 The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, Chapter 6. I will remember what I was. I am sick of rope and chain. I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs. I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugarcane. I will go out to my own kind and the wood folk in their lair. I will go out until the day, until the morning break, out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress. I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake. I will revisit my lost loves and playmate's master-less. I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake. I will revisit my lost loves and playmate's master-less. Kala Nag, which means black snake, had served the Indian government in every way that an elephant could serve it for forty-seven years, and as he was fully twenty years old when he was caught, that makes him nearly seventy, a ripe age for an elephant. He remembered pushing with a big leather pad on his forehead at a gun stuck deep in mud, and that was before the Afghan War of 1842, and he had not then come to his full strength. His mother, Radha Payari, Radha the Darling, who had been caught in the same drive with Kala Nag, told him before his little milk tusks had dropped out that elephants who were afraid always got hurt. And Kala Nag knew that that advice was good, for the first time that he saw a shell burst he backed screaming into a stand of piled rifles, and the bayonets pricked him in all his softest places. So before he was twenty-five he gave up being afraid, and so he was the best-loved and the best-looked-after elephant in the service of the government of India. He had carried tents, twelve hundred pounds weight of tents, on the march in Upper India. He had been hoisted into a ship at the end of a steam crane, and taken for days across the water, and made to carry a mortar on his back in a strange and rocky country very far from India, and had seen the Emperor Theodore lying dead in Magdala, and had come back again in the steamer entitled, so the soldiers said, to the Abyssinian War Medal. He had seen his fellow elephants die of cold and epilepsy, and starvation and sunstroke up at a place called Ali Masjid, ten years later, and afterwards he had been sent down thousands of miles south to haul and pile big bulks of teak in the timber yards at Mulmain. There he had half killed an insubordinate young elephant, who was shirking his fair share of work. After that he was taken off timber hauling, and employed with a few score other elephants who were trained to the business, in helping to catch wild elephants among the Garo Hills. Elephants are very strictly preserved by the Indian government. There is one whole department which does nothing else but hunt them, and catch them, and break them in, and send them up and down the country as they are needed for work. Kala Nag stood ten fair feet at the shoulders, and his tusks had been cut off short at five feet, and bound round the ends to prevent them splitting with bands of copper. But he could do more with those stumps than any untrained elephant could do with the real sharpened ones. When, after weeks and weeks of cautious driving of scattered elephants across the hills, the forty or fifty wild monsters were driven into the last stockade, and the big drop gate made of tree trunk slashed together, jarred down behind them, Kala Nag, at the word of command, would go into that flaring, trumpeting pandemonium, generally at night, when the flickering of the torches made it difficult to judge distances, and, picking out the biggest and wildest tusker of the mob, would hammer him and hustle him into quiet, while the men on the backs of the other elephants roped and tied the smaller ones. There was nothing in the way of fighting that Kala Nag, the old wise black snake, did not know, for he had stood up more than once in his time to the charge of the wounded tiger, and, curling up his soft trunk to be out of harm's way, had knocked the springing brute's sideways in midair with a quick sickle-cut of his head that he had invented all by himself, had knocked him over and kneeled upon him with his huge knees till the life went out with a gasp and a howl, and there was only a fluffy striped thing on the ground for Kala Nag to pull by the tail. Yes, said Big Tumai, his driver, the son of Black Tumai who had taken him to Abyssinia, and grandson of Tumai of the elephants who had seen him caught. There is nothing that the black snake fears except me. He has seen three generations of us feed him and groom him, and he will live to see four. He's afraid of me also, said little Tumai, standing up to his full height of four feet, with only one rag upon him. He was ten years old, the eldest son of Big Tumai, and according to custom he would take his father's place on Kala Nag's neck when he grew up, and would handle the heavy iron angus, the elephant-goad, that had been worn smooth by his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. He knew what he was talking of, for he had been born under Kala Nag's shadow, had played with the end of his trunk before he could walk, had taken him down to water as soon as he could walk, and Kala Nag would no more have dreamed of disobeying his shrill little orders than he would have dreamed of killing him on that day when Big Tumai carried the little brown baby under Kala Nag's tusks and told him to salute his master that was to be. Yes, said little Tumai, he is afraid of me. And he took long strides up to Kala Nag, called him a fattled pig, and made him lift up his feet one after the other. Hwa! said little Tumai, thou art a big elephant. And he wagged his fluffy head, quoting his father. The government may pay for elephants, but they belong to us Mahouts. When thou art old, Kala Nag, there will come some rich Raja, and he will buy thee from the government, on account of thy size and thy manners. And then thou wilt have nothing to do but to carry gold earrings in thy ears, and a gold houda on thy back, and a red cloth covered with gold on thy sides, and walk at the head of the processions of the king. Then I shall sit on thy neck, O Kala Nag, with a silver ancus, and men will run before us with golden sticks crying, room for the king's elephant. That will be good, Kala Nag, but not so good as this hunting in the jungles. Hwa! said big Tumai, thou art a boy, and as wild as a buffalo calf. This running up and down among the hills is not the best government service. I am getting old, and I do not love wild elephants. Give me brick elephant lines, one to stall each elephant, and big stumps to tie them safely, and flat, broad roads to exercise upon, instead of this come-and-go camping. Aha! the count-poor barracks were good. There was a bazaar close by, and only three hours work a day. Little Tumai remembered the count-poor elephant lines, and said nothing. He very much preferred the camp life, and hated those broad, flat roads, with the daily grubbing for grass and the forage reserve, and the long hours when there was nothing to do except watch Kala Nag fidgeting in his pickets. What little Tumai liked was to scramble up bridal paths that only an elephant could take, the dip into the valley below, the glimpses of the wild elephants browsing miles away, the rush of the frightened pig and peacock under Kala Nag's feet, the blinding warm rains when all the hills and valleys smoked, the beautiful misty mornings when nobody knew where he would camp that night, the steady, cautious drive of the wild elephants, and the mad rush and blaze and hullabaloo of the last night's drive when the elephants poured into the stockade like boulders in a landslide, found that they could not get out and flung themselves at the heavy posts only to be driven back by yells and flaring torches and volleys of blank cartridge. Even a little boy could be of use there, and Tumai was as useful as three boys. He would get his torch and wave it and yell with the best. But the really good time came when the driving out began, and the keta, that is, the stockade, looked like a picture of the end of the world, and men had to make signs to one another because they could not hear themselves speak. Then little Tumai would climb up to the top of one of the quivering stockade posts, his sun-bleached brown hair flying loose all over his shoulders, and he looking like a goblin in the torchlight. And as soon as there was a lull, you could hear his high-pitched yells of encouragement to Kalanag, above the trumpeting and crashing and snapping of ropes and groans of the tethered elephants. Ma'il, Ma'il, Kalanag! Go on, go on, black snake! Tantoo! Give him the tusk! Somalo, Somalo! Careful, careful! Maro, Mar! Hit him, hit him! Mind the post! All right, all right, hi, yay! Kia-a-ah! he would shout, and the big fight between Kalanag and the wild elephant would sway to and fro across the keta, and the old elephant catchers would