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The Second Jungle Book

by Rudyard Kipling

October, 1999 [Etext #1937]

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THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK

by Rudyard Kipling

CONTENTS

How Fear Came

The Law of the Jungle

The Miracle of Purun Bhagat

A Song of Kabir

Letting in the Jungle

Mowgli's Song against People

The Undertakers

A Ripple Song

The King's Ankus

The Song of the Little Hunter

Quiquern

'Angutivaun Taina'

Red Dog

Chil's Song

The Spring Running

The Outsong

HOW FEAR CAME

The stream is shrunk--the pool is dry,

And we be comrades, thou and I;

With fevered jowl and dusty flank

Each jostling each along the bank;

And by one drouthy fear made still,

Forgoing thought of quest or kill.

Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see,

The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,

And the tall buck, unflinching, note

The fangs that tore his father's throat.

The pools are shrunk--the streams are dry,

And we be playmates, thou and I,

Till yonder cloud--Good Hunting!--loose

The rain that breaks our Water Truce.

The Law of the Jungle--which is by far the oldest law in the

world--has arranged for almost every kind of accident that may

befall the Jungle People, till now its code is as perfect as time

and custom can make it. You will remember that Mowgli

spent a great part of his life in the Seeonee Wolf-Pack,

learning the Law from Baloo, the Brown Bear; and it was Baloo

who told him, when the boy grew impatient at the constant

orders, that the Law was like the Giant Creeper, because it

dropped across every one's back and no one could escape.

"When thou hast lived as long as I have, Little Brother,

thou wilt see how all the Jungle obeys at least one Law.

And that will be no pleasant sight," said Baloo.

This talk went in at one ear and out at the other, for a boy

who spends his life eating and sleeping does not worry about

anything till it actually stares him in the face. But,

one year, Baloo's words came true, and Mowgli saw all the

Jungle working under the Law.

It began when the winter Rains failed almost entirely, and

Ikki, the Porcupine, meeting Mowgli in a bamboo-thicket, told

him that the wild yams were drying up. Now everybody knows that

Ikki is ridiculously fastidious in his choice of food, and will

eat nothing but the very best and ripest. So Mowgli laughed and

said, "What is that to me?"

"Not much NOW," said Ikki, rattling his quills in a stiff,

uncomfortable way, "but later we shall see. Is there any

more diving into the deep rock-pool below the Bee-Rocks,

Little Brother?"

"No. The foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish

to break my head," said Mowgii, who, in those days, was quite

sure that he knew as much as any five of the Jungle People

put together.

"That is thy loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom."

Ikki ducked quickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling his

nose-bristles, and Mowgli told Baloo what Ikki had said.

Baloo looked very grave, and mumbled half to himself:

"If I were alone I would change my hunting-grounds now,

before the others began to think. And yet--hunting among

strangers ends in fighting; and they might hurt the Man-cub.

We must wait and see how the mohwa blooms."

That spring the mohwa tree, that Baloo was so fond of, never

flowered. The greeny, cream-coloured, waxy blossoms were

heat-killed before they were born, and only a few bad-smelling

petals came down when he stood on his hind legs and shook

the tree. Then, inch by inch, the untempered heat crept into

the heart of the Jungle, turning it yellow, brown, and at

last black. The green growths in the sides of the ravines

burned up to broken wires and curled films of dead stuff;

the hidden pools sank down and caked over, keeping the last

least footmark on their edges as if it had been cast in iron;

the juicy-stemmed creepers fell away from the trees they clung

to and died at their feet; the bamboos withered, clanking when

the hot winds blew, and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in

the Jungle, till they were as bare and as hot as the quivering

blue boulders in the bed of the stream.

The birds and the monkey-people went north early in the year,

for they knew what was coming; and the deer and the wild pig

broke far away to the perished fields of the villages, dying

sometimes before the eyes of men too weak to kill them. Chil,

the Kite, stayed and grew fat, for there was a great deal of

carrion, and evening after evening he brought the news to the

beasts, too weak to force their way to fresh hunting-grounds,

that the sun was killing the Jungle for three days" flight in

every direction.

Mowgli, who had never known what real hunger meant, fell back

on stale honey, three years old, scraped out of deserted

rock-hives--honey black as a sloe, and dusty with dried sugar.

He hunted, too, for deep-boring grubs under the bark of the

trees, and robbed the wasps of their new broods. All the game

in the jungle was no more than skin and bone, and Bagheera

could kill thrice in a night, and hardly get a full meal. But

the want of water was the worst, for though the Jungle People

drink seldom they must drink deep.

And the heat went on and on, and sucked up all the moisture,

till at last the main channel of the Waingunga was the only

stream that carried a trickle of water between its dead banks;

and when Hathi, the wild elephant, who lives for a hundred

years and more, saw a long, lean blue ridge of rock show dry

in the very centre of the stream, he knew that he was looking

at the Peace Rock, and then and there he lifted up his trunk

and proclaimed the Water Truce, as his father before him had

proclaimed it fifty years ago. The deer, wild pig, and buffalo

took up the cry hoarsely; and Chil, the Kite, flew in great

circles far and wide, whistling and shrieking the warning.

By the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the

drinking-places when once the Water Truce has been declared.

The reason of this is that drinking comes before eating. Every

one in the Jungle can scramble along somehow when only game is

scarce; but water is water, and when there is but one source of

supply, all hunting stops while the Jungle People go there for

their needs. In good seasons, when water was plentiful, those

who came down to drink at the Waingunga--or anywhere else, for

that matter--did so at the risk of their lives, and that risk

made no small part of the fascination of the night's doings.

To move down so cunningly that never a leaf stirred; to wade

knee-deep in the roaring shallows that drown all noise from

behind; to drink, looking backward over one shoulder, every

muscle ready for the first desperate bound of keen terror;

to roll on the sandy margin, and return, wet-muzzled and

well plumped out, to the admiring herd, was a thing that all

tall-antlered young bucks took a delight in, precisely because

they knew that at any moment Bagheera or Shere Khan might leap

upon them and bear them down. But now all that life-and-death

fun was ended, and the Jungle People came up, starved and

weary, to the shrunken river,--tiger, bear, deer, buffalo,

and pig, all together,--drank the fouled waters, and hung above

them, too exhausted to move off.

The deer and the pig had tramped all day in search of something

better than dried bark and withered leaves. The buffaloes had

found no wallows to be cool in, and no green crops to steal.

The snakes had left the Jungle and come down to the river in

the hope of finding a stray frog. They curled round wet stones,

and never offered to strike when the nose of a rooting pig

dislodged them. The river-turtles had long ago been killed by

Bagheera, cleverest of hunters, and the fish had buried

themselves deep in the dry mud. Only the Peace Rock lay across

the shallows like a long snake, and the little tired ripples

hissed as they dried on its hot side.

It was here that Mowgli came nightly for the cool and the

companionship. The most hungry of his enemies would hardly have

cared for the boy then, His naked hide made him seem more lean

and wretched than any of his fellows. His hair was bleached to

tow colour by the sun; his ribs stood out like the ribs of a

basket, and the lumps on his knees and elbows, where he was used

to track on all fours, gave his shrunken limbs the look of

knotted grass-stems. But his eye, under his matted forelock,

was cool and quiet, for Bagheera was his adviser in this time

of trouble, and told him to go quietly, hunt slowly, and never,

on any account, to lose his temper.

"It is an evil time," said the Black Panther, one furnace-hot

evening, "but it will go if we can live till the end. Is thy

stomach full, Man-cub?"

"There is stuff in my stomach, but I get no good of it.

Think you, Bagheera, the Rains have forgotten us and will

never come again?"

"Not I! We shall see the mohwa in blossom yet, and the little

fawns all fat with new grass. Come down to the Peace Rock and

hear the news. On my back, Little Brother."

"This is no time to carry weight. I can still stand alone,

but--indeed we be no fatted bullocks, we two."

Bagheera looked along his ragged, dusty flank and whispered.

"Last night I killed a bullock under the yoke. So low was I

brought that I think I should not have dared to spring if he

had been loose. WOU!"

Mowgli laughed. "Yes, we be great hunters now," said he.

"I am very bold--to eat grubs," and the two came down together

through the crackling undergrowth to the river-bank and the

lace-work of shoals that ran out from it in every direction.

"The water cannot live long," said Baloo, joining them.

"Look across. Yonder are trails like the roads of Man."

On the level plain of the farther bank the stiff jungle-grass

had died standing, and, dying, had mummied. The beaten tracks

of the deer and the pig, all heading toward the river, had

striped that colourless plain with dusty gullies driven through

the ten-foot grass, and, early as it was, each long avenue was

full of first-comers hastening to the water. You could hear the

does and fawns coughing in the snuff-like dust.

Up-stream, at the bend of the sluggish pool round the Peace

Rock, and Warden of the Water Truce, stood Hathi, the wild

elephant, with his sons, gaunt and gray in the moonlight,

rocking to and fro--always rocking. Below him a little were the

vanguard of the deer; below these, again, the pig and the wild

buffalo; and on the opposite bank, where the tall trees came

down to the water's edge, was the place set apart for the

Eaters of Flesh--the tiger, the wolves, the panther, the bear,

and the others.

"We are under one Law, indeed," said Bagheera, wading into the

water and looking across at the lines of clicking horns and

starting eyes where the deer and the pig pushed each other to

and fro. "Good hunting, all you of my blood," he added, lying

own at full length, one flank thrust out of the shallows; and

then, between his teeth, "But for that which is the Law it

would be VERY good hunting."

The quick-spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence,

and a frightened whisper ran along the ranks. "The Truce!

Remember the Truce!"

"Peace there, peace!" gurgled Hathi, the wild elephant.

"The Truce holds, Bagheera. This is no time to talk

of hunting."

"Who should know better than I?" Bagheera answered, rolling his

yellow eyes up-stream. "I am an eater of turtles--a fisher of

frogs. Ngaayah! Would I could get good from chewing branches!"

"WE wish so, very greatly," bleated a young fawn, who had only

been born that spring, and did not at all like it. Wretched as

the Jungle People were, even Hathi could not help chuckling;

while Mowgli, lying on his elbows in the warm water, laughed

aloud, and beat up the scum with his feet.

"Well spoken, little bud-horn," Bagheera purred. "When the

Truce ends that shall be remembered in thy favour," and he

looked keenly through the darkness to make sure of recognising

the fawn again.

Gradually the talking spread up and down the drinking-places.

One could hear the scuffling, snorting pig asking for more

room; the buffaloes grunting among themselves as they lurched

out across the sand-bars, and the deer telling pitiful stories

of their long foot-sore wanderings in quest of food. Now and

again they asked some question of the Eaters of Flesh across

the river, but all the news was bad, and the roaring hot wind

of the Jungle came and went between the rocks and the rattling

branches, and scattered twigs, and dust on the water.

"The men-folk, too, they die beside their ploughs," said a

young sambhur. "I passed three between sunset and night.

They lay still, and their Bullocks with them. We also shall lie

still in a little."

"The river has fallen since last night," said Baloo. "O Hathi,

hast thou ever seen the like of this drought?"

"It will pass, it will pass," said Hathi, squirting water along

his back and sides.

"We have one here that cannot endure long," said Baloo; and he

looked toward the boy he loved.

