer, man-eater, and local fetish\nin one. He lay with his chin in the shallows, keeping his place by an\nalmost invisible rippling of his tail, and well the Jackal knew that one\nstroke of that same tail in the water would carry the Mugger up the bank\nwith the rush of a steam-engine.\n\n\"Auspiciously met, Protector of the Poor!\" he fawned, backing at every\nword. \"A delectable voice was heard, and we came in the hopes of sweet\nconversation. My tailless presumption, while waiting here, led me,\nindeed, to speak of thee. It is my hope that nothing was overheard.\"\n\nNow the Jackal had spoken just to be listened to, for he knew flattery\nwas the best way of getting things to eat, and the Mugger knew that\nthe Jackal had spoken for this end, and the Jackal knew that the Mugger\nknew, and the Mugger knew that the Jackal knew that the Mugger knew, and\nso they were all very contented together.\n\nThe old brute pushed and panted and grunted up the bank, mumbling,\n\"Respect the aged and infirm!\" and all the time his little eyes burned\nlike coals under the heavy, horny eyelids on the top of his triangular\nhead, as he shoved his bloated barrel-body along between his crutched\nlegs. Then he settled down, and, accustomed as the Jackal was to his\nways, he could not help starting, for the hundredth time, when he saw\nhow exactly the Mugger imitated a log adrift on the bar. He had even\ntaken pains to lie at the exact angle a naturally stranded log would\nmake with the water, having regard to the current of the season at the\ntime and place. All this was only a matter of habit, of course, because\nthe Mugger had come ashore for pleasure; but a crocodile is never quite\nfull, and if the Jackal had been deceived by the likeness he would not\nhave lived to philosophise over it.\n\n\"My child, I heard nothing,\" said the Mugger, shutting one eye. \"The\nwater was in my ears, and also I was faint with hunger. Since the\nrailway bridge was built my people at my village have ceased to love me;\nand that is breaking my heart.\"\n\n\"Ah, shame!\" said the Jackal. \"So noble a heart, too! But men are all\nalike, to my mind.\"\n\n\"Nay, there are very great differences indeed,\" the Mugger answered\ngently. \"Some are as lean as boat-poles. Others again are fat as\nyoung ja--dogs. Never would I causelessly revile men. They are of all\nfashions, but the long years have shown me that, one with another, they\nare very good. Men, women, and children--I have no fault to find with\nthem. And remember, child, he who rebukes the World is rebuked by the\nWorld.\"\n\n\"Flattery is worse than an empty tin can in the belly. But that which we\nhave just heard is wisdom,\" said the Adjutant, bringing down one foot.\n\n\"Consider, though, their ingratitude to this excellent one,\" began the\nJackal tenderly.\n\n\"Nay, nay, not ingratitude!\" the Mugger said. \"They do not think for\nothers; that is all. But I have noticed, lying at my station below the\nford, that the stairs of the new bridge are cruelly hard to climb, both\nfor old people and young children. The old, indeed, are not so worthy of\nconsideration, but I am grieved--I am truly grieved--on account of the\nfat children. Still, I think, in a little while, when the newness of the\nbridge has worn away, we shall see my people\'s bare brown legs bravely\nsplashing through the ford as before. Then the old Mugger will be\nhonoured again.\"\n\n\"But surely I saw Marigold wreaths floating off the edge of the Ghaut\nonly this noon,\" said the Adjutant.\n\nMarigold wreaths are a sign of reverence all India over.\n\n\"An error--an error. It was the wife of the sweetmeat-seller. She loses\nher eyesight year by year, and cannot tell a log from me--the Mugger of\nthe Ghaut. I saw the mistake when she threw the garland, for I was lying\nat the very foot of the Ghaut, and had she taken another step I might\nhave shown her some little difference. Yet she meant well, and we must\nconsider the spirit of the offering.\"\n\n\"What good are marigold wreaths when one is on the rubbish-heap?\" said\nthe Jackal, hunting for fleas, but keeping one wary eye on his Protector\nof the Poor.\n\n\"True, but they have not yet begun to make the rubbish-heap that shall\ncarry ME. Five times have I seen the river draw back from the village\nand make new land at the foot of the street. Five times have I seen the\nvillage rebuilt on the banks, and I shall see it built yet five times\nmore. I am no faithless, fish-hunting Gavial, I, at Kasi to-day and\nPrayag to-morrow, as the saying is, but the true and constant watcher of\nthe ford. It is not for nothing, child, that the village bears my name,\nand \'he who watches long,\' as the saying is, \'shall at last have his\nreward.\'\"\n\n\"_I_ have watched long--very long--nearly all my life, and my reward has\nbeen bites and blows,\" said the Jackal.\n\n\"Ho! ho! ho!\" roared the Adjutant.\n\n \"In August was the Jackal born;\n The Rains fell in September;\n \'Now such a fearful flood as this,\'\n Says he, \'I can\'t remember!\'\"\n\nThere is one very unpleasant peculiarity about the Adjutant. At\nuncertain times he suffers from acute attacks of the fidgets or cramp\nin his legs, and though he is more virtuous to behold than any of the\ncranes, who are all immensely respectable, he flies off into wild,\ncripple-stilt war-dances, half opening his wings and bobbing his bald\nhead up and down; while for reasons best known to himself he is very\ncareful to time his worst attacks with his nastiest remarks. At the last\nword of his song he came to attention again, ten times adjutaunter than\nbefore.\n\nThe Jackal winced, though he was full three seasons old, but you cannot\nresent an insult from a person with a beak a yard long, and the power of\ndriving it like a javelin. The Adjutant was a most notorious coward, but\nthe Jackal was worse.\n\n\"We must live before we can learn,\" said the Mugger, \"and there is this\nto say: Little jackals are very common, child, but such a mugger as I am\nis not common. For all that, I am not proud, since pride is destruction;\nbut take notice, it is Fate, and against his Fate no one who swims or\nwalks or runs should say anything at all. I am well contented with Fate.\nWith good luck, a keen eye, and the custom of considering whether a\ncreek or a backwater has an outlet to it ere you ascend, much may be\ndone.\"\n\n\"Once I heard that even the Protector of the Poor made a mistake,\" said\nthe Jackal viciously.\n\n\"True; but there my Fate helped me. It was before I had come to my\nfull growth--before the last famine but three (by the Right and Left of\nGunga, how full used the streams to be in those days!). Yes, I was young\nand unthinking, and when the flood came, who so pleased as I? A little\nmade me very happy then. The village was deep in flood, and I swam above\nthe Ghaut and went far inland, up to the rice-fields, and they were deep\nin good mud. I remember also a pair of bracelets (glass they were,\nand troubled me not a little) that I found that evening. Yes, glass\nbracelets; and, if my memory serves me well, a shoe. I should have\nshaken off both shoes, but I was hungry. I learned better later. Yes.\nAnd so I fed and rested me; but when I was ready to go to the river\nagain the flood had fallen, and I walked through the mud of the main\nstreet. Who but I? Came out all my people, priests and women and\nchildren, and I looked upon them with benevolence. The mud is not a good\nplace to fight in. Said a boatman, \'Get axes and kill him, for he is the\nMugger of the ford.\' \'Not so,\' said the Brahmin. \'Look, he is driving\nthe flood before him! He is the godling of the village.\' Then they\nthrew many flowers at me, and by happy thought one led a goat across the\nroad.\"\n\n\"How good--how very good is goat!\" said the Jackal.\n\n\"Hairy--too hairy, and when found in the water more than likely to hide\na cross-shaped hook. But that goat I accepted, and went down to the\nGhaut in great honour. Later, my Fate sent me the boatman who had\ndesired to cut off my tail with an axe. His boat grounded upon an old\nshoal which you would not remember.\"\n\n\"We are not ALL jackals here,\" said the Adjutant. \"Was it the shoal made\nwhere the stone-boats sank in the year of the great drouth--a long shoal\nthat lasted three floods?\"\n\n\"There were two,\" said the Mugger; \"an upper and a lower shoal.\"\n\n\"Ay, I forgot. A channel divided them, and later dried up again,\" said\nthe Adjutant, who prided himself on his memory.\n\n\"On the lower shoal my well-wisher\'s craft grounded. He was sleeping in\nthe bows, and, half awake, leaped over to his waist--no, it was no more\nthan to his knees--to push off. His empty boat went on and touched again\nbelow the next reach, as the river ran then. I followed, because I knew\nmen would come out to drag it ashore.\"\n\n\"And did they do so?\" said the Jackal, a little awe-stricken. This was\nhunting on a scale that impressed him.\n\n\"There and lower down they did. I went no farther, but that gave me\nthree in one day--well-fed manjis (boatmen) all, and, except in the\ncase of the last (then I was careless), never a cry to warn those on the\nbank.\"\n\n\"Ah, noble sport! But what cleverness and great judgment it requires!\"\nsaid the Jackal.\n\n\"Not cleverness, child, but only thought. A little thought in life\nis like salt upon rice, as the boatmen say, and I have thought deeply\nalways. The Gavial, my cousin, the fish-eater, has told me how hard it\nis for him to follow his fish, and how one fish differs from the other,\nand how he must know them all, both together and apart. I say that is\nwisdom; but, on the other hand, my cousin, the Gavial, lives among his\npeople. MY people do not swim in companies, with their mouths out of the\nwater, as Rewa does; nor do they constantly rise to the surface of the\nwater, and turn over on their sides, like Mohoo and little Chapta; nor\ndo they gather in shoals after flood, like Batchua and Chilwa.\"\n\n\"All are very good eating,\" said the Adjutant, clattering his beak.\n\n\"So my cousin says, and makes a great to-do over hunting them, but\nthey do not climb the banks to escape his sharp nose. MY people are\notherwise. Their life is on the land, in the houses, among the cattle.\nI must know what they do, and what they are about to do; and adding the\ntail to the trunk, as the saying is, I make up the whole elephant. Is\nthere a green branch and an iron ring hanging over a doorway? The old\nMugger knows that a boy has been born in that house, and must some\nday come down to the Ghaut to play. Is a maiden to be married? The old\nMugger knows, for he sees the men carry gifts back and forth; and she,\ntoo, comes down to the Ghaut to bathe before her wedding, and--he is\nthere. Has the river changed its channel, and made new land where there\nwas only sand before? The Mugger knows.\"\n\n\"Now, of what use is that knowledge?\" said the Jackal. \"The river has\nshifted even in my little life.\" Indian rivers are nearly always moving\nabout in their beds, and will shift, sometimes, as much as two or three\nmiles in a season, drowning the fields on one bank, and spreading good\nsilt on the other.\n\n\"There is no knowledge so useful,\" said the Mugger, \"for new land means\nnew quarrels. The Mugger knows. Oho! the Mugger knows. As soon as the\nwater has drained off, he creeps up the little creeks that men think\nwould not hide a dog, and there he waits. Presently comes a farmer\nsaying he will plant cucumbers here, and melons there, in the new land\nthat the river has given him. He feels the good mud with his bare\ntoes. Anon comes another, saying he will put onions, and carrots, and\nsugar-cane in such and such places. They meet as boats adrift meet,\nand each rolls his eye at the other under the big blue turban. The old\nMugger sees and hears. Each calls the other \'Brother,\' and they go to\nmark out the boundaries of the new land. The Mugger hurries with them\nfrom point to point, shuffling very low through the mud. Now they begin\nto quarrel! Now they say hot words! Now they pull turbans! Now they lift\nup their lathis (clubs), and, at last, one falls backward into the mud,\nand the other runs away. When he comes back the dispute is settled, as\nthe iron-bound bamboo of the loser witnesses. Yet they are not grateful\nto the Mugger. No, they cry \'Murder!\' and their families fight with\nsticks, twenty a-side. My people are good people--upland Jats--Malwais\nof the Bet. They do not give blows for sport, and, when the fight is\ndone, the old Mugger waits far down the river, out of sight of the\nvillage, behind the kikar-scrub yonder. Then come they down, my\nbroad-shouldered Jats--eight or nine together under the stars, bearing\nthe dead man upon a bed. They are old men with gray beards, and voices\nas deep as mine. They light a little fire--ah! how well I know that\nfire!--and they drink tobacco, and they nod their heads together forward\nin a ring, or sideways toward the dead man upon the bank. They say the\nEnglish Law will come with a rope for this matter, and that such a man\'s\nfamily will be ashamed, because such a man must be hanged in the great\nsquare of the Jail. Then say the friends of the dead, \'Let him hang!\'\nand the talk is all to do over again--once, twice, twenty times in the\nlong night. Then says one, at last, \'The fight was a fair fight. Let us\ntake blood-money, a little more than is offered by the slayer, and we\nwill say no more about it.\' Then do they haggle over the blood-money,\nfor the dead was a strong man, leaving many sons. Yet before amratvela\n(sunrise) they put the fire to him a little, as the custom is, and the\ndead man comes to me, and HE says no more about it. Aha! my children,\nthe Mugger knows--the Mugger knows--and my Malwah Jats are a good\npeople!\"\n\n\"They are too close--too narrow in the hand for my crop,\" croaked the\nAdjutant. \"They waste not the polish on the cow\'s horn, as the saying\nis; and, again, who can glean after a Malwai?\"\n\n\"Ah, I--glean--THEM,\" said the Mugger.\n\n\"Now, in Calcutta of the South, in the old days,\" the Adjutant went on,\n\"everything was thrown into the streets, and we picked and chose. Those\nwore dainty seasons. But to-day they keep their streets as clean as the\noutside of an egg, and my people fly away. To be clean is one thing;\nto dust, sweep, and sprinkle seven times a day wearies the very Gods\nthemselves.\"\n\n\"There was a down-country jackal had it from a brother, who told me,\nthat in Calcutta of the South all the jackals were as fat as otters in\nthe Rains,\" said the Jackal, his mouth watering at the bare thought of\nit.\n\n\"Ah, but the white-faces are there--the English, and they bring dogs\nfrom somewhere down the river in boats--big fat dogs--to keep those same\njackals lean,\" said the Adjutant.\n\n\"They are, then, as hard-hearted as these people? I might have known.\nNeither earth, sky, nor water shows charity to a jackal. I saw the tents\nof a white-face last season, after the Rains, and I also took a new\nyellow bridle to eat. The white-faces do not dress their leather in the\nproper way. It made me very sick.\"\n\n\"That was better than my case,\" said the Adjutant. \"When I was in my\nthird season, a young and a bold bird, I went down to the river where\nthe big boats come in. The boats of the English are thrice as big as\nthis village.\"\n\n\"He has been as far as Delhi, and says all the people there walk on\ntheir heads,\" muttered the Jackal. The Mugger opened his left eye, and\nlooked keenly at the Adjutant.\n\n\"It is true,\" the big bird insisted. \"A liar only lies when he hopes\nto be believed. No one who had not seen those boats COULD believe this\ntruth.\"\n\n\"THAT is more reasonable,\" said the Mugger. \"And then?\"\n\n\"From the insides of this boat they were taking out great pieces of\nwhite stuff, which, in a little while, turned to water. Much split off,\nand fell about on the shore, and the rest they swiftly put into a house\nwith thick walls. But a boatman, who laughed, took a piece no larger\nthan a small dog, and threw it to me. I--all my people--swallow without\nreflection, and that piece I swallowed as is our custom. Immediately I\nwas afflicted with an excessive cold which, beginning in my crop, ran\ndown to the extreme end of my toes, and deprived me even of speech,\nwhile the boatmen laughed at me. Never have I felt such cold. I danced\nin my grief and amazement till I could recover my breath and then\nI danced and cried out against the falseness of this world; and the\nboatmen derided me till they fell down. The chief wonder of the matter,\nsetting aside that marvellous coldness, was that there was nothing at\nall in my crop when I had finished my lamentings!\"\n\nThe Adjutant had done his very best to describe his feelings after\nswallowing a seven-pound lump of Wenham Lake ice, off an American\nice-ship, in the days before Calcutta made her ice by machinery; but\nas he did not know what ice was, and as the Mugger and the Jackal knew\nrather less, the tale missed fire.\n\n\"Anything,\" said the Mugger, shutting his left eye again--\"ANYTHING is\npossible that comes out of a boat thrice the size of Mugger-Ghaut. My\nvillage is not a small one.\"\n\nThere was a whistle overhead on the bridge, and the Delhi Mail\nslid across, all the carriages gleaming with light, and the shadows\nfaithfully following along the river. It clanked away into the dark\nagain; but the Mugger and the Jackal were so well used to it that they\nnever turned their heads.\n\n\"Is that anything less wonderful than a boat thrice the size of\nMugger-Ghaut?\" said the bird, looking up.\n\n\"I saw that built, child. Stone by stone I saw the bridge-piers rise,\nand when the men fell off (they were wondrous sure-footed for the most\npart--but WHEN they fell) I was ready. After the first pier was made\nthey never thought to look down the stream for the body to burn. There,\nagain, I saved much trouble. There was nothing strange in the building\nof the bridge,\" said the Mugger.\n\n\"But that which goes across, pulling the roofed carts! That is strange,\"\nthe Adjutant repeated. \"It is, past any doubt, a new breed of bullock.\nSome day it will not be able to keep its foothold up yonder, and will\nfall as the men did. The old Mugger will then be ready.\"\n\nThe Jackal looked at the Adjutant and the Adjutant looked at the Jackal.\nIf there was one thing they were more certain of than another, it was\nthat the engine was everything in the wide world except a bullock. The\nJackal had watched it time and again from the aloe hedges by the side of\nthe line, and the Adjutant had seen engines since the first locomotive\nran in India. But the Mugger had only looked up at the thing from below,\nwhere the brass dome seemed rather like a bullock\'s hump.\n\n\"M--yes, a new kind of bullock,\" the Mugger repeated ponderously,\nto make himself quite sure in his own mind; and \"Certainly it is a\nbullock,\" said the Jackal.\n\n\"And again it might be----\" began the Mugger pettishly.\n\n\"Certainly--most certainly,\" said the Jackal, without waiting for the\nother to finish.\n\n\"What?\" said the Mugger angrily, for he could feel that the others knew\nmore than he did. \"What might it be? _I_ never finished my words. You\nsaid it was a bullock.\"\n\n\"It is anything the Protector of the Poor pleases. I am HIS servant--not\nthe servant of the thing that crosses the river.\"\n\n\"Whatever it is, it is white-face work,\" said the Adjutant; \"and for my\nown part, I would not lie out upon a place so near to it as this bar.\"\n\n\"You do not know the English as I do,\" said the Mugger. \"There was a\nwhite-face here when the bridge was built, and he would take a boat\nin the evenings and shuffle with his feet on the bottom-boards, and\nwhisper: \'Is he here? Is he there? Bring me my gun.\' I could hear him\nbefore I could see him--each sound that he made--creaking and puffing\nand rattling his gun, up and down the river. As surely as I had picked\nup one of his workmen, and thus saved great expense in wood for the\nburning, so surely would he come down to the Ghaut, and shout in a loud\nvoice that he would hunt me, and rid the river of me--the Mugger of\nMugger-Ghaut! ME! Children, I have swum under the bottom of his boat for\nhour after hour, and heard him fire his gun at logs; and when I was well\nsure he was wearied, I have risen by his side and snapped my jaws in his\nface. When the bridge was finished he went away. All the English hunt in\nthat fashion, except when they are hunted.\"\n\n\"Who hunts the white-faces?\" yapped the Jackal excitedly.\n\n\"No one now, but I have hunted them in my time.\"\n\n\"I remember a little of that Hunting. I was young then,\" said the\nAdjutant, clattering his beak significantly.\n\n\"I was well established here. My village was being builded for the third\ntime, as I remember, when my cousin, the Gavial, brought me word of rich\nwaters above Benares. At first I would not go, for my cousin, who is a\nfish-eater, does not always know the good from the bad; but I heard my\npeople talking in the evenings, and what they said made me certain.\"\n\n\"And what did they say?\" the Jackal asked.\n\n\"They said enough to make me, the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut, leave water\nand take to my feet. I went by night, using the littlest streams as they\nserved me; but it was the beginning of the hot weather, and all streams\nwere low. I crossed dusty roads; I went through tall grass; I climbed\nhills in the moonlight. Even rocks did I climb, children--consider this\nwell. I crossed the tail of Sirhind, the waterless, before I could\nfind the set of the little rivers that flow Gungaward. I was a month\'s\njourney from my own people and the river that I knew. That was very\nmarvellous!\"\n\n\"What food on the way?\" said the Jackal, who kept his soul in his little\nstomach, and was not a bit impressed by the Mugger\'s land travels.\n\n\"That which I could find--COUSIN,\" said the Mugger slowly, dragging each\nword.\n\nNow you do not call a man a cousin in India unless you think you can\nestablish some kind of blood-relationship, and as it is only in old\nfairy-tales that the Mugger ever marries a jackal, the Jackal knew for\nwhat reason he had been suddenly lifted into the Mugger\'s family circle.\nIf they had been alone he would not have cared, but the Adjutant\'s eyes\ntwinkled with mirth at the ugly jest.\n\n\"Assuredly, Father, I might have known,\" said the Jackal. A mugger\ndoes not care to be called a father of jackals, and the Mugger of\nMugger-Ghaut said as much--and a great deal more which there is no use\nin repeating here.\n\n\"The Protector of the Poor has claimed kinship. How can I remember the\nprecise degree? Moreover, we eat the same food. He has said it,\" was the\nJackal\'s reply.\n\nThat made matters rather worse, for what the Jackal hinted at was that\nthe Mugger must have eaten his food on that land-march fresh and fresh\nevery day, instead of keeping it by him till it was in a fit and proper\ncondition, as every self-respecting mugger and most wild beasts do when\nthey can. Indeed, one of the worst terms of contempt along the River-bed\nis \"eater of fresh meat.\" It is nearly as bad as calling a man a\ncannibal.\n\n\"That food was eaten thirty seasons ago,\" said the Adjutant quietly. \"If\nwe talk for thirty seasons more it will never come back. Tell us, now,\nwhat happened when the good waters were reached after thy most wonderful\nland journey. If we listened to the howling of every jackal the business\nof the town would stop, as the saying is.\"\n\nThe Mugger must have been grateful for the interruption, because he went\non, with a rush:\n\n\"By the Right and Left of Gunga! when I came there never did I see such\nwaters!\"\n\n\"Were they better, then, than the big flood of last season?\" said the\nJackal.\n\n\"Better! That flood was no more than comes every five years--a handful\nof drowned strangers, some chickens, and a dead bullock in muddy water\nwith cross-currents. But the season I think of, the river was low,\nsmooth, and even, and, as the Gavial had warned me, the dead English\ncame down, touching each other. I got my girth in that season--my\ngirth and my depth. From Agra, by Etawah and the broad waters by\nAllahabad----\"\n\n\"Oh, the eddy that set under the walls of the fort at Allahabad!\" said\nthe Adjutant. \"They came in there like widgeon to the reeds, and round\nand round they swung--thus!\"\n\nHe went off into his horrible dance again, while the Jackal looked on\nenviously. He naturally could not remember the terrible year of the\nMutiny they were talking about. The Mugger continued:\n\n\"Yes, by Allahabad one lay still in the slack-water and let twenty go\nby to pick one; and, above all, the English were not cumbered with\njewellery and nose-rings and anklets as my women are nowadays. To\ndelight in ornaments is to end with a rope for a necklace, as the saying\nis. All the muggers of all the rivers grew fat then, but it was my Fate\nto be fatter than them all. The news was that the English were being\nhunted into the rivers, and by the Right and Left of Gunga! we believed\nit was true. So far as I went south I believed it to be true; and I went\ndown-stream beyond Monghyr and the tombs that look over the river.\"\n\n\"I know that place,\" said the Adjutant. \"Since those days Monghyr is a\nlost city. Very few live there now.\"\n\n\"Thereafter I worked up-stream very slowly and lazily, and a little\nabove Monghyr there came down a boatful of white-faces--alive! They\nwere, as I remember, women, lying under a cloth spread over sticks, and\ncrying aloud. There was never a gun fired at us, the watchers of the\nfords in those days. All the guns were busy elsewhere. We could hear\nthem day and night inland, coming and going as the wind shifted. I rose\nup full before the boat, because I had never seen white-faces alive,\nthough I knew them well--otherwise. A naked white child kneeled by the\nside of the boat, and, stooping over, must needs try to trail his hands\nin the river. It is a pretty thing to see how a child loves running\nwater. I had fed that day, but there was yet a little unfilled space\nwithin me. Still, it was for sport and not for food that I rose at the\nchild\'s hands. They were so clear a mark that I did not even look when I\nclosed; but they were so small that though my jaws rang true--I am sure\nof that--the child drew them up swiftly, unhurt. They must have passed\nbetween tooth and tooth--those small white hands. I should have caught\nhim cross-wise at the elbows; but, as I said, it was only for sport and\ndesire to see new things that I rose at all. They cried out one after\nanother in the boat, and presently I rose again to watch them. The boat\nwas too heavy to push over. They were only women, but he who trusts\na woman will walk on duckweed in a pool, as the saying is: and by the\nRight and Left of Gunga, that is truth!\"\n\n\"Once a woman gave me some dried skin from a fish,\" said the Jackal. \"I\nhad hoped to get her baby, but horse-food is better than the kick of a\nhorse, as the saying is. What did thy woman do?\"\n\n\"She fired at me with a short gun of a kind I have never seen before or\nsince. Five times, one after another\" (the Mugger must have met with an\nold-fashioned revolver); \"and I stayed open-mouthed and gaping, my head\nin the smoke. Never did I see such a thing. Five times, as swiftly as I\nwave my tail--thus!\"\n\nThe Jackal, who had been growing more and more interested in the story,\nhad just time to leap back as the huge tail swung by like a scythe.