wipe the sweat out of their eyes and find time to nod to little Tumai wriggling with joy on the top of the posts. He did more than wriggle. One night he slid down from the post and slipped in between the elephants and threw up the loose end of a rope which had dropped to a driver who was trying to get a purchase on the leg of the kicking young calf. Cavs always give more trouble than full-grown animals. Kalanag saw him, caught him in his trunk, and handed him up to big Tumai, who slapped him then and there and put him back on the post. Next morning he gave him a scolding and said, Are not good brick elephant lines and a little tent carrying enough that thou must need to go elephant catching on thy own account, little worthless? Now those foolish hunters, whose pay is less than my pay, have spoken to Peterson Sahib of the matter. Little Tumai was frightened. He did not know much of white men, but Peterson Sahib was the greatest white man in the world to him. He was the head of all the Kedah operations, the man who caught all the elephants for the government of India and who knew more about the ways of wild elephants than any living man. What, what will happen, said little Tumai? Happen, the worst that can happen. Peterson Sahib is a mad man, else why should he go hunting these wild devils? He may even require thee to be an elephant catcher to sleep anywhere in these fever filled jungles and at last to be trampled to death on the Kedah. It is well that this nonsense ends safely. Next week the catching is over and we of the plains are sent back to our stations. Then we will march on smooth roads and forget all this hunting. But son, I am angry that thou shouldst meddle in the business that belongs to these dirty Assamese jungle folk. Kalanag will obey none but me, so I must go with him into the Kedah. But he is only a fighting elephant and he does not help to rope them. So I sit at my ease as befits a Mahut, not a mere hunter. A Mahut, I say, and a man who gets a pension at the end of his service. Is the family of Tumai of the elephants to be trodden underfoot in the dirt of a Kedah? Bad one! Wicked one! Worthless son! Go and wash Kalanag and attend to his ears and see that there are no thorns in his feet or else Peterson Zahebel surely catch thee and make thee a wild hunter, a follower of elephants' foot tracks, a jungle bear. Bah! Shame! Go! Little Tumai went off without saying a word, but he told Kalanag all his grievances while he was examining his feet. No matter, said little Tumai, turning up the fringe of Kalanag's huge right ear, they have said my name to Peterson Zahebel, and perhaps, and perhaps, and perhaps, who knows, hi, that is a big thorn that I have pulled out. The next few days were spent in getting the elephants together and walking the newly caught wild elephants up and down between a couple of tame ones to prevent them giving too much trouble on the downward march to the plains and in taking stock of the blankets and ropes that had been worn out or lost in the forest. Peterson Zahebel came in on his clever she-elephant pudmini. He had been paying off other camps among the hills, for the season was coming to an end, and there was a native clerk sitting at a table under a tree to pay the drivers their wages. As each man was paid, he went back to his elephant and joined the line that stood ready to start. The catchers and hunters and beaters, the men of the regular Kedah, who stayed in the jungle year in and year out, sat on the backs of the elephants that belonged to Peterson Zahebel's permanent force or leaned against the trees with their guns across their arms and made fun of the drivers who were going away and laughed when the newly caught elephants broke the line and ran about. Big Tuma went up to the clerk with little Tuma behind him and Machua Appa, the head tracker, said in an undertone to a friend of his, there goes one piece of good elephant stuff at least, to his pity to send that young jungle cock to mount in the plains. Now Peterson Zahebel had ears all over him as a man must have who listens to the most silent of all living things, the wild elephant. He turned where he was lying all along on Pudmini's back and said, what is that? I did not know of a man among the plains drivers who had wit enough to rope even a dead elephant. This is not a man, but a boy. He went into the Kedah at the last drive and threw our mouth at the rope when we were trying to get that young calf with the blotch on his shoulder away from his mother. Machua Appa pointed at little Tuma and Peterson Zahebel looked and little Tuma bowed to the earth. He threw a rope? He is smaller than a picket pin. Little one, what is thy name? said Peterson Zahebel. Little Tuma was too frightened to speak but Colin Ag was behind him and Tuma made a sign with his hand and the elephant caught him up in his trunk and held him level with Pudmini's forehead in front of the great Peterson Zahebel. Then little Tuma covered his face with his hands for he was only a child and except where elephants were concerned he was just as bashful as a child could be. Oh-ho! said Peterson Zahebel smiling under his mustache. And why did thou teach thy elephant that trick? Was it to help thee steal green corn from the roofs of the houses when the ears are put out to dry? Not green corn protector of the poor. Melons! said little Tuma and all the men sitting about broke into a roar of laughter. Most of them had taught their elephants that trick when they were boys. Little Tuma was hanging eight feet up in the air and he wished very much that he were eight feet underground. He is Tuma, my son Zahebel said big Tuma, scowling. He is a very bad boy in the jail, Zahebel. Of that I have my doubts, said Peterson Zahebel. A boy who can face a full Keda at his age does not end in jails. See, little one, here are four annas to spend on sweetmeats because thou hast a little head under that great thatch of hair. In time thou mayest become a hunter, too. Big Tuma scowled more than ever. Remember, though, that Kedas are not good for children to play in. Peterson Zahebel went on. Must I never go there, Zahebel? Ask little Tuma with a big gasp? Yes, Peterson Zahebel smiled again. When thou hast seen the elephant's dance, that is the proper time. Come to me when thou hast seen the elephant's dance, and then I will let thee go into all the Kedas. There was another roar of laughter for that is an old joke among elephant catchers and it means just never. There are great cleared flat places hidden away in the forest that are called elephant's ballrooms. But even these are only found by accident and no man has ever seen the elephant's dance. When a driver boasts of his skill and bravery the other drivers say, and when did thou see the elephant's dance? Colin Ag put little Tumae down and he bowed to the earth again and went away with his father and gave the silver four anapiece to his mother who was nursing his baby brother and they all were put up on Colin Ag's back and the line of grunting, squealing elephants rolled down the hill path to the plains. It was a very lively march on account of the new elephants who gave trouble at every forward and needed coaxing or beating every other minute. Big Tumae prodded Colin Ag spitefully for he was very angry, but little Tumae was too happy to speak. Peter since the heap had noticed him and given him money so he felt as a private soldier would feel if he had been called out of the ranks as commander in chief. What did Peter since the heap mean by the elephant dance? he said at last softly to his mother. Big Tumae heard him and grunted that thou should never be one of these hill buffaloes of trackers. That was what he meant. Oh, you in front, what is blocking the way? An asymese driver, two or three elephants ahead turned round angrily crying bring up Colin Ag and knock this youngster of mine into good behavior. It is Peter since the heap have chosen me to go down with you donkeys of the rice field. Lay your beast alongside Tumae and let him prod with his tusks. By all the gods of the hills these new elephants are possessed or else they can smell their companions in the jungle. Colin Ag hit the new elephant in the ribs and knocked the wind out of him as Big Tumae said. We have swept the hills of wild elephants at the last catch. It is only your carelessness in driving. Must I keep order along the whole line? Hear hymns of the other driver. We have swept the hills. Ho, ho, you are very wise, you plains people. Anyone but a mudhead who never saw the jungle would know that they know that the drives are ended for the season. Therefore all the wild elephants tonight will. But why should I waste wisdom on a river turtle? What will they do, little Tumae called out? O hey, little one, aren't thou there? Well, I will tell thee, for thou hast a cool head. They will dance, and it behooves thy father who has swept all the hills of all