"I?" said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. "I have

no long fur to cover my bones, but--but if THY hide were taken

off, Baloo----"

Hathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely:

"Man-cub, that is not seemly to tell a Teacher of the Law.

Never have I been seen without my hide."

"Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it

were, like the cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut

all naked. Now that brown husk of thine----" Mowgli was sitting

cross-legged, and explaining things with his forefinger in his

usual way, when Bagheera put out a paddy paw and pulled him

over backward into the water.

"Worse and worse," said the Black Panther, as the boy rose

spluttering. "First Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a

cocoanut. Be careful that he does not do what the ripe

cocoanuts do."

"And what is that?" said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute,

though that is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle.

"Break thy head," said Bagheera quietly, pulling him

under again.

"It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher," said the bear,

when Mowgli had been ducked for the third time.

"Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing running to

and fro makes a monkey-jest of those who have once been good

hunters, and pulls the best of us by the whiskers for sport."

This was Shere Khan, the Lame Tiger, limping down to the water.

He waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the

deer on the opposite to lap, growling: "The jungle has become a

whelping-ground for naked cubs now. Look at me, Man-cub!"

Mowgli looked--stared, rather--as insolently as he knew how,

and in a minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. "Man-cub this,

and Man-cub that," he rumbled, going on with his drink, "the

cub is neither man nor cub, or he would have been afraid. Next

season I shall have to beg his leave for a drink. Augrh!"

"That may come, too," said Bagheera, looking him steadily

between the eyes. "That may come, too--Faugh, Shere Khan!--what

new shame hast thou brought here?"

The Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and

dark, oily streaks were floating from it down-stream.

"Man!" said Shere Khan coolly, "I killed an hour since."

He went on purring and growling to himself.

The line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper

went up that grew to a cry. "Man! Man! He has killed Man!"

Then all looked towards Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed

not to hear. Hathi never does anything till the time comes,

and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long.

"At such a season as this to kill Man! Was no other game

afoot?" said Bagheera scornfully, drawing himself out of the

tainted water, and shaking each paw, cat-fashion, as he did so.

"I killed for choice--not for food." The horrified whisper

began again, and Hathi's watchful little white eye cocked

itself in Shere Khan's direction. "For choice," Shere Khan

drawled. "Now come I to drink and make me clean again. Is

there any to forbid?"

Bagheera's back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind,

but Hathi lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly.

"Thy kill was from choice?" he asked; and when Hathi asks a

question it is best to answer.

"Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi."

Shere Khan spoke almost courteously.

"Yes, I know," Hathi answered; and, after a little silence,

"Hast thou drunk thy fill?"

"For to-night, yes."

"Go, then. The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but

the Lame Tiger would so have boasted of his right at this

season when--when we suffer together--Man and Jungle People

alike." Clean or unclean, get to thy lair, Shere Khan!"

The last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi's three

sons rolled forward half a pace, though there was no need.

Shere Khan slunk away, not daring to growl, for he knew--what

every one else knows--that when the last comes to the last,

Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.

"What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?" Mowgli whispered in

Bagheera's ear. "To kill Man is always, shameful. The Law says

so. And yet Hathi says----"

"Ask him. I do not know, Little Brother. Right or no right, if

Hathi had not spoken I would have taught that lame butcher his

lesson. To come to the Peace Rock fresh from a kill of Man--and

to boast of it--is a jackal's trick. Besides, he tainted the

good water."

Mowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage, because no

one cared to address Hathi directly, and then he cried: "What

is Shere Khan's right, O Hathi?" Both banks echoed his words,

for all the People of the Jungle are intensely curious, and

they had just seen something that none except Baloo, who looked

very thoughtful, seemed to understand.

"It is an old tale," said Hathi; "a tale older than the Jungle.

Keep silence along the banks and I will tell that tale."

There was a minute or two of pushing a shouldering among the

pigs and the buffalo, and then the leaders of the herds

grunted, one after another, "We wait," and Hathi strode

forward, till he was nearly knee-deep in the pool by the Peace

Rock. Lean and wrinkled and yellow-tusked though he was,

he looked what the Jungle knew him to be--their master.

"Ye know, children," he began, "that of all things ye most fear

Man"; and there was a mutter of agreement.

"This tale touches thee, Little Brother," said Bagheera

to Mowgli.

"I? I am of the Pack--a hunter of the Free People," Mowgli

answered. "What have I to do with Man?"

"And ye do not know why ye fear Man?" Hathi went on. "This is

the reason. In the beginning of the Jungle, and none know when

that was, we of the Jungle walked together, having no fear of

one another. In those days there was no drought, and leaves and

flowers and fruit grew on the same tree, and we ate nothing at

all except leaves and flowers and grass and fruit and bark."

"I am glad I was not born in those days," said Bagheera. "Bark

is only good to sharpen claws."

"And the Lord of the Jungle was Tha, the First of the

Elephants. He drew the Jungle out of deep waters with his

trunk; and where he made furrows in the ground with his tusks,

there the rivers ran; and where he struck with his foot, there

rose ponds of good water; and when he blew through his trunk,--

thus,--the trees fell. That was the manner in which the Jungle

was made by Tha; and so the tale was told to me."

"It has not lost fat in the telling," Bagheera whispered, and

Mowgli laughed behind his hand.

"In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or

sugar-cane, nor were there any little huts such as ye have

all seen; and the Jungle People knew nothing of Man, but lived

in the Jungle together, making one people. But presently they

began to dispute over their food, though there was grazing

enough for all. They were lazy. Each wished to eat where he

lay, as sometimes we can do now when the spring rains are good.

Tha, the First of the Elephants, was busy making new jungles

and leading the rivers in their beds. He could not walk in all

places; therefore he made the First of the Tigers the master

and the judge of the Jungle, to whom the Jungle People should

bring their disputes. In those days the First of the Tigers

ate fruit and grass with the others. He was as large as I am,

and he was very beautiful, in colour all over like the blossom

of the yellow creeper. There was never stripe nor bar upon

his hide in those good days when this the Jungle was new.

All the Jungle People came before him without fear, and his

word was the Law of all the Jungle. We were then, remember ye,

one people.

"Yet upon a night there was a dispute between two bucks--a

grazing-quarrel such as ye now settle with the horns and the

fore-feet--and it is said that as the two spoke together before

the First of the First of the Tigers lying among the flowers,

a buck pushed him with his horns, and the First of the Tigers

forgot that he was the master and judge of the Jungle, and,

leaping upon that buck, broke his neck.

"Till that night never one of us had died, and the First of

the Tigers, seeing what he had done, and being made foolish by

the scent of the blood, ran away into the marshes of the North,

and we of the Jungle, left without a judge, fell to fighting

among ourselves; and Tha heard the noise of it and came back.

Then some of us said this and some of us said that, but he saw

the dead buck among the flowers, and asked who had killed,

and we of the Jungle would not tell because the smell of the

blood made us foolish. We ran to and fro in circles, capering

and crying out and shaking our heads. Then Tha gave an order

to the trees that hang low, and to the trailing creepers of

the Jungle, that they should mark the killer of the buck so

that he should know him again, and he said, "Who will now be

master of the Jungle People?" Then up leaped the Gray Ape

who lives in the branches, and said, "I will now be master of

the Jungle."

At this Tha laughed, and said, "So be it," and went away

very angry.

"Children, ye know the Gray Ape. He was then as he is now.

At the first he made a wise face for himself, but in a little

while he began to scratch and to leap up and down, and when Tha

came back he found the Gray Ape hanging, head down, from a

bough, mocking those who stood below; and they mocked him

again. And so there was no Law in the Jungle--only foolish

talk and senseless words.

"Then Tha called us all together and said: 'The first of your

masters has brought Death into the Jungle, and the second

Shame. Now it is time there was a Law, and a Law that ye must

not break. Now ye shall know Fear, and when ye have found him

ye shall know that he is your master, and the rest shall

follow.' Then we of the jungle said, 'What is Fear?' And Tha

said, 'Seek till ye find.' So we went up and down the Jungle

seeking for Fear, and presently the buffaloes----"

"Ugh!" said Mysa, the leader of the buffaloes, from their

sand-bank.

"Yes, Mysa, it was the buffaloes. They came back with the news

that in a cave in the Jungle sat Fear, and that he had no hair,

and went upon his hind legs. Then we of the Jungle followed the

herd till we came to that cave, and Fear stood at the mouth of

it, and he was, as the buffaloes had said, hairless, and he

walked upon his hinder legs. When he saw us he cried out, and

his voice filled us with the fear that we have now of that

voice when we hear it, and we ran away, tramping upon and

tearing each other because we were afraid. That night, so it

was told to me, we of the Jungle did not lie down together as

used to be our custom, but each tribe drew off by itself--the

pig with the pig, the deer with the deer; horn to horn, hoof to

hoof,--like keeping to like, and so lay shaking in the Jungle.

"Only the First of the Tigers was not with us, for he was still

hidden in the marshes of the North, and when word was brought

to him of the Thing we had seen in the cave, he said. 'I will

go to this Thing and break his neck.' So he ran all the night

till he came to the cave; but the trees and the creepers on his

path, remembering the order that Tha had given, let down their

branches and marked him as he ran, drawing their fingers across

his back, his flank, his forehead, and his jowl. Wherever they

touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his yellow hide.

AND THOSE STRIPES DO THIS CHILDREN WEAR TO THIS DAY! When he

came to the cave, Fear, the Hairless One, put out his hand and

called him 'The Striped One that comes by night,' and the First

of the Tigers was afraid of the Hairless One, and ran back to

the swamps howling."

Mowgli chuckled quietly here, his chin in the water.

"So loud did he howl that Tha heard him and said, 'What is the

sorrow?' And the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to

the new-made sky, which is now so old, said: 'Give me back my

power, O Tha. I am made ashamed before all the Jungle, and I

have run away from a Hairless One, and he has called me a

shameful name.' 'And why?' said Tha. 'Because I am smeared with

the mud of the marshes,' said the First of the Tigers. 'Swim,

then, and roll on the wet grass, and if it be mud it will wash

away,' said Tha; and the First of the Tigers swam, and rolled

and rolled upon the grass, till the Jungle ran round and round

before his eyes, but not one little bar upon all his hide was

changed, and Tha, watching him, laughed. Then the First of the

Tigers said: 'What have I done that this comes to me?'

Tha said, 'Thou hast killed the buck, and thou hast let Death

loose in the Jungle, and with Death has come Fear, so that the

people of the Jungle are afraid one of the other, as thou art

afraid of the Hairless One.' The First of the Tigers said,

'They will never fear me, for I knew them since the beginning.'

Tha said, 'Go and see.' And the First of the Tigers ran to and

fro, calling aloud to the deer and the pig and the sambhur and

the porcupine and all the Jungle Peoples, and they all ran away

from him who had been their judge, because they were afraid.

"Then the First of the Tigers came back, and his pride was

broken in him, and, beating his head upon the ground, he tore up

the earth with all his feet and said: 'Remember that I was once

the Master of the Jungle. Do not forget me, O Tha! Let my

children remember that I was once without shame or fear!'