\n\n\"Not before the fifth shot,\" said the Mugger, as though he had never\ndreamed of stunning one of his listeners--\"not before the fifth shot\ndid I sink, and I rose in time to hear a boatman telling all those\nwhite women that I was most certainly dead. One bullet had gone under\na neck-plate of mine. I know not if it is there still, for the reason I\ncannot turn my head. Look and see, child. It will show that my tale is\ntrue.\"\n\n\"I?\" said the Jackal. \"Shall an eater of old shoes, a bone-cracker,\npresume, to doubt the word of the Envy of the River? May my tail be\nbitten off by blind puppies if the shadow of such a thought has crossed\nmy humble mind! The Protector of the Poor has condescended to inform me,\nhis slave, that once in his life he has been wounded by a woman. That is\nsufficient, and I will tell the tale to all my children, asking for no\nproof.\"\n\n\"Over-much civility is sometimes no better than over-much discourtesy,\nfor, as the saying is, one can choke a guest with curds. I do NOT desire\nthat any children of thine should know that the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut\ntook his only wound from a woman. They will have much else to think of\nif they get their meat as miserably as does their father.\"\n\n\"It is forgotten long ago! It was never said! There never was a white\nwoman! There was no boat! Nothing whatever happened at all.\"\n\nThe Jackal waved his brush to show how completely everything was wiped\nout of his memory, and sat down with an air.\n\n\"Indeed, very many things happened,\" said the Mugger, beaten in his\nsecond attempt that night to get the better of his friend. (Neither bore\nmalice, however. Eat and be eaten was fair law along the river, and the\nJackal came in for his share of plunder when the Mugger had finished\na meal.) \"I left that boat and went up-stream, and, when I had reached\nArrah and the back-waters behind it, there were no more dead English.\nThe river was empty for a while. Then came one or two dead, in red\ncoats, not English, but of one kind all--Hindus and Purbeeahs--then five\nand six abreast, and at last, from Arrah to the North beyond Agra, it\nwas as though whole villages had walked into the water. They came out\nof little creeks one after another, as the logs come down in the Rains.\nWhen the river rose they rose also in companies from the shoals they\nhad rested upon; and the falling flood dragged them with it across the\nfields and through the Jungle by the long hair. All night, too, going\nNorth, I heard the guns, and by day the shod feet of men crossing fords,\nand that noise which a heavy cart-wheel makes on sand under water; and\nevery ripple brought more dead. At last even I was afraid, for I said:\n\'If this thing happen to men, how shall the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut\nescape?\' There were boats, too, that came up behind me without sails,\nburning continually, as the cotton-boats sometimes burn, but never\nsinking.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the Adjutant. \"Boats like those come to Calcutta of the\nSouth. They are tall and black, they beat up the water behind them with\na tail, and they----\"\n\n\"Are thrice as big as my village. MY boats were low and white; they beat\nup the water on either side of them and were no larger than the boats\nof one who speaks truth should be. They made me very afraid, and I\nleft water and went back to this my river, hiding by day and walking\nby night, when I could not find little streams to help me. I came to\nmy village again, but I did not hope to see any of my people there.\nYet they were ploughing and sowing and reaping, and going to and fro in\ntheir fields, as quietly as their own cattle.\"\n\n\"Was there still good food in the river?\" said the Jackal.\n\n\"More than I had any desire for. Even I--and I do not eat mud--even\nI was tired, and, as I remember, a little frightened of this constant\ncoming down of the silent ones. I heard my people say in my village\nthat all the English were dead; but those that came, face down, with the\ncurrent were NOT English, as my people saw. Then my people said that it\nwas best to say nothing at all, but to pay the tax and plough the land.\nAfter a long time the river cleared, and those that came down it had\nbeen clearly drowned by the floods, as I could well see; and though it\nwas not so easy then to get food, I was heartily glad of it. A little\nkilling here and there is no bad thing--but even the Mugger is sometimes\nsatisfied, as the saying is.\"\n\n\"Marvellous! Most truly marvellous!\" said the Jackal. \"I am become fat\nthrough merely hearing about so much good eating. And afterward what, if\nit be permitted to ask, did the Protector of the Poor do?\"\n\n\"I said to myself--and by the Right and Left of Gunga! I locked my jaws\non that vow--I said I would never go roving any more. So I lived by the\nGhaut, very close to my own people, and I watched over them year after\nyear; and they loved me so much that they threw marigold wreaths at my\nhead whenever they saw it lift. Yes, and my Fate has been very kind to\nme, and the river is good enough to respect my poor and infirm presence;\nonly----\"\n\n\"No one is all happy from his beak to his tail,\" said the Adjutant\nsympathetically. \"What does the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut need more?\"\n\n\"That little white child which I did not get,\" said the Mugger, with a\ndeep sigh. \"He was very small, but I have not forgotten. I am old now,\nbut before I die it is my desire to try one new thing. It is true they\nare a heavy-footed, noisy, and foolish people, and the sport would be\nsmall, but I remember the old days above Benares, and, if the child\nlives, he will remember still. It may be he goes up and down the bank\nof some river, telling how he once passed his hands between the teeth of\nthe Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut, and lived to make a tale of it. My Fate has\nbeen very kind, but that plagues me sometimes in my dreams--the thought\nof the little white child in the bows of that boat.\" He yawned, and\nclosed his jaws. \"And now I will rest and think. Keep silent, my\nchildren, and respect the aged.\"\n\nHe turned stiffly, and shuffled to the top of the sand-bar, while the\nJackal drew back with the Adjutant to the shelter of a tree stranded on\nthe end nearest the railway bridge.\n\n\"That was a pleasant and profitable life,\" he grinned, looking up\ninquiringly at the bird who towered above him. \"And not once, mark you,\ndid he think fit to tell me where a morsel might have been left along\nthe banks. Yet I have told HIM a hundred times of good things wallowing\ndown-stream. How true is the saying, \'All the world forgets the Jackal\nand the Barber when the news has been told!\' Now he is going to sleep!\nArrh!\"\n\n\"How can a jackal hunt with a Mugger?\" said the Adjutant coolly. \"Big\nthief and little thief; it is easy to say who gets the pickings.\"\n\nThe Jackal turned, whining impatiently, and was going to curl himself\nup under the tree-trunk, when suddenly he cowered, and looked up through\nthe draggled branches at the bridge almost above his head.\n\n\"What now?\" said the Adjutant, opening his wings uneasily.\n\n\"Wait till we see. The wind blows from us to them, but they are not\nlooking for us--those two men.\"\n\n\"Men, is it? My office protects me. All India knows I am holy.\" The\nAdjutant, being a first-class scavenger, is allowed to go where he\npleases, and so this one never flinched.\n\n\"I am not worth a blow from anything better than an old shoe,\" said the\nJackal, and listened again. \"Hark to that footfall!\" he went on. \"That\nwas no country leather, but the shod foot of a white-face. Listen\nagain! Iron hits iron up there! It is a gun! Friend, those heavy-footed,\nfoolish English are coming to speak with the Mugger.\"\n\n\"Warn him, then. He was called Protector of the Poor by some one not\nunlike a starving Jackal but a little time ago.\"\n\n\"Let my cousin protect his own hide. He has told me again and again\nthere is nothing to fear from the white-faces. They must be white-faces.\nNot a villager of Mugger-Ghaut would dare to come after him. See, I said\nit was a gun! Now, with good luck, we shall feed before daylight. He\ncannot hear well out of water, and--this time it is not a woman!\"\n\nA shiny barrel glittered for a minute in the moonlight on the girders.\nThe Mugger was lying on the sand-bar as still as his own shadow, his\nfore-feet spread out a little, his head dropped between them, snoring\nlike a--mugger.\n\nA voice on the bridge whispered: \"It\'s an odd shot--straight down\nalmost--but as safe as houses. Better try behind the neck. Golly! what\na brute! The villagers will be wild if he\'s shot, though. He\'s the deota\n[godling] of these parts.\"\n\n\"Don\'t care a rap,\" another voice answered; \"he took about fifteen of my\nbest coolies while the bridge was building, and it\'s time he was put\na stop to. I\'ve been after him in a boat for weeks. Stand by with the\nMartini as soon as I\'ve given him both barrels of this.\"\n\n\"Mind the kick, then. A double four-bore\'s no joke.\"\n\n\"That\'s for him to decide. Here goes!\"\n\nThere was a roar like the sound of a small cannon (the biggest sort of\nelephant-rifle is not very different from some artillery), and a double\nstreak of flame, followed by the stinging crack of a Martini, whose long\nbullet makes nothing of a crocodile\'s plates. But the explosive bullets\ndid the work. One of them struck just behind the Mugger\'s neck, a\nhand\'s-breadth to the left of the backbone, while the other burst a\nlittle lower down, at the beginning of the tail. In ninety-nine cases\nout of a hundred a mortally-wounded crocodile can scramble to deep water\nand get away; but the Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut was literally broken into\nthree pieces. He hardly moved his head before the life went out of him,\nand he lay as flat as the Jackal.\n\n\"Thunder and lightning! Lightning and thunder!\" said that miserable\nlittle beast. \"Has the thing that pulls the covered carts over the\nbridge tumbled at last?\"\n\n\"It is no more than a gun,\" said the Adjutant, though his very\ntail-feathers quivered. \"Nothing more than a gun. He is certainly dead.\nHere come the white-faces.\"\n\nThe two Englishmen had hurried down from the bridge and across to the\nsand-bar, where they stood admiring the length of the Mugger. Then a\nnative with an axe cut off the big head, and four men dragged it across\nthe spit.\n\n\"The last time that I had my hand in a Mugger\'s mouth,\" said one of the\nEnglishmen, stooping down (he was the man who had built the bridge), \"it\nwas when I was about five years old--coming down the river by boat to\nMonghyr. I was a Mutiny baby, as they call it. Poor mother was in the\nboat, too, and she often told me how she fired dad\'s old pistol at the\nbeast\'s head.\"\n\n\"Well, you\'ve certainly had your revenge on the chief of the clan--even\nif the gun has made your nose bleed. Hi, you boatmen! Haul that head up\nthe bank, and we\'ll boil it for the skull. The skin\'s too knocked about\nto keep. Come along to bed now. This was worth sitting up all night for,\nwasn\'t it?\"\n\n*****\n\nCuriously enough, the Jackal and the Adjutant made the very same remark\nnot three minutes after the men had left.\n\n\n\n\nA RIPPLE SONG\n\n Once a ripple came to land\n In the golden sunset burning--\n Lapped against a maiden\'s hand,\n By the ford returning.\n\n Dainty foot and gentle breast--\n Here, across, be glad and rest.\n \"Maiden, wait,\" the ripple saith.\n \"Wait awhile, for I am Death!\"\n\n \"Where my lover calls I go--\n Shame it were to treat him coldly--\n \'Twas a fish that circled so,\n Turning over boldly.\"\n\n Dainty foot and tender heart,\n Wait the loaded ferry-cart.\n \"Wait, ah, wait!\" the ripple saith;\n \"Maiden, wait, for I am Death!\"\n\n \"When my lover calls I haste--\n Dame Disdain was never wedded!\"\n Ripple-ripple round her waist,\n Clear the current eddied.\n\n Foolish heart and faithful hand,\n Little feet that touched no land.\n Far away the ripple sped,\n Ripple--ripple--running red!\n\n\n\n\nTHE KING\'S ANKUS\n\n These are the Four that are never content, that have never\n been filled since the Dews began--\n Jacala\'s mouth, and the glut of the Kite, and the hands of the\n Ape, and the Eyes of Man.\n Jungle Saying.\n\nKaa, the big Rock Python, had changed his skin for perhaps the\ntwo-hundredth time since his birth; and Mowgli, who never forgot that\nhe owed his life to Kaa for a night\'s work at Cold Lairs, which you may\nperhaps remember, went to congratulate him. Skin-changing always makes\na snake moody and depressed till the new skin begins to shine and look\nbeautiful. Kaa never made fun of Mowgli any more, but accepted him, as\nthe other Jungle People did, for the Master of the Jungle, and brought\nhim all the news that a python of his size would naturally hear. What\nKaa did not know about the Middle Jungle, as they call it,--the life\nthat runs close to the earth or under it, the boulder, burrow, and\nthe tree-bole life,--might have been written upon the smallest of his\nscales.\n\nThat afternoon Mowgli was sitting in the circle of Kaa\'s great coils,\nfingering the flaked and broken old skin that lay all looped and twisted\namong the rocks just as Kaa had left it. Kaa had very courteously packed\nhimself under Mowgli\'s broad, bare shoulders, so that the boy was really\nresting in a living arm-chair.\n\n\"Even to the scales of the eyes it is perfect,\" said Mowgli, under his\nbreath, playing with the old skin. \"Strange to see the covering of one\'s\nown head at one\'s own feet!\"\n\n\"Ay, but I lack feet,\" said Kaa; \"and since this is the custom of all\nmy people, I do not find it strange. Does thy skin never feel old and\nharsh?\"\n\n\"Then go I and wash, Flathead; but, it is true, in the great heats I\nhave wished I could slough my skin without pain, and run skinless.\"\n\n\"I wash, and ALSO I take off my skin. How looks the new coat?\"\n\nMowgli ran his hand down the diagonal checkerings of the immense back.\n\"The Turtle is harder-backed, but not so gay,\" he said judgmatically.\n\"The Frog, my name-bearer, is more gay, but not so hard. It is very\nbeautiful to see--like the mottling in the mouth of a lily.\"\n\n\"It needs water. A new skin never comes to full colour before the first\nbath. Let us go bathe.\"\n\n\"I will carry thee,\" said Mowgli; and he stooped down, laughing, to\nlift the middle section of Kaa\'s great body, just where the barrel was\nthickest. A man might just, as well have tried to heave up a two-foot\nwater-main; and Kaa lay still, puffing with quiet amusement. Then the\nregular evening game began--the Boy in the flush of his great strength,\nand the Python in his sumptuous new skin, standing up one against the\nother for a wrestling match--a trial of eye and strength. Of course,\nKaa could have crushed a dozen Mowglis if he had let himself go; but he\nplayed carefully, and never loosed one-tenth of his power. Ever since\nMowgli was strong enough to endure a little rough handling, Kaa had\ntaught him this game, and it suppled his limbs as nothing else could.\nSometimes Mowgli would stand lapped almost to his throat in Kaa\'s\nshifting coils, striving to get one arm free and catch him by\nthe throat. Then Kaa would give way limply, and Mowgli, with both\nquick-moving feet, would try to cramp the purchase of that huge tail as\nit flung backward feeling for a rock or a stump. They would rock to\nand fro, head to head, each waiting for his chance, till the beautiful,\nstatue-like group melted in a whirl of black-and-yellow coils and\nstruggling legs and arms, to rise up again and again. \"Now! now! now!\"\nsaid Kaa, making feints with his head that even Mowgli\'s quick hand\ncould not turn aside. \"Look! I touch thee here, Little Brother! Here,\nand here! Are thy hands numb? Here again!\"\n\nThe game always ended in one way--with a straight, driving blow of the\nhead that knocked the boy over and over. Mowgli could never learn the\nguard for that lightning lunge, and, as Kaa said, there was not the\nleast use in trying.\n\n\"Good hunting!\" Kaa grunted at last; and Mowgli, as usual, was shot away\nhalf a dozen yards, gasping and laughing. He rose with his fingers full\nof grass, and followed Kaa to the wise snake\'s pet bathing-place--a\ndeep, pitchy-black pool surrounded with rocks, and made interesting by\nsunken tree-stumps. The boy slipped in, Jungle-fashion, without a sound,\nand dived across; rose, too, without a sound, and turned on his back,\nhis arms behind his head, watching the moon rising above the rocks,\nand breaking up her reflection in the water with his toes. Kaa\'s\ndiamond-shaped head cut the pool like a razor, and came out to rest\non Mowgli\'s shoulder. They lay still, soaking luxuriously in the cool\nwater.\n\n\"It is VERY good,\" said Mowgli at last, sleepily. \"Now, in the Man-Pack,\nat this hour, as I remember, they laid them down upon hard pieces of\nwood in the inside of a mud-trap, and, having carefully shut out all the\nclean winds, drew foul cloth over their heavy heads and made evil songs\nthrough their noses. It is better in the Jungle.\"\n\nA hurrying cobra slipped down over a rock and drank, gave them \"Good\nhunting!\" and went away.\n\n\"Sssh!\" said Kaa, as though he had suddenly remembered something. \"So\nthe Jungle gives thee all that thou hast ever desired, Little Brother?\"\n\n\"Not all,\" said Mowgli, laughing; \"else there would be a new and strong\nShere Khan to kill once a moon. Now, I could kill with my own hands,\nasking no help of buffaloes. And also I have wished the sun to shine in\nthe middle of the Rains, and the Rains to cover the sun in the deep of\nsummer; and also I have never gone empty but I wished that I had killed\na goat; and also I have never killed a goat but I wished it had been\nbuck; nor buck but I wished it had been nilghai. But thus do we feel,\nall of us.\"\n\n\"Thou hast no other desire?\" the big snake demanded.\n\n\"What more can I wish? I have the Jungle, and the favour of the Jungle!\nIs there more anywhere between sunrise and sunset?\"\n\n\"Now, the Cobra said----\" Kaa began. \"What cobra? He that went away just\nnow said nothing. He was hunting.\"\n\n\"It was another.\"\n\n\"Hast thou many dealings with the Poison People? I give them their own\npath. They carry death in the fore-tooth, and that is not good--for they\nare so small. But what hood is this thou hast spoken with?\"\n\nKaa rolled slowly in the water like a steamer in a beam sea. \"Three or\nfour moons since,\" said he, \"I hunted in Cold Lairs, which place thou\nhast not forgotten. And the thing I hunted fled shrieking past the tanks\nand to that house whose side I once broke for thy sake, and ran into the\nground.\"\n\n\"But the people of Cold Lairs do not live in burrows.\" Mowgli knew that\nKaa was telling of the Monkey People.\n\n\"This thing was not living, but seeking to live,\" Kaa replied, with\na quiver of his tongue. \"He ran into a burrow that led very far. I\nfollowed, and having killed, I slept. When I waked I went forward.\"\n\n\"Under the earth?\"\n\n\"Even so, coming at last upon a White Hood [a white cobra], who spoke of\nthings beyond my knowledge, and showed me many things I had never before\nseen.\"\n\n\"New game? Was it good hunting?\" Mowgli turned quickly on his side.\n\n\"It was no game, and would have broken all my teeth; but the White Hood\nsaid that a man--he spoke as one that knew the breed--that a man would\ngive the breath under his ribs for only the sight of those things.\"\n\n\"We will look,\" said Mowgli. \"I now remember that I was once a man.\"\n\n\"Slowly--slowly. It was haste killed the Yellow Snake that ate the sun.\nWe two spoke together under the earth, and I spoke of thee, naming thee\nas a man. Said the White Hood (and he is indeed as old as the Jungle):\n\'It is long since I have seen a man. Let him come, and he shall see all\nthese things, for the least of which very many men would die.\'\"\n\n\"That MUST be new game. And yet the Poison People do not tell us when\ngame is afoot. They are an unfriendly folk.\"\n\n\"It is NOT game. It is--it is--I cannot say what it is.\"\n\n\"We will go there. I have never seen a White Hood, and I wish to see the\nother things. Did he kill them?\"\n\n\"They are all dead things. He says he is the keeper of them all.\"\n\n\"Ah! As a wolf stands above meat he has taken to his own lair. Let us\ngo.\"\n\nMowgli swam to bank, rolled on the grass to dry himself, and the two\nset off for Cold Lairs, the deserted city of which you may have heard.\nMowgli was not the least afraid of the Monkey People in those days,\nbut the Monkey People had the liveliest horror of Mowgli. Their tribes,\nhowever, were raiding in the Jungle, and so Cold Lairs stood empty and\nsilent in the moonlight. Kaa led up to the ruins of the queens\' pavilion\nthat stood on the terrace, slipped over the rubbish, and dived down\nthe half-choked staircase that went underground from the centre of\nthe pavilion. Mowgli gave the snake-call,--\"We be of one blood, ye and\nI,\"--and followed on his hands and knees. They crawled a long distance\ndown a sloping passage that turned and twisted several times, and at\nlast came to where the root of some great tree, growing thirty feet\noverhead, had forced out a solid stone in the wall. They crept through\nthe gap, and found themselves in a large vault, whose domed roof had\nbeen also broken away by tree-roots so that a few streaks of light\ndropped down into the darkness.\n\n\"A safe lair,\" said Mowgli, rising to his firm feet, \"but over-far to\nvisit daily. And now what do we see?\"\n\n\"Am I nothing?\" said a voice in the middle of the vault; and Mowgli saw\nsomething white move till, little by little, there stood up the hugest\ncobra he had ever set eyes on--a creature nearly eight feet long,\nand bleached by being in darkness to an old ivory-white. Even the\nspectacle-marks of his spread hood had faded to faint yellow. His eyes\nwere as red as rubies, and altogether he was most wonderful.\n\n\"Good hunting!\" said Mowgli, who carried his manners with his knife, and\nthat never left him.\n\n\"What of the city?\" said the White Cobra, without answering the\ngreeting. \"What of the great, the walled city--the city of a hundred\nelephants and twenty thousand horses, and cattle past counting--the city\nof the King of Twenty Kings? I grow deaf here, and it is long since I\nheard their war-gongs.\"\n\n\"The Jungle is above our heads,\" said Mowgli. \"I know only Hathi and his\nsons among elephants. Bagheera has slain all the horses in one village,\nand--what is a King?\"\n\n\"I told thee,\" said Kaa softly to the Cobra,--\"I told thee, four moons\nago, that thy city was not.\"\n\n\"The city--the great city of the forest whose gates are guarded by the\nKing\'s towers--can never pass. They builded it before my father\'s father\ncame from the egg, and it shall endure when my son\'s sons are as white\nas I! Salomdhi, son of Chandrabija, son of Viyeja, son of Yegasuri, made\nit in the days of Bappa Rawal. Whose cattle are YE?\"\n\n\"It is a lost trail,\" said Mowgli, turning to Kaa. \"I know not his\ntalk.\"\n\n\"Nor I. He is very old. Father of Cobras, there is only the Jungle here,\nas it has been since the beginning.\"\n\n\"Then who is HE,\" said the White Cobra, \"sitting down before me,\nunafraid, knowing not the name of the King, talking our talk through a\nman\'s lips? Who is he with the knife and the snake\'s tongue?\"\n\n\"Mowgli they call me,\" was the answer. \"I am of the Jungle. The wolves\nare my people, and Kaa here is my brother. Father of Cobras, who art\nthou?\"\n\n\"I am the Warden of the King\'s Treasure. Kurrun Raja builded the stone\nabove me, in the days when my skin was dark, that I might teach death\nto those who came to steal. Then they let down the treasure through the\nstone, and I heard the song of the Brahmins my masters.\"\n\n\"Umm!\" said Mowgli to himself. \"I have dealt with one Brahmin already,\nin the Man-Pack, and--I know what I know. Evil comes here in a little.\"\n\n\"Five times since I came here has the stone been lifted, but always to\nlet down more, and never to take away. There are no riches like these\nriches--the treasures of a hundred kings. But it is long and long since\nthe stone was last moved, and I think that my city has forgotten.\"\n\n\"There is no city. Look up. Yonder are roots of the great trees tearing\nthe stones apart. Trees and men do not grow together,\" Kaa insisted.\n\n\"Twice and thrice have men found their way here,\" the White Cobra\nanswered savagely; \"but they never spoke till I came upon them groping\nin the dark, and then they cried only a little time. But ye come with\nlies, Man and Snake both, and would have me believe the city is not, and\nthat my wardship ends. Little do men change in the years. But I change\nnever! Till the stone is lifted, and the Brahmins come down singing the\nsongs that I know, and feed me with warm milk, and take me to the light\nagain, I--I--_I_, and no other, am the Warden of the King\'s Treasure!\nThe city is dead, ye say, and here are the roots of the trees? Stoop\ndown, then, and take what ye will. Earth has no treasure like to these.\nMan with the snake\'s tongue, if thou canst go alive by the way that thou\nhast entered it, the lesser Kings will be thy servants!\"\n\n\"Again the trail is lost,\" said Mowgli coolly. \"Can any jackal have\nburrowed so deep and bitten this great White Hood? He is surely mad.\nFather of Cobras, I see nothing here to take away.\"\n\n\"By the Gods of the Sun and Moon, it is the madness of death upon the\nboy!\" hissed the Cobra. \"Before thine eyes close I will allow thee this\nfavour. Look thou, and see what man has never seen before!\"\n\n\"They do not well in the Jungle who speak to Mowgli of favours,\" said\nthe boy, between his teeth; \"but the dark changes all, as I know. I will\nlook, if that please thee.\"\n\nHe stared with puckered-up eyes round the vault, and then lifted up from\nthe floor a handful of something that glittered.\n\n\"Oho!\" said he, \"this is like the stuff they play with in the Man-Pack:\nonly this is yellow and the other was brown.\"\n\nHe let the gold pieces fall, and move forward. The floor of the vault\nwas buried some five or six feet deep in coined gold and silver that had\nburst from the sacks it had been originally stored in, and, in the long\nyears, the metal had packed and settled as sand packs at low tide. On it\nand in it and rising through it, as wrecks lift through the sand, were\njewelled elephant-howdahs of embossed silver, studded with plates of\nhammered gold, and adorned with carbuncles and turquoises. There were\npalanquins and litters for carrying queens, framed and braced with\nsilver and enamel, with jade-handled poles and amber curtain-rings;\nthere were golden candlesticks hung with pierced emeralds that quivered\non the branches; there were studded images, five feet high, of forgotten\ngods, silver with jewelled eyes; there were coats of mail, gold inlaid\non steel, and fringed with rotted and blackened seed-pearls; there\nwere helmets, crested and beaded with pigeon\'s-blood rubies; there were\nshields of lacquer, of tortoise-shell and rhinoceros-hide, strapped\nand bossed with red gold and set with emeralds at the edge; there were\nsheaves of diamond-hilted swords, daggers, and hunting-knives; there\nwere golden sacrificial bowls and ladles, and portable altars of a shape\nthat never sees the light of day; there were jade cups and bracelets;\nthere were incense-burners, combs, and pots for perfume, henna, and\neye-powder, all in embossed gold; there were nose-rings, armlets,\nhead-bands, finger-rings, and girdles past any counting; there were\nbelts, seven fingers broad, of square-cut diamonds and rubies, and\nwooden boxes, trebly clamped with iron, from which the wood had fallen\naway in powder, showing the pile of uncut star-sapphires, opals,\ncat\'s-eyes, sapphires, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and garnets within.