the elephants to double chain his pickets tonight. What talk is this, said Big Tumae? For forty years father and son we have tended elephants and we have never heard such moonshine about dances. Yes, but a plain man who lives in a hut only knows the four walls of his hut. Well, leave thy elephant's unshackled tonight and see what comes. As for the dancing, I have seen the place where— The pre-bap! How many windings has the de-hang river? Here's another ford and we must swim the calves. Stop still, you behind there. And in this way, talking and wrangling and splashing through the rivers, they made their first march to a sort of receiving camp for the new elephants. But they lost their tempers long before they got there. Then the elephants were chained by their hind legs to the big stumps of pickets, and extra ropes were fitted to the new elephants and the fodder was piled before them, and the hill-drivers went back to Peterson's Ahib through the afternoon light, telling the plains-drivers to be extra careful that night and laughing when the plains-drivers asked the reason. Little Tumae attended to Kalanag's supper, and his evening fell, wandered through the camp, unspeakably happy, in search of a tom-tom. When an Indian child's heart is full, he does not run about and make noise in an irregular fashion. He sits down to a sort of revel all by himself. And little Tumae had been spoken to by Peterson's Ahib. If he had not found what he wanted, I believe he would have been ill. But the sweet meat-seller in the camp lent him a little tom-tom, a drum beaten with the flat of the hand, and he sat down, cross-legged, before Kalanag, as the stars began to come out, the tom-tom in his lap, and he thumped and he thumped and he thumped, and the more he thought of the great honour that had been done to him, the more he thumped, all alone among the elephant fodder. There was no tune and no words, but the thumping made him happy. The new elephants strained at their ropes, and squealed and trumpeted from time to time, and he could hear his mother in the camp. And he could hear his mother in the camp hut putting his small brother to sleep with an old, old song about the great God Shiv, who once told all the animals what they should eat. It is a very soothing lullaby, and the first verse says, Shiv, who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow, sitting at the doorways of a day of long ago, gave to each his portion food and toil and fate, from the king upon the gutty to the beggar at the gate. All things made he, Shiv of the preserver. Mahadeo, Mahadeo, he made them all, thorn for the camel, fodder for the kind, and mother's heart for sleepy head, a little son of mine. Little Tumai came in with a joyous tongue-a-tunk at the end of each verse, till he felt sleepy and stretched himself on the fodder at Kalanag's side. At last the elephants began to lie down one after another, as is their custom, till only Kalanag at the right of the line was left standing up, and he rocked slowly from side to side, his ears put forward to listen to the night wind as it blew very softly across the hills. The air was full of all the night noises that, taken together, make one big silence. The click of one bamboo stem against the other, the rustle of something alive in the undergrowth, the scratch and squawk of a half-waked bird, birds are awake in the night much more often than we imagine, and the fall of water ever so far away. Little Tumai slept for some time, and when he waked it was brilliant moonlight, and Kalanag was still standing up with his ears cocked. Little Tumai turned, rustling in the fodder, and watched the curve of his big back against half the stars in heaven, and while he watched he heard so far away that it sounded no more than a pinhole of noise pricked through the stillness, the hoot-toot of a wild elephant. All the elephants in the line jumped up as if they had been shot, and their grunts at last waked the sleeping Mahoots, and they came out and drove the picket pegs with big mallets, and tightened this rope and nodded back till all was quiet. One new elephant had nearly grubbed up his picket, and Big Tumai took off Kalanag's leg chain and shackled that elephant four foot to hind foot, but slipped a loop of grass-string round Kalanag's leg and told him to remember that he was tied fast. He knew that he and his father and his grandfather had done the very same thing hundreds of times before. Kalanag did not answer to this order by gurgling, as he usually did. He stood still, looking out across the moonlight, his head a little raised and his ears spread like fans, up to the great folds of the Garrow Hills. "'Tend to him if he grows restless in the night,' said Big Tumai to Little Tumai, and he went into the hut and slept. Little Tumai was just going to sleep, too, when he heard the choir-string snap with a little ding, and Kalanag rolled out of his pickets as slowly and silently as a cloud rolls out of the mouth of a valley. Little Tumai paddered after him, barefooted down the road in the moonlight, calling under his breath, "'Kalanag! Kalanag, take me with you! Oh, Kalanag!' The elephant turned, without a sound, took three strides back to the boy in the moonlight, put down his trunk, swung him up to his neck, and almost before Little Tumai had settled his knees, slipped into the forest. There was one blast of furious trumpeting from the lines, and then the silence shut down on everything, and Kalanag began to move. Sometimes a tuft of high grass washed along his sides as a wave washes along the sides of a ship, and sometimes a cluster of wild pepper vines would scrape along his back, or a bamboo would creak where his shoulder touched it. But between those times he moved absolutely without any sound, drifting through the thick garrow forest as though it had been smoke. He was going uphill, but though Little Tumai watched the stars and the rifts of the trees, he could not tell in what direction. Then Kalanag reached the crest of the ascent and sobbed for a minute, and Little Tumai could see the tops of the trees lying all speckled and furry under the moonlight for miles and miles, and the blue-white mist over the river in the hollow. Tumai leaned forward and looked, and he felt that the forest was awake below him, awake and alive and crowded. A big brown fruit-eating bat brushed past his ear. A porcupine's quills rattled in the thicket, and in the darkness between the tree stems, he heard a hog-bear digging hard in the moist, warm earth and snuffing as it digged. Then the branches closed over his head again, and Kalanag began to go down into the valley, not quietly this time, but as a runaway gun goes down a steep bank in one rush. The huge limbs moved as steadily as pistons, eight feet to each stride, and the wrinkled skin of the elbow points rustled. The undergrowth on either side of him ripped with a noise like torn canvas, and the saplings that he heaved away right and left with his shoulders sprang back again and banged him on the flank, and great trails of creepers all matted together, hung from his tusks as he threw his head from side to side and plowed out his pathway. Then little Tumai laid himself down close to the great neck, lest a swinging bow should sweep him to the ground, and he wished that he were back in the lines again. The grass began to get squashy, and Kalanag's feet sucked and squelched as he put them down, and the night mist at the bottom of the valley chilled little Tumai. There was a splash and a trample and the rush of running water, and Kalanag strode through the bed of a river, feeling his way at each step. Above the noise of the water as it swirled round the elephant's legs, little Tumai could hear more splashing and some trumpeting both upstream and down. Great grunts and angry snortings, and all the mist about him seemed to be full of rolling, wavy shadows. Aye, he said, half-allowed, his teeth chattering. The elephant folk her out to-night. It is the dance, then. Kalanag swashed out of the water, blew his trunk clear, and began another climb, but this time he was not alone, and he had not to make his path. That was made already, six feet wide in front of him, where the bent jungle grass was trying to recover itself and stand up. Many elephants must have gone that way only a few minutes before. Little Tumai looked back, and behind him a great wild tusker with his little pig's eyes glowing like hot coals was just lifting himself out of the misty river. Then the trees closed up again, and they went on and up with trumpetings and crashings and the sound of breaking branches on every side of them. At last Kalanag stood still between two tree trunks at the very top of the hill. They were part of a circle of trees that grew round an irregular space of some three or four acres, and in all that space, as Little Tumai could see, the ground had been trampled down as hard as a brick