 Section 1 of the Second Jungle Book This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Read by Reynard The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Section 1 How Fear Came Part 1 The stream is shrunk, the pool is dry, and we be comrades thou and I, with fevered jowl and dusty flank, each jostling each along the bank, and by one droughty fear made still, foregoing thought of quest or kill. Now, neath this dam the fawn may see, the lean-packed wolf as cowed as he, and the tall buck unflinching note, the fangs that tore his father's throat. The pools are shrunk, the streams are dry, and we be playmates thou and I, till yon the cloud, good hunting, loosed, the rain that breaks our water truce, the law of the jungle, which is by far the oldest law in the world, has arranged for almost every kind of accident that may befall the jungle people. Till now its code is as perfect as time and custom can make it. You will remember that Mowgli spends a great deal of his life in the C&E Wolfpack, learning the law from Baloo, the brown bear, and it was Baloo who told him when the boy grew impatient at the constant orders that the law was like the giant creeper because it dropped across everyone's back and no one could escape. When thou hast lived as long as I have, little brother, thou wilt see all the jungle obeys at least one law, and that will be no pleasant sight, said Baloo. This talk went in at one ear and out at the other for a boy who spends his life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till it actually stares him in the face. But one year, Baloo's words came true and Mowgli saw all the jungle working under the law. It began when the winter rains failed almost entirely and Icky, the porcupine, meeting Mowgli in a bamboo thicket, told him that the wild yams were drying up. Now everybody knows that Icky is ridiculously fastidious in his choice of food and will eat nothing but the very best and ripest. So Mowgli laughed and said, What is that to me? Not much now, said Icky, rattling his quills in a stiff, uncomfortable way. But later we shall see. Is there any more diving into the deep rock pool below the bee rock's little brother? No, the foolish water is all going all away and I do not wish to break my head, said Mowgli, who in those days was quite sure that he knew as much as any five of the jungle people put together. That is thy loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom. Icky ducked quickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling those bristles, and Mowgli told Baloo what Icky had said. Baloo looked very grave and mumbled half to himself. If I were alone, I would change my hunting grounds now before the others began to think. And yet, hunting among strangers ends in fighting and they might hurt the man-cub. We must wait and see how this mohoa blooms. That spring, the mohoa tree, that Baloo was so fond of, never flowered. The greeny, cream-coloured waxy blossoms were heat-killed before they were born and only a few bad-smelling petals came down when he stood on his hind legs and shook the tree. Then, inch by inch, the untempered heat crept into the heart of the jungle, turning it yellow, brown, and at last, cast black. The green growths in the sides of the ravines burned up to broken wires and curled films of dead stuff. The hidden pools sank down and caked over, keeping the last leased footmark on their edges as if it had been cast in iron. The juicy, stemmed creepers fell away from the trees they clung to and died at their feet. The bamboos withered, clanking when the hot winds blew and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in the jungle till they were as bare and as hot as the quivering blue boulders in the bed of the stream. The birds and the monkey people went north early in the year for they knew what was coming. And the deer and the wild pig broke far away to the perished fields of the villages, crying sometimes before the eyes of men too weak to kill them. Chill, the kite, stayed and grew fat for there was a great deal of carrion. And evening after evening he brought news to the beasts too weak to force their way to fresh hunting grounds that the sun was killing the jungle for three days' flight in every direction. Mowgli, who had never known what real hunger meant, fell back on stale honey three years old, scraped out of deserted rock hives. Honey black as a slow and dusty with dried sugar. He hunted too for deep boring grubs under the bark of the trees and robbed the wasps of their new broods. All the game in the jungle was no more than skin and bone and the bargeera could kill thrice in a night and hardly get a full meal. But the want of water was the worst. For though the jungle people drink seldom they must drink deep and the heat went on and on and sucked up all the moisture till at last the main channel of the Wangunga was the only stream that carried a trickle of water between its dead banks. And when Hattie, the wild elephant who lives for a hundred years and more, saw a long, lean, blue ridge of rock show dry in the very centre of the stream he knew that he was looking at the peace rock. And then and there he lifted up his trunk and proclaimed the water truce as his father for him had proclaimed it fifty years ago. The deer, wild pig and buffalo took up the cry hoarsely and chill the kite flew in great circles far and wide whistling and shrieking the warning. By the law of the jungle it is death to kill at the drinking places when once the water truce has been declared. The reason for this is that drinking comes before eating. Everyone in the jungle can scramble along somehow when only game is scarce. But water is water and then when there is but one source of supply all hunting stops while the jungle people go there for their needs. In good seasons when water was plentiful those who came down to drink at the Wangunga or anywhere else for that matter did so at the risk of their lives and that risk made no small part of the fascination of the night's doings. To move down so cunningly that never a leaf stirred to wade knee deep in the roaring shallows that drown all noise from behind to drink looking backward over one shoulder every muscle ready for the first desperate bound of keen terror to roll on the sandy margin and return wet muzzled and well plumped out to the admiring herd was a thing that all tall antler young books took a delight in precisely because they knew that at any moment Bagheera or Sheikhan might leap upon them and bear them down. But now all that life and death fun was ended and the jungle people came up starved and weary to the shrunken river. Tiger, bear, deer, buffalo and pig all together drank the fouled waters and hung above them too exhausted to move off. The deer and the pig had tramped all day in search of something better than dried bark and withered leaves. The buffaloes had found no wallows to be cool in and no green crops to steal. The snakes had left the jungle and come down to the river in the hope of finding a stray frog. They curled around wet stones and never offered to strike when the nose of a rooting pig dislodged them. The river turtles had long ago been killed by Bagheera, cleverest of hunters and the fish had buried themselves deep in the dry mud. Only the peace rock lay across the shallows like a long snake and the little tired ripples hissed as they dried on its hot side. It was here that Mowgli came nightly for the cool and the companionship. The most hungry of his enemies would hardly have cared for the boy then. His naked hide made him seem more lean and wretched than any of his fellows. His hair was bleached to toe colour by the sun. His ribs stood out like the ribs of a basket and the lumps on his knees and elbows where he was used to track on all fours gave his shrunken limbs the look of knotted grass stems. But his eye under his matted forelock was cool and quiet for Bagheera was his adviser in this time of trouble and told him to go quietly, hunt slowly and never on any account to lose his temper. It is an evil time said the Black Panther. One furnace hot evening. But it will go if we can live till the end. Is thy stomach full, man cub? There is stuff in my stomach. But I get no good of it, thank you Bagheera. The rains have forgotten us and will never come again. Not I. We shall see the Mahua in blossom yet and the little thorns all fat with new grass. Come down to the peace rock and hear the news. On my back little brother. This is no time to carry weight. I can still stand alone but indeed we beat no fatted bullocks we too. Bagheera looked along his ragged dusty flank and whispered last night I killed a bullock under the yoke. So low was I bought that I think I should not have dared to spring if he had been loose. Whoa! Mowgli laughed. Yes we be great hunters now said he. I am very bold to eat grubs. And the two came down together through the crackling undergrowth to the riverbank and the lacework of shoals that ran out from it in every direction. The water cannot live long said Baloo joining them. Look across. Yonder our trails like the roads of man. On the level plain of the father bank the stiff jungle grass had dried standing and dying had mummied. The beaten tracks of the deer and the pig all heading toward the river had striped that colourless plain with dusty gullies driven through the ten foot grass and early as it was each long avenue was full of first comers hastening to the water. You could hear the doze and thorns coughing in the snuff like dust. Up stream at the bend of the sluggish pool round the peace rock and warden of the water truce stood Hattie the wild elephant with his sons gaunt and grey in the moonlight rocking to and fro always rocking. Below him a little with a vanguard of the deer below these again the pig and the wild buffalo and on the opposite bank where the tall trees came down to the water's edge was the place set apart for the eaters of flesh the tiger the wolves the panther the bear and the others. We are under one law indeed said Barguera wading into the water and looking across at the lines of clicking horns and starting