The Jungle Book
by Rudyard Kipling · English · Gutenberg #35997 · 305,383 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Jungle Book
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Release date: April 30, 2011 [eBook #35997]
Most recently updated: May 1, 2023
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35997
Credits: Suzanne Shell, Ernest Schaal, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JUNGLE BOOK ***
THE JUNGLE BOOK
[Illustration: Rudyard Kipling]
[Illustration: "LITTLE TOOMAI LAID HIMSELF DOWN CLOSE TO THE GREAT NECK
LEST A SWINGING BOUGH SHOULD SWEEP HIM TO THE GROUND." (SEE PAGE 246.)]
THE
JUNGLE BOOK
BY
RUDYARD KIPLING
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1910
Copyright 1893, 1894, by
RUDYARD KIPLING
Copyright, 1894, by
HARPER and BROTHERS
Copyright 1893, 1894, by
THE CENTURY CO.
CONTENTS
PAGE
MOWGLI’S BROTHERS 1
HUNTING-SONG OF THE SEEONEE PACK 42
KAA’S HUNTING 47
ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDAR-LOG 89
“TIGER! TIGER!” 93
MOWGLI’S SONG 131
THE WHITE SEAL 137
LUKANNON 170
“RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI” 175
DARZEE’S CHAUNT 212
TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS 217
SHIV AND THE GRASSHOPPER 261
HER MAJESTY’S SERVANTS 265
PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP ANIMALS 300
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"LITTLE TOOMAI LAID HIMSELF DOWN CLOSE TO THE
GREAT NECK, LEST A SWINGING BOUGH SHOULD
SWEEP HIM TO THE GROUND" FRONTISPIECE
"'GOOD LUCK GO WITH YOU, O CHIEF OF THE
WOLVES'" 5
"THE TIGER'S ROAR FILLED THE CAVE WITH THUNDER" 11
THE MEETING AT THE COUNCIL ROCK 17
"BAGHEERA WOULD LIE OUT ON A BRANCH AND CALL,
'COME ALONG, LITTLE BROTHER'" 23
"'WAKE, LITTLE BROTHER; I BRING NEWS'" 99
"'ARE ALL THESE TALES SUCH COBWEBS AND MOON-TALK?'
SAID MOWGLI" 105
"BULDEO LAY AS STILL, AS STILL, EXPECTING EVERY MINUTE
TO SEE MOWGLI TURN INTO A TIGER, TOO" 121
"WHEN THE MOON ROSE OVER THE PLAIN THE VILLAGERS
SAW MOWGLI TROTTING ACROSS, WITH TWO
WOLVES AT HIS HEELS" 126
"THEY CLAMBERED UP ON THE COUNCIL ROCK TOGETHER,
AND MOWGLI SPREAD THE SKIN OUT ON
THE FLAT STONE" 129
"TEN FATHOMS DEEP" 146
"THEY WERE ALL AWAKE AND STARING IN EVERY DIRECTION
BUT THE RIGHT ONE" 154
"HE HAD FOUND SEA COW AT LAST" 162
"RIKKI-TIKKI LOOKED DOWN BETWEEN THE BOY'S COLLAR
AND NECK" 177
"HE PUT HIS NOSE INTO THE INK" 178
"RIKKI-TIKKI WAS AWAKE ON THE PILLOW" 179
"HE CAME TO BREAKFAST RIDING ON TEDDY'S SHOULDER" 180
"'WE ARE VERY MISERABLE,' SAID DARZEE" 181
"'I AM NAG,' SAID THE COBRA: 'LOOK, AND BE AFRAID.'
BUT AT THE BOTTOM OF HIS COLD HEART _HE_ WAS
AFRAID" 183
"HE JUMPED UP IN THE AIR, AND JUST UNDER HIM
WHIZZED BY THE HEAD OF NAGAINA" 187
"IN THE DARK HE RAN UP AGAINST CHUCHUNDRA,
THE MUSKRAT" 192
"THEN RIKKI-TIKKI WAS BATTERED TO AND FRO AS
A RAT IS SHAKEN BY A DOG" 197
DARZEE'S WIFE PRETENDS TO HAVE A BROKEN WING 201
"NAGAINA FLEW DOWN THE PATH WITH RIKKI-TIKKI
BEHIND HER" 207
"IT IS ALL OVER" 210
"KALA NAG WAS THE BEST-LOVED ELEPHANT IN THE
SERVICE" 219
"'HE IS AFRAID OF ME,' SAID LITTLE TOOMAI, AND
HE MADE KALA NAG LIFT UP HIS FEET ONE
AFTER THE OTHER" 223
"HE WOULD GET HIS TORCH AND WAVE IT, AND YELL
WITH THE BEST" 229
"'NOT GREEN CORN, PROTECTOR OF THE POOR,--MELONS,'
SAID LITTLE TOOMAI" 235
"LITTLE TOOMAI LOOKED DOWN UPON SCORES AND
SCORES OF BROAD BACKS" 251
"'TO TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS. BARRAO!'" 259
"A CAMEL HAD BLUNDERED INTO MY TENT" 267
"'ANYBODY CAN BE FORGIVEN FOR BEING SCARED IN THE
NIGHT,' SAID THE TROOP-HORSE" 275
"'THE MAN WAS LYING ON THE GROUND, AND I
STRETCHED MYSELF NOT TO TREAD ON HIM, AND
HE SLASHED UP AT ME'" 279
"THEN I HEARD AN OLD, GRIZZLED, LONG-HAIRED CENTRAL
ASIAN CHIEF ASKING QUESTIONS OF A NATIVE
OFFICER" 297
THE JUNGLE BOOK
Now Rann, the Kite, brings home the night
That Mang, the Bat, sets free--
The herds are shut in byre and hut,
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call!--Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!
_Night-Song in the Jungle._
[Illustration]
MOWGLI'S BROTHERS
IT was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when
Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and
spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling
in the tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her
four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the
cave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf, "it is time to
hunt again"; and he was going to spring downhill when a little shadow
with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with
you, O Chief of the Wolves; and good luck and strong white teeth go with
the noble children, that they may never forget the hungry in this
world."
[Illustration: "'GOOD LUCK GO WITH YOU, O CHIEF OF THE WOLVES.'"]
It was the jackal--Tabaqui, the Dish-licker--and the wolves of India
despise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, and telling
tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village
rubbish-heaps. They are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than
any one else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he forgets that
he was ever afraid of any one, and runs through the forest biting
everything in his way. Even the tiger hides when little Tabaqui goes
mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild
creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it _dewanee_--the
madness--and run.
"Enter, then, and look," said Father Wolf, stiffly; "but there is no
food here."
"For a wolf, no," said Tabaqui; "but for so mean a person as myself a
dry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log [the Jackal People],
to pick and choose?" He scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found
the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat cracking the end
merrily.
"All thanks for this good meal," he said, licking his lips. "How
beautiful are the noble children! How large are their eyes! And so
young too! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of
kings are men from the beginning."
Now, Tabaqui knew as well as any one else that there is nothing so
unlucky as to compliment children to their faces; and it pleased him to
see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.
Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and then
he said spitefully:
"Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting-grounds. He will hunt
among these hills during the next moon, so he has told me."
Shere Khan was the tiger who lived near the Waingunga River, twenty
miles away.
"He has no right!" Father Wolf began angrily. "By the Law of the Jungle
he has no right to change his quarters without fair warning. He will
frighten every head of game within ten miles; and I--I have to kill for
two, these days."
"His mother did not call him Lungri [the Lame One] for nothing," said
Mother Wolf, quietly. "He has been lame in one foot from his birth. That
is why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers of the Waingunga are
angry with him, and he has come here to make _our_ villagers angry.
They will scour the jungle for him when he is far away, and we and our
children must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed, we are very
grateful to Shere Khan!"
"Shall I tell him of your gratitude?" said Tabaqui.
"Out!" snapped Father Wolf. "Out, and hunt with thy master. Thou hast
done harm enough for one night."
"I go," said Tabaqui, quietly. "Ye can hear Shere Khan below in the
thickets. I might have saved myself the message."
Father Wolf listened, and in the dark valley that ran down to a little
river, he heard the dry, angry, snarly, singsong whine of a tiger who
has caught nothing and does not care if all the jungle knows it.
"The fool!" said Father Wolf. "To begin a night's work with that noise!
Does he think that our buck are like his fat Waingunga bullocks?"
"H'sh! It is neither bullock nor buck that he hunts to-night," said
Mother Wolf; "it is Man." The whine had changed to a sort of humming
purr that seemed to roll from every quarter of the compass. It was the
noise that bewilders wood-cutters, and gipsies sleeping in the open,
and makes them run sometimes into the very mouth of the tiger.
"Man!" said Father Wolf, showing all his white teeth. "Faugh! Are there
not enough beetles and frogs in the tanks that he must eat Man--and on
our ground too!"
The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason,
forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show his
children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting-grounds
of his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man-killing
means, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on elephants, with
guns, and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then
everybody in the jungle suffers. The reason the beasts give among
themselves is that Man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living
things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say too--and it is
true--that man-eaters become mangy, and lose their teeth.
The purr grew louder, and ended in the full-throated "Aaarh!" of the
tiger's charge.
Then there was a howl--an untigerish howl--from Shere Khan. "He has
missed," said Mother Wolf. "What is it?"
Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan muttering and
mumbling savagely, as he tumbled about in the scrub.
"The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a wood-cutters'
camp-fire, so he has burned his feet," said Father Wolf, with a grunt.
"Tabaqui is with him."
"Something is coming uphill," said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear. "Get
ready."
The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with
his haunches under him, ready for his leap. Then, if you had been
watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world--the
wolf checked in mid-spring. He made his bound before he saw what it was
he was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself. The result was
that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing
almost where he left ground.
"Man!" he snapped. "A man's cub. Look!"
Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked
brown baby who could just walk--as soft and as dimpled a little thing as
ever came to a wolf's cave at night. He looked up into Father Wolf's
face and laughed.
"Is that a man's cub?" said Mother Wolf. "I have never seen one. Bring
it here."
A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mouth an
egg without breaking it, and though Father Wolf's jaws closed right on
the child's back not a tooth even scratched the skin, as he laid it down
among the cubs.
"How little! How naked, and--how bold!" said Mother Wolf, softly. The
baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm hide.
"Ahai! He is taking his meal with the others. And so this is a man's
cub. Now, was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man's cub among
her children?"
"I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our pack or in
my time," said Father Wolf. "He is altogether without hair, and I could
kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is not
afraid."
The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Shere Khan's
great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance. Tabaqui,
behind him, was squeaking: "My Lord, my Lord, it went in here!"
"Shere Khan does us great honor," said Father Wolf, but his eyes were
very angry. "What does Shere Khan need?"
"My quarry. A man's cub went this way," said Shere Khan. "Its parents
have run off. Give it to me."
Shere Khan had jumped at a wood-cutter's camp-fire, as Father Wolf had
said, and was furious from the pain of his burned feet. But Father Wolf
knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in
by. Even where he was, Shere Khan's shoulders and fore paws were cramped
for want of room, as a man's would be if he tried to fight in a barrel.
"The Wolves are a free people," said Father Wolf. "They take orders from
the Head of the Pack, and not from any striped cattle-killer. The man's
cub is ours--to kill if we choose."
"Ye choose and ye do not choose! What talk is this of choosing? By the
Bull that I killed, am I to stand nosing into your dog's den for my fair
dues? It is I, Shere Khan, who speak!"
The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself
clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons in
the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.
[Illustration: "THE TIGER'S ROAR FILLED THE CAVE WITH THUNDER."]
"And it is I, Raksha [the Demon], who answer. The man's cub is mine,
Lungri--mine to me! He shall not be killed. He shall live to run with
the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of
little naked cubs--frog-eater--fish-killer, he shall hunt _thee_! Now
get hence, or by the Sambhur that I killed (_I_ eat no starved cattle),
back thou goest to thy mother, burned beast of the jungle, lamer than
ever thou camest into the world! Go!"
Father Wolf looked on amazed. He had almost forgotten the days when he
won Mother Wolf in fair fight from five other wolves, when she ran in
the Pack and was not called the Demon for compliment's sake. Shere Khan
might have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother
Wolf, for he knew that where he was she had all the advantage of the
ground, and would fight to the death. So he backed out of the cave-mouth
growling, and when he was clear he shouted:
"Each dog barks in his own yard! We will see what the Pack will say to
this fostering of man-cubs. The cub is mine, and to my teeth he will
come in the end, O bush-tailed thieves!"
Mother Wolf threw herself down panting among the cubs, and Father Wolf
said to her gravely:
"Shere Khan speaks this much truth. The cub must be shown to the Pack.
Wilt thou still keep him, Mother?"
"Keep him!" she gasped. "He came naked, by night, alone and very hungry;
yet he was not afraid! Look, he has pushed one of my babes to one side
already. And that lame butcher would have killed him, and would have run
off to the Waingunga while the villagers here hunted through all our
lairs in revenge! Keep him? Assuredly I will keep him. Lie still, little
frog. O thou Mowgli,--for Mowgli, the Frog, I will call thee,--the time
will come when thou wilt hunt Shere Khan as he has hunted thee!"
"But what will our Pack say?" said Father Wolf.
The Law of the Jungle lays down very clearly that any wolf may, when he
marries, withdraw from the Pack he belongs to; but as soon as his cubs
are old enough to stand on their feet he must bring them to the Pack
Council, which is generally held once a month at full moon, in order
that the other wolves may identify them. After that inspection the cubs
are free to run where they please, and until they have killed their
first buck no excuse is accepted if a grown wolf of the Pack kills one
of them. The punishment is death where the murderer can be found; and if
you think for a minute you will see that this must be so.
Father Wolf waited till his cubs could run a little, and then on the
night of the Pack Meeting took them and Mowgli and Mother Wolf to the
Council Rock--a hilltop covered with stones and boulders where a hundred
wolves could hide. Akela, the great gray Lone Wolf, who led all the Pack
by strength and cunning, lay out at full length on his rock, and below
him sat forty or more wolves of every size and color, from
badger-colored veterans who could handle a buck alone, to young black
three-year-olds who thought they could. The Lone Wolf had led them for a
year now. He had fallen twice into a wolf-trap in his youth, and once he
had been beaten and left for dead; so he knew the manners and customs of
men.
[Illustration: THE MEETING AT THE COUNCIL ROCK.]
There was very little talking at the Rock. The cubs tumbled over one
another in the center of the circle where their mothers and fathers sat,
and now and again a senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look at
him carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet. Sometimes a
mother would push her cub far out into the moonlight, to be sure that he
had not been overlooked. Akela from his rock would cry: "Ye know the
Law--ye know the Law! Look well, O Wolves!" And the anxious mothers
would take up the call: "Look--look well, O Wolves!"
At last--and Mother Wolf's neck-bristles lifted as the time came--Father
Wolf pushed "Mowgli, the Frog," as they called him, into the center,
where he sat laughing and playing with some pebbles that glistened in
the moonlight.
Akela never raised his head from his paws, but went on with the
monotonous cry, "Look well!" A muffled roar came up from behind the
rocks--the voice of Shere Khan crying, "The cub is mine; give him to me.
What have the Free People to do with a man's cub?"
Akela never even twitched his ears. All he said was, "Look well, O
Wolves! What have the Free People to do with the orders of any save the
Free People? Look well!"
There was a chorus of deep growls, and a young wolf in his fourth year
flung back Shere Khan's question to Akela: "What have the Free People to
do with a man's cub?"
Now the Law of the Jungle lays down that if there is any dispute as to
the right of a cub to be accepted by the Pack, he must be spoken for by
at least two members of the Pack who are not his father and mother.
"Who speaks for this cub?" said Akela. "Among the Free People, who
speaks?" There was no answer, and Mother Wolf got ready for what she
knew would be her last fight, if things came to fighting.
Then the only other creature who is allowed at the Pack Council--Baloo,
the sleepy brown bear who teaches the wolf cubs the Law of the Jungle;
old Baloo, who can come and go where he pleases because he eats only
nuts and roots and honey--rose up on his hind quarters and grunted.
"The man's cub--the man's cub?" he said. "_I_ speak for the man's cub.
There is no harm in a man's cub. I have no gift of words, but I speak
the truth. Let him run with the Pack, and be entered with the others. I
myself will teach him."
"We need yet another," said Akela. "Baloo has spoken, and he is our
teacher for the young cubs. Who speaks besides Baloo?"
A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera, the Black
Panther, inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing up
in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew
Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path; for he was as cunning as
Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded
elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree,
and a skin softer than down.
"O Akela, and ye, the Free People," he purred, "I have no right in your
assembly; but the Law of the Jungle says that if there is a doubt which
is not a killing matter in regard to a new cub, the life of that cub may
be bought at a price. And the Law does not say who may or may not pay
that price. Am I right?"
"Good! good!" said the young wolves, who are always hungry. "Listen to
Bagheera. The cub can be bought for a price. It is the Law."
"Knowing that I have no right to speak here, I ask your leave."
"Speak then," cried twenty voices.
"To kill a naked cub is shame. Besides, he may make better sport for you
when he is grown. Baloo has spoken in his behalf. Now to Baloo's word I
will add one bull, and a fat one, newly killed, not half a mile from
here, if ye will accept the man's cub according to the Law. Is it
difficult?"
There was a clamor of scores of voices, saying: "What matter? He will
die in the winter rains. He will scorch in the sun. What harm can a
naked frog do us? Let him run with the Pack. Where is the bull,
Bagheera? Let him be accepted." And then came Akela's deep bay, crying:
"Look well--look well, O Wolves!"
Mowgli was still playing with the pebbles, and he did not notice when
the wolves came and looked at him one by one. At last they all went
down the hill for the dead bull, and only Akela, Bagheera, Baloo, and
Mowgli's own wolves were left. Shere Khan roared still in the night, for
he was very angry that Mowgli had not been handed over to him.
"Ay, roar well," said Bagheera, under his whiskers; "for the time comes
when this naked thing will make thee roar to another tune, or I know
nothing of Man."
"It was well done," said Akela. "Men and their cubs are very wise. He
may be a help in time."
"Truly, a help in time of need; for none can hope to lead the Pack
forever," said Bagheera.
Akela said nothing. He was thinking of the time that comes to every
leader of every pack when his strength goes from him and he gets feebler
and feebler, till at last he is killed by the wolves and a new leader
comes up--to be killed in his turn.
"Take him away," he said to Father Wolf, "and train him as befits one of
the Free People."
And that is how Mowgli was entered into the Seeonee wolf-pack for the
price of a bull and on Baloo's good word.
Now you must be content to skip ten or eleven whole years, and only
guess at all the wonderful life that Mowgli led among the wolves,
because if it were written out it would fill ever so many books. He grew
up with the cubs, though they of course were grown wolves almost before
he was a child, and Father Wolf taught him his business, and the meaning
of things in the jungle, till every rustle in the grass, every breath of
the warm night air, every note of the owls above his head, every scratch
of a bat's claws as it roosted for a while in a tree, and every splash
of every little fish jumping in a pool, meant just as much to him as the
work of his office means to a business man. When he was not learning he
sat out in the sun and slept, and ate, and went to sleep again; when he
felt dirty or hot he swam in the forest pools; and when he wanted honey
(Baloo told him that honey and nuts were just as pleasant to eat as raw
meat) he climbed up for it, and that Bagheera showed him how to do.
Bagheera would lie out on a branch and call, "Come along, Little
Brother," and at first Mowgli would cling like the sloth, but afterward
he would fling himself through the branches almost as boldly as the gray
ape. He took his place at the Council Rock, too, when the Pack met,
and there he discovered that if he stared hard at any wolf, the wolf
would be forced to drop his eyes, and so he used to stare for fun.
[Illustration: "BAGHEERA WOULD LIE OUT ON A BRANCH AND CALL, 'COME
ALONG, LITTLE BROTHER.'"]
At other times he would pick the long thorns out of the pads of his
friends, for wolves suffer terribly from thorns and burs in their coats.
He would go down the hillside into the cultivated lands by night, and
look very curiously at the villagers in their huts, but he had a
mistrust of men because Bagheera showed him a square box with a
drop-gate so cunningly hidden in the jungle that he nearly walked into
it, and told him it was a trap.
He loved better than anything else to go with Bagheera into the dark
warm heart of the forest, to sleep all through the drowsy day, and at
night see how Bagheera did his killing. Bagheera killed right and left
as he felt hungry, and so did Mowgli--with one exception. As soon as he
was old enough to understand things, Bagheera told him that he must
never touch cattle because he had been bought into the Pack at the price
of a bull's life. "All the jungle is thine," said Bagheera, "and thou
canst kill everything that thou art strong enough to kill; but for the
sake of the bull that bought thee thou must never kill or eat any
cattle young or old. That is the Law of the Jungle." Mowgli obeyed
faithfully.