floor. Some trees grew in the center of the clearing, but their bark was rubbed away, and the white wood beneath showed all shiny and polished in the patches of moonlight. There were creepers hanging from the upper branches, and the bells of the flowers of the creepers, great waxy white things like convulvulusis, hung down fast asleep, but within the limits of the clearing, there was not a single blade of green, nothing but the trampled earth. The moonlight showed it all iron gray, except where some elephants stood upon it, and their shadows were inky black. Little Tumai looked, holding his breath, with his eyes starting out of his head, and as he looked, more and more and more elephants swung out into the open from between the tree trunks. Little Tumai could only count up to ten, and he counted again and again on his fingers till he lost count of the tens, and his head began to swim. Outside the clearing, he could hear them crashing in the undergrowth as they worked their way up the hillside, but as soon as they were within the circle of tree trunks, they moved like ghosts. There were white tusks, wild males, with fallen leaves and nuts and twigs lying in the wrinkles of their necks and the folds of their ears, fat, slow-footed she-elephants with restless little pinky-black calves three or four feet high, running under their stomachs. Young elephants with their tusks just beginning to show and very proud of them. Lanky, scraggly old-made elephants with their hollow, anxious faces and trunks like rough bark. Savage old bull elephants, scarred from shoulder to flank with great wheels and cuts of bygone fights and the caked dirt of their solitary mud baths dripping from their shoulders. And there was one with a broken tusk in the marks of the full stroke, a noble drawing scrape of a tiger's claws on his side. They were standing head to head or walking to and fro across the ground in couples or rocking and swaying all by themselves, scores and scores of elephants. To my knew that so long as he lay on Cullen Ag's neck nothing would happen to him. For even in that rush and scramble of a ket of drive a wild elephant does not reach up with his trunk and drag a man off the neck of a tame elephant. We're not thinking of men that night. Once they started and put their ears forward when they heard the chinking of a leg iron in the forest but it was Pudmini, Peterson Sahib's pet elephant, her chain snapped short off grunting, snuffling up the hillside. She must have broken her pickets and come straight from Peterson Sahib's camp. In little to my saw another elephant, one that he did not know with deep rope galls on his back and breast. He too must have run away from some camp in the hills about. At last there was no sound of any more elephants moving in the forest and Cullen Ag rolled out from his station between the trees and went into the middle of the crowd clucking and gurgling and all the elephants began to talk in their own tongue and to move about. Still lying down little to my looked down upon scores and scores of broad backs and wagging ears and tossing trunks and little rolling eyes. He heard the click of tusks as they crossed other tusks by accident and the dry rustle of trunks twined together and the chafing of enormous sides and shoulders in the crowd and the incessant flick and hish of the great tales. Then a cloud came over the moon and he sat in black darkness. But the quiet, steady, hustling and pushing and gurgling went on just the same. He knew that there were elephants all around Cullen Ag and that there was no chance of backing him out of the assembly. So he set his teeth and shivered. In a keta at least there was torchlight and shouting, but here he was all alone in the dark and once a trunk came up and touched him on the knee. Then an elephant trumpeted and they all took it up for five or ten terrible seconds. The dew from the trees above spattered down like rain on the unseen backs and a dull booming noise began not very loud at first and little to my could not tell what it was. But it grew and grew and Cullen Ag lifted up one four foot and then the other and brought them down on the ground one-two, one-two, as steadily as trip-hammers. The elephants were stamping all together now and it sounded like a wardrobe beaten at the mouth of a cave. The dew fell from the trees till there was no more left to fall and the booming went on and the ground rocked and shivered and little to my put his hands up to his ears to shut out the sound. But it was all one gigantic jar that ran through him, this stamp of hundreds of heavy feet on the raw earth. Once or twice he could feel Cullen Ag and all the other surged forward a few strides and the thumping would change to the crushing sound of juicy green things being bruised but in a minute or two the boom of feet on hard earth began again. A tree was creaking and groaning somewhere near him. He put out his arm and felt the bark but Cullen Ag moved forward still tramping and he could not tell where he was in the clearing. There was no sound from the elephants except once when two or three little calves squeaked together. Then he heard a thump and a shuffle and the booming went on. It must have lasted fully two hours and little to my ached and every nerve but he knew by the smell of the night air that dawn was coming. The morning broke in one sheet of pale yellow behind the green hills and the booming stopped with the first ray as though light had been in order. Before little to my had gotten the ringing out of his head before even he had shifted his position there was not an elephant in sight except Cullen Ag, Pudmini and the elephant with the rope galls and there was neither sign nor rustle nor whisper down the hillsides to show where the others had gone. Little to my stared again and again. The clearing as he remembered it had grown in the night. More trees stood in the middle of it but the undergrowth and the jungle grass at the sides had been rolled back. Little to my stared once more. Now he understood the trampling. The elephants had stamped out more room had stamped the thick grass and juicy cane to trash the trash into slivers the slivers into tiny fibers and the fibers into hard earth. Wah! said little to my and his eyes were very heavy. Cullen Ag, my lord let us keep by Pudmini and go back to Peterson Sahib's camp or I shall drop from thy neck. The third elephant watched the two go away snorted, wheeled round and took his own path he may have belonged to some little native king's establishment fifty or sixty or a hundred miles away. Two hours later as Peterson Sahib was eating early breakfast his elephants who had been double chained that night began to trumpet and Pudmini mired to the shoulders with Cullen Ag very foot sore shambled into the camp little to my's face was gray and pinched and his hair was full of leaves and drenched with dew but he tried to salute Peterson Sahib and cried faintly the dance the elephant dance I have seen it and I die as Cullen Ag sat down he slid off his neck in a dead faint but since native children have no nerves worth speaking of in two hours he was lying very contentedly in Peterson Sahib's hammock with Peterson Sahib's shooting coat under his head and a glass of warm milk a little brandy with a dash of quinine inside him and while the old hairy scarred hunters of the jungles sat three deep before him looking at him as though he were a spirit he told his tale in short words as a child will and wound up with now if I lie in one word send men to sea and they will find that the elephant folk have trampled down more room in their dance room and they will find ten and ten and many times ten tracks leading to that dance room they made more room with their feet I have seen it Cullen Ag took me and I saw also Cullen Ag is very leg weary little to my laid back and slept all through the long afternoon and into the twilight and while he slept Peterson Sahib and Machua Appa followed the track of the two elephants for fifteen miles across the hills Peterson Sahib had spent eighteen years in catching elephants and he had only once before found such a dance place Machua Appa had no need to look twice at the clearing to see what had been done there or to scratch with his toe in the packed rammed earth the child speaks the truth said he all this was done last night and I have counted seventy tracks crossing the river see Sahib where Pudmini's leg iron cut the bark of that tree yes, she was there too they looked at one another and up and down and they wondered for the ways of the elephants are beyond the wit of any man black or white to fathom forty years and five said Machua Appa have I followed my lord the elephant but never have I heard that any child of man had seen what this child has seen by all the gods of the hills is it what can we say and he shook his head when they got back to the camp it was time for the evening meal