eyes where the deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro. Good hunting all you of my blood he added lying down at full length one flank thrust out of the shallows and then between his teeth but for that which is the law it would be very good hunting. The quick spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence and a frightened whisper ran along the ranks the truce remember the truce peace there peace girdled Hattie the wild elephant the truce holds Barguera this is no time to talk of hunting who should know better than I Barguera answered rolling his yellow eyes upstream I am an eater of turtles a fisher of frogs would I could get good from chewing branches we wish so very greatly beleted a young thorn who had only been born that spring and did not at all like it Richard as the jungle people were even Hattie could not help chuckling while Mowgli lying on his elbows in the warm water laughed and loud and beat up the scum with his feet well spoken little bud horn Barguera purred when the truce ends that shall be remembered in thy favour and he looked keenly through the darkness to make sure of recognising the thorn again gradually the talking spread up and down the drinking places one could hear the scuffling snorting pig asking for more room the buffaloes grunting among themselves as they lurched out across the sandbars and the deer telling pitiful stories of their foot long sore wanderings in quest of food now and again they asked some questions of the eaters of flesh across the river but all the news was bad and the roaring hot wind of the jungle came and went between the rocks and the rattling branches twigs and dust on the water the men folk too they died beside their plows said a young Samba I passed three between sunset and night they lay still and their bullocks with them we also shall lie still in a little the river has fallen since last night said Baloo oh Hattie has thou ever seen the like of this drought it will pass, it will pass said Hattie squirting water along his back and sides we have one here that cannot endure long said Baloo and he looked towards the boy he loved I said Mowgli indignantly sitting up in the water I have no long fur to cover my bones but if thy hide were taken off Baloo Hattie shook all over at the idea and Baloo said severely man cup that is not seemly to tell a teacher of the law never have I been seen without my hide nay I meant no harm Baloo but only that thou art as it were like the coconut in the husk and I am the same coconut all naked now that brown husk of thine Mowgli was sitting cross-legged and explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way when Bagheera put out a paddy-pore and pulled him over backward into the water worse and worse said the black panther as the boy rose spluttering first Baloo is to be skinned and now he is a coconut be careful that he does not do what the ripe coconuts do and what is that said Mowgli off his guard for the minute though that is one of the oldest catches in the jungle break thy head said Bagheera quietly pulling him under again it is not good to make a jest of thy teacher said the bear when Mowgli had been ducked for the third time not good what would he have that naked thing running to and fro makes a monkey jest of those who have once been good hunters and pulled the best of us by the whiskers for sport this was sheer calm the lame tiger limping down to the water he waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the deer on the opposite to lap growling the jungle has become a welping ground for naked cubs now look at me man cub Mowgli looked stared rather as insolently as he knew how and in a minute sheer calm turned away uneasily man cub this and man cub that he rumbled going on with his drink the cub is neither man nor cub or he would have been afraid next season I shall have to beg his leave for a drink that may come too said Bagheera looking him steadily between the eyes that may come too sheer calm what new shame has thou bought here the lame tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water and dark oily streaks were floating from it downstream man said sheer calm coolly I killed an hour since he went on purring and growling to himself the line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro and a whisper went up that grew to a cry man man he has killed man then all looked towards Hattie the wild elephant but he seemed not to hear Hattie never does anything till the time comes and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long had such a season as this to kill man was no other gamer foot said Bagheera scornfully drawing himself out of the tainted water and shaking each poor cat's fashion as he did so I killed for choice not for food the horrified whisper began again and Hattie's watchful little white eye cocked itself in sheer calm's direction for choice sheer calm drawled now I come to drink and make me clean again is there any to forbid Bagheera's back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind but Hattie lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly thy girl was from choice he asked and when Hattie asked the question it is best to answer even so it was my right and my night thou knowest oh Hattie sheer calm spoke almost courteously yes I know Hattie answered and after a little silence hast thou drunk thy fill for tonight yes go then the river is to drink and not to defile none but the lame tiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when we suffer together man and jungle people alike clean or unclean get to thy lair sheer calm the last words rang out like silver trumpets and Hattie's three sons rolled forward half a pace though there was no need sheer calm slunk away not daring to growl for he knew what everyone else knows that when the last comes to the last Hattie is the master of the jungle end of section one section two of the second jungle book this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Reynard the second jungle book by Rudyard Kipling section two how fear came part two what is this right sheer calm speaks of modally whispered in Varghira's ear a kill man is always shameful the law says so and yet Hattie says ask him I do not know little brother right or no right if Hattie had not spoken I would have taught that lame butch his lesson to come to the peace rock fresh from a kill of man and to both of it is a jackals trick besides he tainted the good water Mowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage because no one dared to address Hattie directly and then he cried what is sheer calm's right oh Hattie both banks echoed his words for all the people of the jungle are intensely curious they had just seen something that none except Baloo who looked very thoughtful seemed to understand it is an old tale said Hattie a tale older than the jungle keep silence along the banks and I will tell that tale there was a minute or two of pushing a shouldering among the pigs and the buffalo and then the leaders of the herds grunted one after another we wait and Hattie strode forward till he was nearly knee deep in the pool by the peace rock lean and wrinkled and yellow tusked though he was he looked what the jungle knew him to be their master you know children he began that of all things you most fear man and there was a matter of agreement this tale touches the little brother said Bagheera to Mowgli I am of the pack a hunter of the free people Mowgli answered what have I to do with man and you do not know why you fear man Hattie went on this is the reason in the beginning of the jungle and none know when that was we of the jungle walked together having no fear of one another in those days there was no drought and leaves and flowers and fruit grew on the same tree and we eat nothing at all except leaves and flowers and grass and fruit and bark I am glad I was not born in those days said Bagheera bark is only good to sharpen claws and the lord of the jungle was Starr the first of the elephants he drew the jungle out of deep waters with his trunk and where he made furrows in the ground with his tusks there the rivers ran and where he struck with his foot there rose ponds of good water and when he blew through his trunk thus the trees fell that was the manner in which the jungle was made by Tha and so the tale was told to me it has not lost fat in the telling Bagheera whispered and Mowgli lost behind his hand in those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or sugarcane nor were there any little huts such as you have all seen and the jungle people knew nothing of man but lived in the jungle together making one people but presently they began to dispute over their food though there was grazing enough for all they were lazy each wished to eat where he lay as sometimes we can do now when the spring rains are good Tha the first of the elephants was busy making new jungles and leading the rivers in their beds he could not walk in all places therefore he made the first of the tigers the master and the judge of the jungle to whom the jungle people should bring their disputes in those days the first of the tigers ate fruit and grassed with the others he was as large as I am and he was very beautiful in colour all over like the blossom of the yellow creeper there was never stripe nor bar upon his hide in those good days when the jungle was new all the jungle came before him without fear and his word was the law of all the jungle we were then remember ye one people yet upon a night there was a dispute between two bucks a grazing quarrel such as ye now settle with the horns and the forefeet and it is said that as the two spoke together before the first of the first of the tigers lying among the flowers a buck pushed him with his horns and the first of the tigers forgot that he was the master and judge of the jungle and leaping upon that buck broke his neck till that night never one of us had died and the first of the tigers seeing what he had done and being made foolish by the scent of the blood run away into the marshes of the north and we of the jungle left without a judge fell