\n\nThe White Cobra was right. No mere money would begin to pay the value of\nthis treasure, the sifted pickings of centuries of war, plunder, trade,\nand taxation. The coins alone were priceless, leaving out of count all\nthe precious stones; and the dead weight of the gold and silver alone\nmight be two or three hundred tons. Every native ruler in India to-day,\nhowever poor, has a hoard to which he is always adding; and though, once\nin a long while, some enlightened prince may send off forty or fifty\nbullock-cart loads of silver to be exchanged for Government securities,\nthe bulk of them keep their treasure and the knowledge of it very\nclosely to themselves.\n\nBut Mowgli naturally did not understand what these things meant. The\nknives interested him a little, but they did not balance so well as\nhis own, and so he dropped them. At last he found something really\nfascinating laid on the front of a howdah half buried in the coins.\nIt was a three-foot ankus, or elephant-goad--something like a small\nboat-hook. The top was one round, shining ruby, and eight inches of\nthe handle below it were studded with rough turquoises close together,\ngiving a most satisfactory grip. Below them was a rim of jade with a\nflower-pattern running round it--only the leaves were emeralds, and\nthe blossoms were rubies sunk in the cool, green stone. The rest of\nthe handle was a shaft of pure ivory, while the point--the spike and\nhook--was gold-inlaid steel with pictures of elephant-catching; and the\npictures attracted Mowgli, who saw that they had something to do with\nhis friend Hathi the Silent.\n\nThe White Cobra had been following him closely.\n\n\"Is this not worth dying to behold?\" he said. \"Have I not done thee a\ngreat favour?\"\n\n\"I do not understand,\" said Mowgli. \"The things are hard and cold, and\nby no means good to eat. But this\"--he lifted the ankus--\"I desire to\ntake away, that I may see it in the sun. Thou sayest they are all thine?\nWilt thou give it to me, and I will bring thee frogs to eat?\"\n\nThe White Cobra fairly shook with evil delight. \"Assuredly I will give\nit,\" he said. \"All that is here I will give thee--till thou goest away.\"\n\n\"But I go now. This place is dark and cold, and I wish to take the\nthorn-pointed thing to the Jungle.\"\n\n\"Look by thy foot! What is that there?\" Mowgli picked up something white\nand smooth. \"It is the bone of a man\'s head,\" he said quietly. \"And here\nare two more.\"\n\n\"They came to take the treasure away many years ago. I spoke to them in\nthe dark, and they lay still.\"\n\n\"But what do I need of this that is called treasure? If thou wilt\ngive me the ankus to take away, it is good hunting. If not, it is good\nhunting none the less. I do not fight with the Poison People, and I was\nalso taught the Master-word of thy tribe.\"\n\n\"There is but one Master-word here. It is mine!\"\n\nKaa flung himself forward with blazing eyes. \"Who bade me bring the\nMan?\" he hissed.\n\n\"I surely,\" the old Cobra lisped. \"It is long since I have seen Man, and\nthis Man speaks our tongue.\"\n\n\"But there was no talk of killing. How can I go to the Jungle and say\nthat I have led him to his death?\" said Kaa.\n\n\"I talk not of killing till the time. And as to thy going or not going,\nthere is the hole in the wall. Peace, now, thou fat monkey-killer! I\nhave but to touch thy neck, and the Jungle will know thee no longer.\nNever Man came here that went away with the breath under his ribs. I am\nthe Warden of the Treasure of the King\'s City!\"\n\n\"But, thou white worm of the dark, I tell thee there is neither king nor\ncity! The Jungle is all about us!\" cried Kaa.\n\n\"There is still the Treasure. But this can be done. Wait awhile, Kaa of\nthe Rocks, and see the boy run. There is room for great sport here. Life\nis good. Run to and fro awhile, and make sport, boy!\"\n\nMowgli put his hand on Kaa\'s head quietly.\n\n\"The white thing has dealt with men of the Man-Pack until now. He does\nnot know me,\" he whispered. \"He has asked for this hunting. Let him have\nit.\" Mowgli had been standing with the ankus held point down. He flung\nit from him quickly and it dropped crossways just behind the great\nsnake\'s hood, pinning him to the floor. In a flash, Kaa\'s weight was\nupon the writhing body, paralysing it from hood to tail. The red eyes\nburned, and the six spare inches of the head struck furiously right and\nleft.\n\n\"Kill!\" said Kaa, as Mowgli\'s hand went to his knife.\n\n\"No,\" he said, as he drew the blade; \"I will never kill again save for\nfood. But look you, Kaa!\" He caught the snake behind the hood, forced\nthe mouth open with the blade of the knife, and showed the terrible\npoison-fangs of the upper jaw lying black and withered in the gum. The\nWhite Cobra had outlived his poison, as a snake will.\n\n\"THUU\" (\"It is dried up\"--Literally, a rotted out tree-stump), said\nMowgli; and motioning Kaa away, he picked up the ankus, setting the\nWhite Cobra free.\n\n\"The King\'s Treasure needs a new Warden,\" he said gravely. \"Thuu, thou\nhast not done well. Run to and fro and make sport, Thuu!\"\n\n\"I am ashamed. Kill me!\" hissed the White Cobra.\n\n\"There has been too much talk of killing. We will go now. I take the\nthorn-pointed thing, Thuu, because I have fought and worsted thee.\"\n\n\"See, then, that the thing does not kill thee at last. It is Death!\nRemember, it is Death! There is enough in that thing to kill the men of\nall my city. Not long wilt thou hold it, Jungle Man, nor he who takes it\nfrom thee. They will kill, and kill, and kill for its sake! My strength\nis dried up, but the ankus will do my work. It is Death! It is Death! It\nis Death!\"\n\nMowgli crawled out through the hole into the passage again, and the last\nthat he saw was the White Cobra striking furiously with his harmless\nfangs at the stolid golden faces of the gods that lay on the floor, and\nhissing, \"It is Death!\"\n\nThey were glad to get to the light of day once more; and when they\nwere back in their own Jungle and Mowgli made the ankus glitter in the\nmorning light, he was almost as pleased as though he had found a bunch\nof new flowers to stick in his hair.\n\n\"This is brighter than Bagheera\'s eyes,\" he said delightedly, as he\ntwirled the ruby. \"I will show it to him; but what did the Thuu mean\nwhen he talked of death?\"\n\n\"I cannot say. I am sorrowful to my tail\'s tail that he felt not thy\nknife. There is always evil at Cold Lairs--above ground or below. But\nnow I am hungry. Dost thou hunt with me this dawn?\" said Kaa.\n\n\"No; Bagheera must see this thing. Good hunting!\" Mowgli danced off,\nflourishing the great ankus, and stopping from time to time to admire\nit, till he came to that part of the Jungle Bagheera chiefly used,\nand found him drinking after a heavy kill. Mowgli told him all his\nadventures from beginning to end, and Bagheera sniffed at the ankus\nbetween whiles. When Mowgli came to the White Cobra\'s last words, the\nPanther purred approvingly.\n\n\"Then the White Hood spoke the thing which is?\" Mowgli asked quickly.\n\n\"I was born in the King\'s cages at Oodeypore, and it is in my stomach\nthat I know some little of Man. Very many men would kill thrice in a\nnight for the sake of that one big red stone alone.\"\n\n\"But the stone makes it heavy to the hand. My little bright knife is\nbetter; and--see! the red stone is not good to eat. Then WHY would they\nkill?\"\n\n\"Mowgli, go thou and sleep. Thou hast lived among men, and----\"\n\n\"I remember. Men kill because they are not hunting;--for idleness and\npleasure. Wake again, Bagheera. For what use was this thorn-pointed\nthing made?\"\n\nBagheera half opened his eyes--he was very sleepy--with a malicious\ntwinkle.\n\n\"It was made by men to thrust into the head of the sons of Hathi, so\nthat the blood should pour out. I have seen the like in the street of\nOodeypore, before our cages. That thing has tasted the blood of many\nsuch as Hathi.\"\n\n\"But why do they thrust into the heads of elephants?\"\n\n\"To teach them Man\'s Law. Having neither claws nor teeth, men make these\nthings--and worse.\"\n\n\"Always more blood when I come near, even to the things the Man-Pack\nhave made,\" said Mowgli disgustedly. He was getting a little tired of\nthe weight of the ankus. \"If I had known this, I would not have taken\nit. First it was Messua\'s blood on the thongs, and now it is Hathi\'s. I\nwill use it no more. Look!\"\n\nThe ankus flew sparkling, and buried itself point down thirty yards\naway, between the trees. \"So my hands are clean of Death,\" said Mowgli,\nrubbing his palms on the fresh, moist earth. \"The Thuu said Death would\nfollow me. He is old and white and mad.\"\n\n\"White or black, or death or life, _I_ am going to sleep, Little\nBrother. I cannot hunt all night and howl all day, as do some folk.\"\n\nBagheera went off to a hunting-lair that he knew, about two miles off.\nMowgli made an easy way for himself up a convenient tree, knotted three\nor four creepers together, and in less time than it takes to tell was\nswinging in a hammock fifty feet above ground. Though he had no positive\nobjection to strong daylight, Mowgli followed the custom of his\nfriends, and used it as little as he could. When he waked among the very\nloud-voiced peoples that live in the trees, it was twilight once more,\nand he had been dreaming of the beautiful pebbles he had thrown away.\n\n\"At least I will look at the thing again,\" he said, and slid down a\ncreeper to the earth; but Bagheera was before him. Mowgli could hear him\nsnuffing in the half light.\n\n\"Where is the thorn-pointed thing?\" cried Mowgli.\n\n\"A man has taken it. Here is the trail.\"\n\n\"Now we shall see whether the Thuu spoke truth. If the pointed thing is\nDeath, that man will die. Let us follow.\"\n\n\"Kill first,\" said Bagheera. \"An empty stomach makes a careless eye. Men\ngo very slowly, and the Jungle is wet enough to hold the lightest mark.\"\n\nThey killed as soon as they could, but it was nearly three hours before\nthey finished their meat and drink and buckled down to the trail. The\nJungle People know that nothing makes up for being hurried over your\nmeals.\n\n\"Think you the pointed thing will turn in the man\'s hand and kill him?\"\nMowgli asked. \"The Thuu said it was Death.\"\n\n\"We shall see when we find,\" said Bagheera, trotting with his head low.\n\"It is single-foot\" (he meant that there was only one man), \"and the\nweight of the thing has pressed his heel far into the ground.\"\n\n\"Hai! This is as clear as summer lightning,\" Mowgli answered; and they\nfell into the quick, choppy trail-trot in and out through the checkers\nof the moonlight, following the marks of those two bare feet.\n\n\"Now he runs swiftly,\" said Mowgli. \"The toes are spread apart.\" They\nwent on over some wet ground. \"Now why does he turn aside here?\"\n\n\"Wait!\" said Bagheera, and flung himself forward with one superb bound\nas far as ever he could. The first thing to do when a trail ceases to\nexplain itself is to cast forward without leaving, your own confusing\nfoot-marks on the ground. Bagheera turned as he landed, and faced\nMowgli, crying, \"Here comes another trail to meet him. It is a smaller\nfoot, this second trail, and the toes turn inward.\"\n\nThen Mowgli ran up and looked. \"It is the foot of a Gond hunter,\" he\nsaid. \"Look! Here he dragged his bow on the grass. That is why the first\ntrail turned aside so quickly. Big Foot hid from Little Foot.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" said Bagheera. \"Now, lest by crossing each other\'s\ntracks we foul the signs, let each take one trail. I am Big Foot, Little\nBrother, and thou art Little Foot, the Gond.\"\n\nBagheera leaped back to the original trail, leaving Mowgli stooping\nabove the curious narrow track of the wild little man of the woods.\n\n\"Now,\" said Bagheera, moving step by step along the chain of footprints,\n\"I, Big Foot, turn aside here. Now I hide me behind a rock and stand\nstill, not daring to shift my feet. Cry thy trail, Little Brother.\"\n\n\"Now, I, Little Foot, come to the rock,\" said Mowgli, running up his\ntrail. \"Now, I sit down under the rock, leaning upon my right hand, and\nresting my bow between my toes. I wait long, for the mark of my feet is\ndeep here.\"\n\n\"I also,\" said Bagheera, hidden behind the rock. \"I wait, resting the end\nof the thorn-pointed thing upon a stone. It slips, for here is a scratch\nupon the stone. Cry thy trail, Little Brother.\"\n\n\"One, two twigs and a big branch are broken here,\" said Mowgli, in an\nundertone. \"Now, how shall I cry THAT? Ah! It is plain now. I, Little\nFoot, go away making noises and tramplings so that Big Foot may hear\nme.\" He moved away from the rock pace by pace among the trees, his\nvoice rising in the distance as he approached a little cascade. \"I--go,\nfar--away--to--where--the--noise--of--falling-water--covers--my--noise;\nand--here--I--wait. Cry thy trail, Bagheera, Big Foot!\"\n\nThe panther had been casting in every direction to see how Big Foot\'s\ntrail led away from behind the rock. Then he gave tongue:\n\n\"I come from behind the rock upon my knees, dragging the thorn-pointed\nthing. Seeing no one, I run. I, Big Foot, run swiftly. The trail is\nclear. Let each follow his own. I run!\"\n\nBagheera swept on along the clearly-marked trail, and Mowgli followed\nthe steps of the Gond. For some time there was silence in the Jungle.\n\n\"Where art thou, Little Foot?\" cried Bagheera. Mowgli\'s voice answered\nhim not fifty yards to the right.\n\n\"Um!\" said the Panther, with a deep cough. \"The two run side by side,\ndrawing nearer!\"\n\nThey raced on another half-mile, always keeping about the same distance,\ntill Mowgli, whose head was not so close to the ground as Bagheera\'s,\ncried: \"They have met. Good hunting--look! Here stood Little Foot, with\nhis knee on a rock--and yonder is Big Foot indeed!\"\n\nNot ten yards in front of them, stretched across a pile of broken rocks,\nlay the body of a villager of the district, a long, small-feathered Gond\narrow through his back and breast.\n\n\"Was the Thuu so old and so mad, Little Brother?\" said Bagheera gently.\n\"Here is one death, at least.\"\n\n\"Follow on. But where is the drinker of elephant\'s blood--the red-eyed\nthorn?\"\n\n\"Little Foot has it--perhaps. It is single-foot again now.\"\n\nThe single trail of a light man who had been running quickly and bearing\na burden on his left shoulder held on round a long, low spur of dried\ngrass, where each footfall seemed, to the sharp eyes of the trackers,\nmarked in hot iron.\n\nNeither spoke till the trail ran up to the ashes of a camp-fire hidden\nin a ravine.\n\n\"Again!\" said Bagheera, checking as though he had been turned into\nstone.\n\nThe body of a little wizened Gond lay with its feet in the ashes, and\nBagheera looked inquiringly at Mowgli.\n\n\"That was done with a bamboo,\" said the boy, after one glance. \"I have\nused such a thing among the buffaloes when I served in the Man-Pack.\nThe Father of Cobras--I am sorrowful that I made a jest of him--knew\nthe breed well, as I might have known. Said I not that men kill for\nidleness?\"\n\n\"Indeed, they killed for the sake of the red and blue stones,\" Bagheera\nanswered. \"Remember, I was in the King\'s cages at Oodeypore.\"\n\n\"One, two, three, four tracks,\" said Mowgli, stooping over the ashes.\n\"Four tracks of men with shod feet. They do not go so quickly as Gonds.\nNow, what evil had the little woodman done to them? See, they talked\ntogether, all five, standing up, before they killed him. Bagheera, let\nus go back. My stomach is heavy in me, and yet it heaves up and down\nlike an oriole\'s nest at the end of a branch.\"\n\n\"It is not good hunting to leave game afoot. Follow!\" said the panther.\n\"Those eight shod feet have not gone far.\"\n\nNo more was said for fully an hour, as they worked up the broad trail of\nthe four men with shod feet.\n\nIt was clear, hot daylight now, and Bagheera said, \"I smell smoke.\"\n\nMen are always more ready to eat than to run, Mowgli answered, trotting\nin and out between the low scrub bushes of the new Jungle they were\nexploring. Bagheera, a little to his left, made an indescribable noise\nin his throat.\n\n\"Here is one that has done with feeding,\" said he. A tumbled bundle\nof gay-coloured clothes lay under a bush, and round it was some spilt\nflour.\n\n\"That was done by the bamboo again,\" said Mowgli. \"See! that white dust\nis what men eat. They have taken the kill from this one,--he carried\ntheir food,--and given him for a kill to Chil, the Kite.\"\n\n\"It is the third,\" said Bagheera.\n\n\"I will go with new, big frogs to the Father of Cobras, and feed him\nfat,\" said Mowgli to himself. \"The drinker of elephant\'s blood is Death\nhimself--but still I do not understand!\"\n\n\"Follow!\" said Bagheera.\n\nThey had not gone half a mile farther when they heard Ko, the Crow,\nsinging the death-song in the top of a tamarisk under whose shade three\nmen were lying. A half-dead fire smoked in the centre of the circle,\nunder an iron plate which held a blackened and burned cake of unleavened\nbread. Close to the fire, and blazing in the sunshine, lay the\nruby-and-turquoise ankus.\n\n\"The thing works quickly; all ends here,\" said Bagheera. \"How did THESE\ndie, Mowgli? There is no mark on any.\"\n\nA Jungle-dweller gets to learn by experience as much as many doctors\nknow of poisonous plants and berries. Mowgli sniffed the smoke that came\nup from the fire, broke off a morsel of the blackened bread, tasted it,\nand spat it out again.\n\n\"Apple of Death,\" he coughed. \"The first must have made it ready in the\nfood for THESE, who killed him, having first killed the Gond.\"\n\n\"Good hunting, indeed! The kills follow close,\" said Bagheera.\n\n\"Apple of Death\" is what the Jungle call thorn-apple or dhatura, the\nreadiest poison in all India.\n\n\"What now?\" said the panther. \"Must thou and I kill each other for\nyonder red-eyed slayer?\"\n\n\"Can it speak?\" said Mowgli in a whisper. \"Did I do it a wrong when I\nthrew it away? Between us two it can do no wrong, for we do not desire\nwhat men desire. If it be left here, it will assuredly continue to kill\nmen one after another as fast as nuts fall in a high wind. I have no\nlove to men, but even I would not have them die six in a night.\"\n\n\"What matter? They are only men. They killed one another, and were well\npleased,\" said Bagheera. \"That first little woodman hunted well.\"\n\n\"They are cubs none the less; and a cub will drown himself to bite the\nmoon\'s light on the water. The fault was mine,\" said Mowgli, who spoke\nas though he knew all about everything. \"I will never again bring into\nthe Jungle strange things--not though they be as beautiful as flowers.\nThis\"--he handled the ankus gingerly--\"goes back to the Father of\nCobras. But first we must sleep, and we cannot sleep near these\nsleepers. Also we must bury HIM, lest he run away and kill another six.\nDig me a hole under that tree.\"\n\n\"But, Little Brother,\" said Bagheera, moving off to the spot, \"I tell\nthee it is no fault of the blood-drinker. The trouble is with the men.\"\n\n\"All one,\" said Mowgli. \"Dig the hole deep. When we wake I will take him\nup and carry him back.\"\n\n*****\n\nTwo nights later, as the White Cobra sat mourning in the darkness of\nthe vault, ashamed, and robbed, and alone, the turquoise ankus whirled\nthrough the hole in the wall, and clashed on the floor of golden coins.\n\n\"Father of Cobras,\" said Mowgli (he was careful to keep the other side\nof the wall), \"get thee a young and ripe one of thine own people to help\nthee guard the King\'s Treasure, so that no man may come away alive any\nmore.\"\n\n\"Ah-ha! It returns, then. I said the thing was Death. How comes it that\nthou art still alive?\" the old Cobra mumbled, twining lovingly round the\nankus-haft.\n\n\"By the Bull that bought me, I do not know! That thing has killed six\ntimes in a night. Let him go out no more.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONG OF THE LITTLE HUNTER\n\n Ere Mor the Peacock flutters, ere the Monkey People cry,\n Ere Chil the Kite swoops down a furlong sheer,\n Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh--\n He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!\n\n Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade,\n And the whisper spreads and widens far and near;\n And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now--\n He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!\n\n Ere the moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks\n are ribbed with light,\n When the downward-dipping trails are dank and drear,\n Comes a breathing hard behind thee--snuffle-snuffle\n through the night--\n It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!\n\n On thy knees and draw the bow; bid the shrilling arrow go;\n In the empty, mocking thicket plunge the spear;\n But thy hands are loosed and weak, and the blood has left\n thy cheek--\n It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!\n\n When the heat-cloud sucks the tempest, when the slivered\n pine-trees fall,\n When the blinding, blaring rain-squalls lash and veer;\n Through the war-gongs of the thunder rings a voice more\n loud than all--\n It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!\n\n Now the spates are banked and deep; now the footless\n boulders leap--\n Now the lightning shows each littlest leaf-rib clear--\n But thy throat is shut and dried, and thy heart against\n thy side\n Hammers: Fear, O Little Hunter--this is Fear!\n\n\n\n\nQUIQUERN\n\n The People of the Eastern Ice, they are melting like the snow--\n They beg for coffee and sugar; they go where the white men go.\n The People of the Western Ice, they learn to steal and fight;\n \"They sell their furs to the trading-post: they sell their souls\n to the white.\n The People of the Southern Ice, they trade with the whaler\'s\n crew;\n Their women have many ribbons, but their tents are torn and few.\n But the People of the Elder Ice, beyond the white man\'s ken--\n Their spears are made of the narwhal-horn, and they are the\n last of the Men!\n Translation.\n\n\"He has opened his eyes. Look!\"\n\n\"Put him in the skin again. He will be a strong dog. On the fourth month\nwe will name him.\"\n\n\"For whom?\" said Amoraq.\n\nKadlu\'s eye rolled round the skin-lined snow-house till it fell on\nfourteen-year-old Kotuko sitting on the sleeping-bench, making a button\nout of walrus ivory. \"Name him for me,\" said Kotuko, with a grin. \"I\nshall need him one day.\"\n\nKadlu grinned back till his eyes were almost buried in the fat of his\nflat cheeks, and nodded to Amoraq, while the puppy\'s fierce mother\nwhined to see her baby wriggling far out of reach in the little sealskin\npouch hung above the warmth of the blubber-lamp. Kotuko went on with his\ncarving, and Kadlu threw a rolled bundle of leather dog-harnesses into a\ntiny little room that opened from one side of the house, slipped off his\nheavy deerskin hunting-suit, put it into a whalebone-net that hung above\nanother lamp, and dropped down on the sleeping-bench to whittle at\na piece of frozen seal-meat till Amoraq, his wife, should bring the\nregular dinner of boiled meat and blood-soup. He had been out since\nearly dawn at the seal-holes, eight miles away, and had come home with\nthree big seal. Half-way down the long, low snow passage or tunnel\nthat led to the inner door of the house you could hear snappings and\nyelpings, as the dogs of his sleigh-team, released from the day\'s work,\nscuffled for warm places.\n\nWhen the yelpings grew too loud Kotuko lazily rolled off the\nsleeping-bench, and picked up a whip with an eighteen-inch handle of\nspringy whalebone, and twenty-five feet of heavy, plaited thong. He\ndived into the passage, where it sounded as though all the dogs were\neating him alive; but that was no more than their regular grace before\nmeals. When he crawled out at the far end, half a dozen furry heads\nfollowed him with their eyes as he went to a sort of gallows of\nwhale-jawbones, from which the dog\'s meat was hung; split off the frozen\nstuff in big lumps with a broad-headed spear; and stood, his whip in\none hand and the meat in the other. Each beast was called by name, the\nweakest first, and woe betide any dog that moved out of his turn; for\nthe tapering lash would shoot out like thonged lightning, and flick away\nan inch or so of hair and hide. Each beast growled, snapped, choked once\nover his portion, and hurried back to the protection of the passage,\nwhile the boy stood upon the snow under the blazing Northern Lights and\ndealt out justice. The last to be served was the big black leader of\nthe team, who kept order when the dogs were harnessed; and to him Kotuko\ngave a double allowance of meat as well as an extra crack of the whip.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Kotuko, coiling up the lash, \"I have a little one over the\nlamp that will make a great many howlings. SARPOK! Get in!\"\n\nHe crawled back over the huddled dogs, dusted the dry snow from his\nfurs with the whalebone beater that Amoraq kept by the door, tapped the\nskin-lined roof of the house to shake off any icicles that might have\nfallen from the dome of snow above, and curled up on the bench. The\ndogs in the passage snored and whined in their sleep, the boy-baby in\nAmoraq\'s deep fur hood kicked and choked and gurgled, and the mother of\nthe newly-named puppy lay at Kotuko\'s side, her eyes fixed on the bundle\nof sealskin, warm and safe above the broad yellow flame of the lamp.\n\nAnd all this happened far away to the north, beyond Labrador, beyond\nHudson\'s Strait, where the great tides heave the ice about, north of\nMelville Peninsula--north even of the narrow Fury and Hecla Straits--on\nthe north shore of Baffin Land, where Bylot\'s Island stands above the\nice of Lancaster Sound like a pudding-bowl wrong side up. North of\nLancaster Sound there is little we know anything about, except North\nDevon and Ellesmere Land; but even there live a few scattered people,\nnext door, as it were, to the very Pole.\n\nKadlu was an Inuit,--what you call an Esquimau,--and his tribe, some\nthirty persons all told, belonged to the Tununirmiut--\"the country lying\nat the back of something.\" In the maps that desolate coast is written\nNavy Board Inlet, but the Inuit name is best, because the country lies\nat the very back of everything in the world. For nine months of the year\nthere is only ice and snow, and gale after gale, with a cold that no\none can realise who has never seen the thermometer even at zero. For six\nmonths of those nine it is dark; and that is what makes it so horrible.\nIn the three months of the summer it only freezes every other day and\nevery night, and then the snow begins to weep off on the southerly\nslopes, and a few ground-willows put out their woolly buds, a tiny\nstonecrop or so makes believe to blossom, beaches of fine gravel and\nrounded stones run down to the open sea, and polished boulders and\nstreaked rocks lift up above the granulated snow. But all that is gone\nin a few weeks, and the wild winter locks down again on the land; while\nat sea the ice tears up and down the offing, jamming and ramming, and\nsplitting and hitting, and pounding and grounding, till it all freezes\ntogether, ten feet thick, from the land outward to deep water.