Peterson Sahib ate alone in his tent but he gave orders that the camp should have two sheep and some fowls as well as a double ration of flour and rice and salt for he knew that there would be a feast Big Tumai had come up hot foot from the camp in the plains to search for his son and his elephant and now that he had found them he looked at them as though he were afraid of them both and there was a feast by the blazing campfires in front of the lines of picketed elephants and Little Tumai was the hero at all and the big brown elephant catchers the trackers and drivers and ropers and the men who knew all the secrets of breaking the wildest elephants passed him from one to the other and they marked his forehead with blood from the breast of a newly killed jungle cock to show that he was a forester initiated and free of all the jungles and at last when the flames died down and the red light of the logs made the elephants look as though they had been dipped in blood too Machua Appa, the head of all the drivers and all the kettas Machua Appa, Peterson Sahib's other self who had never seen a made road in forty years Machua Appa, who was so great that he had no other name than Machua Appa leaped to his feet with Little Tumai held in the air above his head and shouted Listen my brothers Listen too you my lords in the lines there for I, Machua Appa, am speaking this little one shall no more be called little Tumai but Tumai of the elephants as his great grandfather was called before him what never man has seen he has seen through the long night and the favor of the elephant folk and of the gods of the jungles is with him he shall become a great tracker he shall become greater than I even I, Machua Appa he shall follow the new trail and the stale trail and the mixed trail with a clear eye he shall take no harm in the keda when he runs under their bellies to rope the wild tuskers and if he slips before the feet of the charging bull elephant the bull elephant shall know who he is and shall not crush him ahai my lords in the chains he whirled up to the line of pickets here is the little one that has seen your dances in your hidden places the sight that never man saw give him honor my lords salam karo my children make your salute to Tumai of the elephants gunga pershad aha hiraguj birchiguj kutarguj aha pudmini thou has seen him at the dance and thou too Kalanag my pearl among elephants aha together Tumai of the elephants parao and at that last wild yell the whole line flung up their trunks till the tips touched their foreheads and broke out into the full salute the crashing trumpet peel that only the vice-roy of India hears the salam ut of the Kedah but it was all for the sake of little Tumai who had seen what never man had seen before the dance of the elephants at night and alone in the heart of the Garo Hills Shiv and the grasshopper the song that Tumai's mother sang to the baby Shiv who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow sitting at the doorways of a day of long ago gave to his mother of long ago gave to each his portion food and toil and fate from the king upon the goodie to the beggar at the gate all things made he Shiv of the preserver Mahadeo, Mahadeo, he made them all thorn for the camel fodder for the kind and mother's heart for sleepy head a little son of mine wheat he gave to the rich folk millet to the poor broken scraps for holy men that beg from door to door cattle to the tiger, carrying to the kite and rags and bones to wicked wolves without the wall at night not he found too lofty none he saw too low parbati beside him watched them come and go taught to cheat her husband turning Shiv to jest stole the little grasshopper and hid it in her breast so she tricked him Shiv of the preserver Mahadeo, Mahadeo, turn and see taller the camels, heavier the kind but this was least of little things a little son of mine when the doll was ended laughingly she said master of a million mouths is not one unfed laughing Shiv made answer all have had their part even he the little one hid in need thy heart from her breast she plucked it parbati the thief saw the least of little things not a new grown leaf saw and feared and wondered making prayer to Shiv who have surely given meat to all that live all things made he Shiv of the preserver Mahadeo, Mahadeo, he made all thorn for the camel fodder for the kind and mother's heart for sleepy head oh little son of mine end of chapter 6 the jungle book chapter 7 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 7 servants of the queen you can work it out by fractions or by simple rule of three but the way of Tweedledum is not the way of Tweedledee you can twist it you can turn it you can plate it till you drop but the way of PiliWinkies not the way of WinkyPop it had been raining heavily for one whole month raining on a camp of 30,000 men and thousands of camels elephants, horses, bullocks and mules all gathered together at a place called Rawalpindi to be reviewed by the vice-roy of India he was receiving a visit from the Amir of Afghanistan a wild king of a very wild country and the Amir had brought with him for a bodyguard 800 men and horses who had never seen a camp or a locomotive before in their lives savage men and savage horses from somewhere at the back of Central Asia every night a mob of these horses would be sure to break their heel ropes and stampede up and down the camp through the mud in the dark or the camels would break loose and run about and fall over the ropes of the tents and you can imagine how pleasant that was for men trying to go to sleep my tent lay far away from the camel lines and I thought it was safe but one night a man popped his head in and shouted get out quick, they're coming my tent's gone I knew who they were so I put on my boots and waterproof and scuttled out into the slush little Vixen, my fox terrier went out through the other side and then there was a roaring and a grunting and a bubbling and I saw the tent cave in as the pole snapped and began to dance about like a mad ghost a camel had blundered into it and wet and angry as I was I could not help laughing then I ran on because I did not know how many camels might have got loose and before long I was out of sight of the camp plowing my way through the mud at last I fell over the tail end of a gun and by that knew I was somewhere near the artillery lines where the cannons were stacked at night as I did not want to plowder about anymore in the drizzle in the dark I put my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun and made a sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found and lay along the tail of another gun wondering where Vixen had got to and where I might be just as I was getting ready to go to sleep I heard a jingle of harness and a grunt and a mule passed me shaking his wet ears he belonged to a screw gun battery for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings and chains and things on his saddle pad the screw guns are the tiny little cannons made in two pieces that are screwed together when the time comes to use them they are taken up mountains anywhere that a mule can find a road they are very useful for fighting in rocky country behind the mule there was a camel with his big soft feet squelching and slipping in the mud and his neck bobbing to and fro like a strayed hens luckily I knew enough of beast language not wild beast language but camp beast language of course from the natives to know what he was saying he must have been the one that flopped into my tent for he called to the mule what shall I do where shall I go I have fought with a white thing that waved and it took a stick and hit me on the neck that was my broken tent pole and I was very glad to know it shall we run on oh it was you the camel you and your friends that have been disturbing the camp all right you'll be beaten for this in the morning but I may as well give you something on account now I heard the harness jingle as the mule backed and caught the camel two kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum another time he said you'll know better than to run through a mule battery at night shouting thieves in fire sit down and keep your silly neck quiet the camel doubled up camel fashion and sat down whimpering there was a regular beat of hoofs in the darkness and a big troop horse cantered up as steadily as though he were on parade jumped a gun tail and landed close to the mule it's disgraceful he said, blowing out his nostrils these camels have racketed through our lines again third time this week how's a horse to keep up his condition if he isn't allowed to sleep who's here I'm the breach piece mule of number two gun of the first screw battery said the mule and the others one of your friends he's waked me up too who are you number fifteen e-troop ninth lancers dick cunnlifts horse stand over a little there oh beg your pardon said the mule