to fighting amongst ourselves and thar heard the noise of it and came back then some of us said this and some of us said that but he saw the dead buck among the flowers and asked who had killed and we of the jungle would not tell because the smell of the blood made us foolish we ran to and fro in circles capering and crying out and shaking our heads then thar gave an order to the trees that hang low and to the trailing creepers of the jungle that they should mark the killer of the buck so that he should know him again and he said who will now be master of the jungle people then up leaped the grey ape who lives in the branches and said I will now be master of the jungle and thar laughed and said so be it and went away very angry children you know the grey ape he was then as he is now at the first he made a wise face for himself but in a little while he began to scratch and to leap up and down and when thar came back he found the grey ape hanging head down from a bow mocking those who stood below and they mocked him again and so there was no law in the jungle only foolish talk and senseless words then thar called us all together and said the first of your masters has brought death into the jungle and the second shame now it is time there was a law and a law that you must not break now you shall know fear when you have found him you shall know that he is your master and the rest shall follow then we of the jungle said what is fear? and thar said seek till he find so he went up and down the jungle seeking for fear and presently the buffaloes ugh said mice are the leader of the buffaloes from their sad bank yes myster it was the buffaloes they came back with the news that in a cave in the jungle sat fear and that he had no hair and went upon his hind legs then we of the jungle followed the herd till we came to that cave and fear stood at the mouth of it and he was as the buffaloes had said hairless and he walked upon his hind legs when he saw us he cried out and his voice filled us with the fear that we have now of that voice when we hear it and we ran away tramping upon and tearing each other because we were afraid that night so it was told to me we of the jungle did not lie down together as used to be our custom but each tribe drew off by itself the pig with the pig the deer with the deer down to horn hoof to hoof like keeping to like and so lay shaking in the jungle only the first of the tigers was not with us for he was still hidden in the marshes of the north and when word was brought to him of the thing we had seen in the cave he said I will go to this thing and break his neck so he ran all the night till he came to the cave but the trees and the creepers on his path remembering the order that Thar had given let down their branches and marked him as he ran drawing their fingers across his back his flank, his forehead and his jowl wherever they touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his yellow hide and those stripes through this children wear to his day when he came to the cave fear the hairless one put out his hand and called him the striped one that comes by night and the first of the tigers was afraid of the hairless one and ran back to the swamps howling Mowkely chuckled quietly here his chin in the water so loud did he howl that Thar heard him and said what is the sorrow and the first of the tigers lifting up his muzzle to the new made sky which is now so old said give me back my power O Thar I am made ashamed before all the jungle and I have run away from a hairless one and he has called me a shameful name and why said Thar because I am smeared with the mud of the marshes said the first of the tigers swim then and roll on the wet grass if it be mud it will wash away said Thar and the first of the tigers swam and rolled and rolled upon the grass till the jungle ran round and round before his eyes but not one little bar upon his hide was changed and Thar watching him laughed then the first of the tigers said what have I done that this comes to me Thar said Thou has killed the bark and Thou has let death loose in the jungle and with death has come fear so that the people of the jungle are afraid of one of the other as Thou art afraid of the hairless one the first of the tigers said they will never fear me for I knew them since the beginning Thar said go and see and the first of the tigers ran to and fro calling aloud to the deer and the pig and the sambar and the porcupine and all the jungle peoples and they all ran away from him who had been their judge because they were afraid then the first of the tigers came back and his pride was broken in him and beating his head upon the ground he tore up the earth with all his feet and said remember that I was once the master of the jungle do not forget me Thar let my children remember that I was once without shame or fear and Thar said this much I will do because Thou and I together saw the jungle made for one night in each year it shall be as it was before the buck was killed for thee and for thy children in that one night if ye meet the hairless one and his name is man ye shall not be afraid of him but he shall be afraid of you as though you were the judge of the jungle and master of all things show him mercy in that night of his fear for thou has known what fear is then the first of the tigers answered I am content but when next he drank he saw the black stripes upon his flank and his side and he remembered the name that the hairless one had given him he was angry for a year he lived in the marshes waiting till Thar should keep his promise and upon a night when the jackal of the moon the evening star stood clear of the jungle he felt that his night was upon him and he went to that cave to meet the hairless one then it happened as Thar promised for the hairless one fell down before him and lay along the ground and the first of the tigers struck him and broke his back for he thought that there was but one such thing in the jungle and that he had killed fear then, nosing above the kill he heard Thar coming down from the woods of the north and presently the voice of the first of the elephants which is the voice that we hear now the thunder was rolling up and down the dry scarred hills but it brought no rain, only heat lightning that flickered along the ridges and hut he went on that was the voice he heard and it said is this thy mercy? the first of the tigers lipped his lips and said what matter? I have killed fear and Thar said oh blind and foolish thou hast untied the feet of death he will follow thy trail till thou dyest thou hast taught man to kill the first of the tigers standing stiffly to his kill said he is as the buck was there is no fear now I will judge the jungle peoples once more and Thar said never again shall the jungle peoples come to thee they shall never cross thy trail nor sleep near thee nor follow after thee nor browse by thy lair only fear shall follow thee and with a blow that thou canst not see he shall bid thee wait his pleasure he shall make the ground to open under thy feet and the creeper to twist about thy neck and the tree trunks to grow together about thee higher than thou can leap and at the last he shall take thy hide to wrap his cubs when they are cold thou hast shown him no mercy and none will he show thee the first of the tigers was very bold for his night was still on him and he said the promise of Thar is the promise of Thar he will not take away my night and Thar said the one night is thine as I have said but there is a price to pay thou hast taught man to kill and he is no slow learner the first of the tigers said he is here under my foot and his back is broken let the jungle know I have killed fear then Thar laughed and said thou hast killed one of many but thou thyself shall tell the jungle for thy night is ended so the day came and from the mouth of the cave went out another hairless one and he saw the kill in the path and the first of the tigers above it and he took a pointed stick they throw a thing that cuts now said Iki rusting down the bank for Iki was considered uncommonly good eating by the gondes they called him Ho Igu and he knew something of the wicked little gondy axe that whirls across a clearing like a dragonfly it was a pointed stick such as they put in the foot of a pitch trap said Hati and throwing it he struck the first of the tigers deep in the flank thus it happened as Thar said for the first of the tigers ran howling up and down the jungle till he tore out the stick and all the jungle knew that the hairless one could strike from far off and they feared more than before so it came about that the first of the tigers tore the hairless one to kill and you know what harm that has since done to all our peoples through the noose and the pitfall and the hidden trap and the flying stick and the stinging fly that comes out of white smoke Hati meant the rifle and the red flower that drives us into the open yet for one night in the year the hairless one fears the tiger as Thar promised and never has the tiger given him cause to be less afraid where he finds him there he kills him remembering how the first of the tigers was made ashamed for the rest fear walks up and down the jungle by day and by night Ahi, ooh! said the deer thinking of what it all meant to them and only when there is one great fear overall as there is now can we of the jungle lay aside our little fears and meet together in one place as we do now for one night only does man fear the tiger, said Mowgli for one night only but I, but we but all the jungle knows that Sheer Khan kills man twice and thrice in a moon even so then he springs from behind and turns his head aside as he strikes for he is full of fear if man looked at him he would run but on his one night he goes openly down to the village he walks between the houses and thrusts his head into the doorway and the men fall on their faces and there he does his kill one kill in that night Oh! said Mowgli to himself rolling over in the water now I see why it was Sheer Khan who made me look at him he got no good of it for he could not hold his eyes steady and I certainly