And Tha said: 'This much I will do, because thou and I together

saw the Jungle made. For one night in each year it shall be as

it was before the buck was killed--for thee and for thy

children. In that one night, if ye meet the Hairless One--and

his name is Man--ye shall not be afraid of him, but he shall he

afraid of you, as though ye were judges of the Jungle and

masters of all things. Show him mercy in that night of his

fear, for thou hast known what Fear is.'

"Then the First of the Tigers answered, 'I am content';

but when next he drank he saw the black stripes upon his flank

and his side, and he remembered the name that the Hairless One

had given him, and he was angry. For a year he lived in the

marshes waiting till Tha should keep his promise. And upon a

night when the jackal of the Moon [the Evening Star] stood

clear of the Jungle, he felt that his Night was upon him,

and he went to that cave to meet the Hairless One. Then it

happened as Tha promised, for the Hairless One fell down before

him and lay along the ground, and the First of the Tigers

struck him and broke his back, for he thought that there was

but one such Thing in the Jungle, and that he had killed Fear.

Then, nosing above the kill, he heard Tha coming down from the

woods of the North, and presently the voice of the First of the

Elephants, which is the voice that we hear now----"

The thunder was rolling up and down the dry, scarred hills, but

it brought no rain--only heat--lightning that flickered along

the ridges--and Hathi went on: "THAT was the voice he heard,

and it said: 'Is this thy mercy?' The First of the Tigers

licked his lips and said: 'What matter? I have killed Fear.'

And Tha said: 'O blind and foolish! Thou hast untied the feet

of Death, and he will follow thy trail till thou diest.

Thou hast taught Man to kill!'

"The First of the Tigers, standing stiffly to his kill, said.

'He is as the buck was. There is no Fear. Now I will judge the

Jungle Peoples once more.'

"And Tha said: 'Never again shall the Jungle Peoples come to

thee. They shall never cross thy trail, nor sleep near thee,

nor follow after thee, nor browse by thy lair. Only Fear shall

follow thee, and with a blow that thou canst not see he shall

bid thee wait his pleasure. He shall make the ground to open

under thy feet, and the creeper to twist about thy neck,

and the tree-trunks to grow together about thee higher than

thou canst leap, and at the last he shall take thy hide to wrap

his cubs when they are cold. Thou hast shown him no mercy,

and none will he show thee.'

"The First of the Tigers was very bold, for his Night was still

on him, and he said: 'The Promise of Tha is the Promise of Tha.

He will not take away my Night?' And Tha said: 'The one Night is

thine, as I have said, but there is a price to pay.

Thou hast taught Man to kill, and he is no slow learner.'

"The First of the Tigers said: 'He is here under my foot, and

his back is broken. Let the Jungle know I have killed Fear.'

"Then Tha laughed, and said: 'Thou hast killed one of many, but

thou thyself shalt tell the Jungle--for thy Night is ended.'

"So the day came; and from the mouth of the cave went out

another Hairless One, and he saw the kill in the path, and the

First of the Tigers above it, and he took a pointed stick----"

"They throw a thing that cuts now," said Ikki, rustling down

the bank; for Ikki was considered uncommonly good eating by

the Gonds--they called him Ho-Igoo--and he knew something of

the wicked little Gondee axe that whirls across a clearing

like a dragon-fly.

"It was a pointed stick, such as they put in the foot of a

pit-trap," said Hathi, "and throwing it, he struck the First

of the Tigers deep in the flank. Thus it happened as Tha said,

for the First of the Tigers ran howling up and down the Jungle

till he tore out the stick, and all the Jungle knew that the

Hairless One could strike from far off, and they feared more

than before. So it came about that the First of the Tigers

taught the Hairless One to kill--and ye know what harm that has

since done to all our peoples--through the noose, and the

pitfall, and the hidden trap, and the flying stick and the

stinging fly that comes out of white smoke [Hathi meant the

rifle], and the Red Flower that drives us into the open.

Yet for one night in the year the Hairless One fears the Tiger,

as Tha promised, and never has the Tiger given him cause to be

less afraid. Where he finds him, there he kills him,

remembering how the First of the Tigers was made ashamed.

For the rest, Fear walks up and down the Jungle by day

and by night."

"Ahi! Aoo!" said the deer, thinking of what it all meant

to them.

"And only when there is one great Fear over all, as there is

now, can we of the Jungle lay aside our little fears, and meet

together in one place as we do now."

"For one night only does Man fear the Tiger?" said Mowgli.

"For one night only," said Hathi.

"But I--but we--but all the Jungle knows that Shere Khan kills

Man twice and thrice in a moon."

"Even so. THEN he springs from behind and turns his head aside

as he strikes, for he is full of fear. If Man looked at him he

would run. But on his one Night he goes openly down to the

village. He walks between the houses and thrusts his head into

the doorway, and the men fall on their faces, and there he does

his kill. One kill in that Night."

"Oh!" said Mowgli to himself, rolling over in the water. "NOW I

see why it was Shere Khan bade me look at him! He got no good

of it, for he could not hold his eyes steady, and--and I

certainly did not fall down at his feet. But then I am not a

man, being of the Free People."

"Umm!" said Bagheera deep in his furry throat. "Does the Tiger

know his Night?"

"Never till the Jackal of the Moon stands clear of the evening

mist. Sometimes it falls in the dry summer and sometimes in the

wet rains--this one Night of the Tiger. But for the First of

the Tigers, this would never have been, nor would any of us

have known fear."

The deer grunted sorrowfully and Bagheera's lips curled in a

wicked smile. "Do men know this--tale?" said he.

"None know it except the tigers, and we, the elephants--the

children of Tha. Now ye by the pools have heard it, and I

have spoken."

Hathi dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not

wish to talk.

"But--but--but," said Mowgli, turning to Baloo, "why did not the

First of the Tigers continue to eat grass and leaves and trees?

He did but break the buck's neck. He did not EAT. What led him

to the hot meat?"

"The trees and the creepers marked him, Little Brother, and made

him the striped thing that we see. Never again would he eat

their fruit; but from that day he revenged himself upon the

deer, and the others, the Eaters of Grass," said Baloo.

"Then THOU knowest the tale. Heh? Why have I never heard?"

"Because the Jungle is full of such tales. If I made a

beginning there would never be an end to them. Let go my ear,

Little Brother."

THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE

Just to give you an idea of the immense variety of the Jungle

Law, I have translated into verse (Baloo always recited them in

a sort of sing-song) a few of the laws that apply to the wolves.

There are, of course, hundreds and hundreds more, but these will

do for specimens of the simpler rulings.

Now this is the Law of the Jungle--as old and as true as

the sky;

And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf

that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth

forward and back--

For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength

of the Wolf is the Pack.

Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but

never too deep;

And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not

the day is for sleep.

The jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy

whiskers are grown,

Remember the Wolf is a hunter--go forth and get food

of thine own.

Keep peace with the Lords of the Jungle--the Tiger, the

Panther, the Bear;

And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar

in his lair.

When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither

will go from the trail,

Lie down till the leaders have spoken--it may be fair

words shall prevail.

When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must

fight him alone and afar,

Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be

diminished by war.

The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has

made him his home,

Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council

may come.

The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has

digged it too plain,

The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall

change it again.

If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the

woods with your bay,

Lest ye frighten the deer from the crops, and the brothers

go empty away.

Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs

as they need, and ye can;

But kill not for pleasure of killing, and SEVEN TIMES NEVER

KILL MAN.

If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in

thy pride;

Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the

head and the hide.

The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must

eat where it lies;

And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or

he dies.

The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may

do what he will,

But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat

of that Kill.

Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his

Pack he may claim

Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may

refuse him the same.

Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her

year she may claim

One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may

deny her the same.

Cave-Right is the right of the Father--to hunt by himself

for his own.

He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the

Council alone.

Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe

and his paw,

In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of the Head

Wolf is Law.

Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and

mighty are they;

But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch

and the hump is--Obey!

THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT

The night we felt the earth would move

We stole and plucked him by the hand,

Because we loved him with the love

That knows but cannot understand.

And when the roaring hillside broke,

And all our world fell down in rain,

We saved him, we the Little Folk;

But lo! he does not come again!

Mourn now, we saved him for the sake

Of such poor love as wild ones may.

Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake,

And his own kind drive us away!

Dirge of the Langurs.

There was once a man in India who was Prime Minister of one of

the semi-independent native States in the north-western part of

the country. He was a Brahmin, so high-caste that caste ceased

to have any particular meaning for him; and his father had been

an important official in the gay-coloured tag-rag and bobtail of

an old-fashioned Hindu Court. But as Purun Dass grew up he felt

that the old order of things was changing, and that if any one

wished to get on in the world he must stand well with the

English, and imitate all that the English believed to be good.

At the same time a native official must keep his own master's

favour. This was a difficult game, but the quiet, close-mouthed

young Brahmin, helped by a good English education at a Bombay

University, played it coolly, and rose, step by step, to be

Prime Minister of the kingdom. That is to say, he held more real

power than his master the Maharajah.

When the old king--who was suspicious of the English, their

railways and telegraphs--died, Purun Dass stood high with his

young successor, who had been tutored by an Englishman; and

between them, though he always took care that his master should

have the credit, they established schools for little girls,

made roads, and started State dispensaries and shows of

agricultural implements, and published a yearly blue-book on

the "Moral and Material Progress of the State," and the Foreign

Office and the Government of India were delighted. Very few

native States take up English progress altogether, for they will

not believe, as Purun Dass showed he did, that what was good for

the Englishman must be twice as good for the Asiatic. The Prime

Minister became the honoured friend of Viceroys, and Governors,

and Lieutenant-Governors, and medical missionaries, and common

missionaries, and hard-riding English officers who came to shoot

in the State preserves, as well as of whole hosts of tourists

who travelled up and down India in the cold weather, showing how

things ought to be managed. In his spare time he would endow

scholarships for the study of medicine and manufactures on

strictly English lines, and write letters to the "Pioneer",

the greatest Indian daily paper, explaining his master's aims

and objects.

At last he went to England on a visit, and had to pay enormous

sums to the priests when he came back; for even so high-caste a

Brahmin as Purun Dass lost caste by crossing the black sea.

In London he met and talked with every one worth knowing--

men whose names go all over the world--and saw a great deal

more than he said. He was given honorary degrees by learned

universities, and he made speeches and talked of Hindu social

reform to English ladies in evening dress, till all London

cried, "This is the most fascinating man we have ever met at

dinner since cloths were first laid."

When he returned to India there was a blaze of glory, for

the Viceroy himself made a special visit to confer upon the

Maharajah the Grand Cross of the Star of India--all diamonds

and ribbons and enamel; and at the same ceremony, while the

cannon boomed, Purun Dass was made a Knight Commander of the

Order of the Indian Empire; so that his name stood Sir Purun

Dass, K.C.I.E.

That evening, at dinner in the big Viceregal tent, he stood up

with the badge and the collar of the Order on his breast,

and replying to the toast of his master's health, made a speech

few Englishmen could have bettered.

Next month, when the city had returned to its sun-baked quiet,

he did a thing no Englishman would have dreamed of doing;

for, so far as the world's affairs went, he died. The jewelled

order of his knighthood went back to the Indian Government,

and a new Prime Minister was appointed to the charge of affairs,

and a great game of General Post began in all the subordinate

appointments. The priests knew what had happened, and the people

guessed; but India is the one place in the world where a man can

do as he pleases and nobody asks why; and the fact that Dewan

Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., had resigned position, palace, and

power, and taken up the begging-bowl and ochre-coloured dress of

a Sunnyasi, or holy man, was considered nothing extraordinary.