And he grew and grew strong as a boy must grow who does not know that he
is learning any lessons, and who has nothing in the world to think of
except things to eat.
Mother Wolf told him once or twice that Shere Khan was not a creature to
be trusted, and that some day he must kill Shere Khan; but though a
young wolf would have remembered that advice every hour, Mowgli forgot
it because he was only a boy--though he would have called himself a wolf
if he had been able to speak in any human tongue.
Shere Khan was always crossing his path in the jungle, for as Akela grew
older and feebler the lame tiger had come to be great friends with the
younger wolves of the Pack, who followed him for scraps, a thing Akela
would never have allowed if he had dared to push his authority to the
proper bounds. Then Shere Khan would flatter them and wonder that such
fine young hunters were content to be led by a dying wolf and a man's
cub. "They tell me," Shere Khan would say, "that at Council ye dare not
look him between the eyes"; and the young wolves would growl and
bristle.
Bagheera, who had eyes and ears everywhere, knew something of this, and
once or twice he told Mowgli in so many words that Shere Khan would kill
him some day; and Mowgli would laugh and answer: "I have the Pack and I
have thee; and Baloo, though he is so lazy, might strike a blow or two
for my sake. Why should I be afraid?"
It was one very warm day that a new notion came to Bagheera--born of
something that he had heard. Perhaps Ikki, the Porcupine, had told him;
but he said to Mowgli when they were deep in the jungle, as the boy lay
with his head on Bagheera's beautiful black skin: "Little Brother, how
often have I told thee that Shere Khan is thy enemy?"
"As many times as there are nuts on that palm," said Mowgli, who,
naturally, could not count. "What of it? I am sleepy, Bagheera, and
Shere Khan is all long tail and loud talk, like Mao, the Peacock."
"But this is no time for sleeping. Baloo knows it, I know it, the Pack
know it, and even the foolish, foolish deer know. Tabaqui has told thee
too."
"Ho! ho!" said Mowgli. "Tabaqui came to me not long ago with some rude
talk that I was a naked man's cub, and not fit to dig pig-nuts; but I
caught Tabaqui by the tail and swung him twice against a palm-tree to
teach him better manners."
"That was foolishness; for though Tabaqui is a mischief-maker, he would
have told thee of something that concerned thee closely. Open those
eyes, Little Brother! Shere Khan dares not kill thee in the jungle for
fear of those that love thee; but remember, Akela is very old, and soon
the day comes when he cannot kill his buck, and then he will be leader
no more. Many of the wolves that looked thee over when thou wast brought
to the Council first are old too, and the young wolves believe, as Shere
Khan has taught them, that a man-cub has no place with the Pack. In a
little time thou wilt be a man."
"And what is a man that he should not run with his brothers?" said
Mowgli. "I was born in the jungle; I have obeyed the Law of the Jungle;
and there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn.
Surely they are my brothers!"
Bagheera stretched himself at full length and half shut his eyes.
"Little Brother," said he, "feel under my jaw."
Mowgli put up his strong brown hand, and just under Bagheera's silky
chin, where the giant rolling muscles were all hid by the glossy hair,
he came upon a little bald spot.
"There is no one in the jungle that knows that I, Bagheera, carry that
mark--the mark of the collar; and yet, Little Brother, I was born among
men, and it was among men that my mother died--in the cages of the
King's Palace at Oodeypore. It was because of this that I paid the price
for thee at the Council when thou wast a little naked cub. Yes, I too
was born among men. I had never seen the jungle. They fed me behind bars
from an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera, the Panther,
and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly lock with one blow of my
paw, and came away; and because I had learned the ways of men, I became
more terrible in the jungle than Shere Khan. Is it not so?"
"Yes," said Mowgli; "all the jungle fear Bagheera--all except Mowgli."
"Oh, _thou_ art a man's cub," said the Black Panther, very tenderly;
"and even as I returned to my jungle, so thou must go back to men at
last,--to the men who are thy brothers,--if thou art not killed in the
Council."
"But why--but why should any wish to kill me?" said Mowgli.
"Look at me," said Bagheera; and Mowgli looked at him steadily between
the eyes. The big panther turned his head away in half a minute.
"_That_ is why," he said, shifting his paw on the leaves. "Not even I
can look thee between the eyes, and I was born among men, and I love
thee, Little Brother. The others they hate thee because their eyes
cannot meet thine; because thou art wise; because thou hast pulled out
thorns from their feet--because thou art a man."
"I did not know these things," said Mowgli, sullenly; and he frowned
under his heavy black eyebrows.
"What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue. By
thy very carelessness they know that thou art a man. But be wise. It is
in my heart that when Akela misses his next kill,--and at each hunt it
costs him more to pin the buck,--the Pack will turn against him and
against thee. They will hold a jungle Council at the Rock, and then--and
then ... I have it!" said Bagheera, leaping up. "Go thou down quickly to
the men's huts in the valley, and take some of the Red Flower which they
grow there, so that when the time comes thou mayest have even a
stronger friend than I or Baloo or those of the Pack that love thee. Get
the Red Flower."
By Red Flower Bagheera meant fire, only no creature in the jungle will
call fire by its proper name. Every beast lives in deadly fear of it,
and invents a hundred ways of describing it.
"The Red Flower?" said Mowgli. "That grows outside their huts in the
twilight. I will get some."
"There speaks the man's cub," said Bagheera, proudly. "Remember that it
grows in little pots. Get one swiftly, and keep it by thee for time of
need."
"Good!" said Mowgli. "I go. But art thou sure, O my Bagheera"--he
slipped his arm round the splendid neck, and looked deep into the big
eyes--"art thou sure that all this is Shere Khan's doing?"
"By the Broken Lock that freed me, I am sure, Little Brother."
"Then, by the Bull that bought me, I will pay Shere Khan full tale for
this, and it may be a little over," said Mowgli; and he bounded away.
"That is a man. That is all a man," said Bagheera to himself, lying down
again. "Oh, Shere Khan, never was a blacker hunting than that frog-hunt
of thine ten years ago!"
Mowgli was far and far through the forest, running hard, and his heart
was hot in him. He came to the cave as the evening mist rose, and drew
breath, and looked down the valley. The cubs were out, but Mother Wolf,
at the back of the cave, knew by his breathing that something was
troubling her frog.
"What is it, Son?" she said.
"Some bat's chatter of Shere Khan," he called back. "I hunt among the
plowed fields to-night"; and he plunged downward through the bushes, to
the stream at the bottom of the valley. There he checked, for he heard
the yell of the Pack hunting, heard the bellow of a hunted Sambhur, and
the snort as the buck turned at bay. Then there were wicked, bitter
howls from the young wolves: "Akela! Akela! Let the Lone Wolf show his
strength. Room for the leader of our Pack! Spring, Akela!"
The Lone Wolf must have sprung and missed his hold, for Mowgli heard the
snap of his teeth and then a yelp as the Sambhur knocked him over with
his fore foot.
He did not wait for anything more, but dashed on; and the yells grew
fainter behind him as he ran into the crop-lands where the villagers
lived.
"Bagheera spoke truth," he panted, as he nestled down in some
cattle-fodder by the window of a hut. "To-morrow is one day for Akela
and for me."
Then he pressed his face close to the window and watched the fire on the
hearth. He saw the husbandman's wife get up and feed it in the night
with black lumps; and when the morning came and the mists were all white
and cold, he saw the man's child pick up a wicker pot plastered inside
with earth, fill it with lumps of red-hot charcoal, put it under his
blanket, and go out to tend the cows in the byre.
"Is that all?" said Mowgli. "If a cub can do it, there is nothing to
fear"; so he strode around the corner and met the boy, took the pot from
his hand, and disappeared into the mist while the boy howled with fear.
"They are very like me," said Mowgli, blowing into the pot, as he had
seen the woman do. "This thing will die if I do not give it things to
eat"; and he dropped twigs and dried bark on the red stuff. Half-way up
the hill he met Bagheera with the morning dew shining like moonstones on
his coat.
"Akela has missed," said the panther. "They would have killed him last
night, but they needed thee also. They were looking for thee on the
hill."
"I was among the plowed lands. I am ready. Look!" Mowgli held up the
fire-pot.
"Good! Now, I have seen men thrust a dry branch into that stuff, and
presently the Red Flower blossomed at the end of it. Art thou not
afraid?"
"No. Why should I fear? I remember now--if it is not a dream--how,
before I was a wolf, I lay beside the Red Flower, and it was warm and
pleasant."
All that day Mowgli sat in the cave tending his fire-pot and dipping dry
branches into it to see how they looked. He found a branch that
satisfied him, and in the evening when Tabaqui came to the cave and told
him, rudely enough, that he was wanted at the Council Rock, he laughed
till Tabaqui ran away. Then Mowgli went to the Council, still laughing.
Akela the Lone Wolf lay by the side of his rock as a sign that the
leadership of the Pack was open, and Shere Khan with his following of
scrap-fed wolves walked to and fro openly, being flattered. Bagheera lay
close to Mowgli, and the fire-pot was between Mowgli's knees. When they
were all gathered together, Shere Khan began to speak--a thing he would
never have dared to do when Akela was in his prime.
"He has no right," whispered Bagheera. "Say so. He is a dog's son. He
will be frightened."
Mowgli sprang to his feet. "Free People," he cried, "does Shere Khan
lead the Pack? What has a tiger to do with our leadership?"
"Seeing that the leadership is yet open, and being asked to speak--"
Shere Khan began.
"By whom?" said Mowgli. "Are we _all_ jackals, to fawn on this
cattle-butcher? The leadership of the Pack is with the Pack alone."
There were yells of "Silence, thou man's cub!" "Let him speak; he has
kept our law!" And at last the seniors of the Pack thundered: "Let the
Dead Wolf speak!"
When a leader of the Pack has missed his kill, he is called the Dead
Wolf as long as he lives, which is not long, as a rule.
Akela raised his old head wearily:
"Free People, and ye too, jackals of Shere Khan, for twelve seasons I
have led ye to and from the kill, and in all that time not one has been
trapped or maimed. Now I have missed my kill. Ye know how that plot was
made. Ye know how ye brought me up to an untried buck to make my
weakness known. It was cleverly done. Your right is to kill me here on
the Council Rock now. Therefore I ask, 'Who comes to make an end of the
Lone Wolf?' For it is my right, by the Law of the Jungle, that ye come
one by one."
There was a long hush, for no single wolf cared to fight Akela to the
death. Then Shere Khan roared: "Bah! What have we to do with this
toothless fool? He is doomed to die! It is the man-cub who has lived too
long. Free People, he was my meat from the first. Give him to me. I am
weary of this man-wolf folly. He has troubled the jungle for ten
seasons. Give me the man-cub, or I will hunt here always, and not give
you one bone! He is a man--a man's child, and from the marrow of my
bones I hate him!"
Then more than half the Pack yelled: "A man--a man! What has a man to do
with us? Let him go to his own place."
"And turn all the people of the villages against us?" snarled Shere
Khan. "No; give him to me. He is a man, and none of us can look him
between the eyes."
Akela lifted his head again, and said: "He has eaten our food; he has
slept with us; he has driven game for us; he has broken no word of the
Law of the Jungle."
"Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a
bull is little, but Bagheera's honor is something that he will perhaps
fight for," said Bagheera in his gentlest voice.
"A bull paid ten years ago!" the Pack snarled. "What do we care for
bones ten years old?"
"Or for a pledge?" said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under his lip.
"Well are ye called the Free People!"
"No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle!" roared Shere Khan.
"Give him to me."
"He is our brother in all but blood," Akela went on; "and ye would kill
him here. In truth, I have lived too long. Some of ye are eaters of
cattle, and of others I have heard that, under Shere Khan's teaching, ye
go by dark night and snatch children from the villager's doorstep.
Therefore I know ye to be cowards, and it is to cowards I speak. It is
certain that I must die, and my life is of no worth, or I would offer
that in the man-cub's place. But for the sake of the Honor of the
Pack,--a little matter that, by being without a leader, ye have
forgotten,--I promise that if ye let the man-cub go to his own place, I
will not, when my time comes to die, bare one tooth against ye. I will
die without fighting. That will at least save the Pack three lives. More
I cannot do; but, if ye will, I can save ye the shame that comes of
killing a brother against whom there is no fault--a brother spoken for
and bought into the Pack according to the Law of the Jungle."
"He is a man--a man--a man!" snarled the Pack; and most of the wolves
began to gather round Shere Khan, whose tail was beginning to switch.
"Now the business is in thy hands," said Bagheera to Mowgli. "_We_ can
do no more except fight."
Mowgli stood upright--the fire-pot in his hands. Then he stretched out
his arms, and yawned in the face of the Council; but he was furious with
rage and sorrow, for, wolf-like, the wolves had never told him how they
hated him.
"Listen, you!" he cried. "There is no need for this dog's jabber. Ye
have told me so often to-night that I am a man (though indeed I would
have been a wolf with you to my life's end) that I feel your words are
true. So I do not call ye my brothers any more, but _sag_ [dogs], as a
man should. What ye will do, and what ye will not do, is not yours to
say. That matter is with _me_; and that we may see the matter more
plainly, I, the man, have brought here a little of the Red Flower which
ye, dogs, fear."
He flung the fire-pot on the ground, and some of the red coals lit a
tuft of dried moss that flared up as all the Council drew back in terror
before the leaping flames.
Mowgli thrust his dead branch into the fire till the twigs lit and
crackled, and whirled it above his head among the cowering wolves.
"Thou art the master," said Bagheera, in an undertone. "Save Akela from
the death. He was ever thy friend."
Akela, the grim old wolf who had never asked for mercy in his life, gave
one piteous look at Mowgli as the boy stood all naked, his long black
hair tossing over his shoulders in the light of the blazing branch that
made the shadows jump and quiver.
"Good!" said Mowgli, staring around slowly, and thrusting out his lower
lip. "I see that ye are dogs. I go from you to my own people--if they be
my own people. The jungle is shut to me, and I must forget your talk and
your companionship; but I will be more merciful than ye are. Because I
was all but your brother in blood, I promise that when I am a man among
men I will not betray ye to men as ye have betrayed me." He kicked the
fire with his foot, and the sparks flew up. "There shall be no war
between any of us and the Pack. But here is a debt to pay before I go."
He strode forward to where Shere Khan sat blinking stupidly at the
flames, and caught him by the tuft on his chin. Bagheera followed close,
in case of accidents. "Up, dog!" Mowgli cried. "Up, when a man speaks,
or I will set that coat ablaze!"
Shere Khan's ears lay flat back on his head, and he shut his eyes, for
the blazing branch was very near.
"This cattle-killer said he would kill me in the Council because he had
not killed me when I was a cub. Thus and thus, then, do we beat dogs
when we are men! Stir a whisker, Lungri, and I ram the Red Flower down
thy gullet!" He beat Shere Khan over the head with the branch, and the
tiger whimpered and whined in an agony of fear.
"Pah! Singed jungle-cat--go now! But remember when next I come to the
Council Rock, as a man should come, it will be with Shere Khan's hide on
my head. For the rest, Akela goes free to live as he pleases. Ye will
_not_ kill him, because that is not my will. Nor do I think that ye will
sit here any longer, lolling out your tongues as though ye were
somebodies, instead of dogs whom I drive out--thus! Go!"
The fire was burning furiously at the end of the branch, and Mowgli
struck right and left round the circle, and the wolves ran howling with
the sparks burning their fur. At last there were only Akela, Bagheera,
and perhaps ten wolves that had taken Mowgli's part. Then something
began to hurt Mowgli inside him, as he had never been hurt in his life
before, and he caught his breath and sobbed, and the tears ran down his
face.
"What is it? What is it?" he said. "I do not wish to leave the jungle,
and I do not know what this is. Am I dying, Bagheera?"
"No, Little Brother. Those are only tears such as men use," said
Bagheera. "Now I know thou art a man, and a man's cub no longer. The
jungle is shut indeed to thee henceforward. Let them fall, Mowgli; they
are only tears." So Mowgli sat and cried as though his heart would
break; and he had never cried in all his life before.
"Now," he said, "I will go to men. But first I must say farewell to my
mother"; and he went to the cave where she lived with Father Wolf, and
he cried on her coat, while the four cubs howled miserably.
"Ye will not forget me?" said Mowgli.
"Never while we can follow a trail," said the cubs. "Come to the foot of
the hill when thou art a man, and we will talk to thee; and we will come
into the crop-lands to play with thee by night."
"Come soon!" said Father Wolf. "Oh, wise little Frog, come again soon;
for we be old, thy mother and I."
"Come soon," said Mother Wolf, "little naked son of mine; for, listen,
child of man, I loved thee more than ever I loved my cubs."
"I will surely come," said Mowgli; "and when I come it will be to lay
out Shere Khan's hide upon the Council Rock. Do not forget me! Tell them
in the jungle never to forget me!"
The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the hillside alone
to the crops to meet those mysterious things that are called men.
HUNTING-SONG OF THE SEEONEE PACK
As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled
Once, twice, and again!
And a doe leaped up--and a doe leaped up
From the pond in the wood where the wild deer sup.
This I, scouting alone, beheld,
Once, twice, and again!
As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled
Once, twice, and again!
And a wolf stole back--and a wolf stole back
To carry the word to the waiting Pack;
And we sought and we found and we bayed on his track
Once, twice, and again!
As the dawn was breaking the Wolf-pack yelled
Once, twice, and again!
Feet in the jungle that leave no mark!
Eyes that can see in the dark--the dark!
Tongue--give tongue to it! Hark! O Hark!
Once, twice, and again!
KAA'S HUNTING
His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the
Buffalo's pride--
Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss
of his hide.
If ye find that the Bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed
Sambhur can gore;
Ye need not stop work to inform us: we knew it ten seasons
before.
Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister
and Brother,
For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is
their mother.
"There is none like to me!" says the Cub in the pride of his
earliest kill;
But the Jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think
and be still.
_Maxims of Baloo._
[Illustration]
KAA'S HUNTING
ALL that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of
the Seeonee wolf-pack. It was in the days when Baloo was teaching him
the Law of the Jungle. The big, serious, old brown bear was delighted to
have so quick a pupil, for the young wolves will only learn as much of
the Law of the Jungle as applies to their own pack and tribe, and run
away as soon as they can repeat the Hunting Verse: "Feet that make no
noise; eyes that can see in the dark; ears that can hear the winds in
their lairs, and sharp white teeth--all these things are the marks of
our brothers except Tabaqui and the Hyena, whom we hate." But Mowgli, as
a man-cub, had to learn a great deal more than this. Sometimes Bagheera,
the Black Panther, would come lounging through the jungle to see how his
pet was getting on, and would purr with his head against a tree while
Mowgli recited the day's lesson to Baloo. The boy could climb almost as
well as he could swim, and swim almost as well as he could run; so
Baloo, the Teacher of the Law, taught him the Wood and Water laws: how
to tell a rotten branch from a sound one; how to speak politely to the
wild bees when he came upon a hive of them fifty feet aboveground; what
to say to Mang, the Bat, when he disturbed him in the branches at
midday; and how to warn the water-snakes in the pools before he splashed
down among them. None of the Jungle People like being disturbed, and all
are very ready to fly at an intruder. Then, too, Mowgli was taught the
Strangers' Hunting Call, which must be repeated aloud till it is
answered, whenever one of the Jungle People hunts outside his own
grounds. It means, translated: "Give me leave to hunt here because I am
hungry"; and the answer is: "Hunt, then, for food, but not for
pleasure."
All this will show you how much Mowgli had to learn by heart, and he
grew very tired of repeating the same thing a hundred times; but, as
Baloo said to Bagheera one day when Mowgli had been cuffed and had run
off in a temper: "A man's cub is a man's cub, and he must learn _all_
the Law of the Jungle."
"But think how small he is," said the Black Panther, who would have
spoiled Mowgli if he had had his own way. "How can his little head carry
all thy long talk?"
"Is there anything in the jungle too little to be killed? No. That is
why I teach him these things, and that is why I hit him, very softly,
when he forgets."
"Softly! What dost thou know of softness, old Iron-feet?" Bagheera
grunted. "His face is all bruised to-day by thy--softness. Ugh!"
"Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me who love him than
that he should come to harm through ignorance," Baloo answered, very
earnestly. "I am now teaching him the Master Words of the Jungle that
shall protect him with the Birds and the Snake People, and all that hunt
on four feet, except his own pack. He can now claim protection, if he
will only remember the Words, from all in the jungle. Is not that worth
a little beating?"
"Well, look to it then that thou dost not kill the man-cub. He is no
tree-trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon. But what are those Master
Words? I am more likely to give help than to ask it"--Bagheera stretched
out one paw and admired the steel-blue ripping-chisel talons at the end
of it--"Still I should like to know."
"I will call Mowgli and he shall say them--if he will. Come, Little
Brother!"
