 The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Chapter 1, Part 1. 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 Meredith Hughes, Little Compton, Rhode Island. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Chapter 1. Mowgli's Brothers. Now chill the kite brings home the night that mang the bat sets free. The herds are shut in buyer and hut, for loose till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, talon and touch and claw. Oh hear the call, good hunting all that keep the jungle law. Night song in the jungle. It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the C&E 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 their 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. Harv, said Father Wolf, it is time to hunt again. He was going to spring down hill, when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined, good luck go with you, oh 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. It was the jackal, tabaqui the dishlicker, 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. But they are afraid of him, too, because tabaqui, more than anyone else in the jungle, is apt to go mad. And then he forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone and runs through the forest, biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and 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 dewani, 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 geeder 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 anyone else that there is nothing so unlucky as to compliment children to their faces. 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, Sheer Khan, the big one, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he has told me. Sheer Khan was the tiger who lived near the Wengunga 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 due 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 Wengunga 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 Sheer 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. He can hear Sheer Khan below in the thickets. I might have saved myself the message. Father wolf listened, and below in the valley that ran down to a little river, he heard the dry, angry, snarly sing-song wine 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-winged Gunga bullocks? It is neither bullock nor buck he hunts tonight, said mother wolf. It is man. The wine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewilders woodcutters and gypsies 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. Fa! 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 AR of the tiger's charge. Then there was a howl, an untigerish howl, from sheer con. He has missed, said Mother Wolf. What is it? Father Wolf ran out a few paces, and heard sheer con muttering and mumbling savagely as he tumbled about in the scrub. The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutter's campfire and has burned his feet, said Father Wolf with a grunt. Tobakwe is with him. Something is coming up hill, 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 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 the 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 atom 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 and 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 closer to the warm hide. Ah-ha! 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 Sheer Khan's great head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance. Tabakwe behind him was squeaking, My Lord! My Lord! It went in here! Sheer Khan does us great honour, said Father Wolf, but his eyes were very angry. What does Sheer Khan need? My quarry. A man's cub went this way, said Sheer Khan. Its parents have run off. Give it to me. Sheer Khan had jumped at a woodcutter's campfire, 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, Sheer Khan's shoulders and forepaws 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 in your dog's den for my fair dues? It is I, Sheer Khan, who speak. The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself free of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Sheer Khan. And it is I, Rakshah, the demon, who answers. The man's cub is mine, Lungri, mine to me. He shall not be killed. He shall live to run with a 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 buy some poor that I killed. I eat no starved cattle. Back thou goest to thy mother, burned beast of the jungle. Lamer than ever thou cameest into the world. Go! Father Wolf looked dawn 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 compliments' sake. Sheer 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. Oh, bush-tailed thieves! Mother Wolf threw herself down, panting among the cubs, and Father Wolf said to her gravely, Sheer Khan speaks this much truth. The cub must be shown to the pack. Will 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 Wayne Gunga while the villagers here hunted through all our layers 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 Sheer 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. Aquila, the great grey 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 colour, from badger-coloured 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. There was very little talking at the rock. The cubs tumbled over each other in the centre 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. Aquila 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 mogul the frog, as they called him, into the centre, where he sat laughing and playing with some pebbles that glistened in the moonlight. Aquila 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 sheer con crying, The cub is mine, give him to me, what have the free people to do with a man's cub? Aquila 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 sheer con's question to Aquila. 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 Aquila. 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 upon 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 Aquila. 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 marking 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 Tabakwe, 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. Oh, Aquila, 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 a shame. Besides, he may be better sport for you when he is grown. Balu has spoken in his behalf. Now, to Balu's word, I will add one bull, and a fat one, newly killed, not half a mile from here, if he will accept the man's cub according to the law. Is it difficult? There is a clamour 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's the bull, Bagheera? Let him be accepted. And then came Aquila's deep bay, crying, Look well, look well, o wolves. Mowgli was still deeply interested in 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 Aquila, Bagheera, Balu, and Mowgli's own wolves were left. Sheer Khan roared still in the night, for he was very angry that Mowgli had not been handed over to him. Roar well, said Bagheera under his whiskers. For the time will come when this naked thing will make thee roar to another tune, or I know nothing of man. It was well done, said Aquila. 