He had been, as the Old Law recommends, twenty years a youth,

twenty years a fighter,--though he had never carried a weapon in

his life,--and twenty years head of a household. He had used his

wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth; he had

taken honour when it came his way; he had seen men and cities

far and near, and men and cities had stood up and honoured him.

Now he would let those things go, as a man drops the cloak he no

longer needs.

Behind him, as he walked through the city gates, an antelope

skin and brass-handled crutch under his arm, and a begging-bowl

of polished brown coco-de-mer in his hand, barefoot, alone, with

eyes cast on the ground--behind him they were firing salutes

from the bastions in honour of his happy successor. Purun Dass

nodded. All that life was ended; and he bore it no more ill-will

or good-will than a man bears to a colourless dream of the

night. He was a Sunnyasi--a houseless, wandering mendicant,

depending on his neighbours for his daily bread; and so long as

there is a morsel to divide in India, neither priest nor beggar

starves. He had never in his life tasted meat, and very seldom

eaten even fish. A five-pound note would have covered his

personal expenses for food through any one of the many years in

which he had been absolute master of millions of money. Even

when he was being lionised in London he had held before him his

dream of peace and quiet--the long, white, dusty Indian road,

printed all over with bare feet, the incessant, slow-moving

traffic, and the sharp-smelling wood smoke curling up under

the fig-trees in the twilight, where the wayfarers sit at their

evening meal.

When the time came to make that dream true the Prime Minister

took the proper steps, and in three days you might more easily

have found a bubble in the trough of the long Atlantic seas,

than Purun Dass among the roving, gathering, separating millions

of India.

At night his antelope skin was spread where the darkness

overtook him--sometimes in a Sunnyasi monastery by the roadside;

sometimes by a mud-pillar shrine of Kala Pir, where the Jogis,

who are another misty division of holy men, would receive him as

they do those who know what castes and divisions are worth;

sometimes on the outskirts of a little Hindu village, where

the children would steal up with the food their parents had

prepared; and sometimes on the pitch of the bare grazing-

grounds, where the flame of his stick fire waked the drowsy

camels. It was all one to Purun Dass--or Purun Bhagat, as he

called himself now. Earth, people, and food were all one. But

unconsciously his feet drew him away northward and eastward;

from the south to Rohtak; from Rohtak to Kurnool; from Kurnool

to ruined Samanah, and then up-stream along the dried bed of the

Gugger river that fills only when the rain falls in the hills,

till one day he saw the far line of the great Himalayas.

Then Purun Bhagat smiled, for he remembered that his mother was

of Rajput Brahmin birth, from Kulu way--a Hill-woman, always

home-sick for the snows--and that the least touch of Hill blood

draws a man in the end back to where he belongs.

"Yonder," said Purun Bhagat, breasting the lower slopes of

the Sewaliks, where the cacti stand up like seven-branched

candlesticks-"yonder I shall sit down and get knowledge";

and the cool wind of the Himalayas whistled about his ears

as he trod the road that led to Simla.

The last time he had come that way it had been in state, with

a clattering cavalry escort, to visit the gentlest and most

affable of Viceroys; and the two had talked for an hour together

about mutual friends in London, and what the Indian common folk

really thought of things. This time Purun Bhagat paid no calls,

but leaned on the rail of the Mall, watching that glorious view

of the Plains spread out forty miles below, till a native

Mohammedan policeman told him he was obstructing traffic; and

Purun Bhagat salaamed reverently to the Law, because he knew the

value of it, and was seeking for a Law of his own. Then he moved

on, and slept that night in an empty hut at Chota Simla, which

looks like the very last end of the earth, but it was only the

beginning of his journey. He followed the Himalaya-Thibet road,

the little ten-foot track that is blasted out of solid rock,

or strutted out on timbers over gulfs a thousand feet deep;

that dips into warm, wet, shut-in valleys, and climbs out

across bare, grassy hill-shoulders where the sun strikes like

a burning-glass; or turns through dripping, dark forests where

the tree-ferns dress the trunks from head to heel, and the

pheasant calls to his mate. And he met Thibetan herdsmen with

their dogs and flocks of sheep, each sheep with a little bag of

borax on his back, and wandering wood-cutters, and cloaked and

blanketed Lamas from Thibet, coming into India on pilgrimage,

and envoys of little solitary Hill-states, posting furiously on

ring-streaked and piebald ponies, or the cavalcade of a Rajah

paying a visit; or else for a long, clear day he would see

nothing more than a black bear grunting and rooting below in the

valley. When he first started, the roar of the world he had left

still rang in his ears, as the roar of a tunnel rings long after

the train has passed through; but when he had put the Mutteeanee

Pass behind him that was all done, and Purun Bhagat was alone

with himself, walking, wondering, and thinking, his eyes on the

ground, and his thoughts with the clouds.

One evening he crossed the highest pass he had met till then--it

had been a two-day's climb--and came out on a line of snow-peaks

that banded all the horizon--mountains from fifteen to twenty

thousand feet high, looking almost near enough to hit with a

stone, though they were fifty or sixty miles away. The pass was

crowned with dense, dark forest--deodar, walnut, wild cherry,

wild olive, and wild pear, but mostly deodar, which is the

Himalayan cedar; and under the shadow of the deodars stood a

deserted shrine to Kali--who is Durga, who is Sitala, who is

sometimes worshipped against the smallpox.

Purun Dass swept the stone floor clean, smiled at the grinning

statue, made himself a little mud fireplace at the back of the

shrine, spread his antelope skin on a bed of fresh pine-needles,

tucked his bairagi--his brass-handled crutch--under his armpit,

and sat down to rest.

Immediately below him the hillside fell away, clean and cleared

for fifteen hundred feet, where a little village of stone-walled

houses, with roofs of beaten earth, clung to the steep tilt.

All round it the tiny terraced fields lay out like aprons of

patchwork on the knees of the mountain, and cows no bigger than

beetles grazed between the smooth stone circles of the

threshing-floors. Looking across the valley, the eye was

deceived by the size of things, and could not at first realise

that what seemed to be low scrub, on the opposite mountain-

flank, was in truth a forest of hundred-foot pines. Purun Bhagat

saw an eagle swoop across the gigantic hollow, but the great

bird dwindled to a dot ere it was half-way over. A few bands of

scattered clouds strung up and down the valley, catching on a

shoulder of the hills, or rising up and dying out when they were

level with the head of the pass. And "Here shall I find peace,"

said Purun Bhagat.

Now, a Hill-man makes nothing of a few hundred feet up or down,

and as soon as the villagers saw the smoke in the deserted

shrine, the village priest climbed up the terraced hillside to

welcome the stranger.

When he met Purun Bhagat's eyes--the eyes of a man used to

control thousands--he bowed to the earth, took the begging-bowl

without a word, and returned to the village, saying, "We have at

last a holy man. Never have I seen such a man. He is of the

Plains--but pale-coloured--a Brahmin of the Brahmins." Then all

the housewives of the village said, "Think you he will stay with

us?" and each did her best to cook the most savoury meal for the

Bhagat. Hill-food is very simple, but with buckwheat and Indian

corn, and rice and red pepper, and little fish out of the stream

in the valley, and honey from the flue-like hives built in the

stone walls, and dried apricots, and turmeric, and wild ginger,

and bannocks of flour, a devout woman can make good things, and

it was a full bowl that the priest carried to the Bhagat. Was

he going to stay? asked the priest. Would he need a chela--

a disciple--to beg for him? Had he a blanket against the cold

weather? Was the food good?

Purun Bhagat ate, and thanked the giver. It was in his mind to

stay. That was sufficient, said the priest. Let the begging-bowl

be placed outside the shrine, in the hollow made by those two

twisted roots, and daily should the Bhagat be fed; for the

village felt honoured that such a man--he looked timidly into

the Bhagat's face--should tarry among them.

That day saw the end of Purun Bhagat's wanderings. He had come

to the place appointed for him--the silence and the space. After

this, time stopped, and he, sitting at the mouth of the shrine,

could not tell whether he were alive or dead; a man with control

of his limbs, or a part of the hills, and the clouds, and the

shifting rain and sunlight. He would repeat a Name softly to

himself a hundred hundred times, till, at each repetition, he

seemed to move more and more out of his body, sweeping up to the

doors of some tremendous discovery; but, just as the door was

opening, his body would drag him back, and, with grief, he felt

he was locked up again in the flesh and bones of Purun Bhagat.

Every morning the filled begging-bowl was laid silently in the

crutch of the roots outside the shrine. Sometimes the priest

brought it; sometimes a Ladakhi trader, lodging in the village,

and anxious to get merit, trudged up the path; but, more often,

it was the woman who had cooked the meal overnight; and she

would murmur, hardly above her breath. "Speak for me before the

gods, Bhagat. Speak for such a one, the wife of so-and-so!"

Now and then some bold child would be allowed the honour, and

Purun Bhagat would hear him drop the bowl and run as fast as his

little legs could carry him, but the Bhagat never came down to

the village. It was laid out like a map at his feet. He could

see the evening gatherings, held on the circle of the threshing-

floors, because that was the only level ground; could see the

wonderful unnamed green of the young rice, the indigo blues of

the Indian corn, the dock-like patches of buckwheat, and, in its

season, the red bloom of the amaranth, whose tiny seeds, being

neither grain nor pulse, make a food that can be lawfully eaten

by Hindus in time of fasts.

When the year turned, the roofs of the huts were all little

squares of purest gold, for it was on the roofs that they

laid out their cobs of the corn to dry. Hiving and harvest,

rice-sowing and husking, passed before his eyes, all embroidered

down there on the many-sided plots of fields, and he thought of

them all, and wondered what they all led to at the long last.

Even in populated India a man cannot a day sit still before the

wild things run over him as though he were a rock; and in that

wilderness very soon the wild things, who knew Kali's Shrine

well, came back to look at the intruder. The langurs, the big

gray-whiskered monkeys of the Himalayas, were, naturally, the

first, for they are alive with curiosity; and when they had

upset the begging-bowl, and rolled it round the floor, and

tried their teeth on the brass-handled crutch, and made faces

at the antelope skin, they decided that the human being who

sat so still was harmless. At evening, they would leap down

from the pines, and beg with their hands for things to eat,

and then swing off in graceful curves. They liked the warmth

of the fire, too, and huddled round it till Purun Bhagat had

to push them aside to throw on more fuel; and in the morning,

as often as not, he would find a furry ape sharing his blanket.

All day long, one or other of the tribe would sit by his side,

staring out at the snows, crooning and looking unspeakably wise

and sorrowful.