it's dark to see much aren't these camels too sickening for anything I walked out of my lines to get a little peace and quiet here my lords said the camel humbly we dreamed bad dreams in the night and we were very much afraid I'm only a baggage camel of the thirty ninth native infantry and I'm not as brave as you are my lords then why didn't you stay and carry baggage for the thirty ninth native infantry instead of running all around the camp said the mule they were such very bad dreams said the camel I am sorry listen what is that sit down said the mule or you'll snap your long stick legs between the guns he cocked one ear and listened bullocks he said gunbullocks on my word you and your friends have waked the camp very thoroughly it takes a good deal of prodding to put up a gunbullock I heard a chain dragging along the ground and a yoke of the great sulky white bullocks that drag the heavy siege guns when the elephants won't go any nearer to the firing came shouldering along together and almost stepping on the chain was another battery mule calling wildly for billy that's one of our recruits said the old mule to the troop horse he's calling for me here youngster stop squealing the dark never heard anybody yet the gunbullocks lay down together and began chewing the cud but the young mule huddled close to billy things he said fearful and horrible things billy they came into our lines while we were asleep do you think they'll kill us? I have a very great mind to give you a number one kicking said billy the idea of a 14 hand mule with your training disgracing the battery before this gentleman gently gently said the troop horse remember they are always like this to begin with the first time I ever saw a man it was in australia when I was a 3 year old I ran for half a day and if I'd seen a camel I should be running still nearly all our horses for the english cavalry are brought to india from australia and are broken in by the troopers themselves true enough said billy stop shaking youngster the first time they put the full harness with all its chains on my back I stood on my four legs and kicked every bit of it off I hadn't learned the real science of kicking then but the battery said they'd never seen anything like it but this wasn't anything that jingled to the young mule you know I don't mind that now billy it was the things like trees and they fell up and down the lines and bubbled and my head broke broke and I couldn't find my driver and I couldn't find you billy so I ran off with these gentlemen hmmm said billy as soon as I heard the camels were loose I came away on my own account when a battery a screw gun mule calls gun bullocks gentleman I must be very badly shaken up who are you fellows on the ground there the gun bullocks rolled their cuds and answered both together the seventh yoke of the first gun of the big gun battery we were asleep when the camels came but when we were trampled on we got up and walked away it is better to lie quiet in the mud than to be disturbed on good bedding we told your friend here that there was nothing to be afraid of but he knew so much that he thought otherwise wah they went on chewing that comes with being afraid said billy you get laughed at by gun bullocks I hope you like it youngin the young mule's teeth snapped and I heard him say something about not being afraid of any beefy old bullock in the world but the bullocks only clicked their horns together and went on chewing now don't be angry after you've been afraid that's the worst kind of cowardice for a true porse anybody can be forgiven for being scared in the night I think if they see things they don't understand we've broken out of our pickets again and again 450 of us just because a new recruit got to telling tales of whip snakes at home in Australia till we were scared to death of the loose ends of our head ropes that's all very well in camp said billy I'm not above stampeding myself for the fun of the thing when I haven't been out for a day or two but what do you do on active service? oh that's quite another set of new shoes of the true porse Dick cunlifts on my back then and drives his knees into me and all I have to do is to watch where I'm putting my feet and to keep my hind legs well under me and be bridal wise what's bridal wise said the young mule by the blue gums of the black blocks snorted the true porse do you mean to say that you aren't taught to be bridal wise in your business? how can you do anything unless you can spin round at once when the rain is pressed on your neck it means life or death to your man and of course that's life or death to you get round with your hind legs under you the instant you feel the rain on your neck if you haven't room to swing round rear up a little and come round on your hind legs that's being bridal wise we aren't taught that way said billy the mule stiffly we're taught to obey the man at our head step off when he says and step in when he says so I suppose it comes to the same thing now with all this fine fancy business and rearing which must be very bad for your hawks what do you do? well that depends of the true porse generally I have to go in among a lot of yelling hairy men with knives long shiny knives worse than the farrier's knives and I have to take care that dicks boot is just touching the next man's boot without crushing it I can see dicks lands to the right of my right eye and I know I'm safe I shouldn't care to be the man or horse that stood up to dick in me when we're in a hurry don't the knives hurt? said the young mule well I got one cut across the chest once but that wasn't dick's fault a lot I should have cared whose fault it was if it hurt, said the young mule you must, said the true porse if you don't trust your man you may as well run away at once that's what some of our horses do and I don't blame them as I was saying it wasn't dick's fault the man was lying on the ground and I stretched myself not to tread on him and he slashed up at me next time I have to go over a man lying down I shall step on him hard said Billy it sounds very foolish knives are dirty things at any time the proper thing to do is to climb up a mountain with a well balanced saddle your ears too and creep and crawl and wiggle along till you come out hundreds of feet above anyone else on a ledge where there's just room enough for your hoofs then you stand still and keep quiet never ask a man to hold your head, young man keep quiet while the guns are being put together and then you wash the little poppy shells drop down into the treetops ever so far below don't you ever trip? said the true porse they say that when a mule trips a lot of hens ears, said Billy now and again, perhaps a badly packed saddle will upset a mule but it's very seldom I wish I could show you our business it's beautiful why it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at the science of the thing is never to show up against the skyline because if you do you may get fired at remember that, young man always keep hidden as much as possible even if you have to go a mile out of your way I lead the battery when it comes to that sort of climbing fired at without the chance of running into the people who are firing said the true porse thinking hard I couldn't stand that I should want to charge, with dick oh no you wouldn't you know that as soon as the guns are in position they'll do the charging that's scientific and neat but knives, pah the baggage camel had been bobbing his head to and fro for some time past anxious to get a word in edgewise then I heard him say as he cleared his throat nervously I I have fought a little but not in that climbing way or that running way no, now you mention it said Billy you don't look as though you were made for climbing or running much well how was it old hey bales the proper way said the camel we all sat down oh my cropper and breastplate said the true porse under his breath sat down we sat down a hundred of us the camel went on in a big square and the men piled our cajahuas, our packs and saddles outside the square and they fired over our backs the men did on all sides of the square what sort of men any men that came along said the true porse they teach us in riding school to lie down and let our masters fire across us but dick cumliffe is the only man I'd trust to do that it tickles my girth and besides I can't see you with my head on the ground what does it matter who fires across you said the camel there are plenty of men and plenty of other camels close by and a great many clouds of smoke I am not frightened then I sit still and wait and yet said Billy you dream bad dreams and upset the camp at night well well before I lie down not to speak of sitting down and let a man fire across me my head would have something to say to each other did you ever hear anything so awful as that there is a long silence and then one of the gun bullets lifted up his big head and