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 leave the pack forever, said Bagheera. Aquila 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 C&E Wolf Pack for the price of a bull and on Balu's good word. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Meredith Hughes. Little Compton, Rhode Island. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Chapter 1. Part 2. 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 businessman. 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 tell him, come along, little brother, and at first Mowgli would cling like the sloth, but afterward he would fling himself up 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. At other times he would pick the long thorns out of the pads of his friends, for wolves suffer terribly from thorns and burrs 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 that it was a trap. He loved better than anything else to go with Bagheera into the dark, 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 Wolfe told him once or twice that Shere Khan was not a creature to be trusted, and that someday 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 Akilah grew older and feebler, the lame tiger had come to be great friends with the young wolves of the pack who followed him for scraps, a thing Akilah 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 you dare not look him between the eyes, and the young wolves would growl and bristle. Bagheera, who had eyes and ears everywhere, said something of this, and once or twice he told Mowgli, in so many words, that Shere Khan would kill him some day. 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 Sahi the porcupine had told him, 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 more 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 it. Tabakwe has told thee, too. Ho-ho! said Mowgli. Tabakwe 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 Tabakwe by the tail and swung him twice against a palm tree to teach him better manners. That was foolish. For though Tabakwe is a mischief-maker, he would have told thee something that concerned thee closely. Open those eyes, little brother. Shere Khan dare not kill thee in the jungle. But remember, Akila is very old, and soon the day comes when he cannot kill his buck, and then he will be a leader no more. Many of the wolves that looked be over when thou was brought to the council first are old, too, and the young wolves believe, as Shere Khan has taught them, that the young 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 Odaypur. It was because of this that I paid the price for thee at the council when thou wasst 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 sheer con. Is it not so? Yes, said Mowgli, all the jungle for your Bagheera. All except Mowgli. Oh, thou art a man's cub, said the black panther very tenderly, and even as I return to my jungle, so thou must go back to men at last, to the men who are by 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 Aquila 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 Bikira, leaping up. Go thou down quickly to the men's hut in the valley, and take some of the red flower which they grow in there, so that when the time comes thou mayest have even a stronger friend than I, or Belu, or those of the pack that love thee. Get the red flower. By red flower Bikira 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 Bikira 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, oh my Bikira? He slipped his arm around the splendid neck, and looked deep into the big eyes. Art thou sure that all this is sheer con's doing? By the broken lock that freed me, I am sure, little brother. Then, by the bull that bough me, I will pay sheer con full-tail for this, and it may be a little over, said Mowgli, and he bound it away. That is a man. That is all a man, said Bikira to himself, buying down again. Oh sheer con, 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, and the 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 sheer con, 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 sambore, and the snort as the buck turned at bay. Then there were wicked, bitter howls from the young wolves. Akila! Akila! Let the lone wolf show his strength! Room for the leader of the pack! Spring, Akila! The lone wolf must have sprung, and missed his hold, from Mowgli heard the snap of his teeth, and then a yell as the sambore knocked him over with his forefeet. He did not wait for anything more, but dashed on, and the yells grew fainter behind him as the villagers lived. Pekira spoke truth, he panted, as he nestled down in some cattle fodder by the window of a hut. Tomorrow is one day both for Akila and for me. Then he pressed his face close to the window, and watched the fire on the hearth. He saw the husband-man'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 her 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 and the buyer. Is that all, said Mowgli? If a cub can do it, there is nothing to fear. So he strode round 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. Mowgli will die if I do not give it things to eat. And he dropped twigs and dried bark on the red stuff. Halfway up the hill he met Bagheera with the morning dew shining like moonstones on his coat. Akeela 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, see? 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 as they looked. He found a branch that satisfied him, and in the evening when Tabakwe came to the cave and told him rudely enough that he was wanted at the Council Rock he laughed till Tabakwe ran away. Then Mowgli went to the Council, still laughing. Akeela the lone wolf lay by the side of his rock as a sign that the leadership of the pack was open. And Sheer 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 Sheer Khan began to speak, a thing he would never have dared to do when Akeela 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 Sheer 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, Sheer 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 fundered. 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. Akeela raised his old head wearily. Free people, and ye too jackals of Sheer 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 Akeela to the death. Akeela Khan roared, Bah! What have we to do with this toothless fool? He is doomed to die. It is the man's cub who has lived too long. Free people, he was my neat 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, clamored Sheer Khan. No, give him to me. He is a man, and none of us can look him between the eyes. Akeela lifted his head again and stood. 