After the monkeys came the barasingh, that big deer which is

like our red deer, but stronger. He wished to rub off the velvet

of his horns against the cold stones of Kali's statue, and

stamped his feet when he saw the man at the shrine. But Purun

Bhagat never moved, and, little by little, the royal stag edged

up and nuzzled his shoulder. Purun Bhagat slid one cool hand

along the hot antlers, and the touch soothed the fretted beast,

who bowed his head, and Purun Bhagat very softly rubbed and

ravelled off the velvet. Afterward, the barasingh brought his

doe and fawn--gentle things that mumbled on the holy man's

blanket--or would come alone at night, his eyes green in the

fire-flicker, to take his share of fresh walnuts. At last, the

musk-deer, the shyest and almost the smallest of the deerlets,

came, too, her big rabbity ears erect; even brindled, silent

mushick-nabha must needs find out what the light in the shrine

meant, and drop out her moose-like nose into Purun Bhagat's lap,

coming and going with the shadows of the fire. Purun Bhagat

called them all "my brothers," and his low call of "Bhai! Bhai!"

would draw them from the forest at noon if they were within ear

shot. The Himalayan black bear, moody and suspicious--Sona, who

has the V-shaped white mark under his chin--passed that way more

than once; and since the Bhagat showed no fear, Sona showed no

anger, but watched him, and came closer, and begged a share of

the caresses, and a dole of bread or wild berries. Often, in the

still dawns, when the Bhagat would climb to the very crest of

the pass to watch the red day walking along the peaks of the

snows, he would find Sona shuffling and grunting at his heels,

thrusting, a curious fore-paw under fallen trunks, and bringing

it away with a WHOOF of impatience; or his early steps would

wake Sona where he lay curled up, and the great brute, rising

erect, would think to fight, till he heard the Bhagat's voice

and knew his best friend.

Nearly all hermits and holy men who live apart from the big

cities have the reputation of being able to work miracles with

the wild things, but all the miracle lies in keeping still, in

never making a hasty movement, and, for a long time, at least,

in never looking directly at a visitor. The villagers saw the

outline of the barasingh stalking like a shadow through the

dark forest behind the shrine; saw the minaul, the Himalayan

pheasant, blazing in her best colours before Kali's statue;

and the langurs on their haunches, inside, playing with the

walnut shells. Some of the children, too, had heard Sona singing

to himself, bear-fashion, behind the fallen rocks, and the

Bhagat's reputation as miracle-worker stood firm.

Yet nothing was farther from his mind than miracles. He believed

that all things were one big Miracle, and when a man knows that

much he knows something to go upon. He knew for a certainty that

there was nothing great and nothing little in this world: and

day and night he strove to think out his way into the heart of

things, back to the place whence his soul had come.

So thinking, his untrimmed hair fell down about his shoulders,

the stone slab at the side of the antelope skin was dented into

a little hole by the foot of his brass-handled crutch, and the

place between the tree-trunks, where the begging-bowl rested day

after day, sunk and wore into a hollow almost as smooth as the

brown shell itself; and each beast knew his exact place at the

fire. The fields changed their colours with the seasons; the

threshing-floors filled and emptied, and filled again and again;

and again and again, when winter came, the langurs frisked among

the branches feathered with light snow, till the mother-monkeys

brought their sad-eyed little babies up from the warmer valleys

with the spring. There were few changes in the village. The

priest was older, and many of the little children who used to

come with the begging-dish sent their own children now; and when

you asked of the villagers how long their holy man had lived in

Kali's Shrine at the head of the pass, they answered, "Always."

Then came such summer rains as had not been known in the Hills

for many seasons. Through three good months the valley was

wrapped in cloud and soaking mist--steady, unrelenting downfall,

breaking off into thunder-shower after thunder-shower. Kali's

Shrine stood above the clouds, for the most part, and there was

a whole month in which the Bhagat never caught a glimpse of his

village. It was packed away under a white floor of cloud that

swayed and shifted and rolled on itself and bulged upward, but

never broke from its piers--the streaming flanks of the valley.

All that time he heard nothing but the sound of a million little

waters, overhead from the trees, and underfoot along the ground,

soaking through the pine-needles, dripping from the tongues of

draggled fern, and spouting in newly-torn muddy channels down

the slopes. Then the sun came out, and drew forth the good

incense of the deodars and the rhododendrons, and that far-off,

clean smell which the Hill people call "the smell of the snows."

The hot sunshine lasted for a week, and then the rains gathered

together for their last downpour, and the water fell in sheets

that flayed off the skin of the ground and leaped back in mud.

Purun Bhagat heaped his fire high that night, for he was sure

his brothers would need warmth; but never a beast came to the

shrine, though he called and called till he dropped asleep,

wondering what had happened in the woods.

It was in the black heart of the night, the rain drumming like a

thousand drums, that he was roused by a plucking at his blanket,

and, stretching out, felt the little hand of a langur. "It is

better here than in the trees," he said sleepily, loosening a

fold of blanket; "take it and be warm." The monkey caught his

hand and pulled hard. "Is it food, then?" said Purun Bhagat.

"Wait awhile, and I will prepare some." As he kneeled to throw

fuel on the fire the langur ran to the door of the shrine,

crooned and ran back again, plucking at the man's knee.

"What is it? What is thy trouble, Brother?" said Purun Bhagat,

for the langur's eyes were full of things that he could not

tell. "Unless one of thy caste be in a trap--and none set traps

here--I will not go into that weather. Look, Brother, even the

barasingh comes for shelter!"

The deer's antlers clashed as he strode into the shrine, clashed

against the grinning statue of Kali. He lowered them in Purun

Bhagat's direction and stamped uneasily, hissing through his

half-shut nostrils.

"Hai! Hai! Hai!" said the Bhagat, snapping his fingers, "Is THIS

payment for a night's lodging?" But the deer pushed him toward

the door, and as he did so Purun Bhagat heard the sound of

something opening with a sigh, and saw two slabs of the floor

draw away from each other, while the sticky earth below smacked

its lips.

"Now I see," said Purun Bhagat. "No blame to my brothers that

they did not sit by the fire to-night. The mountain is falling.

And yet-- why should I go?" His eye fell on the empty begging-

bowl, and his face changed. "They have given me good food daily

since--since I came, and, if I am not swift, to-morrow there

will not be one mouth in the valley. Indeed, I must go and warn

them below. Back there, Brother! Let me get to the fire."

The barasingh backed unwillingly as Purun Bhagat drove a pine

torch deep into the flame, twirling it till it was well lit.

"Ah! ye came to warn me," he said, rising. "Better than that we

shall do; better than that. Out, now, and lend me thy neck,

Brother, for I have but two feet."

He clutched the bristling withers of the barasingh with his

right hand, held the torch away with his left, and stepped out

of the shrine into the desperate night. There was no breath of

wind, but the rain nearly drowned the flare as the great deer

hurried down the slope, sliding on his haunches. As soon as they

were clear of the forest more of the Bhagat's brothers joined

them. He heard, though he could not see, the langurs pressing

about him, and behind them the uhh! uhh! of Sona. The rain

matted his long white hair into ropes; the water splashed

beneath his bare feet, and his yellow robe clung to his frail

old body, but he stepped down steadily, leaning against the

barasingh. He was no longer a holy man, but Sir Purun Dass,

K.C.I.E., Prime Minister of no small State, a man accustomed

to command, going out to save life. Down the steep, plashy path

they poured all together, the Bhagat and his brothers, down and

down till the deer's feet clicked and stumbled on the wall of a

threshing-floor, and he snorted because he smelt Man. Now they

were at the head of the one crooked village street, and the

Bhagat beat with his crutch on the barred windows of the

blacksmith's house, as his torch blazed up in the shelter of

the eaves. "Up and out!" cried Purun Bhagat; and he did not

know his own voice, for it was years since he had spoken aloud

to a man. "The hill falls! The hill is falling! Up and out, oh,

you within!"

"It is our Bhagat," said the blacksmith's wife. He stands among

his beasts. Gather the little ones and give the call."

It ran from house to house, while the beasts, cramped in the

narrow way, surged and huddled round the Bhagat, and Sona

puffed impatiently.

The people hurried into the street--they were no more than

seventy souls all told--and in the glare of the torches they

saw their Bhagat holding back the terrified barasingh, while

the monkeys plucked piteously at his skirts, and Sona sat on

his haunches and roared.

"Across the valley and up the next hill!" shouted Purun Bhagat.

"Leave none behind! We follow!"

Then the people ran as only Hill folk can run, for they knew

that in a landslip you must climb for the highest ground across

the valley. They fled, splashing through the little river at

the bottom, and panted up the terraced fields on the far side,

while the Bhagat and his brethren followed. Up and up the

opposite mountain they climbed, calling to each other by name--

the roll-call of the village--and at their heels toiled the big

barasingh, weighted by the failing strength of Purun Bhagat.

At last the deer stopped in the shadow of a deep pinewood, five

hundred feet up the hillside. His instinct, that had warned him

of the coming slide, told him he would he safe here.

Purun Bhagat dropped fainting by his side, for the chill of the

rain and that fierce climb were killing him; but first he called

to the scattered torches ahead, "Stay and count your numbers";

then, whispering to the deer as he saw the lights gather in a

cluster: "Stay with me, Brother. Stay--till--I--go!"

There was a sigh in the air that grew to a mutter, and a mutter

that grew to a roar, and a roar that passed all sense of

hearing, and the hillside on which the villagers stood was hit

in the darkness, and rocked to the blow. Then a note as steady,

deep, and true as the deep C of the organ drowned everything for

perhaps five minutes, while the very roots of the pines quivered

to it. It died away, and the sound of the rain falling on miles

of hard ground and grass changed to the muffled drum of water on

soft earth. That told its own tale.

Never a villager--not even the priest--was bold enough to speak

to the Bhagat who had saved their lives. They crouched under the

pines and waited till the day. When it came they looked across

the valley and saw that what had been forest, and terraced

field, and track-threaded grazing-ground was one raw, red,

fan-shaped smear, with a few trees flung head-down on the scarp.

That red ran high up the hill of their refuge, damming back the

little river, which had begun to spread into a brick-coloured

lake. Of the village, of the road to the shrine, of the shrine

itself, and the forest behind, there was no trace. For one mile

in width and two thousand feet in sheer depth the mountain-side

had come away bodily, planed clean from head to heel.

And the villagers, one by one, crept through the wood to pray

before their Bhagat. They saw the barasingh standing over him,

who fled when they came near, and they heard the langurs wailing

in the branches, and Sona moaning up the hill; but their Bhagat

was dead, sitting cross-legged, his back against a tree, his

crutch under his armpit, and his face turned to the north-east.

The priest said: "Behold a miracle after a miracle, for in this

very attitude must all Sunnyasis be buried! Therefore where he

now is we will build the temple to our holy man."

They built the temple before a year was ended--a little stone-

and-earth shrine--and they called the hill the Bhagat's hill,

and they worship there with lights and flowers and offerings to

this day. But they do not know that the saint of their worship

is the late Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., D.C.L., Ph.D., etc., once

Prime Minister of the progressive and enlightened State of

Mohiniwala, and honorary or corresponding member of more learned

and scientific societies than will ever do any good in this

world or the next.

A SONG OF KABIR

Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands!

Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands!

He has gone from the guddee and put on the shroud,

And departed in guise of bairagi avowed!

Now the white road to Delhi is mat for his feet,

The sal and the kikar must guard him from heat;

His home is the camp, and the waste, and the crowd--

He is seeking the Way as bairagi avowed!

He has looked upon Man, and his eyeballs are clear

(There was One; there is One, and but One, saith Kabir);

The Red Mist of Doing has thinned to a cloud--

He has taken the Path for bairagi avowed!