"My head is ringing like a bee-tree," said a sullen voice over their
heads, and Mowgli slid down a tree-trunk, very angry and indignant,
adding, as he reached the ground: "I come for Bagheera and not for
_thee_, fat old Baloo!"
"That is all one to me," said Baloo, though he was hurt and grieved.
"Tell Bagheera, then, the Master Words of the Jungle that I have taught
thee this day."
"Master Words for which people?" said Mowgli, delighted to show off.
"The jungle has many tongues. _I_ know them all."
"A little thou knowest, but not much. See, O Bagheera, they never thank
their teacher! Not one small wolfling has come back to thank old Baloo
for his teachings. Say the Word for the Hunting People, then,--great
scholar!"
"We be of one blood, ye and I," said Mowgli, giving the words the Bear
accent which all the Hunting People of the Jungle use.
"Good! Now for the Birds."
Mowgli repeated, with the Kite's whistle at the end of the sentence.
"Now for the Snake People," said Bagheera.
The answer was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mowgli kicked up his
feet behind, clapped his hands together to applaud himself, and jumped
on Bagheera's back, where he sat sideways, drumming with his heels on
the glossy skin and making the worst faces that he could think of at
Baloo.
"There--there! That was worth a little bruise," said the Brown Bear,
tenderly. "Some day thou wilt remember me." Then he turned aside to tell
Bagheera how he had begged the Master Words from Hathi, the Wild
Elephant, who knows all about these things, and how Hathi had taken
Mowgli down to a pool to get the Snake Word from a water-snake, because
Baloo could not pronounce it, and how Mowgli was now reasonably safe
against all accidents in the jungle, because neither snake, bird, nor
beast would hurt him.
"No one then is to be feared," Baloo wound up, patting his big furry
stomach with pride.
"Except his own tribe," said Bagheera, under his breath; and then aloud
to Mowgli: "Have a care for my ribs, Little Brother! What is all this
dancing up and down?"
Mowgli had been trying to make himself heard by pulling at Bagheera's
shoulder-fur and kicking hard. When the two listened to him he was
shouting at the top of his voice: "And _so_ I shall have a tribe of my
own, and lead them through the branches all day long."
"What is this new folly, little dreamer of dreams?" said Bagheera.
"Yes, and throw branches and dirt at old Baloo," Mowgli went on. "They
have promised me this, ah!"
"Whoof!" Baloo's big paw scooped Mowgli off Bagheera's back, and as the
boy lay between the big fore paws he could see the bear was angry.
"Mowgli," said Baloo, "thou hast been talking with the Bandar-log--the
Monkey People."
Mowgli looked at Bagheera to see if the panther was angry too, and
Bagheera's eyes were as hard as jade-stones.
"Thou hast been with the Monkey People--the gray apes--the people
without a Law--the eaters of everything. That is great shame."
"When Baloo hurt my head," said Mowgli (he was still down on his back),
"I went away, and the gray apes came down from the trees and had pity on
me. No one else cared." He snuffled a little.
"The pity of the Monkey People!" Baloo snorted.
"The stillness of the mountain stream! The cool of the summer sun! And
then, man-cub?"
"And then--and then they gave me nuts and pleasant things to eat, and
they--they carried me in their arms up to the top of the trees and said
I was their blood-brother, except that I had no tail, and should be
their leader some day."
"They have _no_ leader," said Bagheera. "They lie. They have always
lied."
"They were very kind, and bade me come again. Why have I never been
taken among the Monkey People? They stand on their feet as I do. They do
not hit me with hard paws. They play all day. Let me get up! Bad Baloo,
let me up! I will go play with them again."
"Listen, man-cub," said the bear, and his voice rumbled like thunder on
a hot night. "I have taught thee all the Law of the Jungle for all the
Peoples of the Jungle--except the Monkey Folk who live in the trees.
They have no Law. They are outcastes. They have no speech of their own,
but use the stolen words which they overhear when they listen and peep
and wait up above in the branches. Their way is not our way. They are
without leaders. They have no remembrance. They boast and chatter and
pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in the
jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter, and all
is forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not
drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go; we do
not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die. Hast thou ever
heard me speak of the Bandar-log till to-day?"
"No," said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still now that
Baloo had finished.
"The Jungle People put them out of their mouths and out of their minds.
They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless, and they desire, if they
have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the Jungle People. But we do
_not_ notice them even when they throw nuts and filth on our heads."
He had hardly spoken when a shower of nuts and twigs spattered down
through the branches; and they could hear coughings and howlings and
angry jumpings high up in the air among the thin branches.
"The Monkey People are forbidden," said Baloo, "forbidden to the Jungle
People. Remember."
"Forbidden," said Bagheera; "but I still think Baloo should have warned
thee against them."
"I--I? How was I to guess he would play with such dirt. The Monkey
People! Faugh!"
A fresh shower came down on their heads, and the two trotted away,
taking Mowgli with them. What Baloo had said about the monkeys was
perfectly true. They belonged to the tree-tops, and as beasts very
seldom look up, there was no occasion for the monkeys and the Jungle
People to cross one another's path. But whenever they found a sick wolf,
or a wounded tiger or bear, the monkeys would torment him, and would
throw sticks and nuts at any beast for fun and in the hope of being
noticed. Then they would howl and shriek senseless songs, and invite the
Jungle People to climb up their trees and fight them, or would start
furious battles over nothing among themselves, and leave the dead
monkeys where the Jungle People could see them.
They were always just going to have a leader and laws and customs of
their own, but they never did, because their memories would not hold
over from day to day, and so they settled things by making up a saying:
"What the Bandar-log think now the Jungle will think later"; and that
comforted them a great deal. None of the beasts could reach them, but on
the other hand none of the beasts would notice them, and that was why
they were so pleased when Mowgli came to play with them, and when they
heard how angry Baloo was.
They never meant to do any more,--the Bandar-log never mean anything at
all,--but one of them invented what seemed to him a brilliant idea, and
he told all the others that Mowgli would be a useful person to keep in
the tribe, because he could weave sticks together for protection from
the wind; so, if they caught him, they could make him teach them. Of
course Mowgli, as a wood-cutter's child, inherited all sorts of
instincts, and used to make little play-huts of fallen branches without
thinking how he came to do it. The Monkey People, watching in the trees,
considered these huts most wonderful. This time, they said, they were
really going to have a leader and become the wisest people in the
jungle--so wise that every one else would notice and envy them.
Therefore they followed Baloo and Bagheera and Mowgli through the jungle
very quietly till it was time for the midday nap, and Mowgli, who was
very much ashamed of himself, slept between the panther and the bear,
resolving to have no more to do with the Monkey People.
The next thing he remembered was feeling hands on his legs and
arms,--hard, strong little hands,--and then a swash of branches in his
face; and then he was staring down through the swaying boughs as Baloo
woke the jungle with his deep cries and Bagheera bounded up the trunk
with every tooth bared. The Bandar-log howled with triumph, and scuffled
away to the upper branches where Bagheera dared not follow, shouting:
"He has noticed us! Bagheera has noticed us! All the Jungle People
admire us for our skill and our cunning!" Then they began their flight;
and the flight of the Monkey People through tree-land is one of the
things nobody can describe. They have their regular roads and
cross-roads, uphills and downhills, all laid out from fifty to seventy
or a hundred feet aboveground, and by these they can travel even at
night if necessary.
Two of the strongest monkeys caught Mowgli under the arms and swung off
with him through the tree-tops, twenty feet at a bound. Had they been
alone they could have gone twice as fast, but the boy's weight held them
back. Sick and giddy as Mowgli was he could not help enjoying the wild
rush, though the glimpses of earth far down below frightened him, and
the terrible check and jerk at the end of the swing over nothing but
empty air brought his heart between his teeth.
His escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the weak topmost
branches crackle and bend under them, and, then, with a cough and a
whoop, would fling themselves into the air outward and downward, and
bring up hanging by their hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the
next tree. Sometimes he could see for miles and miles over the still
green jungle, as a man on the top of a mast can see for miles across the
sea, and then the branches and leaves would lash him across the face,
and he and his two guards would be almost down to earth again.
So bounding and crashing and whooping and yelling, the whole tribe of
Bandar-log swept along the tree-roads with Mowgli their prisoner.
For a time he was afraid of being dropped; then he grew angry, but he
knew better than to struggle; and then he began to think. The first
thing was to send back word to Baloo and Bagheera, for, at the pace the
monkeys were going, he knew his friends would be left far behind. It
was useless to look down, for he could see only the top sides of the
branches, so he stared upward and saw, far away in the blue, Rann, the
Kite, balancing and wheeling as he kept watch over the jungle waiting
for things to die. Rann noticed that the monkeys were carrying
something, and dropped a few hundred yards to find out whether their
load was good to eat. He whistled with surprise when he saw Mowgli being
dragged up to a tree-top, and heard him give the Kite call for "We be of
one blood, thou and I." The waves of the branches closed over the boy,
but Rann balanced away to the next tree in time to see the little brown
face come up again. "Mark my trail!" Mowgli shouted. "Tell Baloo of the
Seeonee Pack, and Bagheera of the Council Rock."
"In whose name, Brother?" Rann had never seen Mowgli before, though of
course he had heard of him.
"Mowgli, the Frog. Man-cub they call me! Mark my tra--il!"
The last words were shrieked as he was being swung through the air, but
Rann nodded, and rose up till he looked no bigger than a speck of dust,
and there he hung, watching with his telescope eyes the swaying of the
tree-tops as Mowgli's escort whirled along.
"They never go far," he said, with a chuckle. "They never do what they
set out to do. Always pecking at new things are the Bandar-log. This
time, if I have any eyesight, they have pecked down trouble for
themselves, for Baloo is no fledgling and Bagheera can, as I know, kill
more than goats."
Then he rocked on his wings, his feet gathered up under him, and waited.
Meanwhile, Baloo and Bagheera were furious with rage and grief. Bagheera
climbed as he had never climbed before, but the branches broke beneath
his weight, and he slipped down, his claws full of bark.
"Why didst thou not warn the man-cub!" he roared to poor Baloo, who had
set off at a clumsy trot in the hope of overtaking the monkeys. "What
was the use of half slaying him with blows if thou didst not warn him?"
"Haste! O haste! We--we may catch them yet!" Baloo panted.
"At that speed! It would not tire a wounded cow. Teacher of the Law,
cub-beater--a mile of that rolling to and fro would burst thee open. Sit
still and think! Make a plan. This is no time for chasing. They may drop
him if we follow too close."
"_Arrula! Whoo!_ They may have dropped him already, being tired of
carrying him. Who can trust the Bandar-log? Put dead bats on my head!
Give me black bones to eat! Roll me into the hives of the wild bees that
I may be stung to death, and bury me with the hyena; for I am the most
miserable of bears! _Arulala! Wahooa!_ O Mowgli, Mowgli! Why did I not
warn thee against the Monkey Folk instead of breaking thy head? Now
perhaps I may have knocked the day's lesson out of his mind, and he will
be alone in the jungle without the Master Words!"
Baloo clasped his paws over his ears and rolled to and fro, moaning.
"At least he gave me all the Words correctly a little time ago," said
Bagheera, impatiently. "Baloo, thou hast neither memory nor respect.
What would the jungle think if I, the Black Panther, curled myself up
like Ikki, the Porcupine, and howled?"
"What do I care what the jungle thinks? He may be dead by now."
"Unless and until they drop him from the branches in sport, or kill him
out of idleness, I have no fear for the man-cub. He is wise and
well-taught, and, above all, he has the eyes that make the Jungle People
afraid. But (and it is a great evil) he is in the power of the
Bandar-log, and they, because they live in trees, have no fear of any of
our people." Bagheera licked his one fore paw thoughtfully.
"Fool that I am! Oh fat, brown, root-digging fool that I am!" said
Baloo, uncoiling himself with a jerk. "It is true what Hathi, the Wild
Elephant, says: '_To each his own fear_'; and they, the Bandar-log, fear
Kaa, the Rock Snake. He can climb as well as they can. He steals the
young monkeys in the night. The mere whisper of his name makes their
wicked tails cold. Let us go to Kaa."
"What will he do for us? He is not of our tribe, being footless and with
most evil eyes," said Bagheera.
"He is very old and very cunning. Above all, he is always hungry," said
Baloo, hopefully. "Promise him many goats."
"He sleeps for a full month after he has once eaten. He may be asleep
now, and even were he awake, what if he would rather kill his own
goats?" Bagheera, who did not know much about Kaa, was naturally
suspicious.
"Then in that case, thou and I together, old hunter, may make him see
reason." Here Baloo rubbed his faded brown shoulder against the
panther, and they went off to look for Kaa, the Rock Python.
They found him stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun,
admiring his beautiful new coat, for he had been in retirement for the
last ten days changing his skin, and now he was very splendid--darting
his big blunt-nosed head along the ground, and twisting the thirty feet
of his body into fantastic knots and curves, and licking his lips as he
thought of his dinner to come.
"He has not eaten," said Baloo, with a grunt of relief, as soon as he
saw the beautifully mottled brown and yellow jacket. "Be careful,
Bagheera! He is always a little blind after he has changed his skin, and
very quick to strike."
Kaa was not a poison snake--in fact he rather despised the Poison Snakes
for cowards; but his strength lay in his hug, and when he had once
lapped his huge coils round anybody there was no more to be said. "Good
hunting!" cried Baloo, sitting up on his haunches. Like all snakes of
his breed Kaa was rather deaf, and did not hear the call at first. Then
he curled up ready for any accident, his head lowered.
"Good hunting for us all," he answered. "Oho, Baloo, what dost thou do
here? Good hunting, Bagheera. One of us at least needs food. Is there
any news of game afoot? A doe now, or even a young buck? I am as empty
as a dried well."
"We are hunting," said Baloo, carelessly. He knew that you must not
hurry Kaa. He is too big.
"Give me permission to come with you," said Kaa. "A blow more or less is
nothing to thee, Bagheera or Baloo, but I--I have to wait and wait for
days in a wood path and climb half a night on the mere chance of a young
ape. _Pss naw!_ The branches are not what they were when I was young.
Rotten twigs and dry boughs are they all."
"Maybe thy great weight has something to do with the matter," said
Baloo.
"I am a fair length--a fair length," said Kaa, with a little pride. "But
for all that, it is the fault of this new-grown timber. I came very near
to falling on my last hunt,--very near indeed,--and the noise of my
slipping, for my tail was not tight wrapped round the tree, waked the
Bandar-log, and they called me most evil names."
"'Footless, yellow earthworm,'" said Bagheera under his whiskers, as
though he were trying to remember something.
"_Sssss!_ Have they ever called me _that_?" said Kaa.
"Something of that kind it was that they shouted to us last moon, but we
never noticed them. They will say anything--even that thou hast lost all
thy teeth, and dare not face anything bigger than a kid, because (they
are indeed shameless, these Bandar-log)--because thou art afraid of the
he-goats' horns," Bagheera went on sweetly.
Now a snake, especially a wary old python like Kaa, very seldom shows
that he is angry; but Baloo and Bagheera could see the big swallowing
muscles on either side of Kaa's throat ripple and bulge.
"The Bandar-log have shifted their grounds," he said, quietly. "When I
came up into the sun to-day I heard them whooping among the tree-tops."
"It--it is the Bandar-log that we follow now," said Baloo; but the words
stuck in his throat, for this was the first time in his memory that one
of the Jungle People had owned to being interested in the doings of the
monkeys.
"Beyond doubt, then, it is no small thing that takes two such
hunters--leaders in their own jungle, I am certain--on the trail of the
Bandar-log," Kaa replied, courteously, as he swelled with curiosity.
"Indeed," Baloo began, "I am no more than the old, and sometimes very
foolish, Teacher of the Law to the Seeonee wolf-cubs, and Bagheera
here--"
"Is Bagheera," said the Black Panther, and his jaws shut with a snap,
for he did not believe in being humble. "The trouble is this, Kaa. Those
nut-stealers and pickers of palm-leaves have stolen away our man-cub, of
whom thou hast perhaps heard."
"I heard some news from Ikki (his quills make him presumptuous) of a
man-thing that was entered into a wolf-pack, but I did not believe. Ikki
is full of stories half heard and very badly told."
"But it is true. He is such a man-cub as never was," said Baloo. "The
best and wisest and boldest of man-cubs. My own pupil, who shall make
the name of Baloo famous through all the jungles; and besides,
I--we--love him, Kaa."
"_Ts! Ts!_" said Kaa, shaking his head to and fro. "I also have known
what love is. There are tales I could tell that--"
"That need a clear night when we are all well fed to praise properly,"
said Bagheera, quickly. "Our man-cub is in the hands of the Bandar-log
now, and we know that of all the Jungle People they fear Kaa alone."
"They fear me alone. They have good reason," said Kaa. "Chattering,
foolish, vain--vain, foolish, and chattering--are the monkeys. But a
man-thing in their hands is in no good luck. They grow tired of the nuts
they pick, and throw them down. They carry a branch half a day, meaning
to do great things with it, and then they snap it in two. That manling
is not to be envied. They called me also--'yellow fish,' was it not?"
"Worm--worm--earthworm," said Bagheera; "as well as other things which I
cannot now say for shame."
"We must remind them to speak well of their master. _Aaa-sssh!_ We must
help their wandering memories. Now, whither went they with thy cub?"
"The jungle alone knows. Toward the sunset, I believe," said Baloo. "We
had thought that thou wouldst know, Kaa."
"I? How? I take them when they come in my way, but I do not hunt the
Bandar-log--or frogs--or green scum on a water-hole, for that matter."
"Up, up! Up, up! _Hillo! Illo! Illo!_ Look up, Baloo of the Seeonee Wolf
Pack!"
Baloo looked up to see where the voice came from, and there was Rann,
the Kite, sweeping down with the sun shining on the upturned flanges of
his wings. It was near Rann's bedtime, but he had ranged all over the
jungle looking for the bear, and missed him in the thick foliage.
"What is it?" said Baloo.
"I have seen Mowgli among the Bandar-log. He bade me tell you. I
watched. The Bandar-log have taken him beyond the river to the Monkey
City--to the Cold Lairs. They may stay there for a night, or ten nights,
or an hour. I have told the bats to watch through the dark time. That is
my message. Good hunting, all you below!"
"Full gorge and a deep sleep to you, Rann!" cried Bagheera. "I will
remember thee in my next kill, and put aside the head for thee alone, O
best of kites!"
"It is nothing. It is nothing. The boy held the Master Word. I could
have done no less," and Rann circled up again to his roost.
"He has not forgotten to use his tongue," said Baloo, with a chuckle of
pride. "To think of one so young remembering the Master Word for the
birds while he was being pulled across trees!"
"It was most firmly driven into him," said Bagheera. "But I am proud of
him, and now we must go to the Cold Lairs."
They all knew where that place was, but few of the Jungle People ever
went there, because what they called the Cold Lairs was an old deserted
city, lost and buried in the jungle, and beasts seldom use a place that
men have once used. The wild boar will, but the hunting-tribes do not.
Besides, the monkeys lived there as much as they could be said to live
anywhere, and no self-respecting animal would come within eye-shot of it
except in times of drouth, when the half-ruined tanks and reservoirs
held a little water.
"It is half a night's journey--at full speed," said Bagheera. Baloo
looked very serious. "I will go as fast as I can," he said, anxiously.
"We dare not wait for thee. Follow, Baloo. We must go on the
quick-foot--Kaa and I."
"Feet or no feet, I can keep abreast of all thy four," said Kaa,
shortly.
Baloo made one effort to hurry, but had to sit down panting, and so they
left him to come on later, while Bagheera hurried forward, at the
rocking panther-canter. Kaa said nothing, but, strive as Bagheera might,
the huge Rock Python held level with him. When they came to a
hill-stream, Bagheera gained, because he bounded across while Kaa swam,
his head and two feet of his neck clearing the water, but on level
ground Kaa made up the distance.
"By the Broken Lock that freed me," said Bagheera, when twilight had
fallen, "thou art no slow-goer."
"I am hungry," said Kaa. "Besides, they called me speckled frog."
"Worm--earthworm, and yellow to boot."
"All one. Let us go on," and Kaa seemed to pour himself along the
ground, finding the shortest road with his steady eyes, and keeping to
it.
In the Cold Lairs the Monkey People were not thinking of Mowgli's
friends at all. They had brought the boy to the Lost City, and were very
pleased with themselves for the time. Mowgli had never seen an Indian
city before, and though this was almost a heap of ruins it seemed very
wonderful and splendid. Some king had built it long ago on a little
hill. You could still trace the stone causeways that led up to the
ruined gates where the last splinters of wood hung to the worn, rusted
hinges. Trees had grown into and out of the walls; the battlements were
tumbled down and decayed, and wild creepers hung out of the windows of
the towers on the walls in bushy hanging clumps.
A great roofless palace crowned the hill, and the marble of the
courtyards and the fountains was split and stained with red and green,
and the very cobblestones in the courtyard where the king's elephants
used to live had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees.