did not fall down at his feet but then I am not a man being of the free people Oh! said Bagheera deep in his furry throat does the tiger know his night? never till the jackal of the moon stands clear of the evening mist sometimes it falls in the dry summer and sometimes in the wet rains this one night of the tiger but for the first of the tigers this would never have been nor would any of us have known fear the deer grunted sorrowfully and Bagheera's lip curled in a wicked smile do men know this tale? said he none know it except the tigers and we the elephants the children of Tha now ye by the pools have heard it and I have spoken Hattie dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not wish to talk but but but said Mowgli turning to Baloo why did not the first of the tigers continue to eat grass and leaves and trees he did but break the buck's neck to eat what led him to the hot meat the trees and creepers marked him little brother and made him the striped thing that we see never again would he eat their fruit but from that day he revenge himself upon the deer and the others the eaters of grass said Baloo then thou knowest the tale ha why have I never heard because the jungle is full of such tales if I made a beginning there would never be an end to them let go my here little brother end of section 2 section 3 of the second jungle book this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Reynard the second jungle book by Rudyard Kipling section 3 the law of the jungle just to give you an idea of the immense variety of the jungle law I have translated into verse Baloo always recited them in a sort of sing song a few of the laws that apply to the wolves there are of course hundreds and hundreds more but these will do for specimens of the simpler rulings now this is the law of the jungle as old and as true as the sky and the wolf that shall keep it may prosper but the wolf that shall break it must die as the creeper that girdles the tree trunk the law runneth forward and back for the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack wash daily from nose tip to tail tip drink deeply but never too deep and remember the night is for hunting and forget not the day is for sleep the jackal may follow the tiger but cub when thy whiskers are grown remember the wolf is a hunter go forth and get food of thine own keep peace with the lords of the jungle the tiger, the panther, the bear and trouble not hearty the silent and mock not the boar in his lair when pack meets with pack in the jungle and neither will go from the trail lie down till the leaders have spoken it may be fair words shall prevail when ye fight with the wolf of the pack ye must fight him alone and afar lest others take part in the quarrel and the pack be diminished by war the lair of the wolf is his refuge but where he has digged it too plain the council shall send him a message and so he shall change it again if ye kill before midnight be silent and wake not the woods with your bay lest ye frighten the deer from the crops and the brothers go empty away kill for yourselves and your mates and your cubs as they need and ye can but kill not for pleasure of killing and seven times never kill man if ye plunder his kill from a weaker devour not all in thy pride pack right is the right of the meanest so leave him the head and the hide the kill of the pack is the meat of the pack ye must eat it where it lies and no one may carry away of that meat to his lair or he dies the kill of the wolf is the meat of the wolf he may do what he will but till he has given permission the pack may not eat of that kill cub right is the right of the yearling from all of his pack he may claim for gorge when the killer has eaten a none may refuse him the same lair right is the right of the mother from all of her year she may claim one haunt of each kill for her litter and none may deny her the same cub right is the right of the father to hunt by himself for his own he is freed of all calls to the pack he is judged by the council alone because of his age and his cunning because of his gripe and his poor in all that the law leaveeth open the word of the head wolf is law now these are the laws of the jungle and many and mighty are they but the head and the hoof of the law and the haunch and the hump is obey end of section 3 a second jungle book by Rudney and Kipling section 4 the night we felt the earth would move we stole and plucked him by the hand because we loved him with the love that knows but cannot understand and when the roaring hillside broke and all our world fell down in rain we saved him with the little folk but lo he does not come again more now we saved him for the sake of such poor love as wild ones may more near our brothers will not wake and his own kind drive us away dirge of the lingas he was once a man in India who was prime minister of one of the semi-independent native states in the north western part of the country he was a brahman so high caste that caste ceased to have any particular meaning for him and his father had been an important official in the gay-colored tag-rag-and-bob tale of an old-fashioned Hindu court but as Purindas grew up he felt that the old order of things was changing and that if anyone wished to get on in the world he must stand well with the English and imitate all of the English believed to be good at the same time a native official must keep his own master's favour this was a difficult game but the quite closed mouth young brahman helped by a good English education at a Bombay university played it coolly and rose step-by-step to be prime minister of the kingdom that is to say he held more real power than his master the Maharaja when the old king who was suspicious of the English their railways and telegraphs died Purindas stood high with his young successor who had been tutored by an Englishman and between them though he always took care that his master should have the credit they established schools for little girls made roads and started state dispensaries and shows of agricultural implements and published a yearly blue book on the moral and material progress of the state and the foreign office and the government of India were delighted very few native states take up English progress altogether for they will not believe as Purindas showed he did that what was good for the Englishman must be twice as good for the Asiatic the prime minister became the honoured friend of Vice Royce and Governor and Lieutenant Governor and medical missionaries and common missionaries and the hard-riding English officers who came to shoot in the state preserves as well as all hosts of tourists who travelled up and down India in the cold weather showing how things ought to be managed in his spare time he would endure scholarships for the study of medicine and manufacturers on strictly English lines and write letters to the pioneer the greatest Indian daily paper explaining his master's aims and object at last he went to England on a visit and had to pay enormous sums to the priests when he came back for even so higher caste of Brahmin as Purindas lost caste by crossing the Black Sea in London he met and talked with everyone worth knowing men whose names go all over the world and saw a great deal more than he said he was given honorary degrees by learned universities and he made speeches and talked of Hindu social reform to English ladies and evening dress to all London crowd this is the most fascinating man we have ever met at dinner since cloths were first laid when he returned to India there was a blaze of glory for the Vice Royce himself made a special visit further upon the Maharaja the grand cross of the star of India all diamonds and ribbons and enamel and at the same ceremony while the cannon boom Purindas was made a night commander of the Order of the Indian Empire so that his name stood Sir Purindas K.C.I.E that evening at dinner in the big Vice Regal tent he stood up with the badge and the collar of the order on his breast and replying to the toast of his master's health made a speech few Englishmen could have betted next month when the city had returned to its sunbaked quiet he did a thing no Englishmen would have dreamed of doing so far as the world's affairs went he died the jeweled order of his knighthood went back to the Indian government and a new Prime Minister was appointed to the charge of affairs and a great game of general post began in all subordinate appointments the priests knew what had happened and the people guessed but India is the one place in the world where a man can do as he pleases and no one asked why and the fact that D.1. Sir Purindas K.C.I.E had resigned position, palace and power and taken up the begging bowl and ochre-colored dress of a sannyasa or holy man was considered nothing extraordinary he had been as the old law recommends 20 years of youth he was a fighter, though he had never carried a weapon in his life and 20 years head of a household he had used his wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth he had taken honour when it came his way he had seen men and cities far and near and men and cities had stood up and honoured him now he would let those things go as a man drops the cloak he no longer needs behind him as he walked through the city gate an antelope skin and brass handle crutch under his arm and a begging bowl of polished brown cocoa de mer in his hand barefoot alone with eyes cast on the ground behind him there were firing salutes from the bastions in honour of his happy successor Purindas nodded all that life was ended and he bore it no more ill will or good will than a man bears to a colourless dream of the night he was a sannyasa a houseless wandering mendicant depending on his neighbours for his daily bread and so long as there is a morsel to divide in India neither priests nor beggars stars he had never in his life tasted meat and very seldom eaten even fish a five pound note would have covered his personal expenses for food through any of the many years in which he had been an absolute master of millions of money even when he was being lionised