\n\nIn the winter Kadlu would follow the seal to the edge of this land-ice,\nand spear them as they came up to breathe at their blow-holes. The\nseal must have open water to live and catch fish in, and in the deep of\nwinter the ice would sometimes run eighty miles without a break from the\nnearest shore. In the spring he and his people retreated from the floes\nto the rocky mainland, where they put up tents of skins, and snared the\nsea-birds, or speared the young seal basking on the beaches. Later, they\nwould go south into Baffin Land after the reindeer, and to get their\nyear\'s store of salmon from the hundreds of streams and lakes of the\ninterior; coming back north in September or October for the musk-ox\nhunting and the regular winter sealery. This travelling was done with\ndog-sleighs, twenty and thirty miles a day, or sometimes down the coast\nin big skin \"woman-boats,\" when the dogs and the babies lay among the\nfeet of the rowers, and the women sang songs as they glided from cape to\ncape over the glassy, cold waters. All the luxuries that the Tununirmiut\nknew came from the south--driftwood for sleigh-runners, rod-iron for\nharpoon-tips, steel knives, tin kettles that cooked food much better\nthan the old soap-stone affairs, flint and steel, and even matches, as\nwell as coloured ribbons for the women\'s hair, little cheap mirrors,\nand red cloth for the edging of deerskin dress-jackets. Kadlu traded the\nrich, creamy, twisted narwhal horn and musk-ox teeth (these are just\nas valuable as pearls) to the Southern Inuit, and they, in turn, traded\nwith the whalers and the missionary-posts of Exeter and Cumberland\nSounds; and so the chain went on, till a kettle picked up by a ship\'s\ncook in the Bhendy Bazaar might end its days over a blubber-lamp\nsomewhere on the cool side of the Arctic Circle.\n\nKadlu, being a good hunter, was rich in iron harpoons, snow-knives,\nbird-darts, and all the other things that make life easy up there in the\ngreat cold; and he was the head of his tribe, or, as they say, \"the\nman who knows all about it by practice.\" This did not give him any\nauthority, except now and then he could advise his friends to change\ntheir hunting-grounds; but Kotuko used it to domineer a little, in the\nlazy, fat Inuit fashion, over the other boys, when they came out at\nnight to play ball in the moonlight, or to sing the Child\'s Song to the\nAurora Borealis.\n\nBut at fourteen an Inuit feels himself a man, and Kotuko was tired of\nmaking snares for wild-fowl and kit-foxes, and most tired of all of\nhelping the women to chew seal-and deer-skins (that supples them as\nnothing else can) the long day through, while the men were out hunting.\nHe wanted to go into the quaggi, the Singing-House, when the hunters\ngathered there for their mysteries, and the angekok, the sorcerer,\nfrightened them into the most delightful fits after the lamps were put\nout, and you could hear the Spirit of the Reindeer stamping on the roof;\nand when a spear was thrust out into the open black night it came back\ncovered with hot blood. He wanted to throw his big boots into the net\nwith the tired air of the head of a family, and to gamble with the\nhunters when they dropped in of an evening and played a sort of\nhome-made roulette with a tin pot and a nail. There were hundreds of\nthings that he wanted to do, but the grown men laughed at him and said,\n\"Wait till you have been in the buckle, Kotuko. Hunting is not ALL\ncatching.\"\n\nNow that his father had named a puppy for him, things looked brighter.\nAn Inuit does not waste a good dog on his son till the boy knows\nsomething of dog-driving; and Kotuko was more than sure that he knew\nmore than everything.\n\nIf the puppy had not had an iron constitution he would have died from\nover-stuffing and over-handling. Kotuko made him a tiny harness with a\ntrace to it, and hauled him all over the house-floor, shouting: \"Aua!\nJa aua!\" (Go to the right). \"Choiachoi! Ja choiachoi!\" (Go to the left).\n\"Ohaha!\" (Stop). The puppy did not like it at all, but being fished for\nin this way was pure happiness beside being put to the sleigh for the\nfirst time. He just sat down on the snow, and played with the seal-hide\ntrace that ran from his harness to the pitu, the big thong in the bows\nof the sleigh. Then the team started, and the puppy found the heavy\nten-foot sleigh running up his back, and dragging him along the snow,\nwhile Kotuko laughed till the tears ran down his face. There followed\ndays and days of the cruel whip that hisses like the wind over ice, and\nhis companions all bit him because he did not know his work, and the\nharness chafed him, and he was dot allowed to sleep with Kotuko any\nmore, but had to take the coldest place in the passage. It was a sad\ntime for the puppy.\n\nThe boy learned, too, as fast as the dog; though a dog-sleigh is a\nheart-breaking thing to manage. Each beast is harnessed, the weakest\nnearest to the driver, by his own separate trace, which runs under\nhis left fore-leg to the main thong, where it is fastened by a sort\nof button and loop which can be slipped by a turn of the wrist, thus\nfreeing one dog at a time. This is very necessary, because young dogs\noften get the trace between their hind legs, where it cuts to the bone.\nAnd they one and all WILL go visiting their friends as they run, jumping\nin and out among the traces. Then they fight, and the result is more\nmixed than a wet fishing-line next morning. A great deal of trouble can\nbe avoided by scientific use of the whip. Every Inuit boy prides himself\nas being a master of the long lash; but it is easy to flick at a mark on\nthe ground, and difficult to lean forward and catch a shirking dog just\nbehind the shoulders when the sleigh is going at full speed. If you call\none dog\'s name for \"visiting,\" and accidentally lash another, the two\nwill fight it out at once, and stop all the others. Again, if you travel\nwith a companion and begin to talk, or by yourself and sing, the dogs\nwill halt, turn round, and sit down to hear what you have to say. Kotuko\nwas run away from once or twice through forgetting to block the sleigh\nwhen he stopped; and he broke many lashings, and ruined a few thongs\nbefore he could be trusted with a full team of eight and the light\nsleigh. Then he felt himself a person of consequence, and on smooth,\nblack ice, with a bold heart and a quick elbow, he smoked along over\nthe levels as fast as a pack in full cry. He would go ten miles to the\nseal-holes, and when he was on the hunting-grounds he would twitch a\ntrace loose from the pitu, and free the big black leader, who was\nthe cleverest dog in the team. As soon as the dog had scented a\nbreathing-hole, Kotuko would reverse the sleigh, driving a couple of\nsawed-off antlers, that stuck up like perambulator-handles from the\nback-rest, deep into the snow, so that the team could not get away. Then\nhe would crawl forward inch by inch, and wait till the seal came up\nto breathe. Then he would stab down swiftly with his spear and\nrunning-line, and presently would haul his seal up to the lip of the\nice, while the black leader came up and helped to pull the carcass\nacross the ice to the sleigh. That was the time when the harnessed dogs\nyelled and foamed with excitement, and Kotuko laid the long lash like a\nred-hot bar across all their faces, till the carcass froze stiff. Going\nhome was the heavy work. The loaded sleigh had to be humoured among the\nrough ice, and the dogs sat down and looked hungrily at the seal instead\nof pulling. At last they would strike the well-worn sleigh-road to the\nvillage, and toodle-kiyi along the ringing ice, heads down and tails\nup, while Kotuko struck up the \"An-gutivaun tai-na tau-na-ne taina\" (The\nSong of the Returning Hunter), and voices hailed him from house to house\nunder all that dim, star-littern sky.\n\nWhen Kotuko the dog came to his full growth he enjoyed himself too. He\nfought his way up the team steadily, fight after fight, till one fine\nevening, over their food, he tackled the big, black leader (Kotuko the\nboy saw fair play), and made second dog of him, as they say. So he was\npromoted to the long thong of the leading dog, running five feet in\nadvance of all the others: it was his bounden duty to stop all fighting,\nin harness or out of it, and he wore a collar of copper wire, very thick\nand heavy. On special occasions he was fed with cooked food inside the\nhouse, and sometimes was allowed to sleep on the bench with Kotuko. He\nwas a good seal-dog, and would keep a musk-ox at bay by running round\nhim and snapping at his heels. He would even--and this for a sleigh-dog\nis the last proof of bravery--he would even stand up to the gaunt Arctic\nwolf, whom all dogs of the North, as a rule, fear beyond anything\nthat walks the snow. He and his master--they did not count the team of\nordinary dogs as company--hunted together, day after day and night\nafter night, fur-wrapped boy and savage, long-haired, narrow-eyed,\nwhite-fanged, yellow brute. All an Inuit has to do is to get food and\nskins for himself and his family. The women-folk make the skins into\nclothing, and occasionally help in trapping small game; but the bulk\nof the food--and they eat enormously--must be found by the men. If the\nsupply fails there is no one up there to buy or beg or borrow from. The\npeople must die.\n\nAn Inuit does not think of these chances till he is forced to. Kadlu,\nKotuko, Amoraq, and the boy-baby who kicked about in Amoraq\'s fur hood\nand chewed pieces of blubber all day, were as happy together as any\nfamily in the world. They came of a very gentle race--an Inuit seldom\nloses his temper, and almost never strikes a child--who did not know\nexactly what telling a real lie meant, still less how to steal. They\nwere content to spear their living out of the heart of the bitter,\nhopeless cold; to smile oily smiles, and tell queer ghost and fairy\ntales of evenings, and eat till they could eat no more, and sing the\nendless woman\'s song: \"Amna aya, aya amna, ah! ah!\" through the long\nlamp-lighted days as they mended their clothes and their hunting-gear.\n\nBut one terrible winter everything betrayed them. The Tununirmiut\nreturned from the yearly salmon-fishing, and made their houses on the\nearly ice to the north of Bylot\'s Island, ready to go after the seal\nas soon as the sea froze. But it was an early and savage autumn. All\nthrough September there were continuous gales that broke up the smooth\nseal-ice when it was only four or five feet thick, and forced it inland,\nand piled a great barrier, some twenty miles broad, of lumped and ragged\nand needly ice, over which it was impossible to draw the dog-sleighs.\nThe edge of the floe off which the seal were used to fish in winter\nlay perhaps twenty miles beyond this barrier, and out of reach of the\nTununirmiut. Even so, they might have managed to scrape through the\nwinter on their stock of frozen salmon and stored blubber, and what\nthe traps gave them, but in December one of their hunters came across a\ntupik (a skin-tent) of three women and a girl nearly dead, whose men\nhad come down from the far North and been crushed in their little skin\nhunting-boats while they were out after the long-horned narwhal. Kadlu,\nof course, could only distribute the women among the huts of the winter\nvillage, for no Inuit dare refuse a meal to a stranger. He never knows\nwhen his own turn may come to beg. Amoraq took the girl, who was about\nfourteen, into her own house as a sort of servant. From the cut of her\nsharp-pointed hood, and the long diamond pattern of her white deer-skin\nleggings, they supposed she came from Ellesmere Land. She had never seen\ntin cooking-pots or wooden-shod sleighs before; but Kotuko the boy and\nKotuko the dog were rather fond of her.\n\nThen all the foxes went south, and even the wolverine, that growling,\nblunt-headed little thief of the snow, did not take the trouble to\nfollow the line of empty traps that Kotuko set. The tribe lost a\ncouple of their best hunters, who were badly crippled in a fight with\na musk-ox, and this threw more work on the others. Kotuko went out, day\nafter day, with a light hunting-sleigh and six or seven of the strongest\ndogs, looking till his eyes ached for some patch of clear ice where\na seal might perhaps have scratched a breathing-hole. Kotuko the dog\nranged far and wide, and in the dead stillness of the ice-fields\nKotuko the boy could hear his half-choked whine of excitement, above a\nseal-hole three miles away, as plainly as though he were at his elbow.\nWhen the dog found a hole the boy would build himself a little, low snow\nwall to keep off the worst of the bitter wind, and there he would wait\nten, twelve, twenty hours for the seal to come up to breathe, his eyes\nglued to the tiny mark he had made above the hole to guide the downward\nthrust of his harpoon, a little seal-skin mat under his feet, and his\nlegs tied together in the tutareang (the buckle that the old hunters\nhad talked about). This helps to keep a man\'s legs from twitching as he\nwaits and waits and waits for the quick-eared seal to rise. Though there\nis no excitement in it, you can easily believe that the sitting still in\nthe buckle with the thermometer perhaps forty degrees below zero is\nthe hardest work an Inuit knows. When a seal was caught, Kotuko the dog\nwould bound forward, his trace trailing behind him, and help to pull the\nbody to the sleigh, where the tired and hungry dogs lay sullenly under\nthe lee of the broken ice.\n\nA seal did not go very far, for each mouth in the little village had a\nright to be filled, and neither bone, hide, nor sinew was wasted. The\ndogs\' meat was taken for human use, and Amoraq fed the team with pieces\nof old summer skin-tents raked out from under the sleeping-bench, and\nthey howled and howled again, and waked to howl hungrily. One could\ntell by the soap-stone lamps in the huts that famine was near. In good\nseasons, when blubber was plentiful, the light in the boat-shaped lamps\nwould be two feet high--cheerful, oily, and yellow. Now it was a\nbare six inches: Amoraq carefully pricked down the moss wick, when an\nunwatched flame brightened for a moment, and the eyes of all the family\nfollowed her hand. The horror of famine up there in the great cold is\nnot so much dying, as dying in the dark. All the Inuit dread the dark\nthat presses on them without a break for six months in each year; and\nwhen the lamps are low in the houses the minds of people begin to be\nshaken and confused.\n\nBut worse was to come.\n\nThe underfed dogs snapped and growled in the passages, glaring at the\ncold stars, and snuffing into the bitter wind, night after night. When\nthey stopped howling the silence fell down again as solid and heavy as a\nsnowdrift against a door, and men could hear the beating of their blood\nin the thin passages of the ear, and the thumping of their own hearts,\nthat sounded as loud as the noise of sorcerers\' drums beaten across\nthe snow. One night Kotuko the dog, who had been unusually sullen in\nharness, leaped up and pushed his head against Kotuko\'s knee. Kotuko\npatted him, but the dog still pushed blindly forward, fawning. Then\nKadlu waked, and gripped the heavy wolf-like head, and stared into the\nglassy eyes. The dog whimpered and shivered between Kadlu\'s knees. The\nhair rose about his neck, and he growled as though a stranger were at\nthe door; then he barked joyously, and rolled on the ground, and bit at\nKotuko\'s boot like a puppy.\n\n\"What is it?\" said Kotuko; for he was beginning to be afraid.\n\n\"The sickness,\" Kadlu answered. \"It is the dog sickness.\" Kotuko the dog\nlifted his nose and howled and howled again.\n\n\"I have not seen this before. What will he do?\" said Kotuko.\n\nKadlu shrugged one shoulder a little, and crossed the hut for his short\nstabbing-harpoon. The big dog looked at him, howled again, and slunk\naway down the passage, while the other dogs drew aside right and left to\ngive him ample room. When he was out on the snow he barked furiously, as\nthough on the trail of a musk-ox, and, barking and leaping and frisking,\npassed out of sight. His trouble was not hydrophobia, but simple, plain\nmadness. The cold and the hunger, and, above all, the dark, had turned\nhis head; and when the terrible dog-sickness once shows itself in a\nteam, it spreads like wild-fire. Next hunting-day another dog sickened,\nand was killed then and there by Kotuko as he bit and struggled among\nthe traces. Then the black second dog, who had been the leader in the\nold days, suddenly gave tongue on an imaginary reindeer-track, and when\nthey slipped him from the pitu he flew at the throat of an ice-cliff,\nand ran away as his leader had done, his harness on his back. After that\nno one would take the dogs out again. They needed them for something\nelse, and the dogs knew it; and though they were tied down and fed by\nhand, their eyes were full of despair and fear. To make things worse,\nthe old women began to tell ghost-tales, and to say that they had met\nthe spirits of the dead hunters lost that autumn, who prophesied all\nsorts of horrible things.\n\nKotuko grieved more for the loss of his dog than anything else; for\nthough an Inuit eats enormously he also knows how to starve. But the\nhunger, the darkness, the cold, and the exposure told on his strength,\nand he began to hear voices inside his head, and to see people who\nwere not there, out of the tail of his eye. One night--he had unbuckled\nhimself after ten hours\' waiting above a \"blind\" seal-hole, and was\nstaggering back to the village faint and dizzy--he halted to lean\nhis back against a boulder which happened to be supported like a\nrocking-stone on a single jutting point of ice. His weight disturbed the\nbalance of the thing, it rolled over ponderously, and as Kotuko\nsprang aside to avoid it, slid after him, squeaking and hissing on the\nice-slope.\n\nThat was enough for Kotuko. He had been brought up to believe that every\nrock and boulder had its owner (its inua), who was generally a one-eyed\nkind of a Woman-Thing called a tornaq, and that when a tornaq meant to\nhelp a man she rolled after him inside her stone house, and asked him\nwhether he would take her for a guardian spirit. (In summer thaws the\nice-propped rocks and boulders roll and slip all over the face of the\nland, so you can easily see how the idea of live stones arose.) Kotuko\nheard the blood beating in his ears as he had heard it all day, and\nhe thought that was the tornaq of the stone speaking to him. Before he\nreached home he was quite certain that he had held a long conversation\nwith her, and as all his people believed that this was quite possible,\nno one contradicted him.\n\n\"She said to me, \'I jump down, I jump down from my place on the snow,\'\"\ncried Kotuko, with hollow eyes, leaning forward in the half-lighted hut.\n\"She said, \'I will be a guide.\' She said, \'I will guide you to the good\nseal-holes.\' To-morrow I go out, and the tornaq will guide me.\"\n\nThen the angekok, the village sorcerer, came in, and Kotuko told him the\ntale a second time. It lost nothing in the telling.\n\n\"Follow the tornait [the spirits of the stones], and they will bring us\nfood again,\" said the angekok.\n\nNow the girl from the North had been lying near the lamp, eating very\nlittle and saying less for days past; but when Amoraq and Kadlu next\nmorning packed and lashed a little hand-sleigh for Kotuko, and loaded it\nwith his hunting-gear and as much blubber and frozen seal-meat as they\ncould spare, she took the pulling-rope, and stepped out boldly at the\nboy\'s side.\n\n\"Your house is my house,\" she said, as the little bone-shod sleigh\nsqueaked and bumped behind them in the awful Arctic night.\n\n\"My house is your house,\" said Kotuko; \"but I think that we shall both\ngo to Sedna together.\"\n\nNow Sedna is the Mistress of the Underworld, and the Inuit believe that\nevery one who dies must spend a year in her horrible country before\ngoing to Quadliparmiut, the Happy Place, where it never freezes and the\nfat reindeer trot up when you call.\n\nThrough the village people were shouting: \"The tornait have spoken to\nKotuko. They will show him open ice. He will bring us the seal again!\"\nTheir voices were soon swallowed up by the cold, empty dark, and\nKotuko and the girl shouldered close together as they strained on the\npulling-rope or humoured the sleigh through the ice in the direction of\nthe Polar Sea. Kotuko insisted that the tornaq of the stone had told him\nto go north, and north they went under Tuktuqdjung the Reindeer--those\nstars that we call the Great Bear.\n\nNo European could have made five miles a day over the ice-rubbish and\nthe sharp-edged drifts; but those two knew exactly the turn of the wrist\nthat coaxes a sleigh round a hummock, the jerk that nearly lifts it\nout of an ice-crack, and the exact strength that goes to the few quiet\nstrokes of the spear-head that make a path possible when everything\nlooks hopeless.\n\nThe girl said nothing, but bowed her head, and the long wolverine-fur\nfringe of her ermine hood blew across her broad, dark face. The sky\nabove them was an intense velvety black, changing to bands of Indian\nred on the horizon, where the great stars burned like street-lamps. From\ntime to time a greenish wave of the Northern Lights would roll across\nthe hollow of the high heavens, flick like a flag, and disappear; or\na meteor would crackle from darkness to darkness, trailing a shower of\nsparks behind. Then they could see the ridged and furrowed surface of\nthe floe tipped and laced with strange colours--red, copper, and bluish;\nbut in the ordinary starlight everything turned to one frost-bitten\ngray. The floe, as you will remember, had been battered and tormented by\nthe autumn gales till it was one frozen earthquake. There were gullies\nand ravines, and holes like gravel-pits, cut in ice; lumps and scattered\npieces frozen down to the original floor of the floe; blotches of old\nblack ice that had been thrust under the floe in some gale and heaved\nup again; roundish boulders of ice; saw-like edges of ice carved by the\nsnow that flies before the wind; and sunken pits where thirty or forty\nacres lay below the level of the rest of the field. From a little\ndistance you might have taken the lumps for seal or walrus, overturned\nsleighs or men on a hunting expedition, or even the great Ten-legged\nWhite Spirit-Bear himself; but in spite of these fantastic shapes, all\non the very edge of starting into life, there was neither sound nor the\nleast faint echo of sound. And through this silence and through this\nwaste, where the sudden lights flapped and went out again, the sleigh\nand the two that pulled it crawled like things in a nightmare--a\nnightmare of the end of the world at the end of the world.\n\nWhen they were tired Kotuko would make what the hunters call a\n\"half-house,\" a very small snow hut, into which they would huddle with\nthe travelling-lamp, and try to thaw out the frozen seal-meat. When they\nhad slept, the march began again--thirty miles a day to get ten miles\nnorthward. The girl was always very silent, but Kotuko muttered\nto himself and broke out into songs he had learned in the\nSinging-House--summer songs, and reindeer and salmon songs--all horribly\nout of place at that season. He would declare that he heard the tornaq\ngrowling to him, and would run wildly up a hummock, tossing his arms and\nspeaking in loud, threatening tones. To tell the truth, Kotuko was very\nnearly crazy for the time being; but the girl was sure that he was being\nguided by his guardian spirit, and that everything would come right.\nShe was not surprised, therefore, when at the end of the fourth march\nKotuko, whose eyes were burning like fire-balls in his head, told her\nthat his tornaq was following them across the snow in the shape of a\ntwo-headed dog. The girl looked where Kotuko pointed, and something\nseemed to slip into a ravine. It was certainly not human, but everybody\nknew that the tornait preferred to appear in the shape of bear and seal,\nand such like.\n\nIt might have been the Ten-legged White Spirit-Bear himself, or it might\nhave been anything, for Kotuko and the girl were so starved that their\neyes were untrustworthy. They had trapped nothing, and seen no trace of\ngame since they had left the village; their food would not hold out for\nanother week, and there was a gale coming. A Polar storm can blow for\nten days without a break, and all that while it is certain death to\nbe abroad. Kotuko laid up a snow-house large enough to take in the\nhand-sleigh (never be separated from your meat), and while he was\nshaping the last irregular block of ice that makes the key-stone of the\nroof, he saw a Thing looking at him from a little cliff of ice half a\nmile away. The air was hazy, and the Thing seemed to be forty feet long\nand ten feet high, with twenty feet of tail and a shape that quivered\nall along the outlines. The girl saw it too, but instead of crying aloud\nwith terror, said quietly, \"That is Quiquern. What comes after?\"\n\n\"He will speak to me,\" said Kotuko; but the snow-knife trembled in his\nhand as he spoke, because however much a man may believe that he is a\nfriend of strange and ugly spirits, he seldom likes to be taken quite\nat his word. Quiquern, too, is the phantom of a gigantic toothless\ndog without any hair, who is supposed to live in the far North, and to\nwander about the country just before things are going to happen. They\nmay be pleasant or unpleasant things, but not even the sorcerers care to\nspeak about Quiquern. He makes the dogs go mad. Like the Spirit-Bear, he\nhas several extra pairs of legs,--six or eight,--and this Thing jumping\nup and down in the haze had more legs than any real dog needed. Kotuko\nand the girl huddled into their hut quickly. Of course if Quiquern had\nwanted them, he could have torn it to pieces above their heads, but the\nsense of a foot-thick snow-wall between themselves and the wicked dark\nwas great comfort. The gale broke with a shriek of wind like the shriek\nof a train, and for three days and three nights it held, never varying\none point, and never lulling even for a minute. They fed the stone lamp\nbetween their knees, and nibbled at the half-warm seal-meat, and watched\nthe black soot gather on the roof for seventy-two long hours. The girl\ncounted up the food in the sleigh; there was not more than two days\'\nsupply, and Kotuko looked over the iron heads and the deer-sinew\nfastenings of his harpoon and his seal-lance and his bird-dart. There\nwas nothing else to do.\n\n\"We shall go to Sedna soon--very soon,\" the girl whispered. \"In three\ndays we shall lie down and go. Will your tornaq do nothing? Sing her an\nangekok\'s song to make her come here.\"\n\nHe began to sing in the high-pitched howl of the magic songs, and the\ngale went down slowly. In the middle of his song the girl started, laid\nher mittened hand and then her head to the ice floor of the hut. Kotuko\nfollowed her example, and the two kneeled, staring into each other\'s\neyes, and listening with every nerve. He ripped a thin sliver of\nwhalebone from the rim of a bird-snare that lay on the sleigh, and,\nafter straightening, set it upright in a little hole in the ice, firming\nit down with his mitten. It was almost as delicately adjusted as a\ncompass-needle, and now instead of listening they watched. The thin rod\nquivered a little--the least little jar in the world; then it vibrated\nsteadily for a few seconds, came to rest, and vibrated again, this time\nnodding to another point of the compass.\n\n\"Too soon!\" said Kotuko. \"Some big floe has broken far away outside.\"\n\nThe girl pointed at the rod, and shook her head. \"It is the big\nbreaking,\" she said. \"Listen to the ground-ice. It knocks.