From the palace you could see the rows and rows of roofless houses that
made up the city, looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness;
the shapeless block of stone that had been an idol in the square where
four roads met; the pits and dimples at street corners where the public
wells once stood, and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs
sprouting on their sides.
The monkeys called the place their city, and pretended to despise the
Jungle People because they lived in the forest. And yet they never knew
what the buildings were made for nor how to use them. They would sit in
circles on the hall of the king's council-chamber, and scratch for fleas
and pretend to be men; or they would run in and out of the roofless
houses and collect pieces of plaster and old bricks in a corner, and
forget where they had hidden them, and fight and cry in scuffling
crowds, and then break off to play up and down the terraces of the
king's garden, where they would shake the rose-trees and the oranges in
sport to see the fruit and flowers fall. They explored all the passages
and dark tunnels in the palace and the hundreds of little dark rooms;
but they never remembered what they had seen and what they had not, and
so drifted about in ones and twos or crowds, telling one another that
they were doing as men did. They drank at the tanks and made the water
all muddy, and then they fought over it, and then they would all rush
together in mobs and shout: "There are none in the jungle so wise and
good and clever and strong and gentle as the Bandar-log." Then all would
begin again till they grew tired of the city and went back to the
tree-tops, hoping the Jungle People would notice them.
Mowgli, who had been trained under the Law of the Jungle, did not like
or understand this kind of life. The monkeys dragged him into the Cold
Lairs late in the afternoon, and instead of going to sleep, as Mowgli
would have done after a long journey, they joined hands and danced about
and sang their foolish songs.
One of the monkeys made a speech, and told his companions that Mowgli's
capture marked a new thing in the history of the Bandar-log, for Mowgli
was going to show them how to weave sticks and canes together as a
protection against rain and cold. Mowgli picked up some creepers and
began to work them in and out, and the monkeys tried to imitate; but in
a very few minutes they lost interest and began to pull their friends'
tails or jump up and down on all fours, coughing.
"I want to eat," said Mowgli. "I am a stranger in this part of the
jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt here."
Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild
pawpaws; but they fell to fighting on the road, and it was too much
trouble to go back with what was left of the fruit. Mowgli was sore and
angry as well as hungry, and he roamed through the empty city giving the
Strangers' Hunting Call from time to time, but no one answered him, and
Mowgli felt that he had reached a very bad place indeed.
"All that Baloo has said about the Bandar-log is true," he thought to
himself. "They have no Law, no Hunting Call, and no leaders--nothing but
foolish words and little picking, thievish hands. So if I am starved or
killed here, it will be all my own fault. But I must try to return to my
own jungle. Baloo will surely beat me, but that is better than chasing
silly rose-leaves with the Bandar-log."
But no sooner had he walked to the city wall than the monkeys pulled him
back, telling him that he did not know how happy he was, and pinching
him to make him grateful. He set his teeth and said nothing, but went
with the shouting monkeys to a terrace above the red sandstone
reservoirs that were half full of rain-water. There was a ruined
summer-house of white marble in the center of the terrace, built for
queens dead a hundred years ago. The domed roof had half fallen in and
blocked up the underground passage from the palace by which the queens
used to enter; but the walls were made of screens of marble
tracery--beautiful, milk-white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians
and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up behind the hill it
shone through the openwork, casting shadows on the ground like
black-velvet embroidery.
Sore, sleepy, and hungry as he was, Mowgli could not help laughing when
the Bandar-log began, twenty at a time, to tell him how great and wise
and strong and gentle they were, and how foolish he was to wish to leave
them. "We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most
wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be
true," they shouted. "Now as you are a new listener and can carry our
words back to the Jungle People so that they may notice us in future, we
will tell you all about our most excellent selves."
Mowgli made no objection, and the monkeys gathered by hundreds and
hundreds on the terrace to listen to their own speakers singing the
praises of the Bandar-log, and whenever a speaker stopped for want of
breath they would all shout together: "This is true; we all say so."
Mowgli nodded and blinked, and said "Yes" when they asked him a
question, and his head spun with the noise. "Tabaqui, the Jackal, must
have bitten all these people," he said to himself, "and now they have
the madness. Certainly this is _dewanee_--the madness. Do they never go
to sleep? Now there is a cloud coming to cover that moon. If it were
only a big enough cloud I might try to run away in the darkness. But I
am tired."
That same cloud was being watched by two good friends in the ruined
ditch below the city wall, for Bagheera and Kaa, knowing well how
dangerous the Monkey People were in large numbers, did not wish to run
any risks. The monkeys never fight unless they are a hundred to one, and
few in the jungle care for those odds.
"I will go to the west wall," Kaa whispered, "and come down swiftly with
the slope of the ground in my favor. They will not throw themselves upon
_my_ back in their hundreds, but--"
"I know it," said Bagheera. "Would that Baloo were here; but we must do
what we can. When that cloud covers the moon I shall go to the terrace.
They hold some sort of council there over the boy."
"Good hunting," said Kaa, grimly, and glided away to the west wall. That
happened to be the least ruined of any, and the big snake was delayed a
while before he could find a way up the stones.
The cloud hid the moon, and as Mowgli wondered what would come next he
heard Bagheera's light feet on the terrace. The Black Panther had raced
up the slope almost without a sound, and was striking--he knew better
than to waste time in biting--right and left among the monkeys, who were
seated round Mowgli in circles fifty and sixty deep. There was a howl of
fright and rage, and then as Bagheera tripped on the rolling, kicking
bodies beneath him, a monkey shouted: "There is only one here! Kill him!
Kill!" A scuffling mass of monkeys, biting, scratching, tearing, and
pulling, closed over Bagheera, while five or six laid hold of Mowgli,
dragged him up the wall of the summer-house, and pushed him through the
hole of the broken dome. A man-trained boy would have been badly
bruised, for the fall was a good ten feet, but Mowgli fell as Baloo had
taught him to fall, and landed light.
"Stay there," shouted the monkeys, "till we have killed thy friend.
Later we will play with thee, if the Poison People leave thee alive."
"We be of one blood, ye and I," said Mowgli, quickly giving the Snake's
Call. He could hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish all round him,
and gave the Call a second time to make sure.
"Down hoods all," said half a dozen low voices. Every old ruin in India
becomes sooner or later a dwelling-place of snakes, and the old
summer-house was alive with cobras. "Stand still, Little Brother, lest
thy feet do us harm."
Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the openwork and
listening to the furious din of the fight round the Black Panther--the
yells and chatterings and scufflings, and Bagheera's deep, hoarse cough
as he backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under the heaps of his
enemies. For the first time since he was born, Bagheera was fighting for
his life.
"Baloo must be at hand; Bagheera would not have come alone," Mowgli
thought; and then he called aloud: "To the tank, Bagheera! Roll to the
water-tanks! Roll and plunge! Get to the water!"
Bagheera heard, and the cry that told him Mowgli was safe gave him new
courage. He worked his way desperately, inch by inch, straight for the
reservoirs, hitting in silence.
Then from the ruined wall nearest the jungle rose up the rumbling
war-shout of Baloo. The old bear had done his best, but he could not
come before. "Bagheera," he shouted, "I am here! I climb! I haste!
_Ahuwora!_ The stones slip under my feet! Wait my coming, O most
infamous Bandar log!"
He panted up the terrace only to disappear to the head in a wave of
monkeys, but he threw himself squarely on his haunches, and spreading
out his fore paws, hugged as many as he could hold, and then began to
hit with a regular _bat-bat-bat_, like the flipping strokes of a
paddle-wheel.
A crash and a splash told Mowgli that Bagheera had fought his way to the
tank, where the monkeys could not follow. The panther lay gasping for
breath, his head just out of water, while the monkeys stood three deep
on the red stone steps, dancing up and down with rage, ready to spring
upon him from all sides if he came out to help Baloo. It was then that
Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin, and in despair gave the Snake's
Call for protection,--"We be of one blood, ye and I,"--for he believed
that Kaa had turned tail at the last minute. Even Baloo, half smothered
under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling
as he heard the big Black Panther asking for help.
Kaa had only just worked his way over the west wall, landing with a
wrench that dislodged a coping-stone into the ditch. He had no intention
of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled and uncoiled himself
once or twice, to be sure that every foot of his long body was in
working order.
All that while the fight with Baloo went on, and the monkeys yelled in
the tank round Bagheera, and Mang, the Bat, flying to and fro, carried
the news of the great battle over the jungle, till even Hathi, the Wild
Elephant, trumpeted, and, far away, scattered bands of the Monkey Folk
woke and came leaping along the tree-roads to help their comrades in the
Cold Lairs, and the noise of the fight roused all the day-birds for
miles round.
Then Kaa came straight, quickly, and anxious to kill. The fighting
strength of a python is in the driving blow of his head, backed by all
the strength and weight of his body. If you can imagine a lance, or a
battering-ram, or a hammer, weighing nearly half a ton driven by a cool,
quiet mind living in the handle of it, you can imagine roughly what Kaa
was like when he fought. A python four or five feet long can knock a man
down if he hits him fairly in the chest, and Kaa was thirty feet long,
as you know. His first stroke was delivered into the heart of the crowd
round Baloo--was sent home with shut mouth in silence, and there was no
need of a second. The monkeys scattered with cries of "Kaa! It is Kaa!
Run! Run!"
Generations of monkeys had been scared into good behavior by the stories
their elders told them of Kaa, the night-thief, who could slip along the
branches as quietly as moss grows, and steal away the strongest monkey
that ever lived; of old Kaa, who could make himself look so like a dead
branch or a rotten stump that the wisest were deceived till the branch
caught them, and then--
Kaa was everything that the monkeys feared in the jungle, for none of
them knew the limits of his power, none of them could look him in the
face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug. And so they ran,
stammering with terror, to the walls and the roofs of the houses, and
Baloo drew a deep breath of relief. His fur was much thicker than
Bagheera's, but he had suffered sorely in the fight. Then Kaa opened his
mouth for the first time and spoke one long hissing word, and the
far-away monkeys, hurrying to the defense of the Cold Lairs, stayed
where they were, cowering, till the loaded branches bent and crackled
under them. The monkeys on the walls and the empty houses stopped their
cries, and in the stillness that fell upon the city Mowgli heard
Bagheera shaking his wet sides as he came up from the tank.
Then the clamor broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls;
they clung round the necks of the big stone idols and shrieked as they
skipped along the battlements; while Mowgli, dancing in the
summer-house, put his eye to the screenwork and hooted owl-fashion
between his front teeth, to show his derision and contempt.
"Get the man-cub out of that trap; I can do no more," Bagheera gasped.
"Let us take the man-cub and go. They may attack again."
"They will not move till I order them. Stay you sssso!" Kaa hissed, and
the city was silent once more. "I could not come before, Brother, but I
_think_ I heard thee call"--this was to Bagheera.
"I--I may have cried out in the battle," Bagheera answered. "Baloo, art
thou hurt?"
"I am not sure that they have not pulled me into a hundred little
bearlings," said Baloo, gravely shaking one leg after the other. "Wow! I
am sore. Kaa, we owe thee, I think, our lives--Bagheera and I."
"No matter. Where is the manling?"
"Here, in a trap. I cannot climb out," cried Mowgli. The curve of the
broken dome was above his head.
"Take him away. He dances like Mao, the Peacock. He will crush our
young," said the cobras inside.
"Hah!" said Kaa, with a chuckle, "he has friends everywhere, this
manling. Stand back, Manling; and hide you, O Poison People. I break
down the wall."
Kaa looked carefully till he found a discolored crack in the marble
tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head
to get the distance, and then lifting up six feet of his body clear of
the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power, smashing blows,
nose-first. The screenwork broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and
rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through the opening and flung himself between
Baloo and Bagheera--an arm round each big neck.
"Art thou hurt?" said Baloo, hugging him softly.
"I am sore, hungry, and not a little bruised; but, oh, they have handled
ye grievously, my Brothers! Ye bleed."
"Others also," said Bagheera, licking his lips and looking at the
monkey-dead on the terrace and round the tank.
"It is nothing, it is nothing if thou art safe, O my pride of all little
frogs!" whimpered Baloo.
"Of that we shall judge later," said Bagheera, in a dry voice that
Mowgli did not at all like. "But here is Kaa, to whom we owe the battle
and thou owest thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli."
Mowgli turned and saw the great python's head swaying a foot above his
own.
"So this is the manling," said Kaa. "Very soft is his skin, and he is
not so unlike the Bandar-log. Have a care, Manling, that I do not
mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my
coat."
"We be of one blood, thou and I," Mowgli answered. "I take my life from
thee, to-night. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O
Kaa."
"All thanks, Little Brother," said Kaa, though his eyes twinkled. "And
what may so bold a hunter kill? I ask that I may follow when next he
goes abroad."
"I kill nothing,--I am too little,--but I drive goats toward such as can
use them. When thou art empty come to me and see if I speak the truth. I
have some skill in these [he held out his hands], and if ever thou art
in a trap, I may pay the debt which I owe to thee, to Bagheera, and to
Baloo, here. Good hunting to ye all, my masters."
"Well said," growled Baloo, for Mowgli had returned thanks very
prettily. The python dropped his head lightly for a minute on Mowgli's
shoulder. "A brave heart and a courteous tongue," said he. "They shall
carry thee far through the jungle, Manling. But now go hence quickly
with thy friends. Go and sleep, for the moon sets, and what follows it
is not well that thou shouldst see."
The moon was sinking behind the hills and the lines of trembling monkeys
huddled together on the walls and battlements looked like ragged, shaky
fringes of things. Baloo went down to the tank for a drink, and Bagheera
began to put his fur in order, as Kaa glided out into the center of the
terrace and brought his jaws together with a ringing snap that drew all
the monkeys' eyes upon him.
"The moon sets," he said. "Is there yet light to see?"
From the walls came a moan like the wind in the tree-tops: "We see, O
Kaa!"
"Good! Begins now the Dance--the Dance of the Hunger of Kaa. Sit still
and watch."
He turned twice or thrice in a big circle, weaving his head from right
to left. Then he began making loops and figures of eight with his body,
and soft, oozy triangles that melted into squares and five-sided
figures, and coiled mounds, never resting, never hurrying, and never
stopping his low, humming song. It grew darker and darker, till at last
the dragging, shifting coils disappeared, but they could hear the rustle
of the scales.
Baloo and Bagheera stood still as stone, growling in their throats,
their neck-hair bristling, and Mowgli watched and wondered.
"Bandar-log," said the voice of Kaa at last, "can ye stir foot or hand
without my order? Speak!"
"Without thy order we cannot stir foot or hand, O Kaa!"
"Good! Come all one pace nearer to me."
The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and
Bagheera took one stiff step forward with them.
"Nearer!" hissed Kaa, and they all moved again.
Mowgli laid his hands on Baloo and Bagheera to get them away, and the
two great beasts started as though they had been waked from a dream.
"Keep thy hand on my shoulder," Bagheera whispered. "Keep it there, or I
must go back--must go back to Kaa. _Aah!_"
"It is only old Kaa making circles on the dust," said Mowgli; "let us
go"; and the three slipped off through a gap in the walls to the jungle.
"_Whoof!_" said Baloo, when he stood under the still trees again. "Never
more will I make an ally of Kaa," and he shook himself all over.
"He knows more than we," said Bagheera, trembling. "In a little time,
had I stayed, I should have walked down his throat."
"Many will walk that road before the moon rises again," said Baloo. "He
will have good hunting--after his own fashion."
"But what was the meaning of it all?" said Mowgli, who did not know
anything of a python's powers of fascination. "I saw no more than a big
snake making foolish circles till the dark came. And his nose was all
sore. Ho! Ho!"
"Mowgli," said Bagheera, angrily, "his nose was sore on _thy_ account;
as my ears and sides and paws, and Baloo's neck and shoulders are bitten
on _thy_ account. Neither Baloo nor Bagheera will be able to hunt with
pleasure for many days."
"It is nothing," said Baloo; "we have the man-cub again."
"True; but he has cost us most heavily in time which might have been
spent in good hunting, in wounds, in hair,--I am half plucked along my
back,--and last of all, in honor. For, remember, Mowgli, I, who am the
Black Panther, was forced to call upon Kaa for protection, and Baloo and
I were both made stupid as little birds by the Hunger-Dance. All this,
Man-cub, came of thy playing with the Bandar-log."
"True; it is true," said Mowgli, sorrowfully. "I am an evil man-cub, and
my stomach is sad in me."
"_Mf!_ What says the Law of the Jungle, Baloo?"
Baloo did not wish to bring Mowgli into any more trouble, but he could
not tamper with the Law, so he mumbled, "Sorrow never stays punishment.
But remember, Bagheera, he is very little."
"I will remember; but he has done mischief; and blows must be dealt now.
Mowgli, hast thou anything to say?"
"Nothing. I did wrong. Baloo and thou art wounded. It is just."
Bagheera gave him half a dozen love-taps; from a panther's point of view
they would hardly have waked one of his own cubs, but for a seven
year-old boy they amounted to as severe a beating as you could wish to
avoid. When it was all over Mowgli sneezed, and picked himself up
without a word.
"Now," said Bagheera, "jump on my back, Little Brother, and we will go
home."
One of the beauties of Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores.
There is no nagging afterward.
Mowgli laid his head down on Bagheera's back and slept so deeply that he
never waked when he was put down by Mother Wolf's side in the
home-cave.
ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDAR-LOG
Here we go in a flung festoon,
Half-way up to the jealous moon!
Don't you envy our pranceful bands?
Don't you wish you had extra hands?
Wouldn't you like if your tails were--_so_--
Curved in the shape of a Cupid's bow?
Now you're angry, but--never mind,
_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind_!
Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two--
Something noble and grand and good,
Won by merely wishing we could.
Now we're going to--never mind,
_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind_!
All the talk we ever have heard
Uttered by bat or beast or bird--
Hide or fin or scale or feather--
Jabber it quickly and all together!
Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!
Now we are talking just like men.
Let's pretend we are ... never mind,
_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind_!
This is the way of the Monkey-kind.
_Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through
the pines,
That rocket by where, light and high, the wild-grape
swings.
By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we
make,
Be sure, be sure, we're going to do some splendid
things!_
"TIGER! TIGER!"
What of the hunting, hunter bold?
_Brother, the watch was long and cold._
What of the quarry ye went to kill?
_Brother, he crops in the jungle still._
Where is the power that made your pride?
_Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side._
Where is the haste that ye hurry by?
_Brother, I go to my lair--to die._
[Illustration]
"TIGER! TIGER!"
NOW we must go back to the last tale but one. When Mowgli left the
wolf's cave after the fight with the Pack at the Council Rock, he went
down to the plowed lands where the villagers lived, but he would not
stop there because it was too near to the jungle, and he knew that he
had made at least one bad enemy at the Council. So he hurried on,
keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley, and followed it at a
steady jog-trot for nearly twenty miles, till he came to a country that
he did not know. The valley opened out into a great plain dotted over
with rocks and cut up by ravines. At one end stood a little village, and
at the other the thick jungle came down in a sweep to the
grazing-grounds, and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a
hoe. All over the plain, cattle and buffaloes were grazing, and when the
little boys in charge of the herds saw Mowgli they shouted and ran away,
and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian village barked.
Mowgli walked on, for he was feeling hungry, and when he came to the
village gate he saw the big thorn-bush that was drawn up before the gate
at twilight, pushed to one side.
"Umph!" he said, for he had come across more than one such barricade in
his night rambles after things to eat. "So men are afraid of the People
of the Jungle here also." He sat down by the gate, and when a man came
out he stood up, opened his mouth, and pointed down it to show that he
wanted food. The man stared, and ran back up the one street of the
village shouting for the priest, who was a big, fat man dressed in
white, with a red and yellow mark on his forehead. The priest came to
the gate, and with him at least a hundred people, who stared and talked
and shouted and pointed at Mowgli.
"They have no manners, these Men Folk," said Mowgli to himself. "Only
the gray ape would behave as they do." So he threw back his long hair
and frowned at the crowd.
"What is there to be afraid of?" said the priest. "Look at the marks on
his arms and legs. They are the bites of wolves. He is but a wolf-child
run away from the jungle."
Of course, in playing together, the cubs had often nipped Mowgli harder
than they intended, and there were white scars all over his arms and
legs. But he would have been the last person in the world to call these
bites; for he knew what real biting meant.
"_Arré! Arré!_" said two or three women together. "To be bitten by
wolves, poor child! He is a handsome boy. He has eyes like red fire. By
my honor, Messua, he is not unlike thy boy that was taken by the tiger."
"Let me look," said a woman with heavy copper rings on her wrists and
ankles, and she peered at Mowgli under the palm of her hand. "Indeed he
is not. He is thinner, but he has the very look of my boy."
The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the
richest villager in the place. So he looked up at the sky for a minute,
and said solemnly: "What the jungle has taken the jungle has restored.