To learn and discern of his brother the clod,

Of his brother the brute, and his brother the God.

He has gone from the council and put on the shroud

("Can ye hear?" saith Kabir), a bairagi avowed!

LETTING IN THE JUNGLE

Veil them, cover them, wall them round--

Blossom, and creeper, and weed--

Let us forget the sight and the sound,

The smell and the touch of the breed!

Fat black ash by the altar-stone,

Here is the white-foot rain,

And the does bring forth in the fields unsown,

And none shall affright them again;

And the blind walls crumble, unknown, o'erthrown

And none shall inhabit again!

You will remember that after Mowgli had pinned Shere Khan's hide

to the Council Rock, he told as many as were left of the Seeonee

Pack that henceforward he would hunt in the Jungle alone; and

the four children of Mother and Father Wolf said that they would

hunt with him. But it is not easy to change one's life all in

a minute--particularly in the Jungle. The first thing Mowgli

did, when the disorderly Pack had slunk off, was to go to the

home-cave, and sleep for a day and a night. Then he told Mother

Wolf and Father Wolf as much as they could understand of his

adventures among men; and when he made the morning sun flicker

up and down the blade of his skinning-knife,--the same he had

skinned Shere Khan with,--they said he had learned something.

Then Akela and Gray Brother had to explain their share of the

great buffalo-drive in the ravine, and Baloo toiled up the

hill to hear all about it, and Bagheera scratched himself all

over with pure delight at the way in which Mowgli had managed

his war.

It was long after sunrise, but no one dreamed of going to sleep,

and from time to time, during the talk, Mother Wolf would throw

up her head, and sniff a deep snuff of satisfaction as the wind

brought her the smell of the tiger-skin on the Council Rock.

"But for Akela and Gray Brother here," Mowgli said, at the end,

"I could have done nothing. Oh, mother, mother! if thou hadst

seen the black herd-bulls pour down the ravine, or hurry through

the gates when the Man-Pack flung stones at me!"

"I am glad I did not see that last," said Mother Wolf stiffly.

"It is not MY custom to suffer my cubs to be driven to and fro

like jackals. _I_ would have taken a price from the Man-Pack;

but I would have spared the woman who gave thee the milk. Yes,

I would have spared her alone."

"Peace, peace, Raksha!" said Father Wolf, lazily. "Our Frog has

come back again--so wise that his own father must lick his feet;

and what is a cut, more or less, on the head? Leave Men alone.

"Baloo and Bagheera both echoed: "Leave Men alone."

Mowgli, his head on Mother Wolf's side, smiled contentedly, and

said that, for his own part, he never wished to see, or hear, or

smell Man again.

"But what," said Akela, cocking one ear--"but what if men do not

leave thee alone, Little Brother?"

"We be FIVE," said Gray Brother, looking round at the company,

and snapping his jaws on the last word.

"We also might attend to that hunting," said Bagheera, with a

little switch-switch of his tail, looking at Baloo. "But why

think of men now, Akela?"

"For this reason," the Lone Wolf answered: "when that yellow

chief's hide was hung up on the rock, I went back along our

trail to the village, stepping in my tracks, turning aside, and

lying down, to make a mixed trail in case one should follow us.

But when I had fouled the trail so that I myself hardly knew it

again, Mang, the Bat, came hawking between the trees, and hung

up above me. Said Mang, "The village of the Man-Pack, where they

cast out the Man-cub, hums like a hornet's nest."

"It was a big stone that I threw," chuckled Mowgli, who had often

amused himself by throwing ripe paw-paws into a hornet's

nest, and racing off to the nearest pool before the hornets

caught him.

"I asked of Mang what he had seen. He said that the Red Flower

blossomed at the gate of the village, and men sat about it

carrying guns. Now _I_ know, for I have good cause,"--Akela

looked down at the old dry scars on his flank and side,--"that

men do not carry guns for pleasure. Presently, Little Brother,

a man with a gun follows our trail--if, indeed, he be not

already on it."

"But why should he? Men have cast me out. What more do they

need?" said Mowgli angrily.

"Thou art a man, Little Brother," Akela returned. "It is not

for US, the Free Hunters, to tell thee what thy brethren do,

or why."

He had just time to snatch up his paw as the skinning-knife cut

deep into the ground below. Mowgli struck quicker than an

average human eye could follow but Akela was a wolf; and even a

dog, who is very far removed from the wild wolf, his ancestor,

can be waked out of deep sleep by a cart-wheel touching his

flank, and can spring away unharmed before that wheel comes on.

"Another time," Mowgli said quietly, returning the knife to its

sheath, "speak of the Man-Pack and of Mowgli in TWO breaths--

not one."

"Phff! That is a sharp tooth," said Akela, snuffing at the

blade's cut in the earth, "but living with the Man-Pack has

spoiled thine eye, Little Brother. I could have killed a buck

while thou wast striking."

Bagheera sprang to his feet, thrust up his head as far as he

could, sniffed, and stiffened through every curve in his body.

Gray Brother followed his example quickly, keeping a little

to his left to get the wind that was blowing from the right,

while Akela bounded fifty yards up wind, and, half-crouching,

stiffened too. Mowgli looked on enviously. He could smell things

as very few human beings could, but he had never reached the

hair-trigger-like sensitiveness of a Jungle nose; and his three

months in the smoky village had set him back sadly. However,

he dampened his finger, rubbed it on his nose, and stood erect

to catch the upper scent, which, though it is the faintest,

is the truest.

"Man!" Akela growled, dropping on his haunches.

"Buldeo!" said Mowgli, sitting down. "He follows our trail, and

yonder is the sunlight on his gun. Look!"

It was no more than a splash of sunlight, for a fraction of a

second, on the brass clamps of the old Tower musket, but nothing

in the Jungle winks with just that flash, except when the clouds

race over the sky. Then a piece of mica, or a little pool, or

even a highly-polished leaf will flash like a heliograph. But

that day was cloudless and still.

"I knew men would follow," said Akela triumphantly. "Not for

nothing have I led the Pack."

The four cubs said nothing, but ran down hill on their

bellies, melting into the thorn and under-brush as a mole

melts into a lawn.

"Where go ye, and without word?" Mowgli called.

"H'sh! We roll his skull here before mid-day!" Gray Brother

answered.

"Back! Back and wait! Man does not eat Man!" Mowgli shrieked.

"Who was a wolf but now? Who drove the knife at me for thinking

he might be Man?" said Akela, as the four wolves turned back

sullenly and dropped to heel.

"Am I to give reason for all I choose to, do?" said Mowgli

furiously.

"That is Man! There speaks Man!" Bagheera muttered under his

whiskers. "Even so did men talk round the King's cages at

Oodeypore. We of the Jungle know that Man is wisest of all.

If we trusted our ears we should know that of all things he

is most foolish." Raising his voice, he added, "The Man-cub is

right in this. Men hunt in packs. To kill one, unless we know

what the others will do, is bad hunting. Come, let us see what

this Man means toward us."

"We will not come," Gray Brother growled. "Hunt alone, Little

Brother. WE know our own minds. The skull would have been ready

to bring by now."

Mowgli had been looking from one to the other of his friends,

his chest heaving and his eyes full of tears. He strode forward

to the wolves, and, dropping on one knee, said: "Do I not know

my mind? Look at me!"

They looked uneasily, and when their eyes wandered, he called

them back again and again, till their hair stood up all over

their bodies, and they trembled in every limb, while Mowgli

stared and stared.

"Now," said he, "of us five, which is leader?"

"Thou art leader, Little Brother," said Gray Brother, and he

licked Mowgli's foot.

"Follow, then," said Mowgli, and the four followed at his heels

with their tails between their legs.

"This comes of living with the Man-Pack," said Bagheera,

slipping down after them. "There is more in the Jungle now

than Jungle Law, Baloo."

The old bear said nothing, but he thought many things.

Mowgli cut across noiselessly through the Jungle, at right

angles to Buldeo's path, till, parting the undergrowth, he saw

the old man, his musket on his shoulder, running up the trail

of overnight at a dog-trot.

You will remember that Mowgli had left the village with the

heavy weight of Shere Khan's raw hide on his shoulders, while

Akela and Gray Brother trotted behind, so that the triple trail

was very clearly marked. Presently Buldeo came to where Akela,

as you know, had gone back and mixed it all up. Then he sat

down, and coughed and grunted, and made little casts round and

about into the Jungle to pick it up again, and, all the time he

could have thrown a stone over those who were watching him.

No one can be so silent as a wolf when he does not care to be

heard; and Mowgli, though the wolves thought he moved very

clumsily, could come and go like a shadow. They ringed the old

man as a school of porpoises ring a steamer at full speed, and

as they ringed him they talked unconcernedly, for their speech

began below the lowest end of the scale that untrained human

beings can hear. [The other end is bounded by the high squeak of

Mang, the Bat, which very many people cannot catch at all. From

that note all the bird and bat and insect talk takes on.]

"This is better than any kill," said Gray Brother, as Buldeo

stooped and peered and puffed. "He looks like a lost pig in

the Jungles by the river. What does he say?" Buldeo was

muttering savagely.

Mowgli translated. "He says that packs of wolves must have

danced round me. He says that he never saw such a trail in

his life. He says he is tired."

"He will be rested before he picks it up again," said Bagheera

coolly, as he slipped round a tree-trunk, in the game of

blindman's-buff that they were playing. "NOW, what does the

lean thing do?"

"Eat or blow smoke out of his mouth. Men always play with their

mouths," said Mowgli; and the silent trailers saw the old man

fill and light and puff at a water-pipe, and they took good note

of the smell of the tobacco, so as to be sure of Buldeo in the

darkest night, if necessary.

Then a little knot of charcoal-burners came down the path, and

naturally halted to speak to Buldeo, whose fame as a hunter

reached for at least twenty miles round. They all sat down and

smoked, and Bagheera and the others came up and watched while

Buldeo began to tell the story of Mowgli, the Devil-child,

from one end to another, with additions and inventions. How he

himself had really killed Shere Khan; and how Mowgli had turned

himself into a wolf, and fought with him all the afternoon, and

changed into a boy again and bewitched Buldeo's rifle, so that

the bullet turned the corner, when he pointed it at Mowgli,

and killed one of Buldeo's own buffaloes; and how the village,

knowing him to be the bravest hunter in Seeonee, had sent him

out to kill this Devil-child. But meantime the village had got

hold of Messua and her husband, who were undoubtedly the father

and mother of this Devil-child, and had barricaded them in

their own hut, and presently would torture them to make them

confess they were witch and wizard, and then they would be

burned to death.

"When?" said the charcoal-burners, because they would very much

like to be present at the ceremony.

Buldeo said that nothing would be done till he returned,

because the village wished him to kill the Jungle Boy first.

After that they would dispose of Messua and her husband, and

divide their lands and buffaloes among the village. Messua's

husband had some remarkably fine buffaloes, too. It was an

excellent thing to destroy wizards, Buldeo thought; and people

who entertained Wolf-children out of the Jungle were clearly

the worst kind of witches.

But, said the charcoal-burners, what would happen if the English

heard of it? The English, they had heard, were a perfectly mad

people, who would not let honest farmers kill witches in peace.