\"\n\nWhen they kneeled this time they heard the most curious muffled grunts\nand knockings, apparently under their feet. Sometimes it sounded as\nthough a blind puppy were squeaking above the lamp; then as if a stone\nwere being ground on hard ice; and again, like muffled blows on a drum;\nbut all dragged out and made small, as though they travelled through a\nlittle horn a weary distance away.\n\n\"We shall not go to Sedna lying down,\" said Kotuko. \"It is the breaking.\nThe tornaq has cheated us. We shall die.\"\n\nAll this may sound absurd enough, but the two were face to face with\na very real danger. The three days\' gale had driven the deep water of\nBaffin\'s Bay southerly, and piled it on to the edge of the far-reaching\nland-ice that stretches from Bylot\'s Island to the west. Also, the\nstrong current which sets east out of Lancaster Sound carried with it\nmile upon mile of what they call pack-ice--rough ice that has not frozen\ninto fields; and this pack was bombarding the floe at the same time\nthat the swell and heave of the storm-worked sea was weakening and\nundermining it. What Kotuko and the girl had been listening to were the\nfaint echoes of that fight thirty or forty miles away, and the little\ntell-tale rod quivered to the shock of it.\n\nNow, as the Inuit say, when the ice once wakes after its long winter\nsleep, there is no knowing what may happen, for solid floe-ice changes\nshape almost as quickly as a cloud. The gale was evidently a spring gale\nsent out of time, and anything was possible.\n\nYet the two were happier in their minds than before. If the floe broke\nup there would be no more waiting and suffering. Spirits, goblins, and\nwitch-people were moving about on the racking ice, and they might find\nthemselves stepping into Sedna\'s country side by side with all sorts of\nwild Things, the flush of excitement still on them. When they left the\nhut after the gale, the noise on the horizon was steadily growing, and\nthe tough ice moaned and buzzed all round them.\n\n\"It is still waiting,\" said Kotuko.\n\nOn the top of a hummock sat or crouched the eight-legged Thing that they\nhad seen three days before--and it howled horribly.\n\n\"Let us follow,\" said the girl. \"It may know some way that does not lead\nto Sedna\"; but she reeled from weakness as she took the pulling-rope.\nThe Thing moved off slowly and clumsily across the ridges, heading\nalways toward the westward and the land, and they followed, while the\ngrowling thunder at the edge of the floe rolled nearer and nearer. The\nfloe\'s lip was split and cracked in every direction for three or four\nmiles inland, and great pans of ten-foot-thick ice, from a few yards\nto twenty acres square, were jolting and ducking and surging into one\nanother, and into the yet unbroken floe, as the heavy swell took and\nshook and spouted between them. This battering-ram ice was, so to speak,\nthe first army that the sea was flinging against the floe. The incessant\ncrash and jar of these cakes almost drowned the ripping sound of sheets\nof pack-ice driven bodily under the floe as cards are hastily pushed\nunder a tablecloth. Where the water was shallow these sheets would be\npiled one atop of the other till the bottommost touched mud fifty feet\ndown, and the discoloured sea banked behind the muddy ice till the\nincreasing pressure drove all forward again. In addition to the floe and\nthe pack-ice, the gale and the currents were bringing down true bergs,\nsailing mountains of ice, snapped off from the Greenland side of the\nwater or the north shore of Melville Bay. They pounded in solemnly,\nthe waves breaking white round them, and advanced on the floe like an\nold-time fleet under full sail. A berg that seemed ready to carry the\nworld before it would ground helplessly in deep water, reel over, and\nwallow in a lather of foam and mud and flying frozen spray, while a much\nsmaller and lower one would rip and ride into the flat floe, flinging\ntons of ice on either side, and cutting a track half a mile long before\nit was stopped. Some fell like swords, shearing a raw-edged canal;\nand others splintered into a shower of blocks, weighing scores of tons\napiece, that whirled and skirted among the hummocks. Others, again, rose\nup bodily out of the water when they shoaled, twisted as though in\npain, and fell solidly on their sides, while the sea threshed over their\nshoulders. This trampling and crowding and bending and buckling and\narching of the ice into every possible shape was going on as far as the\neye could reach all along the north line of the floe. From where\nKotuko and the girl were, the confusion looked no more than an uneasy,\nrippling, crawling movement under the horizon; but it came toward them\neach moment, and they could hear, far away to landward a heavy booming,\nas it might have been the boom of artillery through a fog. That showed\nthat the floe was being jammed home against the iron cliffs of Bylot\'s\nIsland, the land to the southward behind them.\n\n\"This has never been before,\" said Kotuko, staring stupidly. \"This is\nnot the time. How can the floe break NOW?\"\n\n\"Follow THAT!\" the girl cried, pointing to the Thing half limping,\nhalf running distractedly before them. They followed, tugging at the\nhand-sleigh, while nearer and nearer came the roaring march of the ice.\nAt last the fields round them cracked and starred in every direction,\nand the cracks opened and snapped like the teeth of wolves. But where\nthe Thing rested, on a mound of old and scattered ice-blocks some fifty\nfeet high, there was no motion. Kotuko leaped forward wildly, dragging\nthe girl after him, and crawled to the bottom of the mound. The talking\nof the ice grew louder and louder round them, but the mound stayed fast,\nand, as the girl looked at him, he threw his right elbow upward and\noutward, making the Inuit sign for land in the shape of an island. And\nland it was that the eight-legged, limping Thing had led them to--some\ngranite-tipped, sand-beached islet off the coast, shod and sheathed and\nmasked with ice so that no man could have told it from the floe, but at\nthe bottom solid earth, and not shifting ice! The smashing and rebound\nof the floes as they grounded and splintered marked the borders of it,\nand a friendly shoal ran out to the northward, and turned aside the rush\nof the heaviest ice, exactly as a ploughshare turns over loam. There was\ndanger, of course, that some heavily squeezed ice-field might shoot up\nthe beach, and plane off the top of the islet bodily; but that did not\ntrouble Kotuko and the girl when they made their snow-house and began\nto eat, and heard the ice hammer and skid along the beach. The Thing\nhad disappeared, and Kotuko was talking excitedly about his power over\nspirits as he crouched round the lamp. In the middle of his wild sayings\nthe girl began to laugh, and rock herself backward and forward.\n\nBehind her shoulder, crawling into the hut crawl by crawl, there were\ntwo heads, one yellow and one black, that belonged to two of the most\nsorrowful and ashamed dogs that ever you saw. Kotuko the dog was one,\nand the black leader was the other. Both were now fat, well-looking, and\nquite restored to their proper minds, but coupled to each other in an\nextraordinary fashion. When the black leader ran off, you remember, his\nharness was still on him. He must have met Kotuko the dog, and played or\nfought with him, for his shoulder-loop had caught in the plaited copper\nwire of Kotuko\'s collar, and had drawn tight, so that neither could get\nat the trace to gnaw it apart, but each was fastened sidelong to\nhis neighbour\'s neck. That, with the freedom of hunting on their own\naccount, must have helped to cure their madness. They were very sober.\n\nThe girl pushed the two shamefaced creatures towards Kotuko, and,\nsobbing with laughter, cried, \"That is Quiquern, who led us to safe\nground. Look at his eight legs and double head!\"\n\nKotuko cut them free, and they fell into his arms, yellow and black\ntogether, trying to explain how they had got their senses back again.\nKotuko ran a hand down their ribs, which were round and well clothed.\n\"They have found food,\" he said, with a grin. \"I do not think we shall\ngo to Sedna so soon. My tornaq sent these. The sickness has left them.\"\n\nAs soon as they had greeted Kotuko, these two, who had been forced to\nsleep and eat and hunt together for the past few weeks, flew at each\nother\'s throat, and there was a beautiful battle in the snow-house.\n\"Empty dogs do not fight,\" Kotuko said. \"They have found the seal. Let\nus sleep. We shall find food.\"\n\nWhen they waked there was open water on the north beach of the island,\nand all the loosened ice had been driven landward. The first sound of\nthe surf is one of the most delightful that the Inuit can hear, for it\nmeans that spring is on the road. Kotuko and the girl took hold of hands\nand smiled, for the clear, full roar of the surge among the ice\nreminded them of salmon and reindeer time and the smell of blossoming\nground-willows. Even as they looked, the sea began to skim over between\nthe floating cakes of ice, so intense was the cold; but on the horizon\nthere was a vast red glare, and that was the light of the sunken sun.\nIt was more like hearing him yawn in his sleep than seeing him rise, and\nthe glare lasted for only a few minutes, but it marked the turn of the\nyear. Nothing, they felt, could alter that.\n\nKotuko found the dogs fighting over a fresh-killed seal who was\nfollowing the fish that a gale always disturbs. He was the first of some\ntwenty or thirty seal that landed on the island in the course of the\nday, and till the sea froze hard there were hundreds of keen black heads\nrejoicing in the shallow free water and floating about with the floating\nice.\n\nIt was good to eat seal-liver again; to fill the lamps recklessly with\nblubber, and watch the flame blaze three feet in the air; but as soon\nas the new sea-ice bore, Kotuko and the girl loaded the hand-sleigh, and\nmade the two dogs pull as they had never pulled in their lives, for they\nfeared what might have happened in their village. The weather was as\npitiless as usual; but it is easier to draw a sleigh loaded with good\nfood than to hunt starving. They left five-and-twenty seal carcasses\nburied in the ice of the beach, all ready for use, and hurried back to\ntheir people. The dogs showed them the way as soon as Kotuko told them\nwhat was expected, and though there was no sign of a landmark, in two\ndays they were giving tongue outside Kadlu\'s house. Only three dogs\nanswered them; the others had been eaten, and the houses were all dark.\nBut when Kotuko shouted, \"Ojo!\" (boiled meat), weak voices replied, and\nwhen he called the muster of the village name by name, very distinctly,\nthere were no gaps in it.\n\nAn hour later the lamps blazed in Kadlu\'s house; snow-water was heating;\nthe pots were beginning to simmer, and the snow was dripping from the\nroof, as Amoraq made ready a meal for all the village, and the boy-baby\nin the hood chewed at a strip of rich nutty blubber, and the hunters\nslowly and methodically filled themselves to the very brim with\nseal-meat. Kotuko and the girl told their tale. The two dogs sat between\nthem, and whenever their names came in, they cocked an ear apiece and\nlooked most thoroughly ashamed of themselves. A dog who has once gone\nmad and recovered, the Inuit say, is safe against all further attacks.\n\n\"So the tornaq did not forget us,\" said Kotuko. \"The storm blew, the ice\nbroke, and the seal swam in behind the fish that were frightened by the\nstorm. Now the new seal-holes are not two days distant. Let the good\nhunters go to-morrow and bring back the seal I have speared--twenty-five\nseal buried in the ice. When we have eaten those we will all follow the\nseal on the floe.\"\n\n\"What do YOU do?\" said the sorcerer in the same sort of voice as he used\nto Kadlu, richest of the Tununirmiut.\n\nKadlu looked at the girl from the North, and said quietly, \"WE build a\nhouse.\" He pointed to the north-west side of Kadlu\'s house, for that is\nthe side on which the married son or daughter always lives.\n\nThe girl turned her hands palm upward, with a little despairing shake\nof her head. She was a foreigner, picked up starving, and could bring\nnothing to the housekeeping.\n\nAmoraq jumped from the bench where she sat, and began to sweep things\ninto the girl\'s lap--stone lamps, iron skin-scrapers, tin kettles,\ndeer-skins embroidered with musk-ox teeth, and real canvas-needles such\nas sailors use--the finest dowry that has ever been given on the far\nedge of the Arctic Circle, and the girl from the North bowed her head\ndown to the very floor.\n\n\"Also these!\" said Kotuko, laughing and signing to the dogs, who thrust\ntheir cold muzzles into the girl\'s face.\n\n\"Ah,\" said the angekok, with an important cough, as though he had been\nthinking it all over. \"As soon as Kotuko left the village I went to the\nSinging-House and sang magic. I sang all the long nights, and called\nupon the Spirit of the Reindeer. MY singing made the gale blow that\nbroke the ice and drew the two dogs toward Kotuko when the ice would\nhave crushed his bones. MY song drew the seal in behind the broken ice.\nMy body lay still in the quaggi, but my spirit ran about on the ice, and\nguided Kotuko and the dogs in all the things they did. I did it.\"\n\nEverybody was full and sleepy, so no one contradicted; and the angekok,\nby virtue of his office, helped himself to yet another lump of boiled\nmeat, and lay down to sleep with the others in the warm, well-lighted,\noil-smelling home.\n\n*****\n\nNow Kotuko, who drew very well in the Inuit fashion, scratched pictures\nof all these adventures on a long, flat piece of ivory with a hole at\none end. When he and the girl went north to Ellesmere Land in the year\nof the Wonderful Open Winter, he left the picture-story with Kadlu, who\nlost it in the shingle when his dog-sleigh broke down one summer on the\nbeach of Lake Netilling at Nikosiring, and there a Lake Inuit found\nit next spring and sold it to a man at Imigen who was interpreter on a\nCumberland Sound whaler, and he sold it to Hans Olsen, who was afterward\na quartermaster on board a big steamer that took tourists to the North\nCape in Norway. When the tourist season was over, the steamer ran\nbetween London and Australia, stopping at Ceylon, and there Olsen sold\nthe ivory to a Cingalese jeweller for two imitation sapphires. I found\nit under some rubbish in a house at Colombo, and have translated it from\none end to the other.\n\n\n\n\n\'ANGUTIVAUN TAINA\'\n\n[This is a very free translation of the Song of the Returning Hunter,\nas the men used to sing it after seal-spearing. The Inuit always repeat\nthings over and over again.]\n\n Our gloves are stiff with the frozen blood,\n Our furs with the drifted snow,\n As we come in with the seal--the seal!\n In from the edge of the floe.\n\n Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq!\n And the yelping dog-teams go,\n And the long whips crack, and the men come back,\n Back from the edge of the floe!\n\n We tracked our seal to his secret place,\n We heard him scratch below,\n We made our mark, and we watched beside,\n Out on the edge of the floe.\n\n We raised our lance when he rose to breathe,\n We drove it downward--so!\n And we played him thus, and we killed him thus,\n Out on the edge of the floe.\n\n Our gloves are glued with the frozen blood,\n Our eyes with the drifting snow;\n But we come back to our wives again,\n Back from the edge of the floe!\n\n Au jana! Aua! Oha! Haq!\n And the loaded dog-teams go,\n And the wives can hear their men come back.\n Back from the edge of the floe!\n\n\n\n\nRED DOG\n\n For our white and our excellent nights---for the nights of\n swift running.\n Fair ranging, far seeing, good hunting, sure cunning!\n For the smells of the dawning, untainted, ere dew has departed!\n For the rush through the mist, and the quarry blind-started!\n For the cry of our mates when the sambhur has wheeled and is\n standing at bay,\n For the risk and the riot of night!\n For the sleep at the lair-mouth by day,\n It is met, and we go to the fight.\n Bay! O Bay!\n\nIt was after the letting in of the Jungle that the pleasantest part of\nMowgli\'s life began. He had the good conscience that comes from paying\ndebts; all the Jungle was his friend, and just a little afraid of him.\nThe things that he did and saw and heard when he was wandering from one\npeople to another, with or without his four companions, would make many\nmany stories, each as long as this one. So you will never be told how\nhe met the Mad Elephant of Mandla, who killed two-and-twenty bullocks\ndrawing eleven carts of coined silver to the Government Treasury,\nand scattered the shiny rupees in the dust; how he fought Jacala, the\nCrocodile, all one long night in the Marshes of the North, and broke his\nskinning-knife on the brute\'s back-plates; how he found a new and longer\nknife round the neck of a man who had been killed by a wild boar, and\nhow he tracked that boar and killed him as a fair price for the knife;\nhow he was caught up once in the Great Famine, by the moving of the\ndeer, and nearly crushed to death in the swaying hot herds; how he saved\nHathi the Silent from being once more trapped in a pit with a stake\nat the bottom, and how, next day, he himself fell into a very cunning\nleopard-trap, and how Hathi broke the thick wooden bars to pieces above\nhim; how he milked the wild buffaloes in the swamp, and how----\n\nBut we must tell one tale at a time. Father and Mother Wolf died, and\nMowgli rolled a big boulder against the mouth of their cave, and cried\nthe Death Song over them; Baloo grew very old and stiff, and even\nBagheera, whose nerves were steel and whose muscles were iron, was a\nshade slower on the kill than he had been. Akela turned from gray to\nmilky white with pure age; his ribs stuck out, and he walked as though\nhe had been made of wood, and Mowgli killed for him. But the young\nwolves, the children of the disbanded Seeonee Pack, throve and\nincreased, and when there were about forty of them, masterless,\nfull-voiced, clean-footed five-year-olds, Akela told them that they\nought to gather themselves together and follow the Law, and run under\none head, as befitted the Free People.\n\nThis was not a question in which Mowgli concerned himself, for, as he\nsaid, he had eaten sour fruit, and he knew the tree it hung from; but\nwhen Phao, son of Phaona (his father was the Gray Tracker in the days\nof Akela\'s headship), fought his way to the leadership of the Pack,\naccording to the Jungle Law, and the old calls and songs began to ring\nunder the stars once more, Mowgli came to the Council Rock for memory\'s\nsake. When he chose to speak the Pack waited till he had finished, and\nhe sat at Akela\'s side on the rock above Phao. Those were days of good\nhunting and good sleeping. No stranger cared to break into the jungles\nthat belonged to Mowgli\'s people, as they called the Pack, and the young\nwolves grew fat and strong, and there were many cubs to bring to the\nLooking-over. Mowgli always attended a Looking-over, remembering the\nnight when a black panther bought a naked brown baby into the pack,\nand the long call, \"Look, look well, O Wolves,\" made his heart flutter.\nOtherwise, he would be far away in the Jungle with his four brothers,\ntasting, touching, seeing, and feeling new things.\n\nOne twilight when he was trotting leisurely across the ranges to give\nAkela the half of a buck that he had killed, while the Four jogged\nbehind him, sparring a little, and tumbling one another over for joy of\nbeing alive, he heard a cry that had never been heard since the bad days\nof Shere Khan. It was what they call in the Jungle the pheeal, a hideous\nkind of shriek that the jackal gives when he is hunting behind a tiger,\nor when there is a big killing afoot. If you can imagine a mixture of\nhate, triumph, fear, and despair, with a kind of leer running through\nit, you will get some notion of the pheeal that rose and sank and\nwavered and quavered far away across the Waingunga. The Four stopped at\nonce, bristling and growling. Mowgli\'s hand went to his knife, and he\nchecked, the blood in his face, his eyebrows knotted.\n\n\"There is no Striped One dare kill here,\" he said.\n\n\"That is not the cry of the Forerunner,\" answered Gray Brother. \"It is\nsome great killing. Listen!\"\n\nIt broke out again, half sobbing and half chuckling, just as though the\njackal had soft human lips. Then Mowgli drew deep breath, and ran to the\nCouncil Rock, overtaking on his way hurrying wolves of the Pack.\nPhao and Akela were on the Rock together, and below them, every nerve\nstrained, sat the others. The mothers and the cubs were cantering off to\ntheir lairs; for when the pheeal cries it is no time for weak things to\nbe abroad.\n\nThey could hear nothing except the Waingunga rushing and gurgling in\nthe dark, and the light evening winds among the tree-tops, till suddenly\nacross the river a wolf called. It was no wolf of the Pack, for they\nwere all at the Rock. The note changed to a long, despairing bay; and\n\"Dhole!\" it said, \"Dhole! dhole! dhole!\" They heard tired feet on the\nrocks, and a gaunt wolf, streaked with red on his flanks, his right\nfore-paw useless, and his jaws white with foam, flung himself into the\ncircle and lay gasping at Mowgli\'s feet.\n\n\"Good hunting! Under whose Headship?\" said Phao gravely.\n\n\"Good hunting! Won-tolla am I,\" was the answer. He meant that he was\na solitary wolf, fending for himself, his mate, and his cubs in\nsome lonely lair, as do many wolves in the south. Won-tolla means an\nOutlier--one who lies out from any Pack. Then he panted, and they could\nsee his heart-beats shake him backward and forward.\n\n\"What moves?\" said Phao, for that is the question all the Jungle asks\nafter the pheeal cries.\n\n\"The dhole, the dhole of the Dekkan--Red Dog, the Killer! They came\nnorth from the south saying the Dekkan was empty and killing out by the\nway. When this moon was new there were four to me--my mate and three\ncubs. She would teach them to kill on the grass plains, hiding to\ndrive the buck, as we do who are of the open. At midnight I heard them\ntogether, full tongue on the trail. At the dawn-wind I found them stiff\nin the grass--four, Free People, four when this moon was new. Then\nsought I my Blood-Right and found the dhole.\"\n\n\"How many?\" said Mowgli quickly; the Pack growled deep in their throats.\n\n\"I do not know. Three of them will kill no more, but at the last they\ndrove me like the buck; on my three legs they drove me. Look, Free\nPeople!\"\n\nHe thrust out his mangled fore-foot, all dark with dried blood. There\nwere cruel bites low down on his side, and his throat was torn and\nworried.\n\n\"Eat,\" said Akela, rising up from the meat Mowgli had brought him, and\nthe Outlier flung himself on it.\n\n\"This shall be no loss,\" he said humbly, when he had taken off the first\nedge of his hunger. \"Give me a little strength, Free People, and I also\nwill kill. My lair is empty that was full when this moon was new, and\nthe Blood Debt is not all paid.\"\n\nPhao heard his teeth crack on a haunch-bone and grunted approvingly.\n\n\"We shall need those jaws,\" said he. \"Were there cubs with the dhole?\"\n\n\"Nay, nay. Red Hunters all: grown dogs of their Pack, heavy and strong\nfor all that they eat lizards in the Dekkan.\"\n\nWhat Won-tolla had said meant that the dhole, the red hunting-dog of the\nDekkan, was moving to kill, and the Pack knew well that even the tiger\nwill surrender a new kill to the dhole. They drive straight through the\nJungle, and what they meet they pull down and tear to pieces. Though\nthey are not as big nor half as cunning as the wolf, they are very\nstrong and very numerous. The dhole, for instance, do not begin to call\nthemselves a pack till they are a hundred strong; whereas forty wolves\nmake a very fair pack indeed. Mowgli\'s wanderings had taken him to\nthe edge of the high grassy downs of the Dekkan, and he had seen the\nfearless dholes sleeping and playing and scratching themselves in the\nlittle hollows and tussocks that they use for lairs. He despised and\nhated them because they did not smell like the Free People, because they\ndid not live in caves, and, above all, because they had hair between\ntheir toes while he and his friends were clean-footed. But he knew, for\nHathi had told him, what a terrible thing a dhole hunting-pack was. Even\nHathi moves aside from their line, and until they are killed, or till\ngame is scarce, they will go forward.\n\nAkela knew something of the dholes, too, for he said to Mowgli quietly,\n\"It is better to die in a Full Pack than leaderless and alone. This is\ngood hunting, and--my last. But, as men live, thou hast very many more\nnights and days, Little Brother. Go north and lie down, and if any live\nafter the dhole has gone by he shall bring thee word of the fight.\"\n\n\n\"Ah,\" said Mowgli, quite gravely, \"must I go to the marshes and catch\nlittle fish and sleep in a tree, or must I ask help of the Bandar-log\nand crack nuts, while the Pack fight below?\"\n\n\"It is to the death,\" said Akela. \"Thou hast never met the dhole--the\nRed Killer. Even the Striped One----\"\n\n\"Aowa! Aowa!\" said Mowgli pettingly. \"I have killed one striped ape, and\nsure am I in my stomach that Shere Khan would have left his own mate for\nmeat to the dhole if he had winded a pack across three ranges. Listen\nnow: There was a wolf, my father, and there was a wolf, my mother, and\nthere was an old gray wolf (not too wise: he is white now) was my father\nand my mother. Therefore I--\" he raised his voice, \"I say that when the\ndhole come, and if the dhole come, Mowgli and the Free People are of\none skin for that hunting; and I say, by the Bull that bought me--by the\nBull Bagheera paid for me in the old days which ye of the Pack do not\nremember--_I_ say, that the Trees and the River may hear and hold fast\nif I forget; _I_ say that this my knife shall be as a tooth to the\nPack--and I do not think it is so blunt. This is my Word which has gone\nfrom me.\"\n\n\"Thou dost not know the dhole, man with a wolf\'s tongue,\" said\nWon-tolla. \"I look only to clear the Blood Debt against them ere they\nhave me in many pieces. They move slowly, killing out as they go, but in\ntwo days a little strength will come back to me and I turn again for the\nBlood Debt. But for YE, Free People, my word is that ye go north and eat\nbut little for a while till the dhole are gone. There is no meat in this\nhunting.\"\n\n\"Hear the Outlier!\" said Mowgli with a laugh. \"Free People, we must go\nnorth and dig lizards and rats from the bank, lest by any chance we meet\nthe dhole. He must kill out our hunting-grounds, while we lie hid in the\nnorth till it please him to give us our own again. He is a dog--and the\npup of a dog--red, yellow-bellied, lairless, and haired between every\ntoe! He counts his cubs six and eight at the litter, as though he were\nChikai, the little leaping rat. Surely we must run away, Free People,\nand beg leave of the peoples of the north for the offal of dead cattle!\nYe know the saying: \'North are the vermin; south are the lice. WE are\nthe Jungle.\' Choose ye, O choose. It is good hunting! For the Pack--for\nthe Full Pack--for the lair and the litter; for the in-kill and the\nout-kill; for the mate that drives the doe and the little, little cub\nwithin the cave; it is met!--it is met!--it is met!\"\n\nThe Pack answered with one deep, crashing bark that sounded in the night\nlike a big tree falling. \"It is met!\" they cried. \"Stay with these,\"\nsaid Mowgli to the Four. \"We shall need every tooth. Phao and Akela must\nmake ready the battle. I go to count the dogs.