Take the boy into thy house, my sister, and forget not to honor the
priest who sees so far into the lives of men."
"By the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli to himself, "but all this
talking is like another looking-over by the Pack! Well, if I am a man, a
man I must become."
The crowd parted as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there
was a red lacquered bedstead, a great earthen grain-chest with curious
raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking-pots, an image of a
Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking-glass, such
as they sell at the country fairs.
She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and then she laid her
hand on his head and looked into his eyes; for she thought perhaps that
he might be her real son come back from the jungle where the tiger had
taken him. So she said: "Nathoo, O Nathoo!" Mowgli did not show that he
knew the name. "Dost thou not remember the day when I gave thee thy new
shoes?" She touched his foot, and it was almost as hard as horn. "No,"
she said, sorrowfully; "those feet have never worn shoes, but thou art
very like my Nathoo, and thou shalt be my son."
Mowgli was uneasy, because he had never been under a roof before; but
as he looked at the thatch, he saw that he could tear it out any time if
he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings. "What is
the good of a man," he said to himself at last, "if he does not
understand man's talk? Now I am as silly and dumb as a man would be with
us in the jungle. I must learn their talk."
It was not for fun that he had learned while he was with the wolves to
imitate the challenge of bucks in the jungle and the grunt of the little
wild pig. So as soon as Messua pronounced a word Mowgli would imitate it
almost perfectly, and before dark he had learned the names of many
things in the hut.
There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep under
anything that looked so like a panther-trap as that hut, and when they
shut the door he went through the window. "Give him his will," said
Messua's husband. "Remember he can never till now have slept on a bed.
If he is indeed sent in the place of our son he will not run away."
So Mowgli stretched himself in some long, clean grass at the edge of the
field, but before he had closed his eyes a soft gray nose poked him
under the chin.
"Phew!" said Gray Brother (he was the eldest of Mother Wolf's cubs).
"This is a poor reward for following thee twenty miles. Thou smellest of
wood-smoke and cattle--altogether like a man already. Wake, Little
Brother; I bring news."
[Illustration: "'WAKE, LITTLE BROTHER; I BRING NEWS.'"]
"Are all well in the jungle?" said Mowgli, hugging him.
"All except the wolves that were burned with the Red Flower. Now,
listen. Shere Khan has gone away to hunt far off till his coat grows
again, for he is badly singed. When he returns he swears that he will
lay thy bones in the Waingunga."
"There are two words to that. I also have made a little promise. But
news is always good. I am tired to-night,--very tired with new things,
Gray Brother,--but bring me the news always."
"Thou wilt not forget that thou art a wolf? Men will not make thee
forget?" said Gray Brother, anxiously.
"Never. I will always remember that I love thee and all in our cave; but
also I will always remember that I have been cast out of the Pack."
"And that thou mayest be cast out of another pack. Men are only men,
Little Brother, and their talk is like the talk of frogs in a pond.
When I come down here again, I will wait for thee in the bamboos at the
edge of the grazing-ground."
For three months after that night Mowgli hardly ever left the village
gate, he was so busy learning the ways and customs of men. First he had
to wear a cloth round him, which annoyed him horribly; and then he had
to learn about money, which he did not in the least understand, and
about plowing, of which he did not see the use. Then the little children
in the village made him very angry. Luckily, the Law of the Jungle had
taught him to keep his temper, for in the jungle, life and food depend
on keeping your temper; but when they made fun of him because he would
not play games or fly kites, or because he mispronounced some word, only
the knowledge that it was unsportsmanlike to kill little naked cubs kept
him from picking them up and breaking them in two.
He did not know his own strength in the least. In the jungle he knew he
was weak compared with the beasts, but in the village, people said he
was as strong as a bull.
And Mowgli had not the faintest idea of the difference that caste makes
between man and man. When the potter's donkey slipped in the clay-pit,
Mowgli hauled it out by the tail, and helped to stack the pots for their
journey to the market at Khanhiwara. That was very shocking, too, for
the potter is a low-caste man, and his donkey is worse. When the priest
scolded him, Mowgli threatened to put him on the donkey, too, and the
priest told Messua's husband that Mowgli had better be set to work as
soon as possible; and the village head-man told Mowgli that he would
have to go out with the buffaloes next day, and herd them while they
grazed. No one was more pleased than Mowgli; and that night, because he
had been appointed a servant of the village, as it were, he went off to
a circle that met every evening on a masonry platform under a great
fig-tree. It was the village club, and the head-man and the watchman and
the barber (who knew all the gossip of the village), and old Buldeo, the
village hunter, who had a Tower musket, met and smoked. The monkeys sat
and talked in the upper branches, and there was a hole under the
platform where a cobra lived, and he had his little platter of milk
every night because he was sacred; and the old men sat around the tree
and talked, and pulled at the big _huqas_ (the water-pipes) till far
into the night. They told wonderful tales of gods and men and ghosts;
and Buldeo told even more wonderful ones of the ways of beasts in the
jungle, till the eyes of the children sitting outside the circle bulged
out of their heads. Most of the tales were about animals, for the jungle
was always at their door. The deer and the wild pig grubbed up their
crops, and now and again the tiger carried off a man at twilight, within
sight of the village gates.
Mowgli, who naturally knew something about what they were talking of,
had to cover his face not to show that he was laughing, while Buldeo,
the Tower musket across his knees, climbed on from one wonderful story
to another, and Mowgli's shoulders shook.
Buldeo was explaining how the tiger that had carried away Messua's son
was a ghost-tiger, and his body was inhabited by the ghost of a wicked
old money-lender, who had died some years ago. "And I know that this is
true," he said, "because Purun Dass always limped from the blow that he
got in a riot when his account-books were burned, and the tiger that I
speak of _he_ limps, too, for the tracks of his pads are unequal."
"True, true; that must be the truth," said the graybeards, nodding
together.
"Are all these tales such cobwebs and moon-talk?" said Mowgli. "That
tiger limps because he was born lame, as every one knows. To talk of the
soul of a money-lender in a beast that never had the courage of a jackal
is child's talk."
[Illustration: "'ARE ALL THESE TALES SUCH COBWEBS AND MOONTALK?' SAID
MOWGLI."]
Buldeo was speechless with surprise for a moment, and the head-man
stared.
"Oho! It is the jungle brat, is it?" said Buldeo. "If thou art so wise,
better bring his hide to Khanhiwara, for the Government has set a
hundred rupees [$30] on his life. Better still, do not talk when thy
elders speak."
Mowgli rose to go. "All the evening I have lain here listening," he
called back over his shoulder, "and, except once or twice, Buldeo has
not said one word of truth concerning the jungle, which is at his very
doors. How, then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and
goblins which he says he has seen?"
"It is full time that boy went to herding," said the head-man, while
Buldeo puffed and snorted at Mowgli's impertinence.
The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle
and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning, and bring them back at
night; and the very cattle that would trample a white man to death allow
themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at by children that
hardly come up to their noses. So long as the boys keep with the herds
they are safe, for not even the tiger will charge a mob of cattle. But
if they straggle to pick flowers or hunt lizards, they are sometimes
carried off. Mowgli went through the village street in the dawn, sitting
on the back of Rama, the great herd bull; and the slaty-blue buffaloes,
with their long, backward-sweeping horns and savage eyes, rose out of
their byres, one by one, and followed him, and Mowgli made it very clear
to the children with him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes
with a long, polished bamboo, and told Kamya, one of the boys, to graze
the cattle by themselves, while he went on with the buffaloes, and to be
very careful not to stray away from the herd.
An Indian grazing-ground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little
ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear. The buffaloes
generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie wallowing
or basking in the warm mud for hours. Mowgli drove them on to the edge
of the plain where the Waingunga River came out of the jungle; then he
dropped from Rama's neck, trotted off to a bamboo clump, and found Gray
Brother. "Ah," said Gray Brother, "I have waited here very many days.
What is the meaning of this cattle-herding work?"
"It is an order," said Mowgli. "I am a village herd for a while. What
news of Shere Khan?"
"He has come back to this country, and has waited here a long time for
thee. Now he has gone off again, for the game is scarce. But he means to
kill thee."
"Very good," said Mowgli. "So long as he is away do thou or one of the
brothers sit on that rock, so that I can see thee as I come out of the
village. When he comes back wait for me in the ravine by the _dhâk_-tree
in the center of the plain. We need not walk into Shere Khan's mouth."
Then Mowgli picked out a shady place, and lay down and slept while the
buffaloes grazed round him. Herding in India is one of the laziest
things in the world. The cattle move and crunch, and lie down, and move
on again, and they do not even low. They only grunt, and the buffaloes
very seldom say anything, but get down into the muddy pools one after
another, and work their way into the mud till only their noses and
staring china-blue eyes show above the surface, and there they lie like
logs. The sun makes the rocks dance in the heat, and the herd-children
hear one kite (never any more) whistling almost out of sight overhead,
and they know that if they died, or a cow died, that kite would sweep
down, and the next kite miles away would see him drop and follow, and
the next, and the next, and almost before they were dead there would be
a score of hungry kites come out of nowhere. Then they sleep and wake
and sleep again, and weave little baskets of dried grass and put
grasshoppers in them; or catch two praying-mantises and make them fight;
or string a necklace of red and black jungle-nuts; or watch a lizard
basking on a rock, or a snake hunting a frog near the wallows. Then they
sing long, long songs with odd native quavers at the end of them, and
the day seems longer than most people's whole lives, and perhaps they
make a mud castle with mud figures of men and horses and buffaloes, and
put reeds into the men's hands, and pretend that they are kings and the
figures are their armies, or that they are gods to be worshiped. Then
evening comes, and the children call, and the buffaloes lumber up out of
the sticky mud with noises like gunshots going off one after the other,
and they all string across the gray plain back to the twinkling village
lights.
Day after day Mowgli would lead the buffaloes out to their wallows, and
day after day he would see Gray Brother's back a mile and a half away
across the plain (so he knew that Shere Khan had not come back), and day
after day he would lie on the grass listening to the noise round him,
and dreaming of old days in the jungle. If Shere Khan had made a false
step with his lame paw up in the jungles by the Waingunga, Mowgli would
have heard him in those long still mornings.
[Illustration]
At last a day came when he did not see Gray Brother at the signal
place, and he laughed and headed the buffaloes for the ravine by the
_dhâk_-tree, which was all covered with golden-red flowers. There sat
Gray Brother, every bristle on his back lifted.
"He has hidden for a month to throw thee off thy guard. He crossed the
ranges last night with Tabaqui, hot-foot on thy trail," said the wolf,
panting.
Mowgli frowned. "I am not afraid of Shere Khan, but Tabaqui is very
cunning."
"Have no fear," said Gray Brother, licking his lips a little. "I met
Tabaqui in the dawn. Now he is telling all his wisdom to the kites, but
he told _me_ everything before I broke his back. Shere Khan's plan is to
wait for thee at the village gate this evening--for thee and for no one
else. He is lying up now in the big dry ravine of the Waingunga."
"Has he eaten to-day, or does he hunt empty?" said Mowgli, for the
answer meant life or death to him.
"He killed at dawn,--a pig,--and he has drunk too. Remember, Shere Khan
could never fast even for the sake of revenge."
"Oh! Fool, fool! What a cub's cub it is! Eaten and drunk too, and he
thinks that I shall wait till he has slept! Now, where does he lie up?
If there were but ten of us we might pull him down as he lies. These
buffaloes will not charge unless they wind him, and I cannot speak their
language. Can we get behind his track so that they may smell it?"
"He swam far down the Waingunga to cut that off," said Gray Brother.
"Tabaqui told him that, I know. He would never have thought of it
alone." Mowgli stood with his finger in his mouth, thinking. "The big
ravine of the Waingunga. That opens out on the plain not half a mile
from here. I can take the herd round through the jungle to the head of
the ravine and then sweep down--but he would slink out at the foot. We
must block that end. Gray Brother, canst thou cut the herd in two for
me?"
"Not I, perhaps--but I have brought a wise helper." Gray Brother trotted
off and dropped into a hole. Then there lifted up a huge gray head that
Mowgli knew well, and the hot air was filled with the most desolate cry
of all the jungle--the hunting-howl of a wolf at midday.
"Akela! Akela!" said Mowgli, clapping his hands. "I might have known
that thou wouldst not forget me. We have a big work in hand. Cut the
herd in two, Akela. Keep the cows and calves together, and the bulls
and the plow-buffaloes by themselves."
The two wolves ran, ladies'-chain fashion, in and out of the herd, which
snorted and threw up its head, and separated into two clumps. In one the
cow-buffaloes stood, with their calves in the center, and glared and
pawed, ready, if a wolf would only stay still, to charge down and
trample the life out of him. In the other the bulls and the young bulls
snorted and stamped; but, though they looked more imposing, they were
much less dangerous, for they had no calves to protect. No six men could
have divided the herd so neatly.
"What orders!" panted Akela. "They are trying to join again."
Mowgli slipped on to Rama's back. "Drive the bulls away to the left,
Akela. Gray Brother, when we are gone hold the cows together, and drive
them into the foot of the ravine."
"How far?" said Gray Brother, panting and snapping.
"Till the sides are higher than Shere Khan can jump," shouted Mowgli.
"Keep them there till we come down." The bulls swept off as Akela bayed,
and Gray Brother stopped in front of the cows. They charged down on him,
and he ran just before them to the foot of the ravine, as Akela drove
the bulls far to the left.
"Well done! Another charge and they are fairly started. Careful,
now--careful, Akela. A snap too much, and the bulls will charge.
_Hujah!_ This is wilder work than driving black-buck. Didst thou think
these creatures could move so swiftly?" Mowgli called.
"I have--have hunted these too in my time," gasped Akela in the dust.
"Shall I turn them into the jungle?"
"Ay, turn! Swiftly turn them. Rama is mad with rage. Oh, if I could only
tell him what I need of him to-day!"
The bulls were turned to the right this time, and crashed into the
standing thicket. The other herd-children, watching with the cattle half
a mile away, hurried to the village as fast as their legs could carry
them, crying that the buffaloes had gone mad and run away.
But Mowgli's plan was simple enough. All he wanted to do was to make a
big circle uphill and get at the head of the ravine, and then take the
bulls down it and catch Shere Khan between the bulls and the cows, for
he knew that after a meal and a full drink Shere Khan would not be in
any condition to fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine. He was
soothing the buffaloes now by voice, and Akela had dropped far to the
rear, only whimpering once or twice to hurry the rear-guard. It was a
long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too near the ravine and
give Shere Khan warning. At last Mowgli rounded up the bewildered herd
at the head of the ravine on a grassy patch that sloped steeply down to
the ravine itself. From that height you could see across the tops of the
trees down to the plain below; but what Mowgli looked at was the sides
of the ravine, and he saw with a great deal of satisfaction that they
ran nearly straight up and down, and the vines and creepers that hung
over them would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out.
"Let them breathe, Akela," he said, holding up his hand. "They have not
winded him yet. Let them breathe. I must tell Shere Khan who comes. We
have him in the trap."
He put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine,--it was
almost like shouting down a tunnel,--and the echoes jumped from rock to
rock.
After a long time there came back the drawling, sleepy snarl of a
full-fed tiger just awakened.
"Who calls?" said Shere Khan, and a splendid peacock fluttered up out of
the ravine, screeching.
"I, Mowgli. Cattle-thief, it is time to come to the Council Rock!
Down--hurry them down, Akela. Down, Rama, down!"
The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope, but Akela gave
tongue in the full hunting-yell, and they pitched over one after the
other just as steamers shoot rapids, the sand and stones spurting up
round them. Once started, there was no chance of stopping, and before
they were fairly in the bed of the ravine Rama winded Shere Khan and
bellowed.
"Ha! Ha!" said Mowgli, on his back. "Now thou knowest!" and the torrent
of black horns, foaming muzzles, and staring eyes whirled down the
ravine like boulders in flood-time; the weaker buffaloes being
shouldered out to the sides of the ravine where they tore through the
creepers. They knew what the business was before them--the terrible
charge of the buffalo-herd, against which no tiger can hope to stand.
Shere Khan heard the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up, and
lumbered down the ravine, looking from side to side for some way of
escape, but the walls of the ravine were straight, and he had to keep
on, heavy with his dinner and his drink, willing to do anything rather
than fight. The herd splashed through the pool he had just left,
bellowing till the narrow cut rang. Mowgli heard an answering bellow
from the foot of the ravine, saw Shere Khan turn (the tiger knew if the
worst came to the worst it was better to meet the bulls than the cows
with their calves), and then Rama tripped, stumbled, and went on again
over something soft, and, with the bulls at his heels, crashed full into
the other herd, while the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their
feet by the shock of the meeting. That charge carried both herds out
into the plain, goring and stamping and snorting. Mowgli watched his
time, and slipped off Rama's neck, laying about him right and left with
his stick.
"Quick, Akela! Break them up. Scatter them, or they will be fighting one
another. Drive them away, Akela. _Hai_, Rama! _Hai! hai! hai!_ my
children. Softly now, softly! It is all over."
Akela and Gray Brother ran to and fro nipping the buffaloes' legs, and
though the herd wheeled once to charge up the ravine again, Mowgli
managed to turn Rama, and the others followed him to the wallows.
Shere Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead, and the kites were
coming for him already.
"Brothers, that was a dog's death," said Mowgli, feeling for the knife
he always carried in a sheath round his neck now that he lived with men.
"But he would never have shown fight. His hide will look well on the
Council Rock. We must get to work swiftly."
A boy trained among men would never have dreamed of skinning a ten-foot
tiger alone, but Mowgli knew better than any one else how an animal's
skin is fitted on, and how it can be taken off. But it was hard work,
and Mowgli slashed and tore and grunted for an hour, while the wolves
lolled out their tongues, or came forward and tugged as he ordered them.
Presently a hand fell on his shoulder, and looking up he saw Buldeo with
the Tower musket. The children had told the village about the buffalo
stampede, and Buldeo went out angrily, only too anxious to correct
Mowgli for not taking better care of the herd. The wolves dropped out of
sight as soon as they saw the man coming.
"What is this folly?" said Buldeo, angrily. "To think that thou canst
skin a tiger! Where did the buffaloes kill him? It is the Lame Tiger,
too, and there is a hundred rupees on his head. Well, well, we will
overlook thy letting the herd run off, and perhaps I will give thee one
of the rupees of the reward when I have taken the skin to Khanhiwara."
He fumbled in his waist-cloth for flint and steel, and stooped down to
singe Shere Khan's whiskers. Most native hunters singe a tiger's
whiskers to prevent his ghost haunting them.
"Hum!" said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin of a fore
paw. "So thou wilt take the hide to Khanhiwara for the reward, and
perhaps give me one rupee? Now it is in my mind that I need the skin for
my own use. Heh! old man, take away that fire!"
"What talk is this to the chief hunter of the village? Thy luck and the
stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped thee to this kill. The tiger has
just fed, or he would have gone twenty miles by this time. Thou canst
not even skin him properly, little beggar-brat, and forsooth I, Buldeo,
must be told not to singe his whiskers. Mowgli, I will not give thee one
anna of the reward, but only a very big beating. Leave the carcass!"
"By the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli, who was trying to get at the
shoulder, "must I stay babbling to an old ape all noon? Here, Akela,
this man plagues me."
Buldeo, who was still stooping over Shere Khan's head, found himself
sprawling on the grass, with a gray wolf standing over him, while Mowgli
went on skinning as though he were alone in all India.
"Ye-es," he said, between his teeth. "Thou art altogether right, Buldeo.
Thou wilt never give me one anna of the reward. There is an old war
between this lame tiger and myself--a very old war, and--I have won."
To do Buldeo justice, if he had been ten years younger he would have
taken his chance with Akela had he met the wolf in the woods, but a wolf
who obeyed the orders of this boy who had private wars with man-eating
tigers was not a common animal. It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind,
thought Buldeo, and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would
protect him. He lay as still as still, expecting every minute to see
Mowgli turn into a tiger, too.
[Illustration: "BULDEO LAY AS STILL AS STILL, EXPECTING EVERY MINUTE TO
SEE MOWGLI TURN INTO A TIGER, TOO."]
"Maharaj! Great King," he said at last, in a husky whisper.
"Yes," said Mowgli, without turning his head, chuckling a little.
"I am an old man. I did not know that thou wast anything more than a
herd-boy. May I rise up and go away, or will thy servant tear me to
pieces?"
"Go, and peace go with thee. Only, another time do not meddle with my
game. Let him go, Akela."
Buldeo hobbled away to the village as fast as he could, looking back
over his shoulder in case Mowgli should change into something terrible.
When he got to the village he told a tale of magic and enchantment and
sorcery that made the priest look very grave.
Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight before he and
the wolves had drawn the great gay skin clear of the body.
"Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home! Help me to herd
them, Akela."