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 honour is something that he will, perhaps, fight for," said Bagheera in his gentlest voice. A bull paid ten years ago, the pack snarled. 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, howled Sheer Khan. Give him to me. He is our brother in all but blood, Akeela 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 Sheer 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 honour 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, bear 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's a man, a man, a man! snarled the pack, and most of the wolves began to gather round Sheer Khan, whose tail was beginning to switch. Now the business is in thy hands, said Bakira 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, no need for this dog's jabber. He have told me so often tonight that I am a man, and 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. The 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 at above his head among the cowering wolves. Thou art the master, said Bekira in an undertone. Save Akila from the death. He was ever thy friend. Akila, 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 round slowly, 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 in the pack, but here is a debt to pay before I go. He strode forward to wear sheer con, blinking stupidly at the flames, and caught him by the tuft on his chin. Begheera followed in case of accidents. Up, dog, Mowgli cried, up when a man speaks, or I will set that coat ablaze. Shear-con'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 lungry, and I ram the red flower down my gullet. He beat sheer con over the head with the branch, and the tiger whimpered and whined in an agony of fear. Pa! singed jungle-cat, go now! But remember when next I come to the council-rock, as a man should come, it will be with sheer con's hide on my head. For the rest, Akilah 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 Akilah, 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, that is only tears, such as menus, 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, their 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. You 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 croplands to play with thee by night. Come soon, said Father Wolf, a 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 sheer cons 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 meet those mysterious things that are called men. Hunting song of the C&E pack, as the dawn was breaking the Sambore bell once, twice, and again. And a doe leaped up, and a doe leaped up from the pond in the wood where the wild deers sup, this eye scouting alone beheld once, twice, and again. As the dawn was breaking the Sambore bell 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 bade 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. End of Chapter 1, Section 2 The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Chapter 2, Part 1 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 Meredith Hughes, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Chapter 2, Cause Hunting His spots are the joy of the leopard. His horns are the buffalo's pride. Be clean for the strength of the hunters known by the gloss of his hide. If you find that the bullet can toss you, or the heavy-brown sambour can gore, you 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 bears their mother. There is none like 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 Balu. All that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of the Sieny Wolfpack, or revenged himself on Shir Khan the Tiger. It was in the days when Balu 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 Tabakwe the Jackal and the Hyena whom we hate. But Mowgli, as a man cub, had to learn a great deal more than this. Sometimes Begira 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 Balu. The boy could climb almost as well as he could swim, and swim almost as well as he could run. So Balu, 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 above the ground, 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 stranger's 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 saying the same thing over a hundred times. But, as Balu said to Bekira, one day when Mowgli had been cuffed and 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'd old iron feet, Bekira grunted? His face is all bruised today 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, Balu 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 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 these master words? I am more likely to give help than to ask it. Bekira 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 little voice over their heads, and Mowgli slid down a tree-trunk very angry and indignant, adding as he reached the ground. I come for Bekira and not for thee fat old blue. That is all one to me, said Bekira, though he was hurt and grieved. Tell Bekira, 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 Bekira, they never thank their teacher. Not one small wolfling has ever come back to thank old Bekira 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 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 Bekira. The answer was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mowgli kicked up his feet behind, clapped his hands together to applaud himself, and jumped on to Bekira's back, where he sat sideways, drumming with his heels on the glossy skin and making the worst faces he could think of at Baloo. There, there, that was worth a little bruise, said the brown bear tenderly. Someday thou wilt remember me. Then he turned aside to tell Bekira 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 Bekira under his breath, and then allowed 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 Bekira'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 Bekira? Yes, and throw branches and dirt at old Baloo, Mowgli went on. They have promised me this. Ah! Woof! Baloo's big paw scooped Mowgli off Bekira's back, and as the boy lay between the big four 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 Bekira to see if the panther was angry, too, and Bekira'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 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 they gave me nuts and pleasant things to eat, and 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 Bekira. 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 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 outcast. 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. Has thou ever heard me speak of the bandar log till today? No, said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still, now Baloo had finished. The jungle-people put them out of their mouths and out of their mind. 