\"\n\n\"It is death!\" Won-tolla cried, half rising. \"What can such a hairless\none do against the Red Dog? Even the Striped One, remember----\"\n\n\"Thou art indeed an Outlier,\" Mowgli called back; \"but we will speak\nwhen the dholes are dead. Good hunting all!\"\n\nHe hurried off into the darkness, wild with excitement, hardly looking\nwhere he set foot, and the natural consequence was that he tripped full\nlength over Kaa\'s great coils where the python lay watching a deer-path\nnear the river.\n\n\"Kssha!\" said Kaa angrily. \"Is this jungle-work, to stamp and tramp and\nundo a night\'s hunting--when the game are moving so well, too?\"\n\n\"The fault was mine,\" said Mowgli, picking himself up. \"Indeed I was\nseeking thee, Flathead, but each time we meet thou art longer and\nbroader by the length of my arm. There is none like thee in the Jungle,\nwise, old, strong, and most beautiful Kaa.\"\n\n\"Now whither does THIS trail lead?\" Kaa\'s voice was gentler. \"Not a\nmoon since there was a Manling with a knife threw stones at my head and\ncalled me bad little tree-cat names, because I lay asleep in the open.\"\n\n\"Ay, and turned every driven deer to all the winds, and Mowgli was\nhunting, and this same Flathead was too deaf to hear his whistle, and\nleave the deer-roads free,\" Mowgli answered composedly, sitting down\namong the painted coils.\n\n\"Now this same Manling comes with soft, tickling words to this same\nFlathead, telling him that he is wise and strong and beautiful, and\nthis same old Flathead believes and makes a place, thus, for this same\nstone-throwing Manling, and--Art thou at ease now? Could Bagheera give\nthee so good a resting-place?\"\n\nKaa had, as usual, made a sort of soft half-hammock of himself under\nMowgli\'s weight. The boy reached out in the darkness, and gathered in\nthe supple cable-like neck till Kaa\'s head rested on his shoulder, and\nthen he told him all that had happened in the Jungle that night.\n\n\"Wise I may be,\" said Kaa at the end; \"but deaf I surely am. Else I\nshould have heard the pheeal. Small wonder the Eaters of Grass are\nuneasy. How many be the dhole?\"\n\n\"I have not yet seen. I came hot-foot to thee. Thou art older than\nHathi. But oh, Kaa,\"--here Mowgli wriggled with sheerjoy,--\"it will be\ngood hunting. Few of us will see another moon.\"\n\n\"Dost THOU strike in this? Remember thou art a Man; and remember what\nPack cast thee out. Let the Wolf look to the Dog. THOU art a Man.\"\n\n\"Last year\'s nuts are this year\'s black earth,\" said Mowgli. \"It is true\nthat I am a Man, but it is in my stomach that this night I have said\nthat I am a Wolf. I called the River and the Trees to remember. I am of\nthe Free People, Kaa, till the dhole has gone by.\"\n\n\"Free People,\" Kaa grunted. \"Free thieves! And thou hast tied thyself\ninto the death-knot for the sake of the memory of the dead wolves? This\nis no good hunting.\"\n\n\"It is my Word which I have spoken. The Trees know, the River knows.\nTill the dhole have gone by my Word comes not back to me.\"\n\n\"Ngssh! This changes all trails. I had thought to take thee away with me\nto the northern marshes, but the Word--even the Word of a little, naked,\nhairless Manling--is the Word. Now I, Kaa, say----\"\n\n\"Think well, Flathead, lest thou tie thyself into the death-knot also. I\nneed no Word from thee, for well I know----\"\n\n\"Be it so, then,\" said Kaa. \"I will give no Word; but what is in thy\nstomach to do when the dhole come?\"\n\n\"They must swim the Waingunga. I thought to meet them with my knife in\nthe shallows, the Pack behind me; and so stabbing and thrusting, we a\nlittle might turn them down-stream, or cool their throats.\"\n\n\"The dhole do not turn and their throats are hot,\" said Kaa. \"There will\nbe neither Manling nor Wolf-cub when that hunting is done, but only dry\nbones.\"\n\n\"Alala! If we die, we die. It will be most good hunting. But my stomach\nis young, and I have not seen many Rains. I am not wise nor strong. Hast\nthou a better plan, Kaa?\"\n\n\"I have seen a hundred and a hundred Rains. Ere Hathi cast his\nmilk-tushes my trail was big in the dust. By the First Egg, I am older\nthan many trees, and I have seen all that the Jungle has done.\"\n\n\"But THIS is new hunting,\" said Mowgli. \"Never before have the dhole\ncrossed our trail.\"\n\n\"What is has been. What will be is no more than a forgotten year\nstriking backward. Be still while I count those my years.\"\n\nFor a long hour Mowgli lay back among the coils, while Kaa, his head\nmotionless on the ground, thought of all that he had seen and known\nsince the day he came from the egg. The light seemed to go out of his\neyes and leave them like stale opals, and now and again he made little\nstiff passes with his head, right and left, as though he were hunting in\nhis sleep. Mowgli dozed quietly, for he knew that there is nothing like\nsleep before hunting, and he was trained to take it at any hour of the\nday or night.\n\nThen he felt Kaa\'s back grow bigger and broader below him as the huge\npython puffed himself out, hissing with the noise of a sword drawn from\na steel scabbard.\n\n\"I have seen all the dead seasons,\" Kaa said at last, \"and the\ngreat trees and the old elephants, and the rocks that were bare and\nsharp-pointed ere the moss grew. Art THOU still alive, Manling?\"\n\n\"It is only a little after moonset,\" said Mowgli. \"I do not\nunderstand----\"\n\n\"Hssh! I am again Kaa. I knew it was but a little time. Now we will\ngo to the river, and I will show thee what is to be done against the\ndhole.\"\n\nHe turned, straight as an arrow, for the main stream of the Waingunga,\nplunging in a little above the pool that hid the Peace Rock, Mowgli at\nhis side.\n\n\"Nay, do not swim. I go swiftly. My back, Little Brother.\"\n\nMowgli tucked his left arm round Kaa\'s neck, dropped his right close to\nhis body, and straightened his feet. Then Kaa breasted the current as\nhe alone could, and the ripple of the checked water stood up in a frill\nround Mowgli\'s neck, and his feet were waved to and fro in the eddy\nunder the python\'s lashing sides. A mile or two above the Peace Rock\nthe Waingunga narrows between a gorge of marble rocks from eighty to\na hundred feet high, and the current runs like a mill-race between and\nover all manner of ugly stones. But Mowgli did not trouble his head\nabout the water; little water in the world could have given him a\nmoment\'s fear. He was looking at the gorge on either side and sniffing\nuneasily, for there was a sweetish-sourish smell in the air, very like\nthe smell of a big ant-hill on a hot day. Instinctively he lowered\nhimself in the water, only raising his head to breathe from time to\ntime, and Kaa came to anchor with a double twist of his tail round a\nsunken rock, holding Mowgli in the hollow of a coil, while the water\nraced on.\n\n\"This is the Place of Death,\" said the boy. \"Why do we come here?\"\n\n\"They sleep,\" said Kaa. \"Hathi will not turn aside for the Striped One.\nYet Hathi and the Striped One together turn aside for the dhole, and the\ndhole they say turn aside for nothing. And yet for whom do the Little\nPeople of the Rocks turn aside? Tell me, Master of the Jungle, who is\nthe Master of the Jungle?\"\n\n\"These,\" Mowgli whispered. \"It is the Place of Death. Let us go.\"\n\n\"Nay, look well, for they are asleep. It is as it was when I was not the\nlength of thy arm.\"\n\nThe split and weatherworn rocks of the gorge of the Waingunga had been\nused since the beginning of the Jungle by the Little People of the\nRocks--the busy, furious, black wild bees of India; and, as Mowgli knew\nwell, all trails turned off half a mile before they reached the gorge.\nFor centuries the Little People had hived and swarmed from cleft to\ncleft, and swarmed again, staining the white marble with stale honey,\nand made their combs tall and deep in the dark of the inner caves, where\nneither man nor beast nor fire nor water had ever touched them. The\nlength of the gorge on both siaes was hung as it were with black\nshimmery velvet curtains, and Mowgli sank as he looked, for those were\nthe clotted millions of the sleeping bees. There were other lumps and\nfestoons and things like decayed tree-trunks studded on the face of the\nrock, the old combs of past years, or new cities built in the shadow of\nthe windless gorge, and huge masses of spongy, rotten trash had rolled\ndown and stuck among the trees and creepers that clung to the rock-face.\nAs he listened he heard more than once the rustle and slide of a\nhoney-loaded comb turning over or failing away somewhere in the dark\ngalleries; then a booming of angry wings, and the sullen drip, drip,\ndrip, of the wasted honey, guttering along till it lipped over some\nledge in the open air and sluggishly trickled down on the twigs. There\nwas a tiny little beach, not five feet broad, on one side of the river,\nand that was piled high with the rubbish of uncounted years. There were\ndead bees, drones, sweepings, and stale combs, and wings of marauding\nmoths that had strayed in after honey, all tumbled in smooth piles of\nthe finest black dust. The mere sharp smell of it was enough to frighten\nanything that had no wings, and knew what the Little People were.\n\nKaa moved up-stream again till he came to a sandy bar at the head of the\ngorge.\n\n\"Here is this season\'s kill,\" said he. \"Look!\" On the bank lay the\nskeletons of a couple of young deer and a buffalo. Mowgli could see\nthat neither wolf nor jackal had touched the hones, which were laid out\nnaturally.\n\n\"They came beyond the line; they did not know the Law,\" murmured\nMowgli, \"and the Little People killed them. Let us go ere they wake.\"\n\n\"They do not wake till the dawn,\" said Kaa. \"Now I will tell thee. A\nhunted buck from the south, many, many Rains ago, came hither from the\nsouth, not knowing the Jungle, a Pack on his trail. Being made blind by\nfear, he leaped from above, the Pack running by sight, for they were\nhot and blind on the trail. The sun was high, and the Little People were\nmany and very angry. Many, too, were those of the Pack who leaped into\nthe Waingunga, but they were dead ere they took water. Those who did not\nleap died also in the rocks above. But the buck lived.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Because he came first, running for his life, leaping ere the Little\nPeople were aware, and was in the river when they gathered to kill.\nThe Pack, following, was altogether lost under the weight of the Little\nPeople.\"\n\n\"The buck lived?\" Mowgli repeated slowly.\n\n\"At least he did not die THEN, though none waited his coming down with\na strong body to hold him safe against the water, as a certain old fat,\ndeaf, yellow Flathead would wait for a Manling--yea, though there were\nall the dholes of the Dekkan on his trail. What is in thy stomach?\"\nKaa\'s head was close to Mowgli\'s ear; and it was a little time before\nthe boy answered.\n\n\"It is to pull the very whiskers of Death, but--Kaa, thou art, indeed,\nthe wisest of all the Jungle.\"\n\n\"So many have said. Look now, if the dhole follow thee----\"\n\n\"As surely they will follow. Ho! ho! I have many little thorns under my\ntongue to prick into their hides.\"\n\n\"If they follow thee hot and blind, looking only at thy shoulders, those\nwho do not die up above will take water either here or lower down, for\nthe Little People will rise up and cover them. Now the Waingunga is\nhungry water, and they will have no Kaa to hold them, but will go down,\nsuch as live, to the shallows by the Seeonee Lairs, and there thy Pack\nmay meet them by the throat.\"\n\n\"Ahai! Eowawa! Better could not be till the Rains fall in the dry\nseason. There is now only the little matter of the run and the leap.\nI will make me known to the dholes, so that they shall follow me very\nclosely.\"\n\n\"Hast thou seen the rocks above thee? From the landward side?\"\n\n\"Indeed, no. That I had forgotten.\"\n\n\"Go look. It is all rotten ground, cut and full of holes. One of thy\nclumsy feet set down without seeing would end the hunt. See, I leave\nthee here, and for thy sake only I will carry word to the Pack that they\nmay know where to look for the dhole. For myself, I am not of one skin\nwith ANY wolf.\"\n\nWhen Kaa disliked an acquaintance he could be more unpleasant than any\nof the Jungle People, except perhaps Bagheera. He swam down-stream,\nand opposite the Rock he came on Phao and Akela listening to the night\nnoises.\n\n\"Hssh! Dogs,\" he said cheerfully. \"The dholes will come down-stream. If\nye be not afraid ye can kill them in the shallows.\"\n\n\"When come they?\" said Phao. \"And where is my Man-cub?\" said Akela.\n\n\"They come when they come,\" said Kaa. \"Wait and see. As for THY Man-cub,\nfrom whom thou hast taken a Word and so laid him open to Death, THY\nMan-cub is with ME, and if he be not already dead the fault is none\nof thine, bleached dog! Wait here for the dhole, and be glad that the\nMan-cub and I strike on thy side.\"\n\nKaa flashed up-stream again, and moored himself in the middle of\nthe gorge, looking upward at the line of the cliff. Presently he saw\nMowgli\'s head move against the stars, and then there was a whizz in\nthe air, the keen, clean schloop of a body falling feet first, and next\nminute the boy was at rest again in the loop of Kaa\'s body.\n\n\"It is no leap by night,\" said Mowgli quietly. \"I have jumped twice as\nfar for sport; but that is an evil place above--low bushes and gullies\nthat go down very deep, all full of the Little People. I have put big\nstones one above the other by the side of three gullies. These I shall\nthrow down with my feet in running, and the Little People will rise up\nbehind me, very angry.\"\n\n\"That is Man\'s talk and Man\'s cunning,\" said Kaa. \"Thou art wise, but\nthe Little People are always angry.\"\n\n\"Nay, at twilight all wings near and far rest for a while. I will play\nwith the dhole at twilight, for the dhole hunts best by day. He follows\nnow Won-tolla\'s blood-trail.\"\n\n\"Chil does not leave a dead ox, nor the dhole the blood-trail,\" said\nKaa.\n\n\"Then I will make him a new blood-trail, of his own blood, if I can, and\ngive him dirt to eat. Thou wilt stay here, Kaa, till I come again with\nmy dholes?\"\n\n\"Ay, but what if they kill thee in the Jungle, or the Little People kill\nthee before thou canst leap down to the river?\"\n\n\"When to-morrow comes we will kill for to-morrow,\" said Mowgli, quoting\na Jungle saying; and again, \"When I am dead it is time to sing the Death\nSong. Good hunting, Kaa!\"\n\nHe loosed his arm from the python\'s neck and went down the gorge like\na log in a freshet, paddling toward the far bank, where he found\nslack-water, and laughing aloud from sheer happiness. There was nothing\nMowgli liked better than, as he himself said, \"to pull the whiskers\nof Death,\" and make the Jungle know that he was their overlord. He had\noften, with Baloo\'s help, robbed bees\' nests in single trees, and\nhe knew that the Little People hated the smell of wild garlic. So he\ngathered a small bundle of it, tied it up with a bark string, and then\nfollowed Won-tolla\'s blood-trail, as it ran southerly from the Lairs,\nfor some five miles, looking at the trees with his head on one side, and\nchuckling as he looked.\n\n\"Mowgli the Frog have I been,\" said he to himself; \"Mowgli the Wolf have\nI said that I am. Now Mowgli the Ape must I be before I am Mowgli the\nBuck. At the end I shall be Mowgli the Man. Ho!\" and he slid his thumb\nalong the eighteen-inch blade of his knife.\n\nWon-tolla\'s trail, all rank with dark blood-spots, ran under a forest of\nthick trees that grew close together and stretched away north-eastward,\ngradually growing thinner and thinner to within two miles of the Bee\nRocks. From the last tree to the low scrub of the Bee Rocks was open\ncountry, where there was hardly cover enough to hide a wolf. Mowgli\ntrotted along under the trees, judging distances between branch and\nbranch, occasionally climbing up a trunk and taking a trial leap from\none tree to another till he came to the open ground, which he studied\nvery carefully for an hour. Then he turned, picked up Won-tolla\'s trail\nwhere he had left it, settled himself in a tree with an outrunning\nbranch some eight feet from the ground, and sat still, sharpening his\nknife on the sole of his foot and singing to himself.\n\nA little before mid-day, when the sun was very warm, he heard the patter\nof feet and smelt the abominable smell of the dhole-pack as they trotted\npitilessly along Won-tolla\'s trail. Seen from above, the red dhole does\nnot look half the size of a wolf, but Mowgli knew how strong his feet\nand jaws were. He watched the sharp bay head of the leader snuffing\nalong the trail, and gave him \"Good hunting!\"\n\nThe brute looked up, and his companions halted behind him, scores and\nscores of red dogs with low-hung tails, heavy shoulders, weak quarters,\nand bloody mouths. The dholes are a very silent people as a rule, and\nthey have no manners even in their own Jungle. Fully two hundred must\nhave gathered below him, but he could see that the leaders sniffed\nhungrily on Won-tolla\'s trail, and tried to drag the Pack forward. That\nwould never do, or they would be at the Lairs in broad daylight, and\nMowgli meant to hold them under his tree till dusk.\n\n\"By whose leave do ye come here?\" said Mowgli.\n\n\"All Jungles are our Jungle,\" was the reply, and the dhole that gave\nit bared his white teeth. Mowgli looked down with a smile, and imitated\nperfectly the sharp chitter-chatter of Chikai, the leaping rat of the\nDekkan, meaning the dholes to understand that he considered them no\nbetter than Chikai. The Pack closed up round the tree-trunk and the\nleader bayed savagely, calling Mowgli a tree-ape. For an answer Mowgli\nstretched down one naked leg and wriggled his bare toes just above the\nleader\'s head. That was enough, and more than enough, to wake the Pack\nto stupid rage. Those who have hair between their toes do not care to be\nreminded of it. Mowgli caught his foot away as the leader leaped up, and\nsaid sweetly: \"Dog, red dog! Go back to the Dekkan and eat lizards. Go to\nChikai thy brother--dog, dog--red, red dog! There is hair between every\ntoe!\" He twiddled his toes a second time.\n\n\"Come down ere we starve thee out, hairless ape!\" yelled the Pack, and\nthis was exactly what Mowgli wanted. He laid himself down along the\nbranch, his cheek to the bark, his right arm free, and there he told the\nPack what he thought and knew about them, their manners, their customs,\ntheir mates, and their puppies. There is no speech in the world so\nrancorous and so stinging as the language the Jungle People use to show\nscorn and contempt. When you come to think of it you will see how this\nmust be so. As Mowgli told Kaa, he had many little thorns under his\ntongue, and slowly and deliberately he drove the dholes from silence to\ngrowls, from growls to yells, and from yells to hoarse slavery ravings.\nThey tried to answer his taunts, but a cub might as well have tried to\nanswer Kaa in a rage; and all the while Mowgli\'s right hand lay crooked\nat his side, ready for action, his feet locked round the branch. The big\nbay leader had leaped many times in the air, but Mowgli dared not risk\na false blow. At last, made furious beyond his natural strength, he\nbounded up seven or eight feet clear of the ground. Then Mowgli\'s hand\nshot out like the head of a tree-snake, and gripped him by the scruff\nof his neck, and the branch shook with the jar as his weight fell back,\nalmost wrenching Mowgli to the ground. But he never loosed his grip, and\ninch by inch he hauled the beast, hanging like a drowned jackal, up on\nthe branch. With his left hand he reached for his knife and cut off the\nred, bushy tail, flinging the dhole back to earth again. That was all he\nneeded. The Pack would not go forward on Won-tolla\'s trail now till they\nhad killed Mowgli or Mowgli had killed them. He saw them settle down\nin circles with a quiver of the haunches that meant they were going\nto stay, and so he climbed to a higher crotch, settled his back\ncomfortably, and went to sleep.\n\nAfter three or four hours he waked and counted the Pack. They were all\nthere, silent, husky, and dry, with eyes of steel. The sun was beginning\nto sink. In half an hour the Little People of the Rocks would be ending\ntheir labours, and, as you know, the dhole does not fight best in the\ntwilight.\n\n\"I did not need such faithful watchers,\" he said politely, standing up\non a branch, \"but I will remember this. Ye be true dholes, but to my\nthinking over much of one kind. For that reason I do not give the big\nlizard-eater his tail again. Art thou not pleased, Red Dog?\"\n\n\"I myself will tear out thy stomach!\" yelled the leader, scratching at\nthe foot of the tree.\n\n\"Nay, but consider, wise rat of the Dekkan. There will now be many\nlitters of little tailless red dogs, yea, with raw red stumps that sting\nwhen the sand is hot. Go home, Red Dog, and cry that an ape has done\nthis. Ye will not go? Come, then, with me, and I will make you very\nwise!\"\n\nHe moved, Bandar-log fashion, into the next tree, and so on into the\nnext and the next, the Pack following with lifted hungry heads. Now and\nthen he would pretend to fall, and the Pack would tumble one over the\nother in their haste to be at the death. It was a curious sight--the boy\nwith the knife that shone in the low sunlight as it sifted through the\nupper branches, and the silent Pack with their red coats all aflame,\nhuddling and following below. When he came to the last tree he took the\ngarlic and rubbed himself all over carefully, and the dholes yelled with\nscorn. \"Ape with a wolf\'s tongue, dost thou think to cover thy scent?\"\nthey said. \"We follow to the death.\"\n\n\"Take thy tail,\" said Mowgli, flinging it back along the course he had\ntaken. The Pack instinctively rushed after it. \"And follow now--to the\ndeath.\"\n\nHe had slipped down the tree-trunk, and headed like the wind in bare\nfeet for the Bee Rocks, before the dholes saw what he would do.\n\nThey gave one deep howl, and settled down to the long, lobbing canter\nthat can at the last run down anything that runs. Mowgli knew their\npack-pace to be much slower than that of the wolves, or he would never\nhave risked a two-mile run in full sight. They were sure that the boy\nwas theirs at last, and he was sure that he held them to play with as he\npleased. All his trouble was to keep them sufficiently hot behind him\nto prevent their turning off too soon. He ran cleanly, evenly, and\nspringily; the tailless leader not five yards behind him; and the Pack\ntailing out over perhaps a quarter of a mile of ground, crazy and blind\nwith the rage of slaughter. So he kept his distance by ear, reserving\nhis last effort for the rush across the Bee Rocks.\n\nThe Little People had gone to sleep in the early twilight, for it\nwas not the season of late blossoming flowers; but as Mowgli\'s first\nfoot-falls rang hollow on the hollow ground he heard a sound as though\nall the earth were humming. Then he ran as he had never run in his life\nbefore, spurned aside one--two--three of the piles of stones into the\ndark, sweet-smelling gullies; heard a roar like the roar of the sea in a\ncave; saw with the tail of his eye the air grow dark behind him; saw the\ncurrent of the Waingunga far below, and a flat, diamond-shaped head\nin the water; leaped outward with all his strength, the tailless dhole\nsnapping at his shoulder in mid-air, and dropped feet first to the\nsafety of the river, breathless and triumphant. There was not a sting\nupon him, for the smell of the garlic had checked the Little People for\njust the few seconds that he was among them. When he rose Kaa\'s coils\nwere steadying him and things were bounding over the edge of the\ncliff--great lumps, it seemed, of clustered bees falling like plummets;\nbut before any lump touched water the bees flew upward and the body of a\ndhole whirled down-stream. Overhead they could hear furious short yells\nthat were drowned in a roar like breakers--the roar of the wings of the\nLittle People of the Rocks. Some of the dholes, too, had fallen into the\ngullies that communicated with the underground caves, and there choked\nand fought and snapped among the tumbled honeycombs, and at last, borne\nup, even when they were dead, on the heaving waves of bees beneath\nthem, shot out of some hole in the river-face, to roll over on the black\nrubbish-heaps. There were dholes who had leaped short into the trees\non the cliffs, and the bees blotted out their shapes; but the greater\nnumber of them, maddened by the stings, had flung themselves into the\nriver; and, as Kaa said, the Waingunga was hungry water.\n\nKaa held Mowgli fast till the boy had recovered his breath.\n\n\"We may not stay here,\" he said. \"The Little People are roused indeed.\nCome!\"\n\nSwimming low and diving as often as he could, Mowgli went down the\nriver, knife in hand.\n\n\"Slowly, slowly,\" said Kaa. \"One tooth does not kill a hundred unless\nit be a cobra\'s, and many of the dholes took water swiftly when they saw\nthe Little People rise.\"\n\n\"The more work for my knife, then. Phai! How the Little People follow!\"\nMowgli sank again. The face of the water was blanketed with wild bees,\nbuzzing sullenly and stinging all they found.\n\n\"Nothing was ever yet lost by silence,\" said Kaa--no sting could\npenetrate his scales--\"and thou hast all the long night for the hunting.\nHear them howl!\"\n\nNearly half the pack had seen the trap their fellows rushed into, and\nturning sharp aside had flung themselves into the water where the gorge\nbroke down in steep banks. Their cries of rage and their threats against\nthe \"tree-ape\" who had brought them to their shame mixed with the yells\nand growls of those who had been punished by the Little People. To\nremain ashore was death, and every dhole knew it. Their pack was swept\nalong the current, down to the deep eddies of the Peace Pool, but even\nthere the angry Little People followed and forced them to the water\nagain. Mowgli could hear the voice of the tailless leader bidding his\npeople hold on and kill out every wolf in Seeonee. But he did not waste\nhis time in listening.\n\n\"One kills in the dark behind us!\" snapped a dhole. \"Here is tainted\nwater!\"\n\nMowgli had dived forward like an otter, twitched a struggling dhole\nunder water before he could open his mouth, and dark rings rose as the\nbody plopped up, turning on its side. The dholes tried to turn, but the\ncurrent prevented them, and the Little People darted at the heads and\nears, and they could hear the challenge of the Seeonee Pack growing\nlouder and deeper in the gathering darkness. Again Mowgli dived, and\nagain a dhole went under, and rose dead, and again the clamour broke\nout at the rear of the pack; some howling that it was best to go ashore,\nothers calling on their leader to lead them back to the Dekkan, and\nothers bidding Mowgli show himself and be killed.\n\n\"They come to the fight with two stomachs and several voices,\" said Kaa.\n\"The rest is with thy brethren below yonder, The Little People go back\nto sleep. They have chased us far. Now I, too, turn back, for I am not\nof one skin with any wolf. Good hunting, Little Brother, and remember\nthe dhole bites low.\"\n\nA wolf came running along the bank on three legs, leaping up and down,\nlaying his head sideways close to the ground, hunching his back, and\nbreaking high into the air, as though he were playing with his cubs. It\nwas Won-tolla, the Outlier, and he said never a word, but continued his\nhorrible sport beside the dholes. They had been long in the water now,\nand were swimming wearily, their coats drenched and heavy, their bushy\ntails dragging like sponges, so tired and shaken that they, too, were\nsilent, watching the pair of blazing eyes that moved abreast.