The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the
village Mowgli saw lights, and heard the conches and bells in the temple
blowing and banging. Half the village seemed to be waiting for him by
the gate. "That is because I have killed Shere Khan," he said to
himself; but a shower of stones whistled about his ears, and the
villagers shouted: "Sorcerer! Wolf's brat! Jungle-demon! Go away! Get
hence quickly, or the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot,
Buldeo, shoot!"
The old Tower musket went off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed
in pain.
"More sorcery!" shouted the villagers. "He can turn bullets. Buldeo,
that was _thy_ buffalo."
"Now what is this?" said Mowgli, bewildered, as the stones flew thicker.
"They are not unlike the Pack, these brothers of thine," said Akela,
sitting down composedly. "It is in my head that, if bullets mean
anything, they would cast thee out."
"Wolf! Wolf's cub! Go away!" shouted the priest, waving a sprig of the
sacred _tulsi_ plant.
"Again? Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because I
am a wolf. Let us go, Akela."
A woman--it was Messua--ran across to the herd, and cried: "Oh, my son,
my son! They say thou art a sorcerer who can turn himself into a beast
at will. I do not believe, but go away or they will kill thee. Buldeo
says thou art a wizard, but I know thou hast avenged Nathoo's death."
"Come back, Messua!" shouted the crowd. "Come back, or we will stone
thee."
Mowgli laughed a little short ugly laugh, for a stone had hit him in the
mouth. "Run back, Messua. This is one of the foolish tales they tell
under the big tree at dusk. I have at least paid for thy son's life.
Farewell; and run quickly, for I shall send the herd in more swiftly
than their brickbats. I am no wizard, Messua. Farewell!
"Now, once more, Akela," he cried. "Bring the herd in."
The buffaloes were anxious enough to get to the village. They hardly
needed Akela's yell, but charged through the gate like a whirlwind,
scattering the crowd right and left.
"Keep count!" shouted Mowgli, scornfully. "It may be that I have stolen
one of them. Keep count, for I will do your herding no more. Fare you
well, children of men, and thank Messua that I do not come in with my
wolves and hunt you up and down your street."
He turned on his heel and walked away with the Lone Wolf; and as he
looked up at the stars he felt happy. "No more sleeping in traps for me,
Akela. Let us get Shere Khan's skin and go away. No; we will not hurt
the village, for Messua was kind to me."
When the moon rose over the plain, making it look all milky, the
horrified villagers saw Mowgli, with two wolves at his heels and a
bundle on his head, trotting across at the steady wolf's trot that eats
up the long miles like fire. Then they banged the temple bells and blew
the conches louder than ever; and Messua cried, and Buldeo embroidered
the story of his adventures in the jungle, till he ended by saying that
Akela stood up on his hind legs and talked like a man.
[Illustration: "WHEN THE MOON ROSE OVER THE PLAIN THE VILLAGERS SAW
MOWGLI TROTTING ACROSS, WITH TWO WOLVES AT HIS HEELS."]
The moon was just going down when Mowgli and the two wolves came to the
hill of the Council Rock, and they stopped at Mother Wolf's cave.
"They have cast me out from the Man Pack, Mother," shouted Mowgli, "but
I come with the hide of Shere Khan to keep my word." Mother Wolf walked
stiffly from the cave with the cubs behind her, and her eyes glowed as
she saw the skin.
"I told him on that day, when he crammed his head and shoulders into
this cave, hunting for thy life, Little Frog--I told him that the hunter
would be the hunted. It is well done."
"Little Brother, it is well done," said a deep voice in the thicket. "We
were lonely in the jungle without thee," and Bagheera came running to
Mowgli's bare feet. They clambered up the Council Rock together, and
Mowgli spread the skin out on the flat stone where Akela used to sit,
and pegged it down with four slivers of bamboo, and Akela lay down upon
it, and called the old call to the Council, "Look--look well, O Wolves!"
exactly as he had called when Mowgli was first brought there.
[Illustration: "THEY CLAMBERED UP ON THE COUNCIL ROCK TOGETHER, AND
MOWGLI SPREAD THE SKIN OUT ON THE FLAT STONE."]
Ever since Akela had been deposed, the Pack had been without a leader,
hunting and fighting at their own pleasure. But they answered the call
from habit, and some of them were lame from the traps they had fallen
into, and some limped from shot-wounds, and some were mangy from eating
bad food, and many were missing; but they came to the Council Rock, all
that were left of them, and saw Shere Khan's striped hide on the rock,
and the huge claws dangling at the end of the empty, dangling feet. It
was then that Mowgli made up a song without any rhymes, a song that came
up into his throat all by itself, and he shouted it aloud, leaping up
and down on the rattling skin, and beating time with his heels till he
had no more breath left, while Gray Brother and Akela howled between the
verses.
"Look well, O Wolves. Have I kept my word?" said Mowgli when he had
finished; and the wolves bayed "Yes," and one tattered wolf howled:
"Lead us again, O Akela. Lead us again, O Man-cub, for we be sick of
this lawlessness, and we would be the Free People once more."
"Nay," purred Bagheera, "that may not be. When ye are full-fed, the
madness may come upon ye again. Not for nothing are ye called the Free
People. Ye fought for freedom, and it is yours. Eat it, O Wolves."
"Man Pack and Wolf Pack have cast me out," said Mowgli. "Now I will hunt
alone in the jungle."
"And we will hunt with thee," said the four cubs.
So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from
that day on. But he was not always alone, because years afterward he
became a man and married.
But that is a story for grown-ups.
MOWGLI'S SONG
THAT HE SANG AT THE COUNCIL ROCK WHEN HE
DANCED ON SHERE KHAN'S HIDE
The Song of Mowgli--I, Mowgli, am singing. Let
the jungle listen to the things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would kill--would kill! At the
gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli,
the Frog!
He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for
when wilt thou drink again? Sleep and dream
of the kill.
I am alone on the grazing-grounds. Gray Brother,
come to me! Come to me, Lone Wolf, for there
is big game afoot.
Bring up the great bull-buffaloes, the blue-skinned
herd-bulls with the angry eyes. Drive them
to and fro as I order.
Sleepest thou still, Shere Khan? Wake, O wake!
Here come I, and the bulls are behind.
Rama, the King of the Buffaloes, stamped with
his foot. Waters of the Waingunga, whither went
Shere Khan?
He is not Ikki to dig holes, nor Mao, the Peacock,
that he should fly. He is not Mang, the Bat, to
hang in the branches. Little bamboos that creak
together, tell me where he ran?
_Ow!_ He is there. _Ahoo!_ He is there.
Under the feet of Rama lies the Lame One! Up,
Shere Khan! Up and kill! Here is meat; break the
necks of the bulls!
_Hsh!_ He is asleep. We will not wake him, for
his strength is very great. The kites have come
down to see it. The black ants have come up to
know it. There is a great assembly in his honor.
_Alala!_ I have no cloth to wrap me. The kites
will see that I am naked. I am ashamed to meet
all these people.
Lend me thy coat, Shere Khan. Lend me thy gay
striped coat that I may go to the Council Rock.
By the Bull that bought me I have made a promise--a
little promise. Only thy coat is lacking before
I keep my word.
With the knife--with the knife that men use--with
the knife of the hunter, the man, I will stoop
down for my gift.
Waters of the Waingunga, bear witness that Shere
Khan gives me his coat for the love that he
bears me. Pull, Gray Brother! Pull, Akela!
Heavy is the hide of Shere Khan.
The Man Pack are angry. They throw stones and talk
child's talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let us run
away.
Through the night, through the hot night, run
swiftly with me, my brothers. We will leave the
lights of the village and go to the low moon.
Waters of the Waingunga, the Man Pack have cast me
out. I did them no harm, but they were afraid of
me. Why?
Wolf Pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is
shut to me and the village gates are shut. Why?
As Mang flies between the beasts and the birds so
fly I between the village and the jungle. Why?
I dance on the hide of Shere Khan, but my heart is
very heavy. My mouth is cut and wounded with the
stones from the village, but my heart is very
light because I have come back to the jungle.
Why?
These two things fight together in me as the snakes
fight in the spring. The water comes out of my
eyes; yet I laugh while it falls. Why?
I am two Mowglis, but the hide of Shere Khan is
under my feet.
All the jungle knows that I have killed Shere Khan.
Look--look well, O Wolves!
_Ahae!_ My heart is heavy with the things that
I do not understand.
THE WHITE SEAL
Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.
_Seal Lullaby._
[Illustration]
THE WHITE SEAL
ALL these things happened several years ago at a place called
Novastoshnah, or North East Point, on the Island of St. Paul, away and
away in the Bering Sea. Limmershin, the Winter Wren, told me the tale
when he was blown on to the rigging of a steamer going to Japan, and I
took him down into my cabin and warmed and fed him for a couple of days
till he was fit to fly back to St. Paul's again. Limmershin is a very
odd little bird, but he knows how to tell the truth.
Nobody comes to Novastoshnah except on business, and the only people who
have regular business there are the seals. They come in the summer
months by hundreds and hundreds of thousands out of the cold gray sea;
for Novastoshnah Beach has the finest accommodation for seals of any
place in all the world.
Sea Catch knew that, and every spring would swim from whatever place he
happened to be in--would swim like a torpedo-boat straight for
Novastoshnah, and spend a month fighting with his companions for a good
place on the rocks as close to the sea as possible. Sea Catch was
fifteen years old, a huge gray fur-seal with almost a mane on his
shoulders, and long, wicked dogteeth. When he heaved himself up on his
front flippers he stood more than four feet clear of the ground, and his
weight, if any one had been bold enough to weigh him, was nearly seven
hundred pounds. He was scarred all over with the marks of savage fights,
but he was always ready for just one fight more. He would put his head
on one side, as though he were afraid to look his enemy in the face;
then he would shoot it out like lightning, and when the big teeth were
firmly fixed on the other seal's neck, the other seal might get away if
he could, but Sea Catch would not help him.
Yet Sea Catch never chased a beaten seal, for that was against the Rules
of the Beach. He only wanted room by the sea for his nursery; but as
there were forty or fifty thousand other seals hunting for the same
thing each spring, the whistling, bellowing, roaring, and blowing on the
beach was something frightful.
From a little hill called Hutchinson's Hill you could look over three
and a half miles of ground covered with fighting seals; and the surf was
dotted all over with the heads of seals hurrying to land and begin their
share of the fighting. They fought in the breakers, they fought in the
sand, and they fought on the smooth-worn basalt rocks of the nurseries;
for they were just as stupid and unaccommodating as men. Their wives
never came to the island until late in May or early in June, for they
did not care to be torn to pieces; and the young two-, three-, and
four-year-old seals who had not begun housekeeping went inland about
half a mile through the ranks of the fighters and played about on the
sand-dunes in droves and legions, and rubbed off every single green
thing that grew. They were called the holluschickie,--the
bachelors,--and there were perhaps two or three hundred thousand of them
at Novastoshnah alone.
Sea Catch had just finished his forty-fifth fight one spring when
Matkah, his soft, sleek, gentle-eyed wife came up out of the sea, and
he caught her by the scruff of the neck and dumped her down on his
reservation, saying gruffly: "Late, as usual. Where _have_ you been?"
It was not the fashion for Sea Catch to eat anything during the four
months he stayed on the beaches, and so his temper was generally bad.
Matkah knew better than to answer back. She looked around and cooed:
"How thoughtful of you. You've taken the old place again."
"I should think I had," said Sea Catch. "Look at me!"
He was scratched and bleeding in twenty places; one eye was almost
blind, and his sides were torn to ribbons.
"Oh, you men, you men!" Matkah said, fanning herself with her hind
flipper. "Why can't you be sensible and settle your places quietly? You
look as though you had been fighting with the Killer Whale."
"I haven't been doing anything _but_ fight since the middle of May. The
beach is disgracefully crowded this season. I've met at least a hundred
seals from Lukannon Beach, house-hunting. Why can't people stay where
they belong?"
"I've often thought we should be much happier if we hauled out at Otter
Island instead of this crowded place," said Matkah.
"Bah! Only the holluschickie go to Otter Island. If we went there they
would say we were afraid. We must preserve appearances, my dear."
Sea Catch sunk his head proudly between his fat shoulders and pretended
to go to sleep for a few minutes, but all the time he was keeping a
sharp lookout for a fight. Now that all the seals and their wives were
on the land you could hear their clamor miles out to sea above the
loudest gales. At the lowest counting there were over a million seals on
the beach,--old seals, mother seals, tiny babies, and holluschickie,
fighting, scuffling, bleating, crawling, and playing together,--going
down to the sea and coming up from it in gangs and regiments, lying over
every foot of ground as far as the eye could reach, and skirmishing
about in brigades through the fog. It is nearly always foggy at
Novastoshnah, except when the sun comes out and makes everything look
all pearly and rainbow-colored for a little while.
Kotick, Matkah's baby, was born in the middle of that confusion, and he
was all head and shoulders, with pale, watery blue eyes, as tiny seals
must be; but there was something about his coat that made his mother
look at him very closely.
"Sea Catch," she said, at last, "our baby's going to be white!"
"Empty clam-shells and dry seaweed!" snorted Sea Catch. "There never has
been such a thing in the world as a white seal."
"I can't help that," said Matkah; "there's going to be now"; and she
sang the low, crooning seal-song that all the mother seals sing to their
babies:
You mustn't swim till you're six weeks old,
Or your head will be sunk by your heels;
And summer gales and Killer Whales
Are bad for baby seals.
Are bad for baby seals, dear rat,
As bad as bad can be;
But splash and grow strong,
And you can't be wrong,
Child of the Open Sea!
Of course the little fellow did not understand the words at first. He
paddled and scrambled about by his mother's side, and learned to scuffle
out of the way when his father was fighting with another seal, and the
two rolled and roared up and down the slippery rocks. Matkah used to go
to sea to get things to eat, and the baby was fed only once in two days;
but then he ate all he could, and throve upon it.
The first thing he did was to crawl inland, and there he met tens of
thousands of babies of his own age, and they played together like
puppies, went to sleep on the clean sand, and played again. The old
people in the nurseries took no notice of them, and the holluschickie
kept to their own grounds, so the babies had a beautiful playtime.
When Matkah came back from her deep-sea fishing she would go straight to
their playground and call as a sheep calls for a lamb, and wait until
she heard Kotick bleat. Then she would take the straightest of straight
lines in his direction, striking out with her fore flippers and knocking
the youngsters head over heels right and left. There were always a few
hundred mothers hunting for their children through the playgrounds, and
the babies were kept lively; but, as Matkah told Kotick, "So long as you
don't lie in muddy water and get mange; or rub the hard sand into a cut
or scratch; and so long as you never go swimming when there is a heavy
sea, nothing will hurt you here."
Little seals can no more swim than little children, but they are unhappy
till they learn. The first time that Kotick went down to the sea a wave
carried him out beyond his depth, and his big head sank and his little
hind flippers flew up exactly as his mother had told him in the song,
and if the next wave had not thrown him back again he would have
drowned.
After that he learned to lie in a beach-pool and let the wash of the
waves just cover him and lift him up while he paddled, but he always
kept his eye open for big waves that might hurt. He was two weeks
learning to use his flippers; and all that while he floundered in and
out of the water, and coughed and grunted and crawled up the beach and
took cat-naps on the sand, and went back again, until at last he found
that he truly belonged to the water.
Then you can imagine the times that he had with his companions, ducking
under the rollers; or coming in on top of a comber and landing with a
swash and a splutter as the big wave went whirling far up the beach; or
standing up on his tail and scratching his head as the old people did;
or playing "I'm the King of the Castle" on slippery, weedy rocks that
just stuck out of the wash. Now and then he would see a thin fin, like a
big shark's fin, drifting along close to shore, and he knew that that
was the Killer Whale, the Grampus, who eats young seals when he can get
them; and Kotick would head for the beach like an arrow, and the fin
would jig off slowly, as if it were looking for nothing at all.
Late in October the seals began to leave St. Paul's for the deep sea, by
families and tribes, and there was no more fighting over the nurseries,
and the holluschickie played anywhere they liked. "Next year," said
Matkah to Kotick, "you will be a holluschickie; but this year you must
learn how to catch fish."
They set out together across the Pacific, and Matkah showed Kotick how
to sleep on his back with his flippers tucked down by his side and his
little nose just out of the water. No cradle is so comfortable as the
long, rocking swell of the Pacific. When Kotick felt his skin tingle all
over, Matkah told him he was learning the "feel of the water," and that
tingly, prickly feelings meant bad weather coming, and he must swim hard
and get away.
"In a little time," she said, "you'll know where to swim to, but just
now we'll follow Sea Pig, the Porpoise, for he is very wise." A school
of porpoises were ducking and tearing through the water, and little
Kotick followed them as fast as he could. "How do you know where to go
to?" he panted. The leader of the school rolled his white eyes, and
ducked under. "My tail tingles, youngster," he said. "That means
there's a gale behind me. Come along! When you're south of the Sticky
Water [he meant the Equator], and your tail tingles, that means there's
a gale in front of you and you must head north. Come along! The water
feels bad here."
This was one of very many things that Kotick learned, and he was always
learning. Matkah taught him how to follow the cod and the halibut along
the under-sea banks, and wrench the rockling out of his hole among the
weeds; how to skirt the wrecks lying a hundred fathoms below water, and
dart like a rifle-bullet in at one porthole and out at another as the
fishes ran; how to dance on the top of the waves when the lightning was
racing all over the sky, and wave his flipper politely to the
Stumpy-tailed Albatross and the Man-of-war Hawk as they went down the
wind; how to jump three or four feet clear of the water, like a dolphin,
flippers close to the side and tail curved; to leave the flying-fish
alone because they are all bony; to take the shoulder-piece out of a cod
at full speed ten fathoms deep; and never to stop and look at a boat or
a ship, but particularly a row boat. At the end of six months, what
Kotick did not know about deep-sea fishing was not worth the knowing,
and all that time he never set flipper on dry ground.
[Illustration: "TEN FATHOMS DEEP."]
One day, however, as he was lying half asleep in the warm water
somewhere off the Island of Juan Fernandez, he felt faint and lazy all
over, just as human people do when the spring is in their legs, and he
remembered the good firm beaches of Novastoshnah seven thousand miles
away; the games his companions played, the smell of the seaweed, the
seal-roar, and the fighting. That very minute he turned north, swimming
steadily, and as he went on he met scores of his mates, all bound for
the same place, and they said: "Greeting, Kotick! This year we are all
holluschickie, and we can dance the Fire-dance in the breakers off
Lukannon and play on the new grass. But where did you get that coat?"
Kotick's fur was almost pure white now, and though he felt very proud of
it, he only said: "Swim quickly! My bones are aching for the land." And
so they all came to the beaches where they had been born and heard the
old seals, their fathers, fighting in the rolling mist.
That night Kotick danced the Fire-dance with the yearling seals. The sea
is full of fire on summer nights all the way down from Novastoshnah to
Lukannon, and each seal leaves a wake like burning oil behind him, and a
flaming flash when he jumps, and the waves break in great phosphorescent
streaks and swirls. Then they went inland to the holluschickie grounds,
and rolled up and down in the new wild wheat, and told stories of what
they had done while they had been at sea. They talked about the Pacific
as boys would talk about a wood that they had been nutting in, and if
any one had understood them, he could have gone away and made such a
chart of that ocean as never was. The three- and four-year-old
holluschickie romped down from Hutchinson's Hill, crying: "Out of the
way, youngsters! The sea is deep, and you don't know all that's in it
yet. Wait till you've rounded the Horn. Hi, you yearling, where did you
get that white coat?"
"I didn't get it," said Kotick; "it grew." And just as he was going to
roll the speaker over, a couple of black-haired men with flat red faces
came from behind a sand-dune, and Kotick, who had never seen a man
before, coughed and lowered his head. The holluschickie just bundled off
a few yards and sat staring stupidly. The men were no less than Kerick
Booterin, the chief of the seal-hunters on the island, and Patalamon,
his son. They came from the little village not half a mile from the seal
nurseries, and they were deciding what seals they would drive up to the
killing-pens (for the seals were driven just like sheep), to be turned
into sealskin jackets later on.
"Ho!" said Patalamon. "Look! There's a white seal!"
Kerick Booterin turned nearly white under his oil and smoke, for he was
an Aleut, and Aleuts are not clean people. Then he began to mutter a
prayer. "Don't touch him, Patalamon. There has never been a white seal
since--since I was born. Perhaps it is old Zaharrof's ghost. He was lost
last year in the big gale."
"I'm not going near him," said Patalamon. "He's unlucky. Do you really
think he is old Zaharrof come back? I owe him for some gulls' eggs."
"Don't look at him," said Kerick. "Head off that drove of
four-year-olds. The men ought to skin two hundred to-day, but it's the
beginning of the season, and they are new to the work. A hundred will
do. Quick!"