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 coffings 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. Fa! 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 treetops and as beasts very seldom look up there was no occasion for the monkeys and the jungle-people to cross each other'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 compromised 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 they heard how angry Baloo was. They never meant to do any more. The bandar log never meant 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 woodcutter's child inherited all sorts of instincts and used to make little huts of fallen branches without thinking how he came to do it and the monkey-people watching in the trees considered his play 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 everyone 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 branches as Baloo woke the jungle with his deep cries and Bagheera bounded up the trunk with every tooth bared. The bander-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 crossroads up hills and down hills all laid out from fifty to seventy or a hundred feet above the ground 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 treetops 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 the 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 thinnest topmost branches crackle and bend under them and then with a cough and a whoop would fling themselves into the air outwards and downwards 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 across the still green jungle as a man on the top of a mass 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 bander logs swept along the tree roads with Mowgli their prisoner. For a time he was afraid of being dropped then he grew angry but knew better than to struggle and then he began to think. The first thing was to send back word to Balu 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 only see the top sides of the branches so he stared upwards and saw far away in the blue chill the kite balancing and wheeling as he kept watch over the jungle waiting for things to die. Chill saw 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 treetop 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 Chill balanced away to the next tree in time to see the little brown face come back up again. Mark my trail, Mowgli shouted tell Balu of the C&E pack and Bagheera of the council rock. In whose name, brother? Chill had never seen Mowgli before though of course he had heard of him. Mowgli the frog, man cub they call me mark my trail! The last words were shrieked as he was being swung through the air but Chill 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 treetops as Mowgli's escort rolled 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 bander log this time if I have any eyesight they have pecked down trouble for themselves for Balu is no fledgling and Bagheera can as I know kill more than goats so he rocked on his wings his feet gathered up under him and waited meantime Balu and Bagheera were furious with rage and grief Bagheera climbed as he had never climbed before but the thin 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 Balu 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 oh haste we we may catch them yet Balu panted at that speed it would not tire a wounded cow either of the law cub beater a mile of that rolling to and fro would burst the open sit still and think make a plan this is no time for chasing they may drop him if we follow too close Arula woo they may have dropped him already being tired of carrying him who can trust the bander 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 Wahua oh 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 Balu 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 Bukira impatiently Balu thou hast neither memory nor respect what would the jungle think if I the black panther curled myself up like Sahi 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 Bukira licked one four paw thoughtfully fool that I am oh fat brown root digging fool that I am said Balu 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 Ka the rock snake he can climb as well as they can he steals the young monkeys in the night the whisper of his name makes their wicked tales cold let us go to Ka what will he do for us he is not of our tribe being footless and with most evil eyes said Bukira he is very old and very cunning above all he is always hungry said Balu 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 Bukira who did not know much about Ka was naturally suspicious then in that case thou and I together old hunter might make him see reason here Balu rubbed his faded brown shoulder against the panther and they went off to look for Ka 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 Balu with a grunt of relief as soon as he saw the beautifully mottled brown and yellow jacket be careful Bukira he is always a little blind after he has changed his skin and very quick to strike Ka was not a poison snake in fact he rather despised the poison snakes as cowards but his strength lay in his hug and when he had once slapped his huge coils round anybody there was no more to be said good hunting cried Balu sitting up on his haunches like all snakes of his breed Ka 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 oh ho Balu what dost thou do here good hunting Bukira one of us at least needs food is there any news of Game of Foot a dough now or even a young buck I am as empty as a dried well we are hunting said Balu carelessly he knew that you must not hurry Ka he is too big give me permission to come with you said Ka a blow more or less is nothing to be Bukira or Balu 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 pshaw the branches are not what they were when I was young rotten twigs and dried bows are they all maybe thy great weight has something to do with that matter said Balu I am a fair length a fair length said Ka 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 because of my slipping for my tail was not tight wrapped around the tree waked the bandar log and they called me most evil names footless yellow earthworm said Bukira under his whiskers as though he were trying to remember something have they ever called me that said Ka 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 had lost all thy teeth and will to not face anything bigger than a kid because they are indeed shameless these bandar log because thou art afraid of the he goats horns Bukira went on sweetly now a snake especially a wary old python like Ka very seldom shows that he is angry but Balu and Bukira could see the big swallowing muscles on either side of Ka's throat ripple and bulge the bandar log have shifted their grounds he said quietly when I came up into the sun today I heard them whooping among the tree tops it it is the bandar log