said this is very foolish indeed there is only one way of fighting oh go on said Billy please don't mind me I suppose you fellows fight standing on your tails only one way said the two together they must have been twins this is that way to put all twenty yoke of us to the big gun as soon as two tails trumpets two tails is camp slang for the elephant what does two tails trumpet for said the young mule to show that he is not going any nearer to the smoke on the other side two tails is a great coward then we tug the big gun all together he ya hola he ya hola we do not climb like cats nor run like calves we go across the level plane twenty yoke of us till we are unyoked again and we graze while the big guns talk across the plane to some town with mud walls and pieces of the wall fall out and the dust goes up as though many cattle were coming home oh and you choose that time for grazing said the young mule that time or any other eating is always good we eat till we are yoked up again and tug the gun back to where two tails is waiting for it sometimes there are big guns in the city that speak back and some of us are killed and then there is all the more grazing for those that are left this is fate nothing but fate none the less two tails is a great coward that is the proper way to fight we are brothers from Hapur our father was a sacred bull of Shiva we have spoken while I've certainly learned something tonight said the true course to you gentlemen of the screw gun battery feel inclined to eat when you are being fired at with big guns and two tails is behind you about as much as we feel inclined to sit down and let men sprawl all over us or run into people with knives I never heard such stuff a mountain ledge a well balanced load a driver you can trust to let you pick your own way and I'm your mule but the other things no said Billy with a stamp of his foot of course said the true course everyone is not made in the same way and I can quite see that your family on your father's side would fail to understand a great many things never you mind my family on my father's side said Billy angrily for every mule hates to be reminded that his father was a donkey my father was a southern gentleman and he could pull down and bite and kick into rags every horse he came across remember that you big brown brumby brumby means wild horse without any breeding imagine the feelings of Ormond if a bus horse called him a cocktail and you can imagine how an Australian horse felt I saw the weight of his eye glitter in the dark see here you son of an important Malaga jackass he said between his teeth I'd have you know that I'm related on my mother's side to carbine winner of the Melbourne Cup and where I come from we aren't accustomed to being ridden over roughshod by any parrot melt pig headed mule and a pop gun pea shooter battery are you ready on your hind legs squealed Billy they both reared up facing each other and I was expecting a furious fight when a giggly rumbly voice called out of the darkness to the right children what are you fighting about there be quiet both beasts dropped down with a snort of disgust for neither horse nor mule can bear to listen to an elephant's voice it's two tails of the troop horse I can't stand him a tail at each end isn't fair my feelings exactly said Billy crowding into the troop horse for company we're very alike in some things I suppose we've inherited them from our mother's said the troop horse it's not worth quarreling about hi two tails are you tied up he has said two tails with a laugh all up his trunk I'm picketed for the night I've heard what you fellows have been saying but don't be afraid I'm not coming over the bullocks in the camel said half allowed afraid of two tails what nonsense and the bullocks went on we are sorry that you heard but it is true two tails why are you afraid of the guns when they fire well said two tails rubbing one hind leg against the other exactly like a little boy saying a poem I don't quite know whether you'd understand we don't but we have to pull the guns out of the bullocks I know it and I know you are a good deal braver than you think you are but it's different with me my battery captain called me a pack of dramatic anachronism the other day that's another way of fighting I suppose said Billy who was recovering his spirits you don't know what that means of course but I do it means betwixt in between and that is just where I am I can see inside my head and you bullocks can I can said the true course at least a little bit I try not to think about it I can see more than you do and I do think about it I know there's a great deal of me to take care of and I know that nobody knows how to cure me when I'm sick all they can do is to stop my driver's pay till I get well and I can't trust my driver ah said the true course I can trust it I can trust Dick you could put a whole regiment of dicks on my back without making me feel any better I know just enough to be uncomfortable and not enough to go on in spite of it we do not understand said the bullocks I know you don't I'm not talking to you you don't know what blood is we do said the bullocks is red stuff that soaks into the ground the true course gave a kick and a bound and a snort don't talk of it he said I can smell it now just thinking of it it makes me want to run when I haven't dick on my back but it's not here said the camel and the bullocks why are you so stupid it's vile stuff said billy I don't want to run but I don't want to talk about it there you are said two tails waving his tail to explain surely yes we have been here all night said the bullocks two tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it jingled oh I'm not talking to you you can't see inside your heads no we see out of our four eyes said the bullocks we see straight in front of us if I could do that and nothing else you wouldn't be needed to pull the big guns at all if I was like my captain he'd be inside his head before the firing begins and he shakes all over but he knows too much to run away if I was like him I could pull the guns but if I were as wise as all that I should never be here I should be a king in the forest as I used to be sleeping half the day and bathing when I liked I haven't had a good path for a month that's all very fine said billy but giving a thing a long name doesn't make it any better hush he'll understand better in a minute said two tails angrily now you just explain to me why you don't like this he began trumpeting furiously at the top of his trumpet stop that said billy and the true porse together and I could hear them stamp and shiver an elephant's trumpeting is always nasty especially on a dark night I shan't stop said two tails won't you explain that please rumpf rumpf rar then he stopped suddenly and I heard a little whimper in the dark and I knew that Vixen had found me at last she knew as well as I did that if there is one thing in the world an elephant is more afraid of than another it is a little barking dog so she stopped to bully two tails in his pickets and yapped around his big feet two tails shuffled and squeaked go away little dog my ankles are all kick you good little dog nice little doggy then go home you yelping beast oh why doesn't someone take her away she'll bite me in a minute seems to me said billy the true porse that her friend two tails is afraid of most things now if I had a full meal for every dog I've kicked across the parade ground I should be as fat as two tails nearly I whistled and Vixen ran up to me muddy all over and told me a long tale about hunting for me all through the camp I never let her know that I understood beast talk or she would have taken all sorts of liberties so I buttoned her into the breast of my overcoat and two tails shuffled and stamped and growled to himself extraordinary most extraordinary he said it runs in our family now where is that nasty little beast gone to I heard him feeling about with his trunk we all seem to be affected in various ways he went on blowing his nose now you gentlemen were alarmed I believe when I trumpeted not alarmed exactly said the true porse but it made me feel as though I had hornets where my saddle ought to be don't begin again I am frightened of a little dog and the camel here is frightened by bad dreams in the night it is very lucky for us that we haven't all got to fight in the same way said the true porse what I want to know said the young mule who had been quiet for a long while what I want to know is why we have to fight at all because we're told to said the true porse with a snort of contempt orders said Billy the mule and his teeth snapped hook em high it is an order said the camel with a gurgle and two tails in the bullocks repeated hook em high yes but who gives the orders said the recruit mule the man who walks at your head or sits on your back and holds the nose-rope or twist your tail said Billy and the