Patalamon rattled a pair of seal's shoulder-bones in front of a herd of
holluschickie and they stopped dead, puffing and blowing. Then he
stepped near, and the seals began to move, and Kerick headed them
inland, and they never tried to get back to their companions. Hundreds
and hundreds of thousands of seals watched them being driven, but they
went on playing just the same. Kotick was the only one who asked
questions, and none of his companions could tell him anything, except
that the men always drove seals in that way for six weeks or two months
of every year.
"I am going to follow," he said, and his eyes nearly popped out of his
head as he shuffled along in the wake of the herd.
"The white seal is coming after us," cried Patalamon. "That's the first
time a seal has ever come to the killing-grounds alone."
"Hsh! Don't look behind you," said Kerick. "It _is_ Zaharrof's ghost! I
must speak to the priest about this."
The distance to the killing-grounds was only half a mile, but it took an
hour to cover, because if the seals went too fast Kerick knew that they
would get heated and then their fur would come off in patches when they
were skinned. So they went on very slowly, past Sea-Lion's Neck, past
Webster House, till they came to the Salt House just beyond the sight of
the seals on the beach. Kotick followed, panting and wondering. He
thought that he was at the world's end, but the roar of the seal
nurseries behind him sounded as loud as the roar of a train in a tunnel.
Then Kerick sat down on the moss and pulled out a heavy pewter watch and
let the drove cool off for thirty minutes, and Kotick could hear the
fog-dew dripping from the brim of his cap. Then ten or twelve men, each
with an iron-bound club three or four feet long, came up, and Kerick
pointed out one or two of the drove that were bitten by their companions
or were too hot, and the men kicked those aside with their heavy boots
made of the skin of a walrus's throat, and then Kerick said: "Let go!"
and then the men clubbed the seals on the head as fast as they could.
Ten minutes later little Kotick did not recognize his friends any more,
for their skins were ripped off from the nose to the hind
flippers--whipped off and thrown down on the ground in a pile.
That was enough for Kotick. He turned and galloped (a seal can gallop
very swiftly for a short time) back to the sea, his little new mustache
bristling with horror. At Sea-Lion's Neck, where the great sea-lions sit
on the edge of the surf, he flung himself flipper over-head into the
cool water, and rocked there, gasping miserably. "What's here?" said a
sea-lion, gruffly; for as a rule the sea-lions keep themselves to
themselves.
"_Scoochnie! Ochen scoochnie!_" ("I'm lonesome, very lonesome!"), said
Kotick. "They're killing _all_ the holluschickie on _all_ the beaches!"
The sea-lion turned his head inshore. "Nonsense," he said; "your friends
are making as much noise as ever. You must have seen old Kerick
polishing off a drove. He's done that for thirty years."
"It's horrible," said Kotick, backing water as a wave went over him, and
steadying himself with a screw-stroke of his flippers that brought him
up all standing within three inches of a jagged edge of rock.
"Well done for a yearling!" said the sea-lion, who could appreciate good
swimming. "I suppose it _is_ rather awful from your way of looking at
it; but if you seals will come here year after year, of course the men
get to know of it, and unless you can find an island where no men ever
come, you will always be driven."
"Isn't there any such island?" began Kotick.
"I've followed the _poltoos_ [the halibut] for twenty years, and I can't
say I've found it yet. But look here--you seem to have a fondness for
talking to your betters; suppose you go to Walrus Islet and talk to Sea
Vitch. He may know something. Don't flounce off like that. It's a
six-mile swim, and if I were you I should haul out and take a nap first,
little one."
Kotick thought that that was good advice, so he swam round to his own
beach, hauled out, and slept for half an hour, twitching all over, as
seals will. Then he headed straight for Walrus Islet, a little low sheet
of rocky island almost due northeast from Novastoshnah, all ledges of
rock and gulls' nests, where the walrus herded by themselves.
He landed close to old Sea Vitch--the big, ugly, bloated, pimpled,
fat-necked, long-tusked walrus of the North Pacific, who has no manners
except when he is asleep--as he was then, with his hind flippers half in
and half out of the surf.
"Wake up!" barked Kotick, for the gulls were making a great noise.
"Hah! Ho! Hmph! What's that?" said Sea Vitch, and he struck the next
walrus a blow with his tusks and waked him up, and the next struck the
next, and so on till they were all awake and staring in every direction
but the right one.
[Illustration: "THEY WERE ALL AWAKE AND STARING IN EVERY DIRECTION BUT
THE RIGHT ONE."]
"Hi! It's me," said Kotick, bobbing in the surf and looking like a
little white slug.
"Well! May I be----skinned!" said Sea Vitch, and they all looked at
Kotick as you can fancy a club full of drowsy old gentlemen would look
at a little boy. Kotick did not care to hear any more about skinning
just then; he had seen enough of it; so he called out: "Isn't there any
place for seals to go where men don't ever come?"
"Go and find out," said Sea Vitch, shutting his eyes. "Run away. We're
busy here."
Kotick made his dolphin-jump in the air and shouted as loud as he could:
"Clam-eater! Clam-eater!" He knew that Sea Vitch never caught a fish in
his life, but always rooted for clams and seaweeds; though he pretended
to be a very terrible person. Naturally the Chickies and the
Gooverooskies and the Epatkas, the Burgomaster Gulls and the Kittiwakes
and the Puffins, who are always looking for a chance to be rude, took up
the cry, and--so Limmershin told me--for nearly five minutes you could
not have heard a gun fired on Walrus Islet. All the population was
yelling and screaming: "Clam-eater! _Stareek_ [old man]!" while Sea
Vitch rolled from side to side grunting and coughing.
"_Now_ will you tell?" said Kotick, all out of breath.
"Go and ask Sea Cow," said Sea Vitch. "If he is living still, he'll be
able to tell you."
"How shall I know Sea Cow when I meet him?" said Kotick, sheering off.
"He's the only thing in the sea uglier than Sea Vitch," screamed a
burgomaster gull, wheeling under Sea Vitch's nose. "Uglier, and with
worse manners! _Stareek!_"
Kotick swam back to Novastoshnah, leaving the gulls to scream. There he
found that no one sympathized with him in his little attempts to
discover a quiet place for the seals. They told him that men had always
driven the holluschickie--it was part of the day's work--and that if he
did not like to see ugly things he should not have gone to the
killing-grounds. But none of the other seals had seen the killing, and
that made the difference between him and his friends. Besides, Kotick
was a white seal.
"What you must do," said old Sea Catch, after he had heard his son's
adventures, "is to grow up and be a big seal like your father, and have
a nursery on the beach, and then they will leave you alone. In another
five years you ought to be able to fight for yourself." Even gentle
Matkah, his mother, said: "You will never be able to stop the killing.
Go and play in the sea, Kotick." And Kotick went off and danced the
Fire-dance with a very heavy little heart.
That autumn he left the beach as soon as he could, and set off alone
because of a notion in his bullet-head. He was going to find Sea Cow, if
there was such a person in the sea, and he was going to find a quiet
island with good firm beaches for seals to live on, where men could not
get at them. So he explored and explored by himself from the North to
the South Pacific, swimming as much as three hundred miles in a day and
a night. He met with more adventures than can be told, and narrowly
escaped being caught by the Basking Shark, and the Spotted Shark, and
the Hammerhead, and he met all the untrustworthy ruffians that loaf up
and down the high seas, and the heavy polite fish, and the
scarlet-spotted scallops that are moored in one place for hundreds of
years, and grow very proud of it; but he never met Sea Cow, and he never
found an island that he could fancy.
If the beach was good and hard, with a slope behind it for seals to play
on, there was always the smoke of a whaler on the horizon, boiling down
blubber, and Kotick knew what _that_ meant. Or else he could see that
seals had once visited the island and been killed off, and Kotick knew
that where men had come once they would come again.
He picked up with an old stumpy-tailed albatross, who told him that
Kerguelen Island was the very place for peace and quiet, and when Kotick
went down there he was all but smashed to pieces against some wicked
black cliffs in a heavy sleet-storm with lightning and thunder. Yet as
he pulled out against the gale he could see that even there had once
been a seal nursery. And it was so in all the other islands that he
visited.
Limmershin gave a long list of them, for he said that Kotick spent five
seasons exploring, with a four months' rest each year at Novastoshnah,
where the holluschickie used to make fun of him and his imaginary
islands. He went to the Gallapagos, a horrid dry place on the Equator,
where he was nearly baked to death; he went to the Georgia Islands, the
Orkneys, Emerald Island, Little Nightingale Island, Gough's Island,
Bouvet's Island, the Crossets, and even to a little speck of an island
south of the Cape of Good Hope. But everywhere the People of the Sea
told him the same things. Seals had come to those islands once upon a
time, but men had killed them all off. Even when he swam thousands of
miles out of the Pacific, and got to a place called Cape Corientes (that
was when he was coming back from Gough's Island), he found a few
hundred mangy seals on a rock, and they told him that men came there
too.
That nearly broke his heart, and he headed round the Horn back to his
own beaches; and on his way north he hauled out on an island full of
green trees, where he found an old, old seal who was dying, and Kotick
caught fish for him and told him all his sorrows. "Now," said Kotick, "I
am going back to Novastoshnah, and if I am driven to the killing-pens
with the holluschickie I shall not care."
The old seal said: "Try once more. I am the last of the Lost Rookery of
Masafuera, and in the days when men killed us by the hundred thousand
there was a story on the beaches that some day a white seal would come
out of the north and lead the seal people to a quiet place. I am old and
I shall never live to see that day, but others will. Try once more."
And Kotick curled up his mustache (it was a beauty), and said: "I am the
only white seal that has ever been born on the beaches, and I am the
only seal, black or white, who ever thought of looking for new islands."
That cheered him immensely; and when he came back to Novastoshnah that
summer, Matkah, his mother, begged him to marry and settle down, for he
was no longer a holluschick, but a full-grown sea-catch, with a curly
white mane on his shoulders, as heavy, as big, and as fierce as his
father. "Give me another season," he said. "Remember, Mother, it is
always the seventh wave that goes farthest up the beach."
Curiously enough, there was another seal who thought that she would put
off marrying till the next year, and Kotick danced the Fire-dance with
her all down Lukannon Beach the night before he set off on his last
exploration.
This time he went westward, because he had fallen on the trail of a
great shoal of halibut, and he needed at least one hundred pounds of
fish a day to keep him in good condition. He chased them till he was
tired, and then he curled himself up and went to sleep on the hollows of
the ground-swell that sets in to Copper Island. He knew the coast
perfectly well, so about midnight, when he felt himself gently bumped on
a weed bed, he said: "Hm, tide 's running strong to-night," and turning
over under water opened his eyes slowly and stretched. Then he jumped
like a cat, for he saw huge things nosing about in the shoal water and
browsing on the heavy fringes of the weeds.
"By the Great Combers of Magellan!" he said, beneath his mustache. "Who
in the Deep Sea are these people?"
They were like no walrus, sea-lion, seal, bear, whale, shark, fish,
squid, or scallop that Kotick had ever seen before. They were between
twenty and thirty feet long, and they had no hind flippers, but a
shovel-like tail that looked as if it had been whittled out of wet
leather. Their heads were the most foolish-looking things you ever saw,
and they balanced on the ends of their tails in deep water when they
weren't grazing, bowing solemnly to one another and waving their front
flippers as a fat man waves his arm.
"Ahem!" said Kotick. "Good sport, gentlemen?" The big things answered by
bowing and waving their flippers like the Frog-Footman. When they began
feeding again Kotick saw that their upper lip was split into two pieces,
that they could twitch apart about a foot and bring together again with
a whole bushel of seaweed between the splits. They tucked the stuff into
their mouths and chumped solemnly.
"Messy style of feeding that," said Kotick. They bowed again, and Kotick
began to lose his temper. "Very good," he said. "If you do happen to
have an extra joint in your front flipper you needn't show off so. I
see you bow gracefully, but I should like to know your names." The split
lips moved and twitched, and the glassy green eyes stared; but they did
not speak.
"Well!" said Kotick, "you're the only people I've ever met uglier than
Sea Vitch--and with worse manners."
Then he remembered in a flash what the Burgomaster Gull had screamed to
him when he was a little yearling at Walrus Islet, and he tumbled
backward in the water, for he knew that he had found Sea Cow at last.
[Illustration: "HE HAD FOUND SEA COW AT LAST."]
The sea cows went on schlooping and grazing, and chumping in the weed,
and Kotick asked them questions in every language that he had picked up
in his travels; and the Sea People talk nearly as many languages as
human beings. But the Sea Cow did not answer, because Sea Cow cannot
talk. He has only six bones in his neck where he ought to have seven,
and they say under the sea that that prevents him from speaking even to
his companions; but, as you know, he has an extra joint in his fore
flipper, and by waving it up and down and about he makes what answers to
a sort of clumsy telegraphic code.
By daylight Kotick's mane was standing on end and his temper was gone
where the dead crabs go. Then the Sea Cow began to travel northward very
slowly, stopping to hold absurd bowing councils from time to time, and
Kotick followed them, saying to himself: "People who are such idiots as
these are would have been killed long ago if they hadn't found out some
safe island; and what is good enough for the Sea Cow is good enough for
the Sea Catch. All the same, I wish they'd hurry."
It was weary work for Kotick. The herd never went more than forty or
fifty miles a day, and stopped to feed at night, and kept close to the
shore all the time; while Kotick swam round them, and over them, and
under them, but he could not hurry them up one half-mile. As they went
farther north they held a bowing council every few hours, and Kotick
nearly bit off his mustache with impatience till he saw that they were
following up a warm current of water, and then he respected them more.
One night they sank through the shiny water--sank like stones--and, for
the first time since he had known them, began to swim quickly. Kotick
followed, and the pace astonished him, for he never dreamed that Sea Cow
was anything of a swimmer. They headed for a cliff by the shore, a cliff
that ran down into deep water, and plunged into a dark hole at the foot
of it, twenty fathoms under the sea. It was a long, long swim, and
Kotick badly wanted fresh air before he was out of the dark tunnel they
led him through.
"My wig!" he said, when he rose, gasping and puffing, into open water at
the farther end. "It was a long dive, but it was worth it."
The sea cows had separated, and were browsing lazily along the edges of
the finest beaches that Kotick had ever seen. There were long stretches
of smooth worn rock running for miles, exactly fitted to make seal
nurseries, and there were playgrounds of hard sand, sloping inland
behind them, and there were rollers for seals to dance in, and long
grass to roll in, and sand-dunes to climb up and down, and best of all,
Kotick knew by the feel of the water, which never deceives a true Sea
Catch, that no men had ever come there.
The first thing he did was to assure himself that the fishing was good,
and then he swam along the beaches and counted up the delightful low
sandy islands half hidden in the beautiful rolling fog. Away to the
northward out to sea ran a line of bars and shoals and rocks that would
never let a ship come within six miles of the beach; and between the
islands and the mainland was a stretch of deep water that ran up to the
perpendicular cliffs, and somewhere below the cliffs was the mouth of
the tunnel.
"It's Novastoshnah over again, but ten times better," said Kotick. "Sea
Cow must be wiser than I thought. Men can't come down the cliffs, even
if there were any men; and the shoals to seaward would knock a ship to
splinters. If any place in the sea is safe, this is it."
He began to think of the seal he had left behind him, but though he was
in a hurry to go back to Novastoshnah, he thoroughly explored the new
country, so that he would be able to answer all questions.
Then he dived and made sure of the mouth of the tunnel, and raced
through to the southward. No one but a sea cow or a seal would have
dreamed of there being such a place, and when he looked back at the
cliffs even Kotick could hardly believe that he had been under them.
He was six days going home, though he was not swimming slowly; and when
he hauled out just above Sea-Lion's Neck the first person he met was the
seal who had been waiting for him, and she saw by the look in his eyes
that he had found his island at last.
But the holluschickie and Sea Catch, his father, and all the other
seals, laughed at him when he told them what he had discovered, and a
young seal about his own age said: "This is all very well, Kotick, but
you can't come from no one knows where and order us off like this.
Remember we've been fighting for our nurseries, and that's a thing you
never did. You preferred prowling about in the sea."
The other seals laughed at this, and the young seal began twisting his
head from side to side. He had just married that year, and was making a
great fuss about it.
"I've no nursery to fight for," said Kotick. "I want only to show you
all a place where you will be safe. What's the use of fighting?"
"Oh, if you're trying to back out, of course I've no more to say," said
the young seal, with an ugly chuckle.
"Will you come with me if I win?" said Kotick; and a green light came
into his eyes, for he was very angry at having to fight at all.
"Very good," said the young seal, carelessly. "_If_ you win, I'll come."
He had no time to change his mind, for Kotick's head darted out and his
teeth sunk in the blubber of the young seal's neck. Then he threw
himself back on his haunches and hauled his enemy down the beach, shook
him, and knocked him over. Then Kotick roared to the seals: "I've done
my best for you these five seasons past. I've found you the island where
you'll be safe, but unless your heads are dragged off your silly necks
you won't believe. I'm going to teach you now. Look out for yourselves!"
Limmershin told me that never in his life--and Limmershin sees ten
thousand big seals fighting every year--never in all his little life did
he see anything like Kotick's charge into the nurseries. He flung
himself at the biggest sea-catch he could find, caught him by the
throat, choked him and bumped him and banged him till he grunted for
mercy, and then threw him aside and attacked the next. You see, Kotick
had never fasted for four months as the big seals did every year, and
his deep-sea swimming-trips kept him in perfect condition, and, best of
all, he had never fought before. His curly white mane stood up with
rage, and his eyes flamed, and his big dogteeth glistened, and he was
splendid to look at.
Old Sea Catch, his father, saw him tearing past, hauling the grizzled
old seals about as though they had been halibut, and upsetting the young
bachelors in all directions; and Sea Catch gave one roar and shouted:
"He may be a fool, but he is the best fighter on the Beaches. Don't
tackle your father, my son! He's with you!"
Kotick roared in answer, and old Sea Catch waddled in, his mustache on
end, blowing like a locomotive, while Matkah and the seal that was going
to marry Kotick cowered down and admired their men-folk. It was a
gorgeous fight, for the two fought as long as there was a seal that
dared lift up his head, and then they paraded grandly up and down the
beach side by side, bellowing.
At night, just as the Northern Lights were winking and flashing through
the fog, Kotick climbed a bare rock and looked down on the scattered
nurseries and the torn and bleeding seals. "Now," he said, "I've taught
you your lesson."
"My wig!" said old Sea Catch, boosting himself up stiffly, for he was
fearfully mauled. "The Killer Whale himself could not have cut them up
worse. Son, I'm proud of you, and what's more, _I'll_ come with you to
your island--if there is such a place."
"Hear you, fat pigs of the sea! Who comes with me to the Sea Cow's
tunnel? Answer, or I shall teach you again," roared Kotick.
There was a murmur like the ripple of the tide all up and down the
beaches. "We will come," said thousands of tired voices. "We will follow
Kotick, the White Seal."
Then Kotick dropped his head between his shoulders and shut his eyes
proudly. He was not a white seal any more, but red from head to tail.
All the same he would have scorned to look at or touch one of his
wounds.
A week later he and his army (nearly ten thousand holluschickie and old
seals) went away north to the Sea Cow's tunnel, Kotick leading them, and
the seals that stayed at Novastoshnah called them idiots. But next
spring when they all met off the fishing-banks of the Pacific, Kotick's
seals told such tales of the new beaches beyond Sea Cow's tunnel that
more and more seals left Novastoshnah.
Of course it was not all done at once, for the seals need a long time to
turn things over in their minds, but year by year more seals went away
from Novastoshnah, and Lukannon, and the other nurseries, to the quiet,
sheltered beaches where Kotick sits all the summer through, getting
bigger and fatter and stronger each year, while the holluschickie play
round him, in that sea where no man comes.
LUKANNON
This is the great deep-sea song that all the St. Paul seals sing when
they are heading back to their beaches in the summer. It is a sort of
very sad seal National Anthem.
I met my mates in the morning (and oh, but I am old!)
Where roaring on the ledges the summer ground-swell
rolled;
I heard them lift the chorus that dropped the
breakers' song--
The beaches of Lukannon--two million voices strong!
_The song of pleasant stations beside the salt
lagoons,
The song of blowing squadrons that shuffled down the
dunes,
The song of midnight dances that churned the sea to
flame--
The beaches of Lukannon--before the sealers came!_
I met my mates in the morning (I'll never meet them
more!);
They came and went in legions that darkened all the
shore.
And through the foam-flecked offing as far as voice
could reach
We hailed the landing-parties and we sang them up
the beach.
_The beaches of Lukannon--the winter-wheat so
tall--
The dripping, crinkled lichens, and the sea-fog
drenching all!
The platforms of our playground, all shining smooth
and worn!
The beaches of Lukannon--the home where we were
born!_
I meet my mates in the morning, a broken, scattered
band.