Why, said Buldeo, the head-man of the village would report that

Messua and her husband had died of snake-bite. THAT was all

arranged, and the only thing now was to kill the Wolf-child.

They did not happen to have seen anything of such a creature?

The charcoal-burners looked round cautiously, and thanked their

stars they had not; but they had no doubt that so brave a man as

Buldeo would find him if any one could. The sun was getting

rather low, and they had an idea that they would push on to

Buldeo's village and see that wicked witch. Buldeo said that,

though it was his duty to kill the Devil-child, he could not

think of letting a party of unarmed men go through the Jungle,

which might produce the Wolf-demon at any minute, without his

escort. He, therefore, would accompany them, and if the

sorcerer's child appeared--well, he would show them how the best

hunter in Seeonee dealt with such things. The Brahmin, he said,

had given him a charm against the creature that made everything

perfectly safe.

"What says he? What says he? What says he?" the wolves repeated

every few minutes; and Mowgli translated until he came to the

witch part of the story, which was a little beyond him, and

then he said that the man and woman who had been so kind to him

were trapped.

"Does Man trap Man?" said Bagheera.

"So he says. I cannot understand the talk. They are all mad

together. What have Messua and her man to do with me that they

should be put in a trap; and what is all this talk about the

Red Flower? I must look to this. Whatever they would do to

Messua they will not do till Buldeo returns. And so----" Mowgli

thought hard, with his fingers playing round the haft of the

skinning-knife, while Buldeo and the charcoal-burners went off

very valiantly in single file.

"I go hot-foot back to the Man-Pack," Mowgli said at last.

"And those?" said Gray Brother, looking hungrily after the brown

backs of the charcoal-burners.

"Sing them home," said Mowgli, with a grin; I do not wish them

to be at the village gates till it is dark. Can ye hold them?"

Gray Brother bared his white teeth in contempt. We can head them

round and round in circles like tethered goats--if I know Man."

"That I do not need. Sing to them a little, lest they be lonely

on the road, and, Gray Brother, the song need not be of the

sweetest. Go with them, Bagheera, and help make that song.

When night is shut down, meet me by the village--Gray Brother

knows the place."

"It is no light hunting to work for a Man-cub. When shall I

sleep?" said Bagheera, yawning, though his eyes showed that he

was delighted with the amusement. "Me to sing to naked men!

But let us try."

He lowered his head so that the sound would travel, and cried a

long, long, "Good hunting"--a midnight call in the afternoon,

which was quite awful enough to begin with. Mowgli heard it

rumble, and rise, and fall, and die off in a creepy sort of

whine behind him, and laughed to himself as he ran through the

Jungle. He could see the charcoal-burners huddled in a knot; old

Buldeo's gun-barrel waving, like a banana-leaf, to every point

of the compass at once. Then Gray Brother gave the Ya-la-hi!

Yalaha! call for the buck-driving, when the Pack drives the

nilghai, the big blue cow, before them, and it seemed to come

from the very ends of the earth, nearer, and nearer, and nearer,

till it ended in a shriek snapped off short. The other three

answered, till even Mowgli could have vowed that the full Pack

was in full cry, and then they all broke into the magnificent

Morning-song in the Jungle, with every turn, and flourish, and

grace-note that a deep-mouthed wolf of the Pack knows. This is a

rough rendering of the song, but you must imagine what it sounds

like when it breaks the afternoon hush of the Jungle:--

One moment past our bodies cast

No shadow on the plain;

Now clear and black they stride our track,

And we run home again.

In morning hush, each rock and bush

Stands hard, and high, and raw:

Then give the Call: "Good rest to all

That keep The Jungle Law!"

Now horn and pelt our peoples melt

In covert to abide;

Now, crouched and still, to cave and hill

Our Jungle Barons glide.

Now, stark and plain, Man's oxen strain,

That draw the new-yoked plough;

Now, stripped and dread, the dawn is red

Above the lit talao.

Ho! Get to lair! The sun's aflare

Behind the breathing grass:

And cracking through the young bamboo

The warning whispers pass.

By day made strange, the woods we range

With blinking eyes we scan;

While down the skies the wild duck cries

"The Day--the Day to Man!"

The dew is dried that drenched our hide

Or washed about our way;

And where we drank, the puddled bank

Is crisping into clay.

The traitor Dark gives up each mark

Of stretched or hooded claw;

Then hear the Call: "Good rest to all

That keep the Jungle Law!"

But no translation can give the effect of it, or the yelping

scorn the Four threw into every word of it, as they heard the

trees crash when the men hastily climbed up into the branches,

and Buldeo began repeating incantations and charms. Then they

lay down and slept, for, like all who live by their own

exertions, they were of a methodical cast of mind; and no one

can work well without sleep.

Meantime, Mowgli was putting the miles behind him, nine to the

hour, swinging on, delighted to find himself so fit after all

his cramped months among men. The one idea in his head was to

get Messua and her husband out of the trap, whatever it was;

for he had a natural mistrust of traps. Later on, he promised

himself, he would pay his debts to the village at large.

It was at twilight when he saw the well-remembered grazing-

grounds, and the dhak-tree where Gray Brother had waited for him

on the morning that he killed Shere Khan. Angry as he was at the

whole breed and community of Man, something jumped up in his

throat and made him catch his breath when he looked at the

village roofs. He noticed that every one had come in from the

fields unusually early, and that, instead of getting to their

evening cooking, they gathered in a crowd under the village

tree, and chattered, and shouted.

"Men must always he making traps for men, or they are not

content," said Mowgli. "Last night it was Mowgli--but that

night seems many Rains ago. To-night it is Messua and her man.

To-morrow, and for very many nights after, it will be Mowgli's

turn again."

He crept along outside the wall till he came to Messua's hut,

and looked through the window into the room. There lay Messua,

gagged, and bound hand and foot, breathing hard, and groaning:

her husband was tied to the gaily-painted bedstead. The door of

the hut that opened into the street was shut fast, and three or

four people were sitting with their backs to it.

Mowgli knew the manners and customs of the villagers very

fairly. He argued that so long as they could eat, and talk,

and smoke, they would not do anything else; but as soon as

they had fed they would begin to be dangerous. Buldeo would be

coming in before long, and if his escort had done its duty,

Buldeo would have a very interesting tale to tell. So he went

in through the window, and, stooping over the man and the woman,

cut their thongs, pulling out the gags, and looked round the hut

for some milk.

Messua was half wild with pain and fear (she had been beaten

and stoned all the morning), and Mowgli put his hand over

her mouth just in time to stop a scream. Her husband was only

bewildered and angry, and sat picking dust and things out of

his torn beard.

"I knew--I knew he would come," Messua sobbed at last. "Now do

I KNOW that he is my son!" and she hugged Mowgli to her heart.

Up to that time Mowgli had been perfectly steady, but now he

began to tremble all over, and that surprised him immensely.

"Why are these thongs? Why have they tied thee?" he asked,

after a pause.

"To be put to the death for making a son of thee--what else?"

said the man sullenly. "Look! I bleed."

Messua said nothing, but it was at her wounds that Mowgli

looked, and they heard him grit his teeth when he saw the blood.

"Whose work is this?" said he. "There is a price to pay."

"The work of all the village. I was too rich. I had too many

cattle. THEREFORE she and I are witches, because we gave

thee shelter."

"I do not understand. Let Messua tell the tale."

"I gave thee milk, Nathoo; dost thou remember?" Messua said

timidly. "Because thou wast my son, whom the tiger took, and

because I loved thee very dearly. They said that I was thy

mother, the mother of a devil, and therefore worthy of death."

"And what is a devil?" said Mowgli. "Death I have seen."

The man looked up gloomily, but Messua laughed. "See!" she said

to her husband, "I knew--I said that he was no sorcerer. He is

my son--my son!"

"Son or sorcerer, what good will that do us?" the man answered.

"We be as dead already."

"Yonder is the road to the Jungle"--Mowgli pointed through the

window. "Your hands and feet are free. Go now."

"We do not know the Jungle, my son, as--as thou knowest," Messua

began. "I do not think that I could walk far."

"And the men and women would he upon our backs and drag us here

again," said the husband.

"H'm!" said Mowgli, and he tickled the palm of his hand with the

tip of his skinning-knife; "I have no wish to do harm to any one

of this village--YET. But I do not think they will stay thee.

In a little while they will have much else to think upon. Ah!"

he lifted his head and listened to shouting and trampling

outside. "So they have let Buldeo come home at last?"

"He was sent out this morning to kill thee," Messua cried.

"Didst thou meet him?"

"Yes--we--I met him. He has a tale to tell and while he is

telling it there is time to do much. But first I will learn

what they mean. Think where ye would go, and tell me when

I come back."

He bounded through the window and ran along again outside the

wall of the village till he came within ear-shot of the crowd

round the peepul-tree. Buldeo was lying on the ground, coughing

and groaning, and every one was asking him questions. His hair

had fallen about his shoulders; his hands and legs were skinned

from climbing up trees, and he could hardly speak, but he felt

the importance of his position keenly. From time to time he

said something about devils and singing devils, and magic

enchantment, just to give the crowd a taste of what was coming.

Then he called for water.

"Bah!" said Mowgli. "Chatter--chatter! Talk, talk! Men are

blood-brothers of the Bandar-log. Now he must wash his mouth

with water; now he must blow smoke; and when all that is done

he has still his story to tell. They are very wise people--men.

They will leave no one to guard Messua till their ears are

stuffed with Buldeo's tales. And--I grow as lazy as they!"

He shook himself and glided back to the hut. Just as he was at

the window he felt a touch on his foot.

"Mother," said he, for he knew that tongue well, what dost

THOU here?"

"I heard my children singing through the woods, and I followed

the one I loved best. Little Frog, I have a desire to see

that woman who gave thee milk," said Mother Wolf, all wet

with the dew.

"They have bound and mean to kill her. I have cut those ties,

and she goes with her man through the Jungle."

"I also will follow. I am old, but not yet toothless." Mother

Wolf reared herself up on end, and looked through the window

into the dark of the hut.

In a minute she dropped noiselessly, and all she said was:

"I gave thee thy first milk; but Bagheera speaks truth:

Man goes to Man at the last."

"Maybe," said Mowgli, with a very unpleasant look on his face;

"but to-night I am very far from that trail. Wait here, but do

not let her see."

"THOU wast never afraid of ME, Little Frog," said Mother Wolf,

backing into the high grass, and blotting herself out, as she

knew how.

"And now," said Mowgli cheerfully, as he swung into the hut

again, "they are all sitting round Buldeo, who is saying that

which did not happen. When his talk is finished, they say they

will assuredly come here with the Red--with fire and burn you

both. And then?"

"I have spoken to my man," said Messua. Khanhiwara is thirty

miles from here, but at Khanhiwara we may find the English--"

"And what Pack are they?" said Mowgli.

"I do not know. They be white, and it is said that they govern

all the land, and do not suffer people to burn or beat each

other without witnesses. If we can get thither to-night, we

live. Otherwise we die."

"Live, then. No man passes the gates to-night. But what does HE

do?" Messua's husband was on his hands and knees digging up the

earth in one corner of the hut.

"It is his little money," said Messua. "We can take

nothing else."