in London he held before him his dreams of peace and quiet the long white dusty Indian road printed all over with bare feet the incessant slow-moving traffic and the sharp smelling wood smoke curling up under the fig trees in the twilight where the wayfarers sit at their evening meal when the time came to make that dream true the Prime Minister took the proper steps and in three days you might more easily have found a bubble in the trough of the long Atlantic seas and poor and desks among the roving gathering separating millions of India at night his antelope skin was spread where the darkness overtook him sometimes in a sunny Asian monastery by the roadside sometimes by a munt pillow shrine of Carla Peer where the yogis who are another misty division of holy men would receive him as they do those who know what casts and divisions are worth sometimes on the outskirts of a little Hindu village children would steal up with the food their parents had prepared and sometimes on the pitch of the bare grazing grounds where the flame of his stick fire waked the drowsy camels it was all one to poor and desks or poor and baggad as he calls himself now earth people and food were all one but unconsciously his feet drew him away northward and eastward from the south to Rhotak from Rhotak to Kunal from Kunal to Ruwan Samana along the dried bed of the Gagar river hills only when the rain falls in the hills to one day he saw the far line of the great Himalaya then poor and baggad smile for he remembered that his mother was a rage-put Brahmin bird from Kulaway a hill woman always homesick for the snows and that the least touch of hill blood draws a man in the end back to where he belongs Yonda said poor and baggad breasting the lower slopes of the Sywellics where the cacti stand up like seven-branched candlestick Yonda, I shall sit down and get knowledge and the cool wind of the Himalayas whistled about his ears as he trod the road that led to Simla The last time he had come that way it had been in state with clattering cavalry escort to visit the gentlest and most affable of the vice-royes and the two had talked for an hour together about mutual friends in London and what the Indian common folk really thought of them this time poor and baggad paid no calls but leaned on the rail of them all watching that glorious view of the plains spread out 40 miles below till a native Mohammedan policeman told him he was obstructing traffic and poor and baggad salamed reverently to the law because he knew the value of it and was seeking for a law of his own Then he moved on and slept that night in an empty hut at Chota Simla which looks like the very last end of the earth but was only the beginning of his journey He followed the Himalaya Tibet Road a little ten-foot track that is blasted out of solid rock or strutted out on timbers on gulfs over a thousand feet deep that dips into warm wet shut-in valleys and climbs out across bare grassy hill shoulders where the sun strikes like a burning glass or turns through dripping dark forests where the tree ferns dress the trunks from head to heel and the pheasant calls to his mate and he met Tibet and herdsmen with their dogs and flocks of sheep each sheep with a little bag of borax on his back and wandering woodcutters and cloaks and blanketed lamas from Tibet coming into India on pilgrimage an envoys of little solitary hill-states posting furiously on ring streets and pie-bold ponies or the cavalcade of a ranch of paying a visit or else for a long clear day he would see nothing more than a black bear grunting and rooting below in the valley When he first started, the roar of the world he had left still rang in his ears as the roar of a tunnel rings long after the train has passed through but when he had put the Matiyani pass behind him that was all done and Perun Bagat was alone with himself walking, wondering and thinking his eyes on the ground and his thoughts with the clouds One evening he passed the highest pass he had met till then it had been a two days climb and came out on a line of snow peaks that banded all the horizon Mountains from 15 to 20,000 feet high looking almost near enough to hit with a stone though they were 50 or 60 miles away The pass was crowned with dense dark forest Deoda, walnut, wild cherry, wild olive and wild pear but most they're Deoda, which is the Himalayan cedar and under the shadow of the Deodas stood a deserted shrine to Kali who is Durga, who is Sitala who is sometimes worshipped against the smallpox Perun Das swept the stone floor clean smiled at the grinning statue made himself a little mud fireplace at the back of the shrine spread his antelope skin on a bed of fresh pine needles tucked his bear agi, his brass handled crutch under his armpit and sat down to rest Immediately below him the hillside fell away clean and cleared for 1500 feet where a little village of stone walled houses with roofs of beaten earth clung to the steep tilt all around it the tiny terraced fields lay out like aprons of patchwork on the knees of the mountain and cows no bigger than beetles grazed between the smooth stone circles of the threshing floors Looking across the valley the eye was deceived by the size of things and could not at first realize that what seemed to be low scrub on the opposite mountain flank was in truth a forest of a hundred foot pines Perun Bagat saw an eagle swoop across the gigantic hollow but the great bird dwindled to a dot here it was half way over A few bands of scattered clouds strung up and down the valley catching on a shoulder of the hills or rising up and dying out when they were level with the head of the pass and here shall I find peace said Perun Bagat Now a hill man makes nothing of a few hundred feet up or down and as soon as the villagers saw the smoke in the deserted shrine the village priest climbed up the terraced hillside to welcome the stranger When he met Perun Bagat's eyes the eyes of a man used to control thousands he bowed to the earth took a begging bowl without a word and returned to the village saying we have at last a holy man never have I seen such a man he is of the plains but pale coloured a Brahman of the Brahmins then all the housewives of the village said think you he will stay with us and he did her best to cook the most savoury meal for the Bagat Hill food is very simple but with buckwheat and Indian corn and rice and red pepper and little fish out of the stream in the valley and honey from the flu like hives built in the stone walls and dried apicots and tumeric and wild ginger and bannocks of flour a devout woman can make good things and it was a full bowl that the priest carried to the Bagat was he going to stay, asked the priest would he need a chiller, a disciple to beg for him had he a blanket against the cold weather was the food good Purin Bagat ate and thanked the giver it was in his mind to stay that was sufficient said the priest let the begging bowl be placed outside the shrine in the hollow made by those two twisted roots and daily should the Bagat be fed for the village felt honoured that such a man he looked timidly into the Bagat's face should tarry amongst them End of Section 4 Section 5 of the Second Jungle Book This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information auto-volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Section 5 The Miracle of Purin Bagat Part 2 That day saw the end of Purin Bagat's wanderings he had come to the place appointed for him the silence and the space after this time stopped and he sitting at the mouth of the shrine could not tell whether he were alive or dead a man with control of his limbs or a part of the hills and the clouds and the shifting rain and sunlight he would repeat a name softly to himself a hundred hundred times till at each repetition he seemed to move more and more out of his body sweeping up to the doors of some tremendous discovery but just as the door was opening his body would drag him back and with grief he felt he was locked up again in the flesh and bones of Purin Bagat Every morning the filled begging bowl was laid sanately in the crutch of the roots outside the shrine sometimes the priests bought it sometimes a ladder key trader lodging in the village and anxious to get merit trunched up the path but more often it was the woman who had cooked the meal overnight and she would murmur hardly above her breath speak for me before the gods Bagat speak for such a one the wife of so-and-so now and then some bold child would be allowed the honour and Purin Bagat would hear him drop the bowl and run as fast as his little legs could carry him but the Bagat never came down to the village it was laid out like a map at his feet he could see the evening gatherings held on the circle of the threshing floor because that was the only level ground could see the wonderful unnamed green of the young rice the indigo blues of the Indian corn the top-like patches of buckwheat and in its season the red bloom of the amaranth whose tiny seeds being neither grain nor pulse make a food that could be lawfully eaten by Hindus in time of fasts when the year turned the roofs of the hut were all little squares of purest old but was on the roofs that they laid out their cobs of corn to dry hiving and harvest rice sowing and husking passed before his eyes all embroidered down there on the many-sided plots of fields and he thought of them all and wondered what they all led to at the long last even in populated India a man cannot a day sit still before the wild things run over him as though he was a rock and in that wilderness very soon the wild things who knew Kali's shrine well came back to look at the intruder the langurs the big grey-whiskered monkeys of the Himalayas were naturally the first for they are alive with curiosity and when they had upset the begging bowl and rolled it round the floor and tried their teeth on the brass-handle crutch and made faces at the antelope skin they decided that the human being who sat so still was harmless at evening they would leap down from the pines and beg with their hands for things to eat and then swing off