Men shoot us in the water and club us on the land;
Men drive us to the Salt House like silly sheep and
tame,
And still we sing Lukannon--before the sealers came.
_Wheel down, wheel down to southward; oh,
Gooverooska go!
And tell the Deep-Sea Viceroys the story of our woe;
Ere, empty as the shark's egg the tempest flings
ashore,
The beaches of Lukannon shall know their sons no
more!_
"RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI"
At the hole where he went in
Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin.
Hear what little Red-Eye saith:
"Nag, come up and dance with death!"
Eye to eye and head to head,
(_Keep the measure, Nag._)
This shall end when one is dead;
(_At thy pleasure, Nag._)
Turn for turn and twist for twist--
(_Run and hide thee, Nag._)
Hah! The hooded Death has missed!
(_Woe betide thee, Nag!_)
[Illustration]
"RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI"
THIS is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought
single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee
cantonment. Darzee, the tailor-bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the
muskrat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always
creeps round by the wall, gave him advice; but Rikki-tikki did the real
fighting.
He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but
quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end of
his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he
pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could
fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush, and his war-cry
as he scuttled through the long grass, was:
"_Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!_"
One day, a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived
with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down
a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of grass floating there, and
clung to it till he lost his senses. When he revived, he was lying in
the hot sun on the middle of a garden path, very draggled indeed, and a
small boy was saying: "Here's a dead mongoose. Let's have a funeral."
"No," said his mother; "let's take him in and dry him. Perhaps he isn't
really dead."
They took him into the house, and a big man picked him up between his
finger and thumb and said he was not dead but half choked; so they
wrapped him in cotton-wool, and warmed him, and he opened his eyes and
sneezed.
"Now," said the big man (he was an Englishman who had just moved into
the bungalow); "don't frighten him, and we'll see what he'll do."
It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he
is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the
mongoose family is, "Run and find out"; and Rikki-tikki was a true
mongoose. He looked at the cotton-wool, decided that it was not good to
eat, ran all round the table, sat up and put his fur in order, scratched
himself, and jumped on the small boy's shoulder.
"Don't be frightened, Teddy," said his father. "That's his way of making
friends."
"Ouch! He's tickling under my chin," said Teddy.
[Illustration: "RIKKI-TIKKI LOOKED DOWN BETWEEN THE BOY'S COLLAR AND
NECK."]
Rikki-tikki looked down between the boy's collar and neck, snuffed at
his ear, and climbed down to the floor, where he sat rubbing his nose.
"Good gracious," said Teddy's mother, "and that's a wild creature! I
suppose he's so tame because we've been kind to him."
"All mongooses are like that," said her husband. "If Teddy doesn't pick
him up by the tail, or try to put him in a cage, he'll run in and out of
the house all day long. Let's give him something to eat."
They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki-tikki liked it
immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the veranda and sat
in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. Then
he felt better.
"There are more things to find out about in this house," he said to
himself, "than all my family could find out in all their lives. I shall
certainly stay and find out."
[Illustration: "HE PUT HIS NOSE INTO THE INK."]
He spent all that day roaming over the house. He nearly drowned himself
in the bath-tubs, put his nose into the ink on a writing-table, and
burned it on the end of the big man's cigar, for he climbed up in the
big man's lap to see how writing was done. At nightfall he ran into
Teddy's nursery to watch how kerosene lamps were lighted, and when Teddy
went to bed Rikki-tikki climbed up too; but he was a restless companion,
because he had to get up and attend to every noise all through the
night, and find out what made it. Teddy's mother and father came in, the
last thing, to look at their boy, and Rikki-tikki was awake on the
pillow. "I don't like that," said Teddy's mother; "he may bite the
child." "He'll do no such thing," said the father. "Teddy's safer with
that little beast than if he had a bloodhound to watch him. If a snake
came into the nursery now--"
[Illustration: "RIKKI-TIKKI WAS AWAKE ON THE PILLOW."]
But Teddy's mother wouldn't think of anything so awful.
Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast in the veranda
riding on Teddy's shoulder, and they gave him banana and some boiled
egg; and he sat on all their laps one after the other, because every
well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a house-mongoose some day
and have rooms to run about in, and Rikki-tikki's mother (she used to
live in the General's house at Segowlee) had carefully told Rikki what
to do if ever he came across white men.
[Illustration: "HE CAME TO BREAKFAST RIDING ON TEDDY'S SHOULDER."]
Then Rikki-tikki went out into the garden to see what was to be seen. It
was a large garden, only half cultivated, with bushes as big as
summer-houses of Marshal Niel roses, lime and orange trees, clumps of
bamboos, and thickets of high grass. Rikki-tikki licked his lips. "This
is a splendid hunting-ground," he said, and his tail grew bottle-brushy
at the thought of it, and he scuttled up and down the garden, snuffing
here and there till he heard very sorrowful voices in a thorn-bush.
It was Darzee, the tailor-bird, and his wife. They had made a beautiful
nest by pulling two big leaves together and stitching them up the edges
with fibers, and had filled the hollow with cotton and downy fluff. The
nest swayed to and fro, as they sat on the rim and cried.
"What is the matter?" asked Rikki-tikki.
[Illustration: "'WE ARE VERY MISERABLE,' SAID DARZEE."]
"We are very miserable," said Darzee. "One of our babies fell out of the
nest yesterday and Nag ate him."
"H'm!" said Rikki-tikki, "that is very sad--but I am a stranger here.
Who is Nag?"
Darzee and his wife only cowered down in the nest without answering, for
from the thick grass at the foot of the bush there came a low hiss--a
horrid cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back two clear feet. Then
inch by inch out of the grass rose up the head and spread hood of Nag,
the big black cobra, and he was five feet long from tongue to tail. When
he had lifted one-third of himself clear of the ground, he stayed
balancing to and fro exactly as a dandelion-tuft balances in the wind,
and he looked at Rikki-tikki with the wicked snake's eyes that never
change their expression, whatever the snake may be thinking of.
"Who is Nag?" he said, "_I_ am Nag. The great god Brahm put his mark
upon all our people when the first cobra spread his hood to keep the sun
off Brahm as he slept. Look, and be afraid!"
[Illustration: "'I AM NAG,' SAID THE COBRA: 'LOOK, AND BE AFRAID!' BUT
AT THE BOTTOM OF HIS COLD HEART HE WAS AFRAID."]
He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikki-tikki saw the
spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part of
a hook-and-eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute; but it is
impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and
though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother had fed
him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose's business in
life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too, and at the bottom
of his cold heart he was afraid.
"Well," said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to fluff up again, "marks
or no marks, do you think it is right for you to eat fledglings out of a
nest?"
Nag was thinking to himself, and watching the least little movement in
the grass behind Rikki-tikki. He knew that mongooses in the garden meant
death sooner or later for him and his family; but he wanted to get
Rikki-tikki off his guard. So he dropped his head a little, and put it
on one side.
"Let us talk," he said. "You eat eggs. Why should not I eat birds?"
"Behind you! Look behind you!" sang Darzee.
Rikki-tikki knew better than to waste time in staring. He jumped up in
the air as high as he could go, and just under him whizzed by the head
of Nagaina, Nag's wicked wife. She had crept up behind him as he was
talking, to make an end of him; and he heard her savage hiss as the
stroke missed. He came down almost across her back, and if he had been
an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to break her
back with one bite; but he was afraid of the terrible lashing
return-stroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but did not bite long
enough, and he jumped clear of the whisking tail, leaving Nagaina torn
and angry.
[Illustration: "HE JUMPED UP IN THE AIR, AND JUST UNDER HIM WHIZZED BY
THE HEAD OF NAGAINA."]
"Wicked, wicked Darzee!" said Nag, lashing up as high as he could reach
toward the nest in the thorn-bush; but Darzee had built it out of reach
of snakes, and it only swayed to and fro.
Rikki-tikki felt his eyes growing red and hot (when a mongoose's eyes
grow red, he is angry), and he sat back on his tail and hind legs like a
little kangaroo, and looked all around him, and chattered with rage. But
Nag and Nagaina had disappeared into the grass. When a snake misses its
stroke, it never says anything or gives any sign of what it means to do
next. Rikki-tikki did not care to follow them, for he did not feel sure
that he could manage two snakes at once. So he trotted off to the
gravel path near the house, and sat down to think. It was a serious
matter for him.
If you read the old books of natural history, you will find they say
that when the mongoose fights the snake and happens to get bitten, he
runs off and eats some herb that cures him. That is not true. The
victory is only a matter of quickness of eye and quickness of
foot,--snake's blow against mongoose's jump,--and as no eye can follow
the motion of a snake's head when it strikes, that makes things much
more wonderful than any magic herb. Rikki-tikki knew he was a young
mongoose, and it made him all the more pleased to think that he had
managed to escape a blow from behind. It gave him confidence in himself,
and when Teddy came running down the path, Rikki-tikki was ready to be
petted.
But just as Teddy was stooping, something flinched a little in the dust,
and a tiny voice said: "Be careful. I am death!" It was Karait, the
dusty brown snakeling that lies for choice on the dusty earth; and his
bite is as dangerous as the cobra's. But he is so small that nobody
thinks of him, and so he does the more harm to people.
Rikki-tikki's eyes grew red again, and he danced up to Karait with the
peculiar rocking, swaying motion that he had inherited from his family.
It looks very funny, but it is so perfectly balanced a gait that you can
fly off from it at any angle you please; and in dealing with snakes this
is an advantage. If Rikki-tikki had only known, he was doing a much more
dangerous thing than fighting Nag, for Karait is so small, and can turn
so quickly, that unless Rikki bit him close to the back of the head, he
would get the return-stroke in his eye or lip. But Rikki did not know:
his eyes were all red, and he rocked back and forth, looking for a good
place to hold. Karait struck out. Rikki jumped sideways and tried to run
in, but the wicked little dusty gray head lashed within a fraction of
his shoulder, and he had to jump over the body, and the head followed
his heels close.
Teddy shouted to the house: "Oh, look here! Our mongoose is killing a
snake"; and Rikki-tikki heard a scream from Teddy's mother. His father
ran out with a stick, but by the time he came up, Karait had lunged out
once too far, and Rikki-tikki had sprung, jumped on the snake's back,
dropped his head far between his fore legs, bitten as high up the back
as he could get hold, and rolled away. That bite paralyzed Karait, and
Rikki-tikki was just going to eat him up from the tail, after the custom
of his family at dinner, when he remembered that a full meal makes a
slow mongoose, and if he wanted all his strength and quickness ready, he
must keep himself thin.
He went away for a dust-bath under the castor-oil bushes, while Teddy's
father beat the dead Karait. "What is the use of that?" thought
Rikki-tikki. "I have settled it all"; and then Teddy's mother picked him
up from the dust and hugged him, crying that he had saved Teddy from
death, and Teddy's father said that he was a providence, and Teddy
looked on with big scared eyes. Rikki-Tikki was rather amused at all the
fuss, which, of course, he did not understand. Teddy's mother might just
as well have petted Teddy for playing in the dust. Rikki was thoroughly
enjoying himself.
That night, at dinner, walking to and fro among the wine-glasses on the
table, he could have stuffed himself three times over with nice things;
but he remembered Nag and Nagaina, and though it was very pleasant to be
patted and petted by Teddy's mother, and to sit on Teddy's shoulder,
his eyes would get red from time to time, and he would go off into his
long war-cry of "_Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!_"
Teddy carried him off to bed, and insisted on Rikki-tikki sleeping under
his chin. Rikki-tikki was too well bred to bite or scratch, but as soon
as Teddy was asleep he went off for his nightly walk round the house,
and in the dark he ran up against Chuchundra, the muskrat, creeping
round by the wall. Chuchundra is a broken-hearted little beast. He
whimpers and cheeps all the night, trying to make up his mind to run
into the middle of the room, but he never gets there.
[Illustration: "IN THE DARK HE RAN UP AGAINST CHUCHUNDRA, THE MUSKRAT."]
"Don't kill me," said Chuchundra, almost weeping. "Rikki-tikki, don't
kill me."
"Do you think a snake-killer kills muskrats?" said Rikki-tikki
scornfully.
"Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes," said Chuchundra, more
sorrowfully than ever. "And how am I to be sure that Nag won't mistake
me for you some dark night?"
"There's not the least danger," said Rikki-tikki; "but Nag is in the
garden, and I know you don't go there."
"My cousin Chua, the rat, told me--" said Chuchundra, and then he
stopped.
"Told you what?"
"H'sh! Nag is everywhere, Rikki-tikki. You should have talked to Chua in
the garden."
"I didn't--so you must tell me. Quick, Chuchundra, or I'll bite you!"
Chuchundra sat down and cried till the tears rolled off his whiskers. "I
am a very poor man," he sobbed. "I never had spirit enough to run out
into the middle of the room. H'sh! I mustn't tell you anything. Can't
you _hear_, Rikki-tikki?"
Rikki-tikki listened. The house was as still as still, but he thought he
could just catch the faintest _scratch-scratch_ in the world,--a noise
as faint as that of a wasp walking on a window-pane,--the dry scratch of
a snake's scales on brickwork.
"That's Nag or Nagaina," he said to himself; "and he is crawling into
the bath-room sluice. You're right, Chuchundra; I should have talked to
Chua."
He stole off to Teddy's bath-room, but there was nothing there, and then
to Teddy's mother's bath-room. At the bottom of the smooth plaster wall
there was a brick pulled out to make a sluice for the bath-water, and as
Rikki-tikki stole in by the masonry curb where the bath is put, he heard
Nag and Nagaina whispering together outside in the moonlight.
"When the house is emptied of people," said Nagaina to her husband,
"_he_ will have to go away, and then the garden will be our own again.
Go in quietly, and remember that the big man who killed Karait is the
first one to bite. Then come out and tell me, and we will hunt for
Rikki-tikki together."
"But are you sure that there is anything to be gained by killing the
people?" said Nag.
"Everything. When there were no people in the bungalow, did we have any
mongoose in the garden? So long as the bungalow is empty, we are king
and queen of the garden; and remember that as soon as our eggs in the
melon-bed hatch (as they may to-morrow), our children will need room and
quiet."
"I had not thought of that," said Nag. "I will go, but there is no need
that we should hunt for Rikki-tikki afterward. I will kill the big man
and his wife, and the child if I can, and come away quietly. Then the
bungalow will be empty, and Rikki-tikki will go."
Rikki-tikki tingled all over with rage and hatred at this, and then
Nag's head came through the sluice, and his five feet of cold body
followed it. Angry as he was, Rikki-tikki was very frightened as he saw
the size of the big cobra. Nag coiled himself up, raised his head, and
looked into the bath-room in the dark, and Rikki could see his eyes
glitter.
"Now, if I kill him here, Nagaina will know; and if I fight him on the
open floor, the odds are in his favor. What am I to do?" said
Rikki-tikki-tavi.
Nag waved to and fro, and then Rikki-tikki heard him drinking from the
biggest water-jar that was used to fill the bath. "That is good," said
the snake. "Now, when Karait was killed, the big man had a stick. He may
have that stick still, but when he comes in to bathe in the morning he
will not have a stick. I shall wait here till he comes. Nagaina--do you
hear me?--I shall wait here in the cool till daytime."
There was no answer from outside, so Rikki-tikki knew Nagaina had gone
away. Nag coiled himself down, coil by coil, round the bulge at the
bottom of the water-jar, and Rikki-tikki stayed still as death. After an
hour he began to move, muscle by muscle, toward the jar. Nag was asleep,
and Rikki-tikki looked at his big back, wondering which would be the
best place for a good hold. "If I don't break his back at the first
jump," said Rikki, "he can still fight; and if he fights--O Rikki!" He
looked at the thickness of the neck below the hood, but that was too
much for him; and a bite near the tail would only make Nag savage.
"It must be the head," he said at last: "the head above the hood; and,
when I am once there, I must not let go."
Then he jumped. The head was lying a little clear of the water-jar,
under the curve of it; and, as his teeth met, Rikki braced his back
against the bulge of the red earthenware to hold down the head. This
gave him just one second's purchase, and he made the most of it. Then he
was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog--to and fro on the
floor, up and down, and round in great circles; but his eyes were red,
and he held on as the body cartwhipped over the floor, upsetting the tin
dipper and the soap-dish and the flesh-brush, and banged against the tin
side of the bath. As he held he closed his jaws tighter and tighter,
for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honor of his
family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked. He was dizzy,
aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off like a
thunderclap just behind him; a hot wind knocked him senseless and red
fire singed his fur. The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had
fired both barrels of a shot-gun into Nag just behind the hood.
[Illustration: "THEN RIKKI-TIKKI WAS BATTERED TO AND FRO AS A RAT IS
SHAKEN BY A DOG."]
Rikki-tikki held on with his eyes shut, for now he was quite sure he was
dead; but the head did not move, and the big man picked him up and said:
"It's the mongoose again, Alice; the little chap has saved _our_ lives
now." Then Teddy's mother came in with a very white face, and saw what
was left of Nag, and Rikki-tikki dragged himself to Teddy's bedroom and
spent half the rest of the night shaking himself tenderly to find out
whether he really was broken into forty pieces, as he fancied.
When morning came he was very stiff, but well pleased with his doings.
"Now I have Nagaina to settle with, and she will be worse than five
Nags, and there's no knowing when the eggs she spoke of will hatch.
Goodness! I must go and see Darzee," he said.
Without waiting for breakfast, Rikki-tikki ran to the thorn-bush where
Darzee was singing a song of triumph at the top of his voice. The news
of Nag's death was all over the garden, for the sweeper had thrown the
body on the rubbish-heap.
"Oh, you stupid tuft of feathers!" said Rikki-tikki, angrily. "Is this
the time to sing?"
"Nag is dead--is dead--is dead!" sang Darzee. "The valiant Rikki-tikki
caught him by the head and held fast. The big man brought the bang-stick
and Nag fell in two pieces! He will never eat my babies again."
"All that's true enough; but where's Nagaina?" said Rikki-tikki, looking
carefully round him.
"Nagaina came to the bath-room sluice and called for Nag," Darzee went
on; "and Nag came out on the end of a stick--the sweeper picked him up
on the end of a stick and threw him upon the rubbish-heap. Let us sing
about the great, the red-eyed Rikki-tikki!" and Darzee filled his throat
and sang.
"If I could get up to your nest, I'd roll all your babies out!" said
Rikki-tikki. "You don't know when to do the right thing at the right
time. You're safe enough in your nest there, but it's war for me down
here. Stop singing a minute, Darzee."
"For the great, the beautiful Rikki-tikki's sake I will stop," said
Darzee. "What is it, O Killer of the terrible Nag!"
"Where is Nagaina, for the third time?"
"On the rubbish-heap by the stables, mourning for Nag. Great is
Rikki-tikki with the white teeth."
"Bother my white teeth! Have you ever heard where she keeps her eggs?"
"In the melon-bed, on the end nearest the wall, where the sun strikes
nearly all day. She had them there weeks ago."
"And you never thought it worth while to tell me? The end nearest the
wall, you said?"
"Rikki-tikki, you are not going to eat her eggs?"
"Not eat exactly; no. Darzee, if you have a grain of sense you will fly
off to the stables and pretend that your wing is broken, and let Nagaina
chase you away to this bush? I must get to the melon-bed, and if I went
there now she'd see me."
Darzee was a feather-brained little fellow who could never hold more
than one idea at a time in his head; and just because he knew that
Nagaina's children were born in eggs like his own, he didn't think at
first that it was fair to kill them. But his wife was a sensible bird,
and she knew that cobra's eggs meant young cobras later on; so she
flew off from the nest, and left Darzee to keep the babies warm, and
continue his song about the death of Nag. Darzee was very like a man in
some ways.
She fluttered in front of Nagaina by the rubbish-heap, and cried out,
"Oh, my wing is broken! The boy in the house threw a stone at me and
broke it." Then she fluttered more desperately than ever.
[Illustration: DARZEE'S WIFE PRETENDS TO HAVE BROKEN A WING.]
Nagaina lifted up her head and hissed, "You warned Rikki-tikki when I
would have killed him. Indeed and truly, you've chosen a bad place to be
lame in." And she moved toward Darzee's wife, slipping along over the
dust.
"The boy broke it with a stone!" shrieked Darzee's wife.
"Well! It may be some consolation to you when you're dead to know that I
shall settle accounts with the boy. My husband lies on the rubbish-heap
this morning, but before night the boy in the house will lie very still.
What is the use of running away? I am sure to catch you. Little fool,
look at me!"
Darzee's wife knew better than to do _that_, for a bird who looks at a
snake's eyes gets so frightened that she cannot move. Darzee's wife
fluttered on, piping sorrowfully, and never leaving the ground, and
Nagaina quickened her pace.
Rikki-tikki heard them going up the path from the stables, and he raced
for the end of the melon-patch near the wall. There, in the warm litter
about the melons, very cunningly hidden, he found twenty-five e
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