\n\n\"This is no good hunting,\" said one, panting.\n\n\"Good hunting!\" said Mowgli, as he rose boldly at the brute\'s side, and\nsent the long knife home behind the shoulder, pushing hard to avoid his\ndying snap.\n\n\"Art thou there, Man-cub?\" said Won-tolla across the water.\n\n\"Ask of the dead, Outlier,\" Mowgli replied. \"Have none come down-stream?\nI have filled these dogs\' mouths with dirt; I have tricked them in the\nbroad daylight, and their leader lacks his tail, but here be some few\nfor thee still. Whither shall I drive them?\"\n\n\"I will wait,\" said Won-tolla. \"The night is before me.\"\n\nNearer and nearer came the bay of the Seeonee wolves. \"For the Pack,\nfor the Full Pack it is met!\" and a bend in the river drove the dholes\nforward among the sands and shoals opposite the Lairs.\n\nThen they saw their mistake. They should have landed half a mile higher\nup, and rushed the wolves on dry ground. Now it was too late. The bank\nwas lined with burning eyes, and except for the horrible pheeal that had\nnever stopped since sundown, there was no sound in the Jungle. It seemed\nas though Won-tolla were fawning on them to come ashore; and \"Turn\nand take hold!\" said the leader of the dholes. The entire Pack flung\nthemselves at the shore, threshing and squattering through the shoal\nwater, till the face of the Waingunga was all white and torn, and the\ngreat ripples went from side to side, like bow-waves from a boat. Mowgli\nfollowed the rush, stabbing and slicing as the dholes, huddled together,\nrushed up the river-beach in one wave.\n\nThen the long fight began, heaving and straining and splitting and\nscattering and narrowing and broadening along the red, wet sands, and\nover and between the tangled tree-roots, and through and among the\nbushes, and in and out of the grass clumps; for even now the dholes were\ntwo to one. But they met wolves fighting for all that made the Pack,\nand not only the short, high, deep-chested, white-tusked hunters of the\nPack, but the anxious-eyed lahinis--the she-wolves of the lair, as the\nsaying is--fighting for their litters, with here and there a yearling\nwolf, his first coat still half woolly, tugging and grappling by their\nsides. A wolf, you must know, flies at the throat or snaps at the flank,\nwhile a dhole, by preference, bites at the belly; so when the dholes\nwere struggling out of the water and had to raise their heads, the odds\nwere with the wolves. On dry land the wolves suffered; but in the water\nor ashore, Mowgli\'s knife came and went without ceasing. The Four had\nworried their way to his side. Gray Brother, crouched between the boy\'s\nknees, was protecting his stomach, while the others guarded his back\nand either side, or stood over him when the shock of a leaping, yelling\ndhole who had thrown himself full on the steady blade bore him down. For\nthe rest, it was one tangled confusion--a locked and swaying mob that\nmoved from right to left and from left to right along the bank; and also\nground round and round slowly on its own centre. Here would be a heaving\nmound, like a water-blister in a whirlpool, which would break like a\nwater-blister, and throw up four or five mangled dogs, each striving to\nget back to the centre; here would be a single wolf borne down by two or\nthree dholes, laboriously dragging them forward, and sinking the while;\nhere a yearling cub would be held up by the pressure round him, though\nhe had been killed early, while his mother, crazed with dumb rage,\nrolled over and over, snapping, and passing on; and in the middle of the\nthickest press, perhaps, one wolf and one dhole, forgetting everything\nelse, would be manoeuvring for first hold till they were whirled away by\na rush of furious fighters. Once Mowgli passed Akela, a dhole on either\nflank, and his all but toothless jaws closed over the loins of a third;\nand once he saw Phao, his teeth set in the throat of a dhole, tugging\nthe unwilling beast forward till the yearlings could finish him. But the\nbulk of the fight was blind flurry and smother in the dark; hit, trip,\nand tumble, yelp, groan, and worry-worry-worry, round him and behind him\nand above him. As the night wore on, the quick, giddy-go-round motion\nincreased. The dholes were cowed and afraid to attack the stronger\nwolves, but did not yet dare to run away. Mowgli felt that the end was\ncoming soon, and contented himself with striking merely to cripple. The\nyearlings were growing bolder; there was time now and again to breathe,\nand pass a word to a friend, and the mere flicker of the knife would\nsometimes turn a dog aside.\n\n\"The meat is very near the bone,\" Gray Brother yelled. He was bleeding\nfrom a score of flesh-wounds.\n\n\"But the bone is yet to be cracked,\" said Mowgli. \"Eowawa! THUS do we do\nin the Jungle!\" The red blade ran like a flame along the side of a dhole\nwhose hind-quarters were hidden by the weight of a clinging wolf.\n\n\"My kill!\" snorted the wolf through his wrinkled nostrils. \"Leave him to\nme.\"\n\n\"Is thy stomach still empty, Outlier?\" said Mowgli. Won-tolla was\nfearfully punished, but his grip had paralysed the dhole, who could not\nturn round and reach him.\n\n\"By the Bull that bought me,\" said Mowgli, with a bitter laugh, \"it is\nthe tailless one!\" And indeed it was the big bay-coloured leader.\n\n\"It is not wise to kill cubs and lahinis,\" Mowgli went on\nphilosophically, wiping the blood out of his eyes, \"unless one has also\nkilled the Outlier; and it is in my stomach that this Won-tolla kills\nthee.\"\n\nA dhole leaped to his leader\'s aid; but before his teeth had found\nWon-tolla\'s flank, Mowgli\'s knife was in his throat, and Gray Brother\ntook what was left.\n\n\"And thus do we do in the Jungle,\" said Mowgli.\n\nWon-tolla said not a word, only his jaws were closing and closing on the\nbackbone as his life ebbed. The dhole shuddered, his head dropped, and\nhe lay still, and Won-tolla dropped above him.\n\n\"Huh! The Blood Debt is paid,\" said Mowgli. \"Sing the song, Won-tolla.\"\n\n\"He hunts no more,\" said Gray Brother; \"and Akela, too, is silent this\nlong time.\"\n\n\"The bone is cracked!\" thundered Phao, son of Phaona. \"They go! Kill,\nkill out, O hunters of the Free People!\"\n\nDhole after dhole was slinking away from those dark and bloody sands to\nthe river, to the thick Jungle, up-stream or down-stream as he saw the\nroad clear.\n\n\"The debt! The debt!\" shouted Mowgli. \"Pay the debt! They have slain the\nLone Wolf! Let not a dog go!\"\n\nHe was flying to the river, knife in hand, to check any dhole who dared\nto take water, when, from under a mound of nine dead, rose Akela\'s head\nand fore-quarters, and Mowgli dropped on his knees beside the Lone Wolf.\n\n\"Said I not it would be my last fight?\" Akela gasped. \"It is good\nhunting. And thou, Little Brother?\"\n\n\"I live, having killed many.\"\n\n\"Even so. I die, and I would--I would die by thee, Little Brother.\"\n\nMowgli took the terrible scarred head on his knees, and put his arms\nround the torn neck.\n\n\"It is long since the old days of Shere Khan, and a Man-cub that rolled\nnaked in the dust.\"\n\n\"Nay, nay, I am a wolf. I am of one skin with the Free People,\" Mowgli\ncried. \"It is no will of mine that I am a man.\"\n\n\"Thou art a man, Little Brother, wolfling of my watching. Thou art a\nman, or else the Pack had fled before the dhole. My life I owe to thee,\nand to-day thou hast saved the Pack even as once I saved thee. Hast thou\nforgotten? All debts are paid now. Go to thine own people. I tell thee\nagain, eye of my eye, this hunting is ended. Go to thine own people.\"\n\n\"I will never go. I will hunt alone in the Jungle. I have said it.\"\n\n\"After the summer come the Rains, and after the Rains comes the spring.\nGo back before thou art driven.\"\n\n\"Who will drive me?\"\n\n\"Mowgli will drive Mowgli. Go back to thy people. Go to Man.\"\n\n\"When Mowgli drives Mowgli I will go,\" Mowgli answered.\n\n\"There is no more to say,\" said Akela. \"Little Brother, canst thou raise\nme to my feet? I also was a leader of the Free People.\"\n\nVery carefully and gently Mowgli lifted the bodies aside, and raised\nAkela to his feet, both arms round him, and the Lone Wolf drew a long\nbreath, and began the Death Song that a leader of the Pack should sing\nwhen he dies. It gathered strength as he went on, lifting and lifting,\nand ringing far across the river, till it came to the last \"Good\nhunting!\" and Akela shook himself clear of Mowgli for an instant, and,\nleaping into the air, fell backward dead upon his last and most terrible\nkill.\n\nMowgli sat with his head on his knees, careless of anything else, while\nthe remnant of the flying dholes were being overtaken and run down by\nthe merciless lahinis. Little by little the cries died away, and the\nwolves returned limping, as their wounds stiffened, to take stock of the\nlosses. Fifteen of the Pack, as well as half a dozen lahinis, lay dead\nby the river, and of the others not one was unmarked. And Mowgli sat\nthrough it all till the cold daybreak, when Phao\'s wet, red muzzle was\ndropped in his hand, and Mowgli drew back to show the gaunt body of\nAkela.\n\n\"Good hunting!\" said Phao, as though Akela were still alive, and then\nover his bitten shoulder to the others: \"Howl, dogs! A Wolf has died\nto-night!\"\n\nBut of all the Pack of two hundred fighting dholes, whose boast was\nthat all jungles were their Jungle, and that no living thing could stand\nbefore them, not one returned to the Dekkan to carry that word.\n\n\n\n\nCHIL\'S SONG\n\n[This is the song that Chil sang as the kites dropped down one after\nanother to the river-bed, when the great fight was finished. Chil is\ngood friends with everybody, but he is a cold-blooded kind of creature\nat heart, because he knows that almost everybody in the Jungle comes to\nhim in the long-run.]\n\n These were my companions going forth by night--\n (For Chil! Look you, for Chil!)\n Now come I to whistle them the ending of the fight.\n (Chil! Vanguards of Chil!)\n Word they gave me overhead of quarry newly slain,\n Word I gave them underfoot of buck upon the plain.\n Here\'s an end of every trail--they shall not speak again!\n\n They that called the hunting-cry--they that followed fast--\n (For Chil! Look you, for Chil!)\n They that bade the sambhur wheel, or pinned him as he passed--\n (Chil! Vanguards of Chil!)\n They that lagged behind the scent--they that ran before,\n They that shunned the level horn--they that overbore.\n Here\'s an end of every trail--they shall not follow more.\n These were my companions. Pity \'twas they died!\n (For Chil! Look you, for Chil!)\n Now come I to comfort them that knew them in their pride.\n (Chil! Vanguards of Chil!)\n Tattered flank and sunken eye, open mouth and red,\n Locked and lank and lone they lie, the dead upon their dead.\n Here\'s an end of every trail--and here my hosts are fed.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPRING RUNNING\n\n Man goes to Man! Cry the challenge through the Jungle!\n He that was our Brother goes away.\n Hear, now, and judge, O ye People of the Jungle,--\n Answer, who shall turn him--who shall stay?\n\n Man goes to Man! He is weeping in the Jungle:\n He that was our Brother sorrows sore!\n Man goes to Man! (Oh, we loved him in the Jungle!)\n To the Man-Trail where we may not follow more.\n\nThe second year after the great fight with Red Dog and the death of\nAkela, Mowgli must have been nearly seventeen years old. He looked\nolder, for hard exercise, the best of good eating, and baths whenever\nhe felt in the least hot or dusty, had given him strength and growth far\nbeyond his age. He could swing by one hand from a top branch for half\nan hour at a time, when he had occasion to look along the tree-roads.\nHe could stop a young buck in mid-gallop and throw him sideways by the\nhead. He could even jerk over the big, blue wild boars that lived in\nthe Marshes of the North. The Jungle People who used to fear him for his\nwits feared him now for his strength, and when he moved quietly on his\nown affairs the mere whisper of his coming cleared the wood-paths. And\nyet the look in his eyes was always gentle. Even when he fought, his\neyes never blazed as Bagheera\'s did. They only grew more and more\ninterested and excited; and that was one of the things that Bagheera\nhimself did not understand.\n\nHe asked Mowgli about it, and the boy laughed and said. \"When I miss the\nkill I am angry. When I must go empty for two days I am very angry. Do\nnot my eyes talk then?\"\n\n\"The mouth is hungry,\" said Bagheera, \"but the eyes say nothing.\nHunting, eating, or swimming, it is all one--like a stone in wet or dry\nweather.\" Mowgli looked at him lazily from under his long eyelashes,\nand, as usual, the panther\'s head dropped. Bagheera knew his master.\n\nThey were lying out far up the side of a hill overlooking the Waingunga,\nand the morning mists hung below them in bands of white and green. As\nthe sun rose it changed into bubbling seas of red gold, churned off,\nand let the low rays stripe the dried grass on which Mowgli and Bagheera\nwere resting. It was the end of the cold weather, the leaves and\nthe trees looked worn and faded, and there was a dry, ticking rustle\neverywhere when the wind blew. A little leaf tap-tap-tapped furiously\nagainst a twig, as a single leaf caught in a current will. It roused\nBagheera, for he snuffed the morning air with a deep, hollow cough,\nthrew himself on his back, and struck with his fore-paws at the nodding\nleaf above.\n\n\"The year turns,\" he said. \"The Jungle goes forward. The Time of New\nTalk is near. That leaf knows. It is very good.\"\n\n\"The grass is dry,\" Mowgli answered, pulling up a tuft. \"Even\nEye-of-the-Spring [that is a little trumpet-shaped, waxy red flower\nthat runs in and out among the grasses]--even Eye-of-the Spring is shut,\nand... Bagheera, IS it well for the Black Panther so to lie on his back\nand beat with his paws in the air, as though he were the tree-cat?\"\n\n\"Aowh?\" said Bagheera. He seemed to be thinking of other things.\n\n\"I say, IS it well for the Black Panther so to mouth and cough, and howl\nand roll? Remember, we be the Masters of the Jungle, thou and I.\"\n\n\"Indeed, yes; I hear, Man-cub.\" Bagheera rolled over hurriedly and sat\nup, the dust on his ragged black flanks. (He was just casting his winter\ncoat.) \"We be surely the Masters of the Jungle! Who is so strong as\nMowgli? Who so wise?\" There was a curious drawl in the voice that made\nMowgli turn to see whether by any chance the Black Panther were making\nfun of him, for the Jungle is full of words that sound like one thing,\nbut mean another. \"I said we be beyond question the Masters of the\nJungle,\" Bagheera repeated. \"Have I done wrong? I did not know that the\nMan-cub no longer lay upon the ground. Does he fly, then?\"\n\nMowgli sat with his elbows on his knees, looking out across the valley\nat the daylight. Somewhere down in the woods below a bird was trying\nover in a husky, reedy voice the first few notes of his spring song.\nIt was no more than a shadow of the liquid, tumbling call he would be\npouring later, but Bagheera heard it.\n\n\"I said the Time of New Talk is near,\" growled the panther, switching\nhis tail.\n\n\"I hear,\" Mowgli answered. \"Bagheera, why dost thou shake all over? The\nsun is warm.\"\n\n\"That is Ferao, the scarlet woodpecker,\" said Bagheera. \"HE has not\nforgotten. Now I, too, must remember my song,\" and he began purring and\ncrooning to himself, harking back dissatisfied again and again.\n\n\"There is no game afoot,\" said Mowgli.\n\n\"Little Brother, are BOTH thine ears stopped? That is no killing-word,\nbut my song that I make ready against the need.\"\n\n\"I had forgotten. I shall know when the Time of New Talk is here,\nbecause then thou and the others all run away and leave me alone.\"\nMowgli spoke rather savagely.\n\n\"But, indeed, Little Brother,\" Bagheera began, \"we do not always----\"\n\n\"I say ye do,\" said Mowgli, shooting out his forefinger angrily. \"Ye DO\nrun away, and I, who am the Master of the Jungle, must needs walk alone.\nHow was it last season, when I would gather sugar-cane from the fields\nof a Man-Pack? I sent a runner--I sent thee!--to Hathi, bidding him to\ncome upon such a night and pluck the sweet grass for me with his trunk.\"\n\n\"He came only two nights later,\" said Bagheera, cowering a little; \"and\nof that long, sweet grass that pleased thee so he gathered more than any\nMan-cub could eat in all the nights of the Rains. That was no fault of\nmine.\"\n\n\"He did not come upon the night when I sent him the word. No, he was\ntrumpeting and running and roaring through the valleys in the moonlight.\nHis trail was like the trail of three elephants, for he would not hide\namong the trees. He danced in the moonlight before the houses of the\nMan-Pack. I saw him, and yet he would not come to me; and _I_ am the\nMaster of the Jungle!\"\n\n\"It was the Time of New Talk,\" said the panther, always very humble.\n\"Perhaps, Little Brother, thou didst not that time call him by a\nMaster-word? Listen to Ferao, and be glad!\"\n\nMowgli\'s bad temper seemed to have boiled itself away. He lay back with\nhis head on his arms, his eyes shut. \"I do not know--nor do I care,\" he\nsaid sleepily. \"Let us sleep, Bagheera. My stomach is heavy in me. Make\nme a rest for my head.\"\n\nThe panther lay down again with a sigh, because he could hear Ferao\npractising and repractising his song against the Springtime of New Talk,\nas they say.\n\nIn an Indian Jungle the seasons slide one into the other almost without\ndivision. There seem to be only two--the wet and the dry; but if you\nlook closely below the torrents of rain and the clouds of char and dust\nyou will find all four going round in their regular ring. Spring is the\nmost wonderful, because she has not to cover a clean, bare field with\nnew leaves and flowers, but to drive before her and to put away the\nhanging-on, over-surviving raffle of half-green things which the gentle\nwinter has suffered to live, and to make the partly-dressed stale earth\nfeel new and young once more. And this she does so well that there is no\nspring in the world like the Jungle spring.\n\nThere is one day when all things are tired, and the very smells, as they\ndrift on the heavy air, are old and used. One cannot explain this, but\nit feels so. Then there is another day--to the eye nothing whatever has\nchanged--when all the smells are new and delightful, and the whiskers of\nthe Jungle People quiver to their roots, and the winter hair comes away\nfrom their sides in long, draggled locks. Then, perhaps, a little rain\nfalls, and all the trees and the bushes and the bamboos and the mosses\nand the juicy-leaved plants wake with a noise of growing that you can\nalmost hear, and under this noise runs, day and night, a deep hum. THAT\nis the noise of the spring--a vibrating boom which is neither bees, nor\nfalling water, nor the wind in tree-tops, but the purring of the warm,\nhappy world.\n\nUp to this year Mowgli had always delighted in the turn of the seasons.\nIt was he who generally saw the first Eye-of-the-Spring deep down among\nthe grasses, and the first bank of spring clouds, which are like nothing\nelse in the Jungle. His voice could be heard in all sorts of wet,\nstar-lighted, blossoming places, helping the big frogs through their\nchoruses, or mocking the little upside-down owls that hoot through the\nwhite nights. Like all his people, spring was the season he chose for\nhis flittings--moving, for the mere joy of rushing through the warm air,\nthirty, forty, or fifty miles between twilight and the morning star, and\ncoming back panting and laughing and wreathed with strange flowers. The\nFour did not follow him on these wild ringings of the Jungle, but went\noff to sing songs with other wolves. The Jungle People are very busy\nin the spring, and Mowgli could hear them grunting and screaming and\nwhistling according to their kind. Their voices then are different from\ntheir voices at other times of the year, and that is one of the reasons\nwhy spring in the Jungle is called the Time of New Talk.\n\nBut that spring, as he told Bagheera, his stomach was changed in him.\nEver since the bamboo shoots turned spotty-brown he had been looking\nforward to the morning when the smells should change. But when the\nmorning came, and Mor the Peacock, blazing in bronze and blue and gold,\ncried it aloud all along the misty woods, and Mowgli opened his mouth to\nsend on the cry, the words choked between his teeth, and a feeling came\nover him that began at his toes and ended in his hair--a feeling of pure\nunhappiness, so that he looked himself over to be sure that he had not\ntrod on a thorn. Mor cried the new smells, the other birds took it\nover, and from the rocks by the Waingunga he heard Bagheera\'s hoarse\nscream--something between the scream of an eagle and the neighing of\na horse. There was a yelling and scattering of Bandar-log in the\nnew-budding branches above, and there stood Mowgli, his chest, filled to\nanswer Mor, sinking in little gasps as the breath was driven out of it\nby this unhappiness.\n\nHe stared all round him, but he could see no more than the mocking\nBandar-log scudding through the trees, and Mor, his tail spread in full\nsplendour, dancing on the slopes below.\n\n\"The smells have changed,\" screamed Mor. \"Good hunting, Little Brother!\nWhere is thy answer?\"\n\n\"Little Brother, good hunting!\" whistled Chil the Kite and his mate,\nswooping down together. The two baffed under Mowgli\'s nose so close that\na pinch of downy white feathers brushed away.\n\nA light spring rain--elephant-rain they call it--drove across the Jungle\nin a belt half a mile wide, left the new leaves wet and nodding behind,\nand died out in a double rainbow and a light roll of thunder. The spring\nhum broke out for a minute, and was silent, but all the Jungle Folk\nseemed to be giving tongue at once. All except Mowgli.\n\n\"I have eaten good food,\" he said to himself. \"I have drunk good\nwater. Nor does my throat burn and grow small, as it did when I bit the\nblue-spotted root that Oo the Turtle said was clean food. But my stomach\nis heavy, and I have given very bad talk to Bagheera and others, people\nof the Jungle and my people. Now, too, I am hot and now I am cold, and\nnow I am neither hot nor cold, but angry with that which I cannot see.\nHuhu! It is time to make a running! To-night I will cross the ranges;\nyes, I will make a spring running to the Marshes of the North, and back\nagain. I have hunted too easily too long. The Four shall come with me,\nfor they grow as fat as white grubs.\"\n\nHe called, but never one of the Four answered. They were far beyond\nearshot, singing over the spring songs--the Moon and Sambhur Songs--with\nthe wolves of the pack; for in the spring-time the Jungle People make\nvery little difference between the day and the night. He gave the sharp,\nbarking note, but his only answer was the mocking maiou of the little\nspotted tree-cat winding in and out among the branches for early birds\'\nnests. At this he shook all over with rage, and half drew his knife.\nThen he became very haughty, though there was no one to see him, and\nstalked severely down the hillside, chin up and eyebrows down. But never\na single one of his people asked him a question, for they were all too\nbusy with their own affairs.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mowgli to himself, though in his heart he knew that he had\nno reason. \"Let the Red Dhole come from the Dekkan, or the Red Flower\ndance among the bamboos, and all the Jungle runs whining to Mowgli,\ncalling him great elephant-names. But now, because Eye-of-the-Spring is\nred, and Mor, forsooth, must show his naked legs in some spring dance,\nthe Jungle goes mad as Tabaqui.... By the Bull that bought me! am I the\nMaster of the Jungle, or am I not? Be silent! What do ye here?\"\n\nA couple of young wolves of the Pack were cantering down a path, looking\nfor open ground in which to fight. (You will remember that the Law of\nthe Jungle forbids fighting where the Pack can see.) Their neck-bristles\nwere as stiff as wire, and they bayed furiously, crouching for the first\ngrapple. Mowgli leaped forward, caught one outstretched throat in either\nhand, expecting to fling the creatures backward as he had often done in\ngames or Pack hunts. But he had never before interfered with a spring\nfight. The two leaped forward and dashed him aside, and without word to\nwaste rolled over and over close locked.\n\nMowgli was on his feet almost before he fell, his knife and his white\nteeth were bared, and at that minute he would have killed both for no\nreason but that they were fighting when he wished them to be quiet,\nalthough every wolf has full right under the Law to fight. He danced\nround them with lowered shoulders and quivering hand, ready to send in\na double blow when the first flurry of the scuffle should be over;\nbut while he waited the strength seemed to ebb from his body, the\nknife-point lowered, and he sheathed the knife and watched.\n\n\"I have surely eaten poison,\" he sighed at last. \"Since I broke up the\nCouncil with the Red Flower--since I killed Shere Khan--none of the Pack\ncould fling me aside. And these be only tail-wolves in the Pack, little\nhunters! My strength is gone from me, and presently I shall die. Oh,\nMowgli, why dost thou not kill them both?\"\n\nThe fight went on till one wolf ran away, and Mowgli was left alone on\nthe torn and bloody ground, looking now at his knife, and now at his\nlegs and arms, while the feeling of unhappiness he had never known\nbefore covered him as water covers a log.\n\nHe killed early that evening and ate but little, so as to be in good\nfettle for his spring running, and he ate alone because all the Jungle\nPeople were away singing or fighting. It was a perfect white night,\nas they call it. All green things seemed to have made a month\'s growth\nsince the morning. The branch that was yellow-leaved the day before\ndripped sap when Mowgli broke it. The mosses curled deep and warm over\nhis feet, the young grass had no cutting edges, and all the voices of\nthe Jungle boomed like one deep harp-string touched by the moon--the\nMoon of New Talk, who splashed her light full on rock and pool, slipped\nit between trunk and creeper, and sifted it through a million leaves.\nForgetting his unhappiness, Mowgli sang aloud with pure delight as he\nsettled into his stride. It was more like flying than anything else, for\nhe had chosen the long downward slope that leads to the Northern Marshes\nthrough the heart of the main Jungle, where the springy ground deadened\nthe fall of his feet. A man-taught man would have picked his way with\nmany stumbles through the cheating moonlight, but Mowgli\'s muscles,\ntrained by years of experience, bore him up as though he were a feather.\nWhen a rotten log or a hidden stone turned under his foot he saved\nhimself, never checking his pace, without effort and without thought.