"Ah, yes. The stuff that passes from hand to hand and never

grows warmer. Do they need it outside this place also?"

said Mowgli.

The man stared angrily. "He is a fool, and no devil," he

muttered. With the money I can buy a horse. We are too bruised

to walk far, and the village will follow us in an hour."

"I say they will NOT follow till I choose; but a horse is

well thought of, for Messua is tired." Her husband stood up

and knotted the last of the rupees into his waist-cloth.

Mowgli helped Messua through the window, and the cool night

air revived her, but the Jungle in the starlight looked very dark

and terrible.

"Ye know the trail to Khanhiwara?" Mowgli whispered.

They nodded.

'Good. Remember, now, not to be afraid. And there is no need to

go quickly. Only--only there may be some small singing in the

Jungle behind you and before."

"Think you we would have risked a night in the Jungle through

anything less than the fear of burning? It is better to be

killed by beasts than by men," said Messua's husband; but Messua

looked at Mowgli and smiled.

"I say," Mowgli went on, just as though he were Baloo repeating

an old Jungle Law for the hundredth time to a foolish cub--

"I say that not a tooth in the Jungle is bared against you;

not a foot in the Jungle is lifted against you. Neither man

nor beast shall stay you till you come within eye-shot of

Khanhiwara. There will be a watch about you." He turned quickly

to Messua, saying, "HE does not believe, but thou wilt believe?"

"Ay, surely, my son. Man, ghost, or wolf of the Jungle,

I believe."

"HE will be afraid when he hears my people singing. Thou wilt

know and understand. Go now, and slowly, for there is no need of

any haste. The gates are shut."

Messua flung herself sobbing at Mowgli's feet, but he lifted her

very quickly with a shiver. Then she hung about his neck and

called him every name of blessing she could think of, but her

husband looked enviously across his fields, and said: "IF we

reach Khanhiwara, and I get the ear of the English, I will bring

such a lawsuit against the Brahmin and old Buldeo and the others

as shall eat the village to the bone. They shall pay me twice

over for my crops untilled and my buffaloes unfed. I will have

a great justice."

Mowgli laughed. "I do not know what justice is, but--come next

Rains. and see what is left."

They went off toward the Jungle, and Mother Wolf leaped from her

place of hiding.

"Follow!" said Mowgli; "and look to it that all the Jungle knows

these two are safe. Give tongue a little. I would call

Bagheera."

The long, low howl rose and fell, and Mowgli saw Messua's

husband flinch and turn, half minded to run back to the hut.

"Go on," Mowgli called cheerfully. "I said there might be

singing. That call will follow up to Khanhiwara. It is Favour

of the Jungle."

Messua urged her husband forward, and the darkness shut down on

them and Mother Wolf as Bagheera rose up almost under Mowgli's

feet, trembling with delight of the night that drives the Jungle

People wild.

"I am ashamed of thy brethren," he said, purring. "What? Did

they not sing sweetly to Buldeo?" said Mowgli.

"Too well! Too well! They made even ME forget my pride, and,

by the Broken Lock that freed me, I went singing through the

Jungle as though I were out wooing in the spring! Didst thou

not hear us?"

"I had other game afoot. Ask Buldeo if he liked the song. But

where are the Four? I do not wish one of the Man-Pack to leave

the gates to-night."

"What need of the Four, then?" said Bagheera, shifting from foot

to foot, his eyes ablaze, and purring louder than ever. "I can

hold them, Little Brother. Is it killing at last? The singing

and the sight of the men climbing up the trees have made me very

ready. Who is Man that we should care for him--the naked brown

digger, the hairless and toothless, the eater of earth? I have

followed him all day--at noon--in the white sunlight. I herded

him as the wolves herd buck. I am Bagheera! Bagheera! Bagheera!

As I dance with my shadow, so danced I with those men. Look!"

The great panther leaped as a kitten leaps at a dead leaf

whirling overhead, struck left and right into the empty air,

that sang under the strokes, landed noiselessly, and leaped

again and again, while the half purr, half growl gathered head

as steam rumbles in a boiler. "I am Bagheera--in the jungle--

in the night, and my strength is in me. Who shall stay my

stroke? Man-cub, with one blow of my paw I could beat thy head

flat as a dead frog in the summer!"

"Strike, then!" said Mowgli, in the dialect of the village, NOT

the talk of the Jungle, and the human words brought Bagheera to

a full stop, flung back on haunches that quivered under him, his

head just at the level of Mowgli's. Once more Mowgli stared, as

he had stared at the rebellious cubs, full into the beryl-green

eyes till the red glare behind their green went out like the

light of a lighthouse shut off twenty miles across the sea;

till the eyes dropped, and the big head with them--dropped

lower and lower, and the red rasp of a tongue grated on

Mowgli's instep.

"Brother--Brother--Brother!" the boy whispered, stroking

steadily and lightly from the neck along the heaving back.

"Be still, be still! It is the fault of the night, and no

fault of thine."

"It was the smells of the night," said Bagheera penitently.

"This air cries aloud to me. But how dost THOU know?"

Of course the air round an Indian village is full of all kinds

of smells, and to any creature who does nearly all his thinking

through his nose, smells are as maddening as music and drugs are

to human beings. Mowgli gentled the panther for a few minutes

longer, and he lay down like a cat before a fire, his paws

tucked under his breast, and his eyes half shut.

"Thou art of the Jungle and NOT of the Jungle," he said at

last. "And I am only a black panther. But I love thee,

Little Brother."

"They are very long at their talk under the tree," Mowgli said,

without noticing the last sentence. "Buldeo must have told many

tales. They should come soon to drag the woman and her man out

of the trap and put them into the Red Flower. They will find

that trap sprung. Ho! ho!"

"Nay, listen," said Bagheera. "The fever is out of my blood now.

Let them find ME there! Few would leave their houses after

meeting me. It is not the first time I have been in a cage;

and I do not think they will tie ME with cords."

"Be wise, then," said Mowgli, laughing; for he was beginning to

feel as reckless as the panther, who had glided into the hut.

"Pah!" Bagheera grunted. "This place is rank with Man, but here

is just such a bed as they gave me to lie upon in the King's

cages at Oodeypore. Now I lie down." Mowgli heard the strings of

the cot crack under the great brute's weight. "By the Broken

Lock that freed me, they will think they have caught big game!

Come and sit beside me, Little Brother; we will give them 'good

hunting' together!"

"No; I have another thought in my stomach. The Man-Pack shall

not know what share I have in the sport. Make thine own hunt.

I do not wish to see them."

"Be it so," said Bagheera. "Ah, now they come!"

The conference under the peepul-tree had been growing noisier

and noisier, at the far end of the village. It broke in wild

yells, and a rush up the street of men and women, waving clubs

and bamboos and sickles and knives. Buldeo and the Brahmin were

at the head of it, but the mob was close at their heels, and

they cried, "The witch and the wizard! Let us see if hot coins

will make them confess! Burn the hut over their heads! We will

teach them to shelter wolf-devils! Nay, beat them first!

Torches! More torches! Buldeo, heat the gun-barrels!"

Here was some little difficulty with the catch of the door.

It had been very firmly fastened, but the crowd tore it away

bodily, and the light of the torches streamed into the room

where, stretched at full length on the bed, his paws crossed and

lightly hung down over one end, black as the Pit, and terrible

as a demon, was Bagheera. There was one half-minute of desperate

silence, as the front ranks of the crowd clawed and tore their

way back from the threshold, and in that minute Bagheera raised

his head and yawned--elaborately, carefully, and ostentatiously

--as he would yawn when he wished to insult an equal. The

fringed lips drew back and up; the red tongue curled; the lower

jaw dropped and dropped till you could see half-way down the hot

gullet; and the gigantic dog-teeth stood clear to the pit of the

gums till they rang together, upper and under, with the snick of

steel-faced wards shooting home round the edges of a safe.

Next instant the street was empty; Bagheera had leaped back

through the window, and stood at Mowgli's side, while a yelling,

screaming torrent scrambled and tumbled one over another in their

panic haste to get to their own huts.

"They will not stir till day comes," said Bagheera quietly.

"And now?"

The silence of the afternoon sleep seemed to have overtaken the

village; but, as they listened, they could hear the sound of

heavy grain-boxes being dragged over earthen floors and set down

against doors. Bagheera was quite right; the village would not

stir till daylight. Mowgli sat still, and thought, and his face

grew darker and darker.

"What have I done?" said Bagheera, at last coming to his

feet, fawning.

"Nothing but great good. Watch them now till the day. I sleep."

Mowgli ran off into the Jungle, and dropped like a dead man

across a rock, and slept and slept the day round, and the night

back again.

When he waked, Bagheera was at his side, and there was a newly-

killed buck at his feet. Bagheera watched curiously while Mowgli

went to work with his skinning-knife, ate and drank, and turned

over with his chin in his hands.

"The man and the woman are come safe within eye-shot of

Khanhiwara," Bagheera said. "Thy lair mother sent the word back

by Chil, the Kite. They found a horse before midnight of the

night they were freed, and went very quickly. Is not that well?"

"That is well," said Mowgli.

"And thy Man-Pack in the village did not stir till the sun was

high this morning. Then they ate their food and ran back quickly

to their houses."

"Did they, by chance, see thee?"

"It may have been. I was rolling in the dust before the gate at

dawn, and I may have made also some small song to myself. Now,

Little Brother, there is nothing more to do. Come hunting with me

and Baloo. He has new hives that he wishes to show, and we

all desire thee back again as of old. Take off that look which

makes even me afraid! The man and woman will not be put into the

Red Flower, and all goes well in the Jungle. Is it not true?

Let us forget the Man-Pack."

"They shall he forgotten in a little while. Where does Hathi

feed to-night?"

"Where he chooses. Who can answer for the Silent One? But why?

What is there Hathi can do which we cannot?"

"Bid him and his three sons come here to me."

"But, indeed, and truly, Little Brother, it is not--it is not

seemly to say 'Come,' and 'Go,' to Hathi. Remember, he is the

Master of the Jungle, and before the Man-Pack changed the look

on thy face, he taught thee the Master-words of the Jungle."

"That is all one. I have a Master-word for him now. Bid him come

to Mowgli, the Frog: and if he does not hear at first, bid him

come because of the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore."

"The Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore," Bagheera repeated two or

three times to make sure. "I go. Hathi can but be angry at the

worst, and I would give a moon's hunting to hear a Master-word

that compels the Silent One."

He went away, leaving Mowgli stabbing furiously with his

skinning-knife into the earth. Mowgli had never seen human blood

in his life before till he had seen, and--what meant much more

to him--smelled Messua's blood on the thongs that bound her.

And Messua had been kind to him, and, so far as he knew anything

about love, he loved Messua as completely as he hated the rest

of mankind. But deeply as he loathed them, their talk, their

cruelty, and their cowardice, not for anything the Jungle had to

offer could he bring himself to take a human life, and have that

terrible scent of blood back again in his nostrils. His plan was

simpler, but much more thorough; and he laughed to himself when

he thought that it was one of old Buldeo's tales told under the

peepul-tree in the evening that had put the idea into his head.

"It WAS a Master-word," Bagheera whispered in his ear.

"They were feeding by the river, and they obeyed as though

they were bullocks. Look where they come now!"

Hathi and his three sons had arriv