in graceful curves they liked the warmth of the fire too and huddled round it till Purambagat had to push them aside to throw on more fuel and in the morning as often as not he would find a furry ape sharing his blanket all day long one or other of the tribe would sit by his side staring out at the snows crooning and looking unspeakably wise and sorrowful after the monkeys came the barricing that big deer which is like our red deer but stronger he wished to rub off the velvet of his horns against the cold stones of Kali's statue and stamped his feet when he saw the man at the shrine but Purambagat never moved and little by little the royal stag edged up and nuzzled his shoulder Purambagat slid one cool handle on the hot antlers and the touch soothed the fretted beast who bowed his head and Purambagat very softly rubbed and reveled off the velvet afterwards the barricing bought his dough and fawn gentle things that mumbled on the holy man's blanket he would come alone at night his eyes green in the fire flicker to take his share of fresh walnuts at last the musk deer the shyest and almost the smallest of the deerlets came too her big rapid ears erect even brindle silent musk nabba must needs find out what the light at the shrine meant and drop out her moose-like nose into Purambagat's lap coming and going with the shadows of the fire Purambagat told them all my brothers and his low call of Baha'i Baha'i would draw them from the forest at noon if they were within earshot the Himalayan black bear moody and suspicious Sona who has the V-shaped white mark under his chin passed that way more than once and since the Bagat showed no fear Sona showed no anger but watched him and came closer and begged the share of the caresses and a doll of bread or wild berries often in the still dawns when the Bagat would climb to a very crest of the past to watch the red day walking along the peaks of the snows he would find Sona shuffling and grunting at his heels thrusting a curious forepaw under fallen trunks and bringing it away with a wolf of impatience early steps would wake Sona where he lay curled up and the great brute rising erect would think to fight until he heard the Bagat's voice and knew his best friend nearly all hermits and holy men who live apart from the big cities have the reputation of being able to work miracles with the wild things but all the miracle lies in keeping still in never making a hasty movement and for a long time at least in never looking directly at a visitor the villagers saw the outline of the barra sing stalking like a shadow through the dark forest behind the shrine saw the minnow, the Himalayan pheasant blazing in her best colours before Kali's statue and the langurs on their horses inside playing with the walnut cells some of the children too had heard Sona singing to himself bare fashion behind the fallen rocks and the Bagat's reputation as miracle worker stood firm yet nothing was further from his mind than miracles he believed that all things were one big miracle and when a man knows that much he knows something to go upon he knew for a certainty that there was nothing great and nothing little in this world and that day and night he strove the think out his way into the heart of things back into the place whence his soul had come so thinking his untrimmed hair fell down upon his shoulders the stone slab at the side of the antelope skin was dented into a little hole by the foot of his brass handle crunch and the place between the tree trunks where the begging bowl rested day after day sunk and wore into a hollow almost as smooth as the brown shell itself and each beast knew his exact place at the fire the fields changed their colours with the seasons the threshing floors filled and emptied and filled again and again and again and again when winter came the langas frisked amongst the branches feathered with light snow till the mother monkeys bought their sad idle babies up from the warmer valleys with the spring there were few changes in the village the priest was older and many of the little children who used to come with the begging dish sent their own children now and when you asked of the villagers how long their holy man had lived at Kali's shrine at the head of the past they answered always then came such summer rains as had not been known in the hills for many seasons through three good months the valley was wrapped in cloud and soaking mist steady unrelenting downfall breaking off into thundershow after thundershow Kali's shrine stood above the clouds for the most part and there was a whole month in which the baguette never caught a glimpse of his village it was packed away under a white floor of cloud that swayed and shifted and rolled on itself and bulged upwards but never broke from its peers the streaming flanks of the valley at that time he heard nothing but the sound of a million little waters overhead from the trees and underfoot along the ground soaking through the pine needles dripping from the tongues of draggled fern and spouting a newly torn muddy channels down the slopes then the sun came out and drew forth the good incense of the deodas and the rhododendrons and that far off clean smell which the hill people call the smell of the snows the haunt sunshine lasted for a week and then the rains gathered together for their last downpour and the water fell in sheets that slayed off the skin of the ground and leapt back in mud Perun Bagat heaped his fire high that night for he was sure his brothers would need warmth but never a beast came to the shrine though he called and called till he dropped the sleep wondering what had happened in the woods it was in the black heart of night the rain drumming like a thousand drums that he was roused by a plucking at his blanket and stretching out felt the little hand of a lango it is better here than in the trees he said sleepily losing a fold of blanket take it and be warm the monkey caught his hand and pulled hard is it food then said Perun Bagat wait a while and I will prepare some as he knelt to throw fuel on the fire the lango ran to the door of the shrine crooned and rang back again plucking at the man's knee what is it what is thy trouble brother said Perun Bagat for the lango's eyes were full of things he could not tell unless one of thy cast be in a trap and none set traps here I will not go into that weather look brother even the borer sing comes for shelter the deers antlers clashed as he strode into the shrine clashed against the grinning statue of Kali he lowered them in Perun Bagat's direction and stamped uneasily hissing through his half shut nostrils hi hi hi said the Bagat snapping his fingers is this payment for a night's lodging but the deer pushed him toward the door and as he did so Perun Bagat heard the sound of something opening with a sigh and saw two slabs of the floor draw away from each other while the sticky earth below smacked its lips now I see said Perun Bagat no blame to my brothers that they did not sit by the fire tonight the mountain is falling and yet why should I go his eye fell on the empty begging bowl and his face changed they have given me good food daily since I came and if I am not swift tomorrow there will be not one mouth in the valley indeed I must go and warn them below back there brother let me get to the farm the borer sing backed unwillingly as Perun Bagat drove a pine torch deep into the flames twirling it till it was well lit ah he came to warn me he said rising better than that we shall do better than that out now and lend me thy neck brother for I have but two feet he clutched the bristling withers of the borer sing with his right hand held the torch away with his left and stepped out of the shrine into the desperate night there was no breath of wind but the rain nearly drowned the flair as the great dear hurried down the slope sliding on his haunches as soon as they were clear of the forest more of Bagat's brothers joined them he heard them he heard that we could not see the lingus pressing about him and behind him the ah ah of sauna the rain matted his long white hair into ropes the water splashed between his bare feet and his yellow robe clung to his frail old body but he stepped down steadily leading against the borer sing he was no longer a holy man but Sir Param Das KCIE prime minister of no small state a man accustomed to command going out to save life down the steep plashy path they poured all together the Bagat and his brothers down and down till the deer's feet clicked and stumbled on the wall of a threshing floor and he snorted because he smelt man now they are at the head of the one crooked village street and the Bagat beat with his crutch on the barred windows of the blacksmith's house as his torch blazed up in the shelter of the eaves up and out cried Baram Bagat and he did not know his own voice for his years since he had spoken aloud to a man the hill falls, the hill is falling up and out, oh you within it is our Bagat said the blacksmith's wife he stands amongst his beast gather the little ones and give the call it ran from house to house while the beasts cramped in the narrow way surged and huddled around the Bagat and sauna pathed impatiently the people hurried into the street they were no more than 70 souls all told and in the glare of the torches they saw the Bagat holding back the terrified birthing while the monkeys plucked piteously at his skirts and Sona sat on his haunches and roared across the valley and up the next hill shouted Baram Bagat leave none behind we follow then the people ran as only hill folk can run for they knew that in a land slip you must climb for the highest ground across the valley they fled splashing through the little river at the bottom and panted up the terraced fields on the far side while the Bagat and his brothers followed up and up the opposite mountain they climbed calling to each other by name the roll call of the village and at their heels told the big birthing waited by the failing strength of Baram Bagat at last the deer stopped in the shadow of a deep pine wood 500 feet up the hillside his instinct that