\nWhen he tired of ground-going he threw up his hands monkey-fashion to\nthe nearest creeper, and seemed to float rather than to climb up into\nthe thin branches, whence he would follow a tree-road till his mood\nchanged, and he shot downward in a long, leafy curve to the levels\nagain. There were still, hot hollows surrounded by wet rocks where he\ncould hardly breathe for the heavy scents of the night flowers and the\nbloom along the creeper buds; dark avenues where the moonlight lay in\nbelts as regular as checkered marbles in a church aisle; thickets where\nthe wet young growth stood breast-high about him and threw its arms\nround his waist; and hilltops crowned with broken rock, where he leaped\nfrom stone to stone above the lairs of the frightened little foxes. He\nwould hear, very faint and far off, the chug-drug of a boar sharpening\nhis tusks on a bole; and would come across the great gray brute all\nalone, scribing and rending the bark of a tall tree, his mouth dripping\nwith foam, and his eyes blazing like fire. Or he would turn aside to the\nsound of clashing horns and hissing grunts, and dash past a couple of\nfurious sambhur, staggering to and fro with lowered heads, striped with\nblood that showed black in the moonlight. Or at some rushing ford he\nwould hear Jacala the Crocodile bellowing like a bull, or disturb a\ntwined knot of the Poison People, but before they could strike he would\nbe away and across the glistening shingle, and deep in the Jungle again.\n\nSo he ran, sometimes shouting, sometimes singing to himself, the\nhappiest thing in all the Jungle that night, till the smell of the\nflowers warned him that he was near the marshes, and those lay far\nbeyond his farthest hunting-grounds.\n\nHere, again, a man-trained man would have sunk overhead in three\nstrides, but Mowgli\'s feet had eyes in them, and they passed him from\ntussock to tussock and clump to quaking clump without asking help from\nthe eyes in his head. He ran out to the middle of the swamp, disturbing\nthe duck as he ran, and sat down on a moss-coated tree-trunk lapped in\nthe black water. The marsh was awake all round him, for in the spring\nthe Bird People sleep very lightly, and companies of them were coming\nor going the night through. But no one took any notice of Mowgli sitting\namong the tall reeds humming songs without words, and looking at the\nsoles of his hard brown feet in case of neglected thorns. All his\nunhappiness seemed to have been left behind in his own Jungle, and he\nwas just beginning a full-throat song when it came back again--ten times\nworse than before.\n\nThis time Mowgli was frightened. \"It is here also!\" he said half aloud.\n\"It has followed me,\" and he looked over his shoulder to see whether\nthe It were not standing behind him. \"There is no one here.\" The night\nnoises of the marsh went on, but never a bird or beast spoke to him, and\nthe new feeling of misery grew.\n\n\"I have surely eaten poison,\" he said in an awe-stricken voice. \"It must\nbe that carelessly I have eaten poison, and my strength is going from\nme. I was afraid--and yet it was not _I_ that was afraid--Mowgli was\nafraid when the two wolves fought. Akela, or even Phao, would have\nsilenced them; yet Mowgli was afraid. That is true sign I have eaten\npoison.... But what do they care in the Jungle? They sing and howl and\nfight, and run in companies under the moon, and I--Hai-mai!--I am dying\nin the marshes, of that poison which I have eaten.\" He was so sorry for\nhimself that he nearly wept. \"And after,\" he went on, \"they will find\nme lying in the black water. Nay, I will go back to my own Jungle, and I\nwill die upon the Council Rock, and Bagheera, whom I love, if he is not\nscreaming in the valley--Bagheera, perhaps, may watch by what is left\nfor a little, lest Chil use me as he used Akela.\"\n\nA large, warm tear splashed down on his knee, and, miserable as he was,\nMowgli felt happy that he was so miserable, if you can understand\nthat upside-down sort of happiness. \"As Chil the Kite used Akela,\" he\nrepeated, \"on the night I saved the Pack from Red Dog.\" He was quiet\nfor a little, thinking of the last words of the Lone Wolf, which you,\nof course, remember. \"Now Akela said to me many foolish things before he\ndied, for when we die our stomachs change. He said... None the less, I\nAM of the Jungle!\"\n\nIn his excitement, as he remembered the fight on Waingunga bank, he\nshouted the last words aloud, and a wild buffalo-cow among the reeds\nsprang to her knees, snorting, \"Man!\"\n\n\"Uhh!\" said Mysa the Wild Buffalo (Mowgli could hear him turn in his\nwallow), \"THAT is no man. It is only the hairless wolf of the Seeonee\nPack. On such nights runs he to and fro.\"\n\n\"Uhh!\" said the cow, dropping her head again to graze, \"I thought it was\nMan.\"\n\n\"I say no. Oh, Mowgli, is it danger?\" lowed Mysa.\n\n\"Oh, Mowgli, is it danger?\" the boy called back mockingly. \"That is all\nMysa thinks for: Is it danger? But for Mowgli, who goes to and fro in\nthe Jungle by night, watching, what do ye care?\"\n\n\"How loud he cries!\" said the cow. \"Thus do they cry,\" Mysa answered\ncontemptuously, \"who, having torn up the grass, know not how to eat it.\"\n\n\"For less than this,\" Mowgli groaned to himself, \"for less than this even\nlast Rains I had pricked Mysa out of his wallow, and ridden him through\nthe swamp on a rush halter.\" He stretched a hand to break one of the\nfeathery reeds, but drew it back with a sigh. Mysa went on steadily\nchewing the cud, and the long grass ripped where the cow grazed. \"I will\nnot die HERE,\" he said angrily. \"Mysa, who is of one blood with Jacala\nand the pig, would see me. Let us go beyond the swamp and see what\ncomes. Never have I run such a spring running--hot and cold together.\nUp, Mowgli!\"\n\nHe could not resist the temptation of stealing across the reeds to Mysa\nand pricking him with the point of his knife. The great dripping bull\nbroke out of his wallow like a shell exploding, while Mowgli laughed\ntill he sat down.\n\n\"Say now that the hairless wolf of the Seeonee Pack once herded thee,\nMysa,\" he called.\n\n\"Wolf! THOU?\" the bull snorted, stamping in the mud. \"All the jungle\nknows thou wast a herder of tame cattle--such a man\'s brat as shouts in\nthe dust by the crops yonder. THOU of the Jungle! What hunter would have\ncrawled like a snake among the leeches, and for a muddy jest--a jackal\'s\njest--have shamed me before my cow? Come to firm ground, and I will--I\nwill...\" Mysa frothed at the mouth, for Mysa has nearly the worst temper\nof any one in the Jungle.\n\nMowgli watched him puff and blow with eyes that never changed. When\nhe could make himself heard through the pattering mud, he said: \"What\nMan-Pack lair here by the marshes, Mysa? This is new Jungle to me.\"\n\n\"Go north, then,\" roared the angry bull, for Mowgli had pricked him\nrather sharply. \"It was a naked cow-herd\'s jest. Go and tell them at the\nvillage at the foot of the marsh.\"\n\n\"The Man-Pack do not love jungle-tales, nor do I think, Mysa, that a\nscratch more or less on thy hide is any matter for a council. But I will\ngo and look at this village. Yes, I will go. Softly now. It is not every\nnight that the Master of the Jungle comes to herd thee.\"\n\nHe stepped out to the shivering ground on the edge of the marsh, well\nknowing that Mysa would never charge over it and laughed, as he ran, to\nthink of the bull\'s anger.\n\n\"My strength is not altogether gone,\" he said. \"It may be that the poison\nis not to the bone. There is a star sitting low yonder.\" He looked at it\nbetween his half-shut hands. \"By the Bull that bought me, it is the Red\nFlower--the Red Flower that I lay beside before--before I came even\nto the first Seeonee Pack! Now that I have seen, I will finish the\nrunning.\"\n\nThe marsh ended in a broad plain where a light twinkled. It was a long\ntime since Mowgli had concerned himself with the doings of men, but this\nnight the glimmer of the Red Flower drew him forward.\n\n\"I will look,\" said he, \"as I did in the old days, and I will see how\nfar the Man-Pack has changed.\"\n\nForgetting that he was no longer in his own Jungle, where he could do\nwhat he pleased, he trod carelessly through the dew-loaded grasses till\nhe came to the hut where the light stood. Three or four yelping dogs\ngave tongue, for he was on the outskirts of a village.\n\n\"Ho!\" said Mowgli, sitting down noiselessly, after sending back a deep\nwolf-growl that silenced the curs. \"What comes will come. Mowgli, what\nhast thou to do any more with the lairs of the Man-Pack?\" He rubbed his\nmouth, remembering where a stone had struck it years ago when the other\nMan-Pack had cast him out.\n\nThe door of the hut opened, and a woman stood peering out into the\ndarkness. A child cried, and the woman said over her shoulder, \"Sleep.\nIt was but a jackal that waked the dogs. In a little time morning\ncomes.\"\n\nMowgli in the grass began to shake as though he had fever. He knew that\nvoice well, but to make sure he cried softly, surprised to find how\nman\'s talk came back, \"Messua! O Messua!\"\n\n\"Who calls?\" said the woman, a quiver in her voice.\n\n\"Hast thou forgotten?\" said Mowgli. His throat was dry as he spoke.\n\n\"If it be THOU, what name did I give thee? Say!\" She had half shut the\ndoor, and her hand was clutching at her breast.\n\n\"Nathoo! Ohe, Nathoo!\" said Mowgli, for, as you remember, that was the\nname Messua gave him when he first came to the Man-Pack.\n\n\"Come, my son,\" she called, and Mowgli stepped into the light, and\nlooked full at Messua, the woman who had been good to him, and whose\nlife he had saved from the Man-Pack so long before. She was older,\nand her hair was gray, but her eyes and her voice had not changed.\nWoman-like, she expected to find Mowgli where she had left him, and her\neyes travelled upward in a puzzled way from his chest to his head, that\ntouched the top of the door.\n\n\"My son,\" she stammered; and then, sinking to his feet: \"But it is no\nlonger my son. It is a Godling of the Woods! Ahai!\"\n\nAs he stood in the red light of the oil-lamp, strong, tall, and\nbeautiful, his long black hair sweeping over his shoulders, the knife\nswinging at his neck, and his head crowned with a wreath of white\njasmine, he might easily have been mistaken for some wild god of a\njungle legend. The child half asleep on a cot sprang up and shrieked\naloud with terror. Messua turned to soothe him, while Mowgli stood\nstill, looking in at the water-jars and the cooking-pots, the grain-bin,\nand all the other human belongings that he found himself remembering so\nwell.\n\n\"What wilt thou eat or drink?\" Messua murmured. \"This is all thine. We\nowe our lives to thee. But art thou him I called Nathoo, or a Godling,\nindeed?\"\n\n\"I am Nathoo,\" said Mowgli, \"I am very far from my own place. I saw this\nlight, and came hither. I did not know thou wast here.\"\n\n\"After we came to Khanhiwara,\" Messua said timidly, \"the English\nwould have helped us against those villagers that sought to burn us.\nRememberest thou?\"\n\n\"Indeed, I have not forgotten.\"\n\n\"But when the English Law was made ready, we went to the village of\nthose evil people, and it was no more to be found.\"\n\n\"That also I remember,\" said Mowgli, with a quiver of his nostril.\n\n\"My man, therefore, took service in the fields, and at last--for,\nindeed, he was a strong man--we held a little land here. It is not so\nrich as the old village, but we do not need much--we two.\"\n\n\"Where is he the man that dug in the dirt when he was afraid on that\nnight?\"\n\n\"He is dead--a year.\"\n\n\"And he?\" Mowgli pointed to the child.\n\n\"My son that was born two Rains ago. If thou art a Godling, give him the\nFavour of the Jungle, that he may be safe among thy--thy people, as we\nwere safe on that night.\"\n\nShe lifted up the child, who, forgetting his fright, reached out to play\nwith the knife that hung on Mowgli\'s chest, and Mowgli put the little\nfingers aside very carefully.\n\n\"And if thou art Nathoo whom the tiger carried away,\" Messua went on,\nchoking, \"he is then thy younger brother. Give him an elder brother\'s\nblessing.\"\n\n\"Hai-mai! What do I know of the thing called a blessing? I am neither\na Godling nor his brother, and--O mother, mother, my heart is heavy in\nme.\" He shivered as he set down the child.\n\n\"Like enough,\" said Messua, bustling among the cooking-pots. \"This comes\nof running about the marshes by night. Beyond question, the fever\nhad soaked thee to the marrow.\" Mowgli smiled a little at the idea of\nanything in the Jungle hurting him. \"I will make a fire, and thou shalt\ndrink warm milk. Put away the jasmine wreath: the smell is heavy in so\nsmall a place.\"\n\nMowgli sat down, muttering, with his face in his hands. All manner of\nstrange feelings that he had never felt before were running over him,\nexactly as though he had been poisoned, and he felt dizzy and a little\nsick. He drank the warm milk in long gulps, Messua patting him on the\nshoulder from time to time, not quite sure whether he were her son\nNathoo of the long ago days, or some wonderful Jungle being, but glad to\nfeel that he was at least flesh and blood.\n\n\"Son,\" she said at last,--her eyes were full of pride,--\"have any told\nthee that thou art beautiful beyond all men?\"\n\n\"Hah?\" said Mowgli, for naturally he had never heard anything of the\nkind. Messua laughed softly and happily. The look in his face was enough\nfor her.\n\n\"I am the first, then? It is right, though it comes seldom, that a\nmother should tell her son these good things. Thou art very beautiful.\nNever have I looked upon such a man.\"\n\nMowgli twisted his head and tried to see over his own hard shoulder, and\nMessua laughed again so long that Mowgli, not knowing why, was forced to\nlaugh with her, and the child ran from one to the other, laughing too.\n\n\"Nay, thou must not mock thy brother,\" said Messua, catching him to\nher breast. \"When thou art one-half as fair we will marry thee to the\nyoungest daughter of a king, and thou shalt ride great elephants.\"\n\nMowgli could not understand one word in three of the talk here; the warm\nmilk was taking effect on him after his long run, so he curled up and\nin a minute was deep asleep, and Messua put the hair back from his eyes,\nthrew a cloth over him, and was happy. Jungle-fashion, he slept out the\nrest of that night and all the next day; for his instincts, which never\nwholly slept, warned him there was nothing to fear. He waked at last\nwith a bound that shook the hut, for the cloth over his face made him\ndream of traps; and there he stood, his hand on his knife, the sleep all\nheavy in his rolling eyes, ready for any fight.\n\nMessua laughed, and set the evening meal before him. There were only\na few coarse cakes baked over the smoky fire, some rice, and a lump of\nsour preserved tamarinds--just enough to go on with till he could get\nto his evening kill. The smell of the dew in the marshes made him hungry\nand restless. He wanted to finish his spring running, but the child\ninsisted on sitting in his arms, and Messua would have it that his long,\nblue-black hair must be combed out. So she sang, as she combed, foolish\nlittle baby-songs, now calling Mowgli her son, and now begging him to\ngive some of his jungle power to the child. The hut door was closed, but\nMowgli heard a sound he knew well, and saw Messua\'s jaw drop with horror\nas a great gray paw came under the bottom of the door, and Gray Brother\noutside whined a muffled and penitent whine of anxiety and fear.\n\n\"Out and wait! Ye would not come when I called,\" said Mowgli in\nJungle-talk, without turning his head, and the great gray paw\ndisappeared.\n\n\"Do not--do not bring thy--thy servants with thee,\" said Messua. \"I--we\nhave always lived at peace with the Jungle.\"\n\n\"It is peace,\" said Mowgli, rising. \"Think of that night on the road to\nKhanhiwara. There were scores of such folk before thee and behind\nthee. But I see that even in springtime the Jungle People do not always\nforget. Mother, I go.\"\n\nMessua drew aside humbly--he was indeed a wood-god, she thought; but as\nhis hand was on the door the mother in her made her throw her arms round\nMowgli\'s neck again and again.\n\n\"Come back!\" she whispered. \"Son or no son, come back, for I love\nthee--Look, he too grieves.\"\n\nThe child was crying because the man with the shiny knife was going\naway.\n\n\"Come back again,\" Messua repeated. \"By night or by day this door is\nnever shut to thee.\"\n\nMowgli\'s throat worked as though the cords in it were being pulled, and\nhis voice seemed to be dragged from it as he answered, \"I will surely\ncome back.\"\n\n\"And now,\" he said, as he put by the head of the fawning wolf on the\nthreshold, \"I have a little cry against thee, Gray Brother. Why came ye\nnot all four when I called so long ago?\"\n\n\"So long ago? It was but last night. I--we--were singing in the Jungle\nthe new songs, for this is the Time of New Talk. Rememberest thou?\"\n\n\"Truly, truly.\"\n\n\"And as soon as the songs were sung,\" Gray Brother went on earnestly,\n\"I followed thy trail. I ran from all the others and followed hot-foot.\nBut, O Little Brother, what hast THOU done, eating and sleeping with the\nMan-Pack?\"\n\n\"If ye had come when I called, this had never been,\" said Mowgli,\nrunning much faster.\n\n\"And now what is to be?\" said Gray Brother. Mowgli was going to answer\nwhen a girl in a white cloth came down some path that led from the\noutskirts of the village. Gray Brother dropped out of sight at once, and\nMowgli backed noiselessly into a field of high-springing crops. He could\nalmost have touched her with his hand when the warm, green stalks closed\nbefore his face and he disappeared like a ghost. The girl screamed, for\nshe thought she had seen a spirit, and then she gave a deep sigh. Mowgli\nparted the stalks with his hands and watched her till she was out of\nsight.\n\n\"And now I do not know,\" he said, sighing in his turn. \"WHY did ye not\ncome when I called?\"\n\n\"We follow thee--we follow thee,\" Gray Brother mumbled, licking at\nMowgli\'s heel. \"We follow thee always, except in the Time of the New\nTalk.\"\n\n\"And would ye follow me to the Man-Pack?\" Mowgli whispered.\n\n\"Did I not follow thee on the night our old Pack cast thee out? Who\nwaked thee lying among the crops?\"\n\n\"Ay, but again?\"\n\n\"Have I not followed thee to-night?\"\n\n\"Ay, but again and again, and it may be again, Gray Brother?\"\n\nGray Brother was silent. When he spoke he growled to himself, \"The Black\nOne spoke truth.\"\n\n\"And he said?\"\n\n\"Man goes to Man at the last. Raksha, our mother, said----\"\n\n\"So also said Akela on the night of Red Dog,\" Mowgli muttered.\n\n\"So also says Kaa, who is wiser than us all.\"\n\n\"What dost thou say, Gray Brother?\"\n\n\"They cast thee out once, with bad talk. They cut thy mouth with stones.\nThey sent Buldeo to slay thee. They would have thrown thee into the Red\nFlower. Thou, and not I, hast said that they are evil and senseless.\nThou, and not I--I follow my own people--didst let in the Jungle upon\nthem. Thou, and not I, didst make song against them more bitter even\nthan our song against Red Dog.\"\n\n\"I ask thee what THOU sayest?\"\n\nThey were talking as they ran. Gray Brother cantered on a while\nwithout replying, and then he said,--between bound and bound as it\nwere,--\"Man-cub--Master of the Jungle--Son of Raksha, Lair-brother to\nme--though I forget for a little while in the spring, thy trail is my\ntrail, thy lair is my lair, thy kill is my kill, and thy death-fight\nis my death-fight. I speak for the Three. But what wilt thou say to the\nJungle?\"\n\n\"That is well thought. Between the sight and the kill it is not good to\nwait. Go before and cry them all to the Council Rock, and I will tell\nthem what is in my stomach. But they may not come--in the Time of New\nTalk they may forget me.\"\n\n\"Hast thou, then, forgotten nothing?\" snapped Gray Brother over his\nshoulder, as he laid himself down to gallop, and Mowgli followed,\nthinking.\n\nAt any other season the news would have called all the Jungle together\nwith bristling necks, but now they were busy hunting and fighting and\nkilling and singing. From one to another Gray Brother ran, crying, \"The\nMaster of the Jungle goes back to Man! Come to the Council Rock.\" And\nthe happy, eager People only answered, \"He will return in the summer\nheats. The Rains will drive him to lair. Run and sing with us, Gray\nBrother.\"\n\n\"But the Master of the Jungle goes back to Man,\" Gray Brother would\nrepeat.\n\n\"Eee--Yoawa? Is the Time of New Talk any less sweet for that?\" they\nwould reply. So when Mowgli, heavy-hearted, came up through the\nwell-remembered rocks to the place where he had been brought into the\nCouncil, he found only the Four, Baloo, who was nearly blind with age,\nand the heavy, cold-blooded Kaa coiled around Akela\'s empty seat.\n\n\"Thy trail ends here, then, Manling?\" said Kaa, as Mowgli threw himself\ndown, his face in his hands. \"Cry thy cry. We be of one blood, thou and\nI--man and snake together.\"\n\n\"Why did I not die under Red Dog?\" the boy moaned. \"My strength is gone\nfrom me, and it is not any poison. By night and by day I hear a double\nstep upon my trail. When I turn my head it is as though one had hidden\nhimself from me that instant. I go to look behind the trees and he is\nnot there. I call and none cry again; but it is as though one listened\nand kept back the answer. I lie down, but I do not rest. I run the\nspring running, but I am not made still. I bathe, but I am not made\ncool. The kill sickens me, but I have no heart to fight except I kill.\nThe Red Flower is in my body, my bones are water--and--I know not what I\nknow.\"\n\n\"What need of talk?\" said Baloo slowly, turning his head to where Mowgli\nlay. \"Akela by the river said it, that Mowgli should drive Mowgli\nback to the Man-Pack. I said it. But who listens now to Baloo?\nBagheera--where is Bagheera this night?--he knows also. It is the Law.\"\n\n\"When we met at Cold Lairs, Manling, I knew it,\" said Kaa, turning a\nlittle in his mighty coils. \"Man goes to Man at the last, though the\nJungle does not cast him out.\"\n\nThe Four looked at one another and at Mowgli, puzzled but obedient.\n\n\"The Jungle does not cast me out, then?\" Mowgli stammered.\n\nGray Brother and the Three growled furiously, beginning, \"So long as we\nlive none shall dare----\" But Baloo checked them.\n\n\"I taught thee the Law. It is for me to speak,\" he said; \"and, though I\ncannot now see the rocks before me, I see far. Little Frog, take thine\nown trail; make thy lair with thine own blood and pack and people; but\nwhen there is need of foot or tooth or eye, or a word carried swiftly by\nnight, remember, Master of the Jungle, the Jungle is thine at call.\"\n\n\"The Middle Jungle is thine also,\" said Kaa. \"I speak for no small\npeople.\"\n\n\"Hai-mai, my brothers,\" cried Mowgli, throwing up his arms with a sob.\n\"I know not what I know! I would not go; but I am drawn by both feet.\nHow shall I leave these nights?\"\n\n\"Nay, look up, Little Brother,\" Baloo repeated. \"There is no shame in\nthis hunting. When the honey is eaten we leave the empty hive.\"\n\n\"Having cast the skin,\" said Kaa, \"we may not creep into it afresh. It\nis the Law.\"\n\n\"Listen, dearest of all to me,\" said Baloo. There is neither word nor\nwill here to hold thee back. Look up! Who may question the Master of the\nJungle? I saw thee playing among the white pebbles yonder when thou wast\na little frog; and Bagheera, that bought thee for the price of a young\nbull newly killed, saw thee also. Of that Looking Over we two only\nremain; for Raksha, thy lair-mother, is dead with thy lair-father; the\nold Wolf-Pack is long since dead; thou knowest whither Shere Khan went,\nand Akela died among the dholes, where, but for thy wisdom and strength,\nthe second Seeonee Pack would also have died. There remains nothing but\nold bones. It is no longer the Man-cub that asks leave of his Pack, but\nthe Master of the Jungle that changes his trail. Who shall question Man\nin his ways?\"\n\n\"But Bagheera and the Bull that bought me,\" said Mowgli. \"I would\nnot----\"\n\nHis words were cut short by a roar and a crash in the thicket below, and\nBagheera, light, strong, and terrible as always, stood before him.\n\n\"Therefore,\" he said, stretching out a dripping right paw, \"I did not\ncome. It was a long hunt, but he lies dead in the bushes now--a bull in\nhis second year--the Bull that frees thee, Little Brother. All debts\nare paid now. For the rest, my word is Baloo\'s word.\" He licked Mowgli\'s\nfoot. \"Remember, Bagheera loved thee,\" he cried, and bounded away. At\nthe foot of the hill he cried again long and loud, \"Good hunting on a\nnew trail, Master of the Jungle! Remember, Bagheera loved thee.\"\n\n\"Thou hast heard,\" said Baloo. \"There is no more. Go now; but first come\nto me. O wise Little Frog, come to me!\"\n\n\"It is hard to cast the skin,\" said Kaa as Mowgli sobbed and sobbed,\nwith his head on the blind bear\'s side and his arms round his neck,\nwhile Baloo tried feebly to lick his feet.\n\n\"The stars are thin,\" said Gray Brother, snuffing at the dawn wind.\n\"Where shall we lair to-day? for from now, we follow new trails.\"\n\n*****\n\nAnd this is the last of the Mowgli stories.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OUTSONG\n\n[This is the song that Mowgli heard behind him in the Jungle till he\ncame to Messua\'s door again.]\n\n Baloo\n\n For the sake of him who showed\n One wise Frog the Jungle-Road,\n Keep the Law the Man-Pack make--\n For thy blind old Baloo\'s sake!\n Clean or tainted, hot or stale,\n Hold it as it were the Trail,\n Through the day and through the night,\n Questing neither left nor right.\n For the sake of him who loves\n Thee beyond all else that moves,\n When thy Pack would make thee pain,\n Say: \"Tabaqui sings again.\"\n When thy Pack would work thee ill,\n Say: \"Shere Khan is yet to kill.\"\n When the knife is drawn to slay,\n Keep the Law and go thy way.\n (Root and honey, palm and spathe,\n Guard a cub from harm and scathe!)\n Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,\n Jungle-Favour go with thee!\n\n\n Kaa\n\n Anger is the egg of Fear--\n Only lidless eyes are clear.\n Cobra-poison none may leech.\n Even so with Cobra-speech.\n Open talk shall call to thee\n Strength, whose mate is Courtesy.\n Send no lunge beyond thy length;\n Lend no rotten bough thy strength.\n Gauge thy gape with buck or goat,\n Lest thine eye should choke thy throat,\n After gorging, wouldst thou sleep?\n Look thy den is hid and deep,\n Lest a wrong, by thee forgot,\n Draw thy killer to the spot.\n East and West and North and South,\n Wash thy hide and close thy mouth.\n (Pit and rift and blue pool-brim,\n Middle-Jungle follow him!)\n Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,\n Jungle-Favour go with thee!\n\n\n Bagheera\n\n In the cage my life began;\n Well I know the worth of Man.\n By the Broken Lock that freed--\n Man-cub, \'ware the Man-cub\'s breed!\n Scenting-dew or starlight pale,\n Choose no tangled tree-cat trail.\n Pack or council, hunt or den,\n Cry no truce with Jackal-Men.\n Feed them silence when they say:\n \"Come with us an easy way.\"\n Feed them silence when they seek\n Help of thine to hurt the weak.\n Make no banaar\'s boast of skill;\n Hold thy peace above the kill.\n Let nor call nor song nor sign\n Turn thee from thy hunting-line.\n (Morning mist or twilight clear,\n Serve him, Wardens of the Deer!)\n Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,\n Jungle-Favour go with thee!\n\n\n The Three\n\n On the trail that thou must tread\n To the thresholds of our dread,\n Where the Flower blossoms red;\n Through the nights when thou shalt lie\n Prisoned from our Mother-sky,\n Hearing us, thy loves, go by;\n In the dawns when thou shalt wake\n To the toil thou canst not break,\n Heartsick for the Jungle\'s sake:\n Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,\n Wisdom, Strength, and Courtesy,\n Jungle-Favour go with thee!'"