that we follow now said Balu but the word stuck in his throat for that 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 it takes two such hunters leaders in their own jungle I am certain on the trail of the bandar log Ka replied courteously as he swelled with curiosity indeed Balu began I am no more than the old and sometimes very foolish teacher of the law to the C&E wolf cubs and Bukira here is Bukira said the black panther and his jaws shut with a snap for he did not believe in being humble the trouble is this Ka those nut stealers and pickers of palm leaves have stolen away our man cub of whom Baohast perhaps heard I heard some news from Sahi his quills make him presumptuous of a man thing that was entered into a wolf pack but I did not believe Sahi is full of stories half heard and very badly told but it is true he is such a man cub as never was Balu the best and wisest and boldest of man cubs my own pupil who shall make the name of Balu famous throughout the jungles and besides I we love him Ka tss tss said Ka waving 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 our man cub is in the hands of the band or log now and we know that of all the jungle people they fear Ka alone they fear me alone they have good reasons said Ka 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 a branch half a day meaning to do great things with it and then they snap it in two that man thing 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 ah sp help their wandering memories now wither went they with the cub the jungle alone knows towards the sunset I believe said Baloo we had thought that thou would snow Ka I how I take them when they come in my way but I do not hunt the band or log or frogs or greens scum on a water hole for that matters hello hello hello look up Baloo of the C&E Wolfpack Baloo looked up to see where the voice came from and there was Childa Kite sweeping down with the sun shining on the upturned flanges of his wings it was near Chills 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 band or log he made me tell you I watched the band or log have taken him to the rocky city to the cold layers 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 chill cried Bagheera I will remember thee in my next kill and put aside the head for thee alone oh best of kites it is nothing it is nothing the boy held the master word he could have done no less and Chills 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 too while he was being pulled across the trees it was most firmly driven into him said Bagheera but I am proud of him and now we must go to the cold layers they all knew where that place was two of the jungle people ever went there because what they called the cold layers 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 with an eye-shot of it except in times of drought when the half ruined tanks and reservoirs held a little water it is half a night's journey at full speed said Bagheera and 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, caw and eye feet or no feet I can keep a breast of all I for said caw shortly Baloo made one effort to hurry but he had to sit down panting and so they left him to come on later forward at the quick panther canter caw 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 caw swam his head and two feet of his neck clearing the water but on level ground caw 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 caw besides they called me a speckled frog worm earthworm and yellow to boot all one let us go on and caw seemed to pour himself along the ground finding the shortest road with his steady eyes and keeping to it End of Chapter 2 Part 1 The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling Chapter 2 Part 2 Chapter 2 Part 2 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 each other 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 and mobs and shout, There is no one in the jungle so wise and good and clever and strong and gentle as the band or log. Then all would begin again till they grew tired of the city and went back to the treetops, 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 band or 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 wish 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 felt a 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 bander-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 a bander-log. 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 centre of the terrace, built for Queen's 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 open work, casting shadows on the ground like black-filthed embroidery. Sore, sleepy and hungry as he was, Mowgli could not help laughing when the bander-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 the 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 bander-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 all the noise. Tapakui the jackal must have bitten all these people, he said to himself, and now they have the madness. Certainly this is Dewani, the madness. Did I never go to sleep? Now there is a cloud coming to cover the 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 Ka, 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, Ka whispered, and come swiftly down the slope of the ground in my favour. 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 by the terrace. They hold some sort of council there over the boy. Good hunting, said Ka 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's 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 fifteen feet. But Mowgli fell as Baloo had taught him to fall, and landed on his feet. Stay there, shouted the monkeys, till we have killed thy friends, and later we will play with thee, if the poisoned people leave thee alive. Weepy of one blood ye and I, said Mowgli, quickly giving the snakes call. He could hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish around him, and gave the call a second time to make sure. Even so, down hoods all, said half a dozen low voices. Every 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, for thy feet may do us harm. Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the open work, 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 the enemies. For the first time since he was born, Bagheera was fighting for his life. Blue 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, halting in silence. Then, from the ruined wall nearest the jungle, rose up the rumbling war-shout of blue. The old bear had done his best, but he could not come before. Bagheera! he shouted. I am here! I climb! I haste! Ah, warra! The stone slip under my feet! Wait my coming, almost infamous band or 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 forepaws, 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 steps, dancing up and down with rage, ready to spring upon him from all sides if he came out to help blue. It was then that Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin, and in despair gave the snakes call for protection. We be of one blood, ye and I! For he believed that Ka had turned tail at the last minute. Even blue, half smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling as he heard the black panther asking for help. Ka 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 blue 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, scattering bands of the monkey-folk woke and came leaping along the tree-roads to help their comrades in the cold layers, and the noise of the fight roused all the daybirds for miles round. Then Ka came straight, quickly, and anxious to kill. The fighting strength of 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 a half a ton driven by a cool, quiet mind living in the handle of it, you can roughly imagine what Ka 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 Ka was thirty feet long, as you know. His first stroke was delivered into the heart of the crowd round blue, was sent home with a shut mouth in silence, and there was no need of a second. The monkeys scattered with cries of, Ka, it is Ka, run, run! Generations of monkeys had been scared into good behaviour by the stories their elders told them of Ka, 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 Ka who could make himself look so like a dead branch or a rotten stump that the wisest were deceived till the branch caught them. Ka 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 blue drew a deep breath of relief. His fur was much thicker than Bakira's, but he had suffered sorely in the fight. Then Ka opened his mouth for the first time and spoke one long, hissing word, and the far away monkeys, hurrying to the defence of the cold layers, 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 Bakira shaking his wet sides as he came up from the tank. Then the clamour broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up on 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, Bakira gasped. Let us take the man-cub and go. They may attack again. They will not move till I order them to. Stay you so, Ka hissed, and the city was silent once more. I could not come before, brother, but I think I heard the call. This was to Bakira. I, I may have cried out in the battle, Bakira answered. Balu, are thou hurt? I am sure that they did not pull me into a hundred little bearlings, said Balu, gravely shaking one leg after the other. Wow, I am sore! Ka, we owe thee, I think, our lives, Bakira 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 more at the peacock. He will crush our young, said the cobras inside. Ha! said Ka with a chuckle. He has friends everywhere, this manling. Stand back, manling, and hide you, o poison people. I break down the wall. Ka 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 Balu and Bakira, an arm around each big neck. Art thou hurt? said Balu, 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 Bakira, 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. Oh, my pride of all little frogs, whimpered Balu. Of that we shall judge later, said Bakira in a dry voice that Mowgli did not at all like. But here is Ka to whom we owe the battle, and thou o'est 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 Ka, very soft as his skin, and he is not unlike the bander log. Have a care, manling, that I do not mistake thee for a monkey-sum 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, oh Ka. All thanks, little brother, said Ka, 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 towards 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 Baqira and to Baloo here. Good hunting to ye all, my masters. Well said, growled Baloo, for Mowgli had returned thanks very pritally. 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 Baqira began to put his fur in order, as Ka glided out into the centre 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 enough to see? From the walls came a moan like the wind in the treetops. We see, O Ka. Good. Begins now the dance, the dance of the hunger of Ka. 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 Baqira stood still as stone, growling in their throats, their neck hair bristling, and Mowgli watched and wondered. Banderlog, said the voice of Ka at last, can ye stir foot or hand without my order? Speak. Without thy order we cannot stir foot or hand, O Ka. Good. Come all one pace nearer to me. The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and Baqira took one stiff step forward with them. Nearer hissed Ka, and they all moved again. Mowgli laid his hands on Baloo and Baqira 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, Baqira whispered. Keep it there, or I must go back, must go back to Ka. Ah, it is only old Ka making circles on the dust, said Mowgli. Let us go. And the three slipped off through a gap in the walls of the jungle. Poof! said Baloo, when he stood under the still trees again. Nevermore will I make an ally of Ka, and he shook himself all over. He knows more than we, said Baqira, trembling. In a little time had I stayed, I should have walked down his throat. Many will walk by that road before the moon rises again, said Baloo. He will have good hunting, after his own fashion. 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 Baqira, 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 Baqira will be able to hunt with pleasure for many days. It is nothing, said Baloo. We have the man-cup again. True, but he has cost us 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 honour. For remember, Mowgli, I, who am the Black Panther, was forced to call upon Ka for protection, and Baloo and I were both made stupid as little birds by the hunger-dance. All this man-cup came of thy playing with the bander-log. True, it is true, said Mowgli sorrowfully. I am an evil man-cup, and my stomach is sad in me. Hmm, 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, Baqira, 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. Baqira 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 Baqira, jump on my back, little brother, and we will go home. One of the beauties of the jungle law is that punishment settles all scores. There is no nagging afterwards. Mowgli laid his head down on Baqira's back, and slept so deeply that he never waked when he was put down in the home cave. Road song of the band or log. Here we go in a flung festoon, halfway up to the jealous moon. Don't you envy our pranceful bands? Don't you wish you had extra hands? Wouldn't you like it 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 wise and good, done by merely wishing we could. We've forgotten, but 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 scum fish through the pines, that rocket by wear, 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. End of Chapter 2, Part 2