had warned him of the coming slide told him he would be safe here Baram Gagat dropped fainting by his side for the chill of the rain and that fierce climb were killing him but first he called to the scattered torches ahead stay and count your numbers then whisper into the deer as he saw the lights gather in a cluster stay with me brother stay till I go it was a sigh in the air that grew to a mutter and a mutter that grew to a roar and a roar that passed all sense of hearing and the hillside on which the villagers stood was hit in the darkness and rocked to the blow then a note as steady, deep and true was the deep sea of an organ drowned everything for perhaps five minutes while the very roots of the pines quivered to him it died away and the sound of the rain falling on miles of hard ground and grass changed to the muffled drum of water on soft earth that told its own tale never a villager, not even the priest was bold enough to speak through the bagat who had saved their lives they crouched under the pines and waited till the day when it came they looked across the valley and saw that what had been forest and terraced field and track-threaded grazing ground was one raw red fan-shaped smear with a few trees flung head down on the scalp that red ran high up the hill of their refuge damming back the little river which had begun to spread into a brick-covered lake of the village, of the roads of the shrine, of the shrine itself and the forest behind, there was no trace for one marlin width and two thousand feet in sheer depth the mountain site had come away boldly plain cleaned from head to heel and the villagers one by one crept through the wood to pray before their bagat they saw the barra sing standing over him who fled when they came near and they heard the langurs wailing in the branches and sauna moaning up the hill but their bagat was dead, sitting cross-legged his back against the tree his crutch under his armpit and his face turned to the northeast the priest said, behold a miracle after a miracle for in this very attitude must all soniasis be buried therefore where he now is we will build a temple to our holy man they built the temple before a year was ended a little stone and earth shrine and they called the hill the bagat's hill and they worshiped there with lights and flowers and offerings to this day but they do not know that the saint of their worship is the late Sir Purim Das K. C. I. E. D. C. L. P. H. D. etc once prime minister of the progressive and enlightened state of Mohinawala an honorary or corresponding member of more learners and scientific societies that will ever do any good in this world all the next end of section 5 section 6 of the second jungle book this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Catherine Eastman the second jungle book by Rudyard Kipling section 6 a song of Kabir oh light was the world that he weighed in his hands oh heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands he has gone from the gutty and put on the shroud and departed in guise of Bairagi avowed now the white road to Delhi is met for his feet the sal and the kikar must guard him from heat his home is the camp and the waste and the crowd he is seeking the way as Bairagi avowed he has looked upon man and his eyeballs are clear there was one there is one and but one saith kabir the red mist of doing has thinned to a cloud he has taken the path for Bairagi avowed to learn and discern of his brother the clawed of his brother the brute and his brother the god he has gone from the council and put on the shroud can ye hear saith kabir a Bairagi avowed end of section 6 section 7 of the second jungle book this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the second jungle book by Rudyard Kipling section 7 letting in the jungle part 1 feel them, cover them, wall them round blossom and creeper and weed let us forget the sight and the sound the smell and the touch of the breed fat black ash by the outer stone here is the whitefoot rain and the dose bring forth in the fields and sown and none shall affright them again and the blind walls crumble unknown overthrown and none shall inhabit again you will remember that after Mowgli had pinned sure-accounts high to the council rock he told as many as were left of the C&E pack that henceforth he would hunt in the jungle alone and the four children of Mother and Father Wolf said that they would hunt with him but it is not easy to change one's life all in a minute particularly in the jungle the first thing Mowgli did when the disorderly pack had slung off was to go to the home cave and sleep for a day and a night then he told Mother Wolf and Father Wolf as much as they could understand of his adventures among man and when he made the morning sun flicker up and down the blade of a skinning knife the same he had skinned sure-account with they said he had learnt something then Akila and Grey Brother had to explain their share of the great buffalo drive in the ravine and Baloo toiled up the hill to hear all about it and Bagheera scratched himself all over with pure delight at the way in which Mowgli had managed his war it was long after sunrise but no one dreamt of going to sleep and from time to time during the talk Mother Wolf would throw up her head and sniff a deep snuff of satisfaction as the wind brought her the smell of the tiger's skin on the council rock but for Akila and Grey Brother here Mowgli said at the end I could have done nothing Oh Mother, Mother if thou had seen the black herd bulls pour down the ravine or hurried through the gates when the man-pack flung stones at me I am glad I did not see that last that Mother Wolf stiffly it is not my custom to suffer my cups to be driven to and fro like jackals I would have taken the price from the man-pack but I would have spared the woman who gave thee the milk yes, I would have spared her alone Peace, peace, Raksha said Father Wolf lazily our frog has come back again so wise that his own father must lick his feet and once a cut more or less on the head leave man alone Baloo and Bagheera bowed echoed leave man alone Mowgli, his head on Mother Wolf's side smiled contentedly and said that for his own part he never wished to see or hear or smell man again but what said Akila cocking one ear but what if man do not leave thee alone little brother we be five said gray brother looking round at the company and snapping his jaws on the last word we also might attend to that hunting said Bagheera with the little switch switch of his tail looking at Baloo but why think of man now Akila for this reason the lone wolf answered when that yellow cheese hide was hung up on the rock I went back along our trail to the village stepping in my tracks turning aside and lying down to make a mixed trail in case one should follow us but when I had felt the trail so that I myself hardly knew it again man the bat came hogging between the trees and hung up above me said man the village of the man pack where they cast out a man-cull homes like a hornet's nest it was a big stone that I threw chuckled Mowgli who had often amused himself by throwing ripe paw-paws into a hornet's nest and racing off to the nearest pool before the hornets caught him I asked of man what he had seen but he said that the red flower blossomed at the gate of the village and man said about it carrying guns now I know for I have good cause Akila looked down at the old dry scars on its flank and side that man do not carry guns for pleasure presently little brother a man with a gun follows our trail if indeed he be not already on it but why should he man have cast me out what more do they need said Mowgli angrily though art a man little brother Akila returned it is not for us the three hunters to tell what they and thy brethren do or why he had just timed to snatch up his paw as the skinning knife got deep into the ground below Mowgli struck quicker than an average human eye could follow but Akila was a wolf and even a dog who was very far removed from the wild wolf his ancestor can be waked out of deep sleep by a cartwheel touching his flank and can spring away unharmed before that wheel comes on another time Mowgli said quietly returning the knife to its sheet speak of the man-pack and of Mowgli in two breads not one pff that is a sharp tooth said Akila snuffing at the blades cut in the earth but living with the man-pack has spoiled thine eye little brother I could have killed a book while thou was striking Bagheera sprang to his feet thrust up his head as far as he could sniffed and stiffened through every curve in his body Grey brother followed his example quickly keeping a little to his left to get the wind that was blowing from the right while Akila bounded fifty yards up wind and half grouching stiffened too Mowgli looked on enviously he could smell things as very few human beings could but he had never reached the hair-trigger-like sensitiveness of a jungle nose and his three months in the smoky village had set him back sadly however he dampened his finger rubbed it on his nose and stood erect to catch the upper scent which though it is the faintest is the truest Man! Akila growled dropping on his haunches Bull Dio said Mowgli sitting down he follows our trail and yonder is a sunlight on his gun look it was no more than a splash of sunlight for a fraction of a second on the brass clamps of the old tower musket but nothing in the jungle wings with just that flash except when the clouds raise over the sky then a piece of mika or a little pool or even a highly polished leaf will flash like a heliograph but that day was cloudless and still I knew man would follow said Akila triumphantly not for nothing have I led the pack the four of Cubs said nothing but ran downhill on their bellies melting into the thorn and underbrush like a mole melts into a lawn where I go ye and without word Mowgli called hush re-roll his skull before midday gray brother answered back back and wait man does not eat man Mowgli shrieked who was a wolf but now who drove the knife at me for thinking he might be man said Akila as the four of wolves turned back sullenly and dropped to heel am I to give reason for all I choose to do said Mowgli furiously that is man there speaks man Bagheera muttered under his whiskers even so did man talk round the king's cages at Udipori we of the jungle know that man is wisest of all if we trusted our ears we should know that of all things he is most foolish raising his voice he added the man got his right in this man hunt in packs to kill one unless we know what the others will do is bad hunting come let us see what this man means toward us we will not come grey brother growled hunt alone little brother we know our own minds the skull would have been ready to bring by now Mowgli had been looking from one to the other of his friends his chest heaving and his eyes full of tears he strode forward to the wolves and dropping on one knee said do I not know my mind look at me they looked uneasily and when their eyes wondered he called them back again and again till their hair stood up all over their bodies and they trembled in every limp while Mowgli stared and stared now said he of us five which is leader thou art leader little brother said grey brother and he licked Mowgli's foot so then said Mowgli and the four followed at his heels with their tails between their legs this comes of living with the man-pack said Bagheera slipping down after them there is more in the jungle now than jungle law Baloo the old bear said nothing but he thought many things Mowgli cut across noiselessly through the jungle at right angles to Baloo's path till, parting the undergrowth he saw the old man his musket on his shoulder running up the trail of overnight at a dog trot you will remember that Mowgli had left the village with a heavy weight of shirk hands raw hide on his shoulders while Akila and grey brother trotted behind so that the triple trail was very clearly marked presently Baloo came to where Akila, as you know, had gone back and mixed it all up then he sat down and coughed and grunted and made little casts round and about into the jungle to pick it up again and all the time he could have thrown a stone over those who were watching him no one can be so silent as a wolf when he does not care to be heard and Mowgli, though the wolves thought he moved very clumsily could come and go like a shadow they ringed the old man as a school of porpoises ring a steamer at full speed and as they ringed him they talked unconcernedly for their speech became below the lowest end of the scale that untrained human beings can hear the other end is bounded by the highest squeak of man, the bat which very many people cannot catch at all from that note all the bird and bat and insect talk takes on this is better than any kill, said grey brother as Bldio stooped and peered and puffed he looks like a lost pig in the jungles by the river what does he say Bldio was muttering savagely Mowgli translated he says that packs of wolves must have danced round me he says that he never saw such a trail in his life he says he is tired he will be rested before he picks it up again, said Beguira Cooley as he slipped round the tree trunk in the game of blind man's buff that they were playing now what does the lean thing do eat or blow smoke out of his mouth man always play with their mouths, said Mowgli at the silent trailer saw the old man fill and light and puff and a water pipe and they took good note of the smell of the tobacco so as to be sure of Bldio in the darkest night if necessary then a little knot of carcall burners came down the path and naturally halted to speak to Bldio whose fame as a hunter reached for at least 20 miles round they all sat down and smoked and Beguira and the others came up and watched while Bldio began to tell the story of Mowgli the devil child from one end to another with additions and inventions how he himself had really killed Jerk Han and how Mowgli had turned himself into a wolf and fought with him all the afternoon and changed into a boy again and bewitched Bldio's rifle so that the bullet turned to corner when he pointed it at Mowgli and killed one of Bldio's own buffaloes and out of village knowing him to be the bravest hunter in sea and knee had sent him out to kill this devil child but meantime the village had got hold of Missua and her husband who were undoubtedly the father and mother of this devil child and had barricaded him in their own hut and presently would torture them to make them confess that they were a witch and wizard and then they would be burned to death when said the carcall burners because they would very much like to be present at the ceremony Bldio said that nothing would be done till he returned because the village wished him to kill the jungle boy first after that they would dispose of Missua and their husband and divide their lands and buffaloes among the village Missua's husband had some remarkably fine buffaloes too it was an excellent thing to destroy wizards Bldio thought and people who entertained wolf children out of the jungle were clearly the worst kind of witches but said the carcall burners what would happen if the English heard of it the English they had heard were a perfectly mad people they did not let honest farmers kill witches in peace why said Bldio the head man of the village would report that Missua and her husband had died of snakebite that was all arranged and the only thing now was to kill the wolf child they did not happen to have seen anything of such a creature the carcall burners looked round cautiously and thanked their stars they had not but they had no doubt that so brave a man as Bldio would find him if anyone could the sun was getting rather low and they had an idea that they would push on to Bldio's village and see that wicked witch Bldio said that though it was his duty to kill the devil child he could not think of letting a party of unarmed man go through the jungle which might produce the wolf demon any minute without his escort he therefore would accompany them and if the sorceress child appeared well he would show them how the best hunter in sea and knee dealt with such things the brahmin he said had given him a charm against the creature that made everything perfectly safe what says he what says he the wolves repeated every few minutes and Mowgli translated until he came to the witch part of the story which was a little beyond him and then he said that the man and woman who had been so kind to him were trapped does man trap man said Bagheera so he says I cannot understand the talk they are all mad together what have Missua and her man to do with me they put in a trap and what is all this talk about the red flower I must look through this whatever they would do to Missua they will not do till Baldeo returns and so Mowgli thought hard with his fingers playing round the half of the skinning knife while Baldeo and the cargo burners went off very valiantly in single file I go hot foot back to the man pack he said at last and those said gray brother looking hungrily after the brown backs of the cargo burners sing them home said Mowgli with a grin I do not wish them to be at the village gate till it is dark can you hold them gray brother buried his white teeth in contempt we can head them round and round in circles like teethered goats if I know man that I do not need sing to them a little lest they be lonely on the road and gray brother the song need not be of the sweetest go with them Bagheera and help make that song when night is shut down meet me by the village gray brother knows the place it is no light hunting to work for a man cup when shall I sleep where I yawning though his eyes show that he was delighted with the amusement meet a sing to naked man but let us try he lowered his head so that the sound would travel and cried a long, long good hunting a midnight call in the afternoon which was quite awful enough to begin with Mowgli heard it rumble and rise and fall a creepy sort of wine behind him and laughed to himself as he ran through the jungle he could see the cargo burners huddled in a knot old Baldeo's gun barrel waving like a banana leaf to every point of the compass at once then gray brother gave the yalla he yalla haa call for the book driving when the pack drives the nil guy the big blue cow before them and it seems to come from the very ends of the earth nearer and nearer till it ended in a shriek snapped off short the other three answered to leave in Mowgli could have vowed that the full pack was in full cry and then they all broke into the magnificent morning song in the jungle with every turn and flourish and gray snouted at a deep mouth of wolf of the pack knows this is a rough rendering of the song but you must imagine what it sounds like when it breaks the afternoon hush of the jungle one moment passed our bodies cast no shadow on the plane now clear and black they stride our track and we run home again in morning hush each rock and bush stands hard and high and raw then give the call good rest to all that keep the jungle law now horn and pelt our peoples melt uncovered to abide now crouched and still to cave and hill our jungle burns glide now stark and plain man's oxen strain that draw the new yoked plow now stripped and dread the dawn is red above the lid tallel who get to layer the sons of flair behind the breathing grass and cracking through the young bamboo the warning whispers pass by day made strange the woods we rage with blinking eyes we scan while down the skies the wild duck cries the day the day to man the dew is dried that drenched our hide or washed about our way and where we drunk the puddle bank is crisping in the clay the traitor dark gives up each mark of stretched or hooded claw then hear the call good rest to all that keep the jungle law but no translation give the effect of it or the helping scorn the forth through into every word of it as they heard the trees crash when the man hastily climbed up into the branches and will deal began repeating incantations and charms then they lay down and slept for like all who live by their own exertions they were of a methodical cast of mind and no one can work well without sleep End of section 7