true porse and the camel in the bullocks one after the other but who gives them the orders now you want to know too much youngen said Billy and that is one way of getting kicked all you have to do is to obey the man at your head and ask no questions he's quite right he said two tails I can't always obey because I'm betwixt in between but Billy's right obey the man next to you who gives the order or he'll stop all the battery besides getting a thrashing the gun bullocks got up to go morning is coming they said we will go back to our lines it is true that we only see out of our eyes and we are not very clever but still we are the only people tonight and afraid good night you brave people nobody answered and the true porse said to change the conversation where's that little dog a dog means a man somewhere about here I am yapp fixen under the gun tail with my man you big blundering beast of a camel you you upset our tent my man's very angry you said the bullocks are you going to fight of course he is said fixen do you suppose I'm looked after by a black bullock driver wash oh said the bullocks let us get away quickly they plunged forward in the mud and managed somehow to run their yoke on the pole of an ammunition wagon where it jammed now you have done it said Billy Conley don't struggle you're hung up till daylight the bullocks went off into the long hissing snorts that Indian cattle give and pushed and crowded and slewed and stamped and slipped and nearly fell down in the mud grunting savagely you'll break your necks in a minute said the true porse what's the matter with white men I live with them they eat us pole said the near bullock the yoke snapped with a twang and they lumbered off together I never knew before I made Indian cattle so scared of Englishmen we eat beef a thing that no cattle driver touches and of course the cattle do not like it may I be flogged with my own pad chains who'd have thought of two big lumps like those losing their heads said Billy never mind I'm going to look at this man most of the white men I know have things in their pockets said the true porse I'll leave you then I can't say I'm over fond of them myself besides white men who haven't a place to sleep in are more than likely to be thieves and I have a good deal of government property on my back come along youngen and we'll go back to our lines good night Australia see you on parade tomorrow I suppose good night old hay bales try to control your feelings won't you good night two tails if you pass us on the ground tomorrow don't trump it it spoils our formation Billy the mule stamped off with a swaggering limp of an old campaigner as the troop horses head came nuzzling into my breast and I gave him biscuits while Vixen, who's a most conceited little dog told him fibs about the scores of horses that she and I kept I'm coming to the parade tomorrow in my dog cart she said where will you be on the left hand of the second squadron I said the time for all my troop little lady he said politely now I must go back to Dick my tail's all muddy there's hard work dressing me for parade the big parade of all the 30,000 men was held that afternoon and Vixen and I had a good place close to the viceroy and the emir of Afghanistan with his high big black hat of astrochan wool and the great diamond star in the centre the first part of the review was all sunshine and the regiments went by in wave upon wave of legs all moving together and guns all in a line till our eyes grew dizzy we came up to the beautiful cavalry canter of Bonnie Dundee and Vixen Cockter here where she sat on the dog cart the second squadron of the Lancers shot by and there was the troop horse with his tail like spun silk his head pulled into his breast one ear forward and one back setting the time for all his squadron his legs going as smoothly as Walt's music then the big guns came by and I saw two tails and two other elephants harnessed the line and he found her siege gun while twenty yoke of oxen walked behind the seventh pair had a new yoke and they looked rather stiff and tired last came the screw guns and Billy the mule carried himself as though he commanded all the troops and his harness was oiled and polished till it winked I give it cheer all by myself for Billy the mule but he never looked right or left the rain began to fall again and for a while it was too misty to see what the troops were doing they had made a big half circle across the plane and were spreading out into a line that line grew and grew and grew till it was three quarters of a mile long from wing to wing one solid wall of men, horses, and guns then it came on straight toward the viceroy and the amir and as it got nearer the ground began to shake like the deck of a steamer when the engines are going fast unless you have been there you cannot imagine what a frightening effect the dead he come down of troops has on the spectators even when they know it is only a review I looked at the amir up till then he had not shown the shadow of a sign of astonishment or anything else but now his eyes began to get bigger and bigger and he picked up the reins on his horse's neck and looked behind him for a minute it seemed as though he was going to draw his sword and slash his way out through the English men and women in the carriages at the back then the advance stopped dead the ground stood still the whole line saluted and thirty bands began to play all together that was the end of the review and the regiments went off to their camps in the rain and an infantry band struck up with the animals went in two by two hurrah the animals went in two by two the elephant and the battery mule and they all got into the arc for to get out of the rain then I heard an old grizzled long-haired central Asian chief who had come down with the emir asking questions of a native officer now said he in what manner was this wonderful thing done and the officer answered an order was given and they obeyed but are the beasts as wise as the men said the chief they obey as the men do mule, horse, elephant or bullock he obeys his driver and the driver his sergeant his lieutenant and the lieutenant his captain and the captain his major and the major his colonel and the colonel his brigadier commanding three regiments and the brigadier the general who obeys the voice-toy who is the servant of the empress thus it is done what it were so in Afghanistan said the chief for there we obey only our own wills and for that reason said the native officer twirling his mustache you're a mere whom you do not obey must come here and take orders from our viceroy parade song of the camp animals elephants of the gun team we lent to alexander the strength of hercules the wisdom of our foreheads the cunning of our knees we bowed our necks to service they ne'er were loosed again make way there way for the ten foot teams of the forty pounder train gun bullocks those heroes in their harnesses avoid a cannon ball and what they know of powder upsets them one and all then we come into action and tug the guns again make way there way for the twenty yoke of the forty pounder train cavalry horses by the brand on my shoulder the finest of tunes is played by the lancers hasars and dragoons sweeter than stables or water to me the cavalry canter of bonnie dundee then feed us and break us and handle and groom and give us good riders and plenty of room and launch us in column of squadron and sea the way of the war horse to bonnie dundee screw gun mules as me and my companions were scrambling up a hill the path was lost in rolling stones but we went forward still for we can wriggle and climb my lads and turn up everywhere oh it's our delight on a mountain height with a leg or two to spare good luck to every sergeant then that lets us pick our road bad luck to all the driver men that cannot pack a load for we can wriggle and climb my lads and turn up everywhere oh it's our delight on a mountain height with a leg or two to spare commissariat camels we haven't a camelty tune of our own to help us trollop along but every neck is a hair trombone where to tie is a hair trombone and this is our marching song can't don't shant won't pass it along the line somebody's pack has slid from his back wish it were only mine somebody's load has tipped off in the road cheer for a halt in a row or yar grr r somebody's catching it now all the beasts together children of the camp are we serving each in his degree children of the yoke and goad pack and harness, pad and load see our line across the plane like a heel rope bent again reaching, writhing, rolling far sweeping all away to war while the men that walk beside dusty, silent, heavy-eyed cannot tell why we are they march and suffer day by day children of the camp are we serving each in his degree children of the yoke and goad pack and harness, pad and load End of Chapter 7 End of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling