Jungle Book II E-book
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Genre: Children Stories, Literature
1895
THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK
by Rudyard Kipling
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
CONTENTS
-
How Fear Came
The Law of the Jungle
-
The Miracle of Purun Bhagat
A Song of Kabir
-
Letting in the Jungle
Mowgli's Song Against People
-
The Undertakers
A Ripple Song
-
The King's Ankus
The Song of the Little Hunter
-
Quiquern
Angutivun Tina
-
Red Dog
Chil's Song
-
The Spring Running
The Outsong
HOW FEAR CAME
-
The stream is shrunk- the pool is dry,
And we be comrades, thou and I;
With fevered jowl and dusty flank
Each jostling each along the bank;
And by one drouthy fear made still
Forgoing thought of quest or kill.
Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see,
The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,
And the tall buck, unflinching, note
The fangs that tore his father's throat.
The pools are shrunk- the streams are dry,
And we be playmates, thou and I,
Till yonder cloud- Good Hunting!- loose
The rain that breaks our Water Truce.
-
The Law of the Jungle- which is by far the oldest law in the
world- has arranged for almost every kind of accident that may
befall the Jungle People, till now its code is as perfect as time
and custom can make it. If you have read the other stories about
Mowgli, you will remember that he spent a great part of his life in
the Seeonee Wolf-Pack, learning the Law from Baloo the brown bear; and
it was Baloo who told him, when the boy grew impatient at the constant
orders, that the Law was like the Giant Creeper, because it dropped
across everyone's back and no one could escape. 'When thou hast
lived as long as I have, Little Brother, thou wilt see how all the
Jungle obeys at least one Law. And that will be no pleasant sight,'
said Baloo.
This talk went in at one ear and out at the other, for a boy who
spends his life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till
it actually stares him in the face. But one year Baloo's words came
true, and Mowgli saw all the Jungle working under one Law.
It began when the winter Rains failed almost entirely, and Sahi, the
Porcupine, meeting Mowgli in a bamboo thicket, told him that the
wild yams were drying up. Now everybody knows that Sahi is
ridiculously fastidious in his choice of food, and will eat nothing
but the very best and ripest. So Mowgli laughed and said, 'What is
that to me?'
'Not much now,' said Sahi, rattling his quills in a stiff,
uncomfortable way, 'but later we shall see. Is there any more diving
into the deep rock-pool below the Bee-Rocks, Little Brother?'
'No. The foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish to break
my head,' said Mowgli, who was quite sure he knew as much as any
five of the Jungle People put together.
'That is thy loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom.' Sahi
ducked quickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling his nose-bristles, and
Mowgli told Baloo what Sahi had said. Baloo looked very grave, and
mumbled half to himself: 'If I were alone I would change my
hunting-grounds now, before the others began to think. And yet-
hunting among strangers ends in fighting- and they might hurt my
Man-cub. We must wait and see how the mohwa blooms.'
That spring the mohwa tree, that Baloo was so fond of, never
flowered. The greeny, cream-coloured, waxy blossoms were heat-killed
before they were born, and only a few bad-smelling petals came down
when he stood on his hind legs and shook the tree. Then, inch by inch,
the untempered heat crept into the heart of the Jungle, turning it
yellow, brown, and at last black. The green growths in the sides of
the ravines burned up to broken wires and curled films of dead
stuff; the hidden pools sank down and caked over, keeping the last
least footmark on their edges as if it had been cast in iron; the
juicy-stemmed creepers fell away from the trees they clung to and died
at their feet; the bamboos withered, clanking when the hot winds blew,
and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in the Jungle, till they were
as bare and as hot as the quivering blue boulders in the bed of the
stream.
The birds and the monkey-people went north early in the year, for
they knew what was coming; and the deer and the wild pig broke far
away into the perished fields of the villages, dying sometimes
before the eyes of men too weak to kill them. Chil, the Kite, stayed
and grew fat, for there was a great deal of carrion, and evening after
evening he brought the news to the beasts, too weak to force their way
to fresh hunting-grounds, that the sun was killing the Jungle for
three days' flight in every direction.
Mowgli, who had never known what real hunger meant, fell back on
stale honey, three years old, scraped out of deserted rock-hives-
honey black as a sloe, and dusty with dried sugar. He hunted, too, for
deep-boring grubs under the bark of the trees, and robbed the wasps of
their new broods. All the game in the Jungle was no more than skin and
bone, and Bagheera could kill thrice in a night and hardly get a
full meal. But the want of water was the worst, for though the
Jungle People drink seldom they must drink deep.
And the heat went on and on, and sucked up all the moisture, till at
last the main channel of the Waingunga was the only stream that
carried a trickle of water between its dead banks; and when Hathi, the
wild elephant, who lives for a hundred years and more, saw a long,
lean blue ridge of rock show dry in the very centre of the stream,
he knew that he was looking at the Peace Rock, and then and there he
lifted up his trunk and proclaimed the Water Truce, as his father
before him had proclaimed it fifty years ago. The deer, wild pig,
and buffalo took up the cry hoarsely; and Chil, the Kite, flew in
great circles far and wide, whistling and shrieking the warning.
By the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the
drinking-places when once the Water Truce has been declared. The
reason for this is that drinking comes before eating. Everyone in
the Jungle can scramble along somehow when only game is scarce; but
water is water, and when there is but one source of supply, all
hunting stops while the Jungle People go there for their needs. In
good seasons, when water was plentiful, those who came down to drink
at the Waingunga- or anywhere else, for that matter- did so at the
risk of their lives, and that risk made no small part of the
fascination of the night's doings. To move down so cunningly that
never a leaf stirred; to wade knee-deep in the roaring shallows that
drown all noise from behind- to drink, looking backward over one
shoulder, every muscle ready for the first desperate bound of keen
terror; to roll on the sandy margin, and return, wet-muzzled and
well plumped out, to the admiring herd, was a thing that all
glossy-horned young bucks took a delight in, precisely because they
knew that at any moment Bagheera or Shere Khan might leap upon them
and bear them down. But now that life-and-death fun was ended, and the
Jungle People came up, starved and weary, to the shrunken river-
tiger, bear, deer, buffalo, and pig together drank the fouled
waters, and hung above them, too exhausted to move off.
The deer and pig had tramped all day in search of something better
than dried bark and withered leaves. The buffaloes had found no
wallows to be cool in, and no green crops to steal. The snakes had
left the Jungle and come down to the river in the hope of catching a
stray frog. They curled round wet stones, and never offered to
strike when the snout of a rooting pig dislodged them. The
river-turtles had long ago been killed by Bagheera, cleverest of
hunters, and the fish had buried themselves deep in the cracked mud.
Only the Peace Rock lay across the shallows like a long snake, and the
little tired ripples hissed as they dried on its hot side.
It was here that Mowgli came nightly for the cool and the
companionship. The most hungry of his enemies would hardly have
cared for the boy then. His naked skin made him look more lean and
wretched than any of his fellows. His hair was bleached to
tow-colour by the sun; his ribs stood out like the ribs of a basket,
and the lumps on his knees and elbows, where he was used to track on
all fours, gave his shrunken limbs the look of knotted grass-stems.
But his eye, under his matted forelock, was cool and quiet, for
Bagheera, his adviser in this time of trouble, told him to move
quietly, hunt slowly, and never, on any account, to lose his temper.
'It is an evil time,' said the Black Panther, one furnace-hot
evening, 'but it will go if we can live till the end. Is thy stomach
full, Man-cub?'
'There is stuff in my stomach, but I get no good of it. Think you,
Bagheera, the Rains have forgotten us and will never come again?'
'Not I. We shall see the mohwa in blossom yet, and the little
fawns all fat with new grass. Come down to the Peace Rock and hear the
news. On my back, Little Brother.'
'This is no time to carry weight. I can still stand alone, but-
indeed we be no fatted bullocks, we two.'
Bagheera looked along his ragged, dusty flank and whispered: 'Last
night I killed a bullock under the yoke. So low was I brought that I
think I should not have dared to spring if he had been loose. Wou!'
Mowgli laughed. 'Yes, we are great hunters now,' said he. 'I am very
bold- to eat grubs,' and the two came down together through the
crackling undergrowth to the river bank and the lace-work of shoals
that ran out from it in every direction.
'The water cannot live long,' said Baloo, joining them. 'Look
across! Yonder are trails like the roads of Man.'
On the level plain of the farther bank the stiff jungle-grass had
died standing, and, dying, had mummied. The beaten tracks of the
deer and the pig, all heading towards the river, had striped that
colourless plain with dusty gullies driven through the ten-foot grass,
and, early as it was, each long avenue was full of first-comers
hastening to the water. You could hear the does and fawns coughing
in the snuff-like dust.
Up-stream, at the bend of the sluggish pool round the Peace Rock,
and Warden of the Water Truce, stood Hathi, the wild elephant, with
his sons, gaunt and gray in the moonlight, rocking to and fro-
always rocking. Below him a little were the vanguard of the deer;
below these, again, the pig and the wild buffalo; and on the
opposite bank, where the tall trees came down to the water's edge, was
the place set apart for the Eaters of Flesh- the tiger, the wolves,
the panther, the bear, and the others.
'We be under one Law, indeed,' said Bagheera, wading into the
water and looking across at the lines of clicking horns and starting
eyes where the deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro. 'Good
hunting, all of you of my blood,' he added, lying down at full length,
one flank thrust out of the shallows; and then, between his teeth,
'But for that which is the Law it would be very good hunting.'
The quick-spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence, and a
frightened whisper ran along the ranks. 'The Truce! Remember the
Truce!'
'Peace there, peace!' gurgled Hathi, the wild elephant. 'The Truce
holds, Bagheera. This is no time to talk of hunting.'
'Who should know better than I?' Bagheera answered, rolling his
yellow eyes up-stream. 'I am an eater of turtle- a fisher of frogs.
Ngaayah! Would I could get good from chewing branches!'
'We wish so, very greatly,' bleated a young fawn, who had only
been born that spring, and did not at all like it. Wretched as the
Jungle People were, even Hathi could not help chuckling; while Mowgli,
lying on his elbows in the warm water, laughed aloud, and beat up
the foam with his feet.
'Well spoken, little bud-horn,' Bagheera purred. 'When the Truce
ends that shall be remembered in thy favour,' and he looked keenly
through the darkness to make sure of recognizing the fawn again.
Gradually the talk spread up and down the drinking-places. You could
hear the scuffling, snorting pig asking for more room; the buffaloes
grunting among themselves as they lurched out across the sandbars, and
the deer telling pitiful stories of their long footsore searches in
quest of food. Now and again they asked some question of the Eaters of
Flesh across the river, but all the news was bad, and the roaring
hot wind of the Jungle came and went, between the rocks and the
rattling branches, and scattered twigs and dust on the water.
'The men-folk too, they die beside their ploughs,' said a young
sambhur. 'I passed three between sunset and night. They lay still,
and their bullocks with them. We also shall lie still in a little.'
'The river has fallen since last night,' said Baloo. 'O Hathi,
hast thou ever seen the like of this drought?'
'It will pass, it will pass,' said Hathi, squirting water along
his back and sides.
'We have one here that cannot endure long,' said Baloo; and he
looked towards the boy he loved.
'I?' said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. 'I have no
long fur to cover my bones, but- but if thy hide were pulled off,
Baloo-'
Hathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely:
'Man-cub, that is not seemly to tell a Teacher of the Law. Never
have I been seen without my hide.'
'Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it were,
like the cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked.
Now that brown husk of thine-' Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and
explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way, when
Bagheera put out a paddy paw and pulled him over backwards into the
water.
'Worse and worse,' said the Black Panther, as the boy rose
spluttering. 'First, Baloo is to be skinned and now he is a
cocoanut. Be careful that he does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do.'
'And what is that?' said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute,
though that is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle.
'Break thy head,' said Bagheera quietly, pulling him under again.
'It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher,' said the Bear,
when Mowgli had been ducked for the third time.
'Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing running to and fro
makes a monkey-jest of those who have once been good hunters, and
pulls the best of us by the whiskers for sport.' This was Shere
Khan, the Lame Tiger, limping down to the water. He waited a little to
enjoy the sensation he made among the deer on the opposite bank;
then he dropped his square, frilled head and began to lap, growling:
'The Jungle has become a whelping-ground for naked cubs now. Look at
me, Man-cub!'
Mowgli looked- stared, rather- as insolently as he knew how, and
in a minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. 'Man-cub this, and
Man-cub that,' he rumbled, going on with his drink. 'The cub is
neither man nor cub, or he would have been afraid. Next season I shall
have to get his leave for a drink. Aurgh!'
'That may come, too,' said Bagheera, looking him steadily between
the eyes. 'That may come, too... Faugh, Shere Khan! What new shame
hast thou brought here?'
The Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and dark
oily streaks were floating from it down-stream.
'Man!' said Shere Khan coolly, 'I killed an hour since.' He went
on purring and growling to himself.
The line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper
went up that grew to a cry: 'Man! Man! He has killed Man!' Then all
looked towards Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed not to hear.
Hathi never does anything till the time comes, and that is one of
the reasons why he lives so long.
'At such a season as this to kill Man! Was there no other game
afoot?' said Bagheera scornfully, drawing himself out of the tainted
water, and shaking each paw, cat-fashion, as he did so.
'I killed for choice- not for food.' The horrified whisper began
again, and Hathi's watchful little white eye cocked itself in Shere
Khan's direction. 'For choice,' Shere Khan drawled. 'Now come I to
drink and make me clean again. Is there any to forbid?'
Bagheera's back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind, but
Hathi lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly.
'Thy kill was from choice?' he asked; and when Hathi asks a question
it is best to answer.
'Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi.'
Shere Khan spoke almost courteously.
'Yea, I know,' Hathi answered; and, after a little silence, 'Hast
thou drunk thy fill?'
'For tonight, yes.'
'Go, then. The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but the
Lame Tiger would have boasted of his right at this season when- when
we suffer together- Man and Jungle People alike. Clean or unclean, get
to thy lair, Shere Khan!'
The last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi's three sons
rolled forward half a pace, though there was no need. Shere Khan slunk
away, not daring to growl, for he knew- what everyone else knows- that
when the last comes to the last Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.
'What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?' Mowgli whispered in
Bagheera's ear. 'To kill Man is always shameful. The Law says so.
And yet Hathi says-'
'Ask him. I do not know, Little Brother. Right or no right, if Hathi
had not spoken I would have taught that lame butcher his lesson. To
come to the Peace Rock fresh from a kill of Man- and to boast of it,
is a jackal's trick. Besides, he tainted the good water.'
Mowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage, because no one
cared to address Hathi directly, and then he cried: 'What is Shere
Khan's right, O Hathi?' Both banks echoed his words, for all the
People of the Jungle are intensely curious, and they had just seen
something that no one, except Baloo, who looked very thoughtful,
seemed to understand.
'It is an old tale,' said Hathi; 'a tale older than the Jungle. Keep
silence along the banks, and I will tell that tale.'
There was a minute or two of pushing and shouldering among the
pigs and the buffalo, and then the leaders of the herds grunted, one
after another, 'We wait,' and Hathi strode forward till he was
almost knee-deep in the pool by the Peace Rock. Lean and wrinkled
and yellow-tusked though he was, he looked what the Jungle held him to
be- their master.
'Ye know, children,' he began, 'that of all things ye most fear
Man.' There was a mutter of agreement.
'This tale touches thee, Little Brother,' said Bagheera to Mowgli.
'I? I am of the Pack- a hunter of the Free People,' Mowgli answered.
'What have I to do with Man?'
'And ye do not know why ye fear Man?' Hathi went on. 'This is the
reason. In the beginning of the Jungle, and none know when that was,
we of the Jungle walked together, having no fear of one another. In
those days there was no drought, and leaves and flowers and fruit grew
on the same tree, and we ate nothing at all except leaves and
flowers and grass and fruit and bark.'
'I am glad I was not born in those days,' said Bagheera. 'Bark is
only good to sharpen claws.'
'And the Lord of the Jungle was Tha, the First of the Elephants.
He drew the Jungle out of deep waters with his trunk, and where he
made furrows in the ground with his tusks, there the rivers ran, and
where he struck with his foot, there rose ponds of good water, and
when he blew through his trunk- thus- the trees fell. That was the
manner in which the Jungle was made by Tha; and so the tale was told
to me.'
'It has not lost fat in the telling,' Bagheera whispered, and Mowgli
laughed behind his hand.
'In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or
sugar-cane, nor were there any little huts such as ye have all seen;
and the Jungle People knew nothing of Man, but lived in the Jungle
together, making one people. But presently they began to dispute
over their food, though there was grazing enough for all. They were
lazy. Each wished to eat where he lay, as, sometimes we may do now
when the Spring rains are good. Tha, the First of the Elephants, was
busy making new Jungles and leading the rivers in their beds. He could
not walk everywhere, so he made the First of the Tigers the master and
the judge of the Jungle, to whom the Jungle People should bring
their disputes. In those days the First of the Tigers ate fruit and
grass with the others. He was as large as I am, and he was very
beautiful, in colour all over like the blossom of the yellow
creeper. There was never stripe nor bar upon his hide in those good
days when the Jungle was new. All the Jungle People came before him
without fear, and his word was the Law of all the Jungle. We were
then, remember ye, one people. Yet, upon a night, there was a
dispute between two bucks- a grazing-quarrel such as ye now try out
with the head and the forefeet- and it is said that as the two spoke
together before the First of the Tigers lying among the flowers, a
buck pushed him with his horns, and the First of the Tigers forgot
that he was the master and judge of the Jungle, and, leaping upon that
buck, broke his neck.
'Till that night never one of us had died, and the First of the
Tigers, seeing what he had done, and being made foolish by the scent
of the blood, ran away into the marshes of the North, and we of the
Jungle, left without a judge, fell to fighting among ourselves. Tha
heard the noise of it and came back; and some of us said this and some
of us said that, but he saw the dead buck among the flowers, and asked
who had killed, and we of the Jungle would not tell because the
smell of the blood made us foolish, even as that same smell makes us
foolish today. We ran to and fro in circles, capering and crying out
and shaking our heads. So therefore Tha gave an order to the trees
that hang low, and to the trailing creepers of the Jungle, that they
should mark the killer of the buck that he should know him again;
and Tha said, "Who will now be Master of the Jungle People?" Then up
leaped the Gray Ape who lives in the branches, and said, "I will now
be Master of the Jungle." At this Tha laughed, and said, "So be it,"
and went away very angry.
'Children, ye know the Gray Ape. He was then as he is now. At the
first he made a wise face for himself, but in a little while he
began to scratch and to leap up and down, and when Tha returned he
found the Gray Ape hanging, head down, from a bough, mocking those who
stood below; and they mocked him again. And so there was no Law in the
Jungle- only foolish talk and senseless words.
'Then Tha called us all together, and said: "The first of your
masters has brought Death into the Jungle, and the second Shame. Now
it is time there was a Law, and a Law that ye may not break. Now ye
shall know Fear, and when ye have found him ye shall know that he is
your master, and the rest shall follow." Then we of the Jungle said,
"What is Fear?" And Tha said, "Seek till ye find." So we went up and
down the Jungle seeking for Fear, and presently the buffaloes-'
'Ugh!' said Mysa, the leader of the buffaloes, from their sandbank.
'Yes, Mysa, it was the buffaloes. They came back with the news
that in a cave in the Jungle sat Fear, and that he had no hair, and
went upon his hind legs. Then we of the Jungle followed the herd
till we came to that cave, and Fear stood at the mouth of it, and he
was, as the buffaloes had said, hairless, and he walked upon his
hinder legs. When he saw us he cried out, and his voice filled us with
the fear that we have now, and we ran away, tramping upon and
tearing each other because we were afraid. That night, it was told
to me, we of the Jungle did not lie down together as used to be our
custom, but each tribe drew off by itself- the pig with the pig, the
deer with the deer; horn to horn, hoof to hoof- like keeping to
like, and so lay shaking in the Jungle.
'Only the First of the Tigers was not with us, for he was still
hidden in the marshes of the North, and when word was brought to him
of the Thing we had seen in the cave, he said: "I will go to this
Thing and break his neck." So he ran all the night till he came to the
cave, but the trees and the creepers on his path, remembering the
order Tha had given, let down their branches and marked him as he ran,
drawing their fingers across his back, his flank, his forehead and his
jowl. Wherever they touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his
yellow hide. And those stripes do his children wear to this day!
When he came to the cave, Fear, the Hairless One, put out his hand and
called him "The Striped One that comes by night," and the First of the
Tigers was afraid of the Hairless One, and ran back to the swamps
howling.'
Mowgli chuckled quietly here, his chin in the water.
'So loud did he howl that Tha heard him and said, "What is the
sorrow?" And the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to the
new-made sky, which is now so old, said: "Give me back my power, O
Tha. I am made ashamed before all the Jungle, and I have run away from
an Hairless One, and he has called me a shameful name." "And why?"
said Tha. "Because I am smeared with the mud of the marshes," said the
First of the Tigers. "Swim, then, and roll on the wet grass, and if it
be mud it will surely wash away," said Tha; and the First of the
Tigers swam, and rolled, and rolled, till the Jungle ran round and
round before his eyes, but not one little bar upon his hide was
changed, and Tha, watching him, laughed. Then the First of the
Tigers said, "What have I done that this comes to me?" Tha said, "Thou
hast killed the buck, and thou hast let Death loose in the Jungle, and
with Death has come Fear, so that the People of the Jungle are
afraid one of the other as thou art afraid of the Hairless One." The
First of the Tigers said, "They will never fear me, for I knew them
since the beginning." Tha said, "Go and see." And the First of the
Tigers ran to and fro, calling aloud to the deer and the pig and the
sambhur and the porcupine and all the Jungle Peoples; but they all
ran away from him who had been their judge, because they were afraid.
'Then the First of the Tigers came back, his pride was broken in
him, and, beating his head upon the ground, he tore up the earth
with all his feet and said: "Remember that I was once the Master of
the Jungle! Do not forget me, O Tha. Let my children remember that I
was once without shame or fear!" And Tha said: "This much will I do,
because thou and I together saw the Jungle made. For one night of each
year it shall be as it was before the buck was killed- for thee and
for thy children. In that one night, if ye meet the Hairless One-
and his name is Man- ye shall not be afraid of him, but he shall be
afraid of you as though ye were judges of the Jungle and masters of
all things. Show him mercy in that night of his fear; for thou hast
known what Fear is."
'Then the First of the Tigers answered, "I am content"; but when
next he drank he saw the black stripes upon his flank and his side,
and he remembered the name that the Hairless One had given him, and he
was angry. For a year he lived in the marshes, waiting till Tha should
keep his promise. And upon a night when the Jackal of the Moon (the
Evening Star) stood clear of the Jungle, he felt that his Night was
upon him, and he went to that cave to meet the Hairless One. Then it
happened as Tha promised, for the Hairless One fell down before him
and lay along the ground, and the First of the Tigers struck him and
broke his back, for he thought that there was but one such a Thing
in the Jungle, and that he had killed Fear. Then, nosing above the
kill, he heard Tha coming down from the woods of the north, and
presently the voice of the First of the Elephants, which is the
voice that we hear now-'
The thunder was rolling up and down the dry, scarred hills, but it
brought no rain- only heat-lightning that flickered behind the ridges-
and Hathi went on: 'That was the voice he heard, and it said: "Is
this thy mercy?" The First of the Tigers licked his lips and said:
"What matter? I have killed Fear." And Tha said: "O blind and foolish!
Thou hast untied the feet of Death, and he will follow thy trail
till thou diest. Thou hast taught Man to kill!"
'The First of the Tigers, standing stiffly to his kill, said: "He is
as the buck was. There is no Fear. Now I will judge the Jungle Peoples
once more."
'And Tha said: "Never again shall the Jungle Peoples come to thee.
They shall never cross thy trail, nor sleep near thee, nor follow
after thee, nor browse by thy lair. Only Fear shall follow thee, and
with a blow that thou canst not see shall bid thee wait his
pleasure. He shall make the ground to open under thy feet, and the
creeper to twist about thy neck, and the tree-trunks to grow
together about thee higher than thou canst leap, and at the last he
shall take thy hide to wrap his cubs when they are cold. Thou hast
shown him no mercy, and none will he show thee."
'The First of the Tigers was very bold, for his Night was still on
him, and he said: "The Promise of Tha is the Promise of Tha. He will
not take away my Night?" And Tha said: "Thy one Night is thine, as I
have said, but there is a price to pay. Thou hast taught Man to
kill, and he is no slow learner."
'The First of the Tigers said: "He is here under my foot, where
his back is broken. Let the Jungle know that I have killed Fear."
'Then Tha laughed and said: "Thou hast killed one of many, but
thou thyself shalt tell the Jungle- for thy Night is ended!"
'So the day came; and from the mouth of the cave went out another
Hairless One, and he saw the kill in the path, and the First of the
Tigers above it, and he took a pointed stick-'
'They throw a thing that cuts now,' said Sahi, rustling down the
bank; for Sahi was considered uncommonly good eating by the Gonds-
they called him Ho-Igoo- and he knew something of the wicked little
Gondee ax that whirls across a clearing like a dragon-fly.
'It was a pointed stick, such as they set in the foot of a
pit-trap,' said Hathi; 'and throwing it, he struck the First of the
Tigers deep in the flank. Thus it happened as Tha said, for the
First of the Tigers ran howling up and down the Jungle till he tore
out the stick, and all the Jungle knew that the Hairless One could
strike from far off, and they feared more than before. So it came
about that the First of the Tigers taught the Hairless One to kill-
and ye know what harm that has since done to all our peoples-
through the noose, and the pitfall, and the hidden trap, and the
flying stick, and the stinging fly that comes out of white smoke
(Hathi meant the rifle), and the Red Flower that drives us into the
open. Yet for one night in the year the Hairless One fears the
Tiger, as Tha promised, and never has the Tiger given him cause to
be less afraid. Where he finds him, there he kills him, remembering
how the First of the Tigers was made ashamed. For the rest, Fear walks
up and down the Jungle by day and by night.'
'Ahi! Aoo!' said the deer, thinking of what it all meant to them.
'And only when there is one great Fear over all, as there is now,
can we of the Jungle lay aside our little fears, and meet together
in one place as we do now.'
'For one night only does Man fear the Tiger?' said Mowgli.
'For one night only,' said Hathi.
'But I- but we- but all the Jungle knows that Shere Khan kills Man
twice and thrice in a moon.'
'Even so. Then he springs from behind and turns his head aside
as he strikes, for he is full of fear. If Man looked at him he would
run. But on his Night he goes openly down to the village. He walks
between the houses and thrusts his head into the doorway, and the
men fall on their faces, and there he does his kill. One kill in
that Night.'
'Oh!' said Mowgli to himself, rolling over in the water. 'Now I
see why Shere Khan bade me look at him. He got no good of it, for he
could not hold his eyes steady, and- and I certainly did not fall down
at his feet. But then I am not a man; being of the Free People.'
'Umm!' said Bagheera deep in his furry throat. 'Does the Tiger
know his Night?'
'Never till the Jackal of the Moon stands clear of the evening mist.
Sometimes it falls in the dry summer and sometimes in the wet Rains-
this one Night of the Tiger. But for the First of the Tigers this
would never have been, nor would any of us have known fear.'
The deer grunted sorrowfully, and Bagheera's lips curled in a wicked
smile. 'Do men know this- tale?' said he.
'None know it except the tigers, and we, the elephants- the Children
of Tha. Now ye by the pools have heard it, and I have spoken.'
Hathi dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not wish
to talk.
'But- but- but,' said Mowgli, turning to Baloo, 'why did not the
First of the Tigers continue to eat grass and leaves and trees? He did
but break the buck's neck. He did not eat. What led him to the hot
meat?'
'The trees and the creepers marked him, Little Brother, and made him
the striped thing that we see. Never again would he eat their fruit;
but from that day he revenged himself upon the deer, and the others,
the Eaters of Grass,' said Baloo.
'Then thou knowest the tale. Heh? Why have I never heard?'
'Because the Jungle is full of such tales. If I made a beginning
there would never be an end to them. Let go my ear, Little Brother.'
THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE
-
Just to give you an idea of the immense variety of the Jungle Law, I
have translated into verse (Baloo always recited them in a sort of
sing-song) a few of the laws that apply to the Wolves. There are, of
course, hundreds and hundreds more, but these will serve as
specimens of the simpler rulings.
-
Now this is the Law of the Jungle- as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall
break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth
forward and back-
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the
Wolf is the Pack.
-
Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never
too deep;
And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the
day is for sleep.
-
The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy
whiskers are grown,
Remember the Wolf is a Hunter- go forth and get food of
thine own.
-
Keep peace with the Lords of the Jungle- the Tiger, the
Panther, and Bear.
And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar
in his lair.
-
When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go
from the trail,
Lie down till the leaders have spoken- it may be fair words
shall prevail.
-
When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must fight him
alone and afar,
Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be
diminished by war.
-
The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has made
him his home
Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council
may come.
-
The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has digged
it too plain,
The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall change
it again.
-
If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods
with your bay,
Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop, and your brothers
go empty away.
-
Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs
as they need, and ye can;
But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill
Man!
-
If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy
pride;
Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the
head and the hide.
-
The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must eat
where it lies;
And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or he dies.
-
The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do
what he will;
But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat of
that Kill.
-
Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack
he may claim
Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse
him the same.
-
Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year
she may claim
One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny
her the same.
-
Cave-Right is the right of the Father- to hunt by himself
for his own:
He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the
Council alone.
-
Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe
and his paw,
In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of your Head
Wolf is Law.
-
Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty
are they;
But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and
the hump is- Obey!
THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT
-
The night we felt the Earth would move
We stole and plucked him by the hand,
Because we loved him with the love
That knows but cannot understand.
-
And when the roaring hillside broke,
And all our world fell down in rain,
We saved him, we the Little Folk;
But lo! he will not come again!
-
Mourn now, we saved him for the sake
Of such poor love as wild ones may.
Mourn ye! Our brother does not wake
And his own kind drive us away!
Dirge of the Langurs
-
There was once a man in India who was Prime Minister of one of the
semi-independent native States in the north-western part of the
country. He was a Brahmin, so high-caste that caste ceased to have any
particular meaning for him; and his father had been an important
official in the gay-coloured tag-rag and bob-tail of an
old-fashioned Hindoo Court. But as Purun Dass grew up he realized that
the ancient order of things was changing, and that if anyone wished to
get on he must stand well with the English, and imitate all the
English believed to be good. At the same time a native official must
keep his own master's favour. This was a difficult game, but the
quiet, close-mouthed, young Brahmin, helped by a good English
education at a Bombay University, played it coolly, and rose, step
by step, to be Prime Minister of the kingdom. That is to say, he
held more real power than his master, the Maharajah.
When the old king- who was suspicious of the English, their railways
and telegraphs- died, Purun Dass stood high with his young successor
who had been tutored by an Englishman; and between them, though he
always took care that his master should have the credit, they
established schools for little girls, made roads, and started State
dispensaries and shows of agricultural implements, and published a
yearly blue-book on the 'Moral and Material Progress of the State',
and the Foreign Office and the Government of India were delighted.
Very few native States take up English progress without
reservations, for they will not believe, as Purun Dass showed he
did, that what is good for the Englishman must be twice as good for
the Asiatic. The Prime Minister became the honoured friend of Viceroys
and Governors, and Lieutenant-Governors, and medical missionaries, and
common missionaries, and hard-riding English officers who came to
shoot in the State preserves, as well as of whole hosts of tourists
who travelled up and down India in the cold weather, showing how
things ought to be managed. In his spare time he would endow
scholarships for the study of medicine and manufactures on strictly
English lines, and write letters to the "Pioneer," the greatest Indian
daily paper, explaining his master's aims and objects.
At last he went to England on a visit, and had to pay enormous
sums to the priests when he came back; for even so high-caste a
Brahmin as Purun Dass lost caste by crossing the black sea. In
London he met and talked with everyone worth knowing- men whose
names go all over the world- and saw a great deal more than he said.
He was given honorary degrees by learned universities, and he made
speeches and talked of Hindu social reform to English ladies in
evening dress, till all London cried, 'This is the most fascinating
man we have ever met at dinner since cloths were first laid!'
When he returned to India there was a blaze of glory, for the
Viceroy himself made a special visit to confer upon the Maharajah
the Grand Cross of the Star of India- all diamonds and ribbons and
enamel; and at the same ceremony, while the cannon boomed, Purun
Dass was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire; so
that his name stood Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E.
That evening at dinner in the big Viceregal tent he stood up with
the badge and the collar of the Order on his breast, and replying to
the toast of his master's health, made a speech that few Englishmen
could have surpassed.
Next month, when the city had returned to its sun-baked quiet, he
did a thing no Englishman would have dreamed of doing, for, so far
as the world's affairs went, he died. The jeweled order of his
knighthood returned to the Indian Government, and a new Prime Minister
was appointed to the charge of affairs, and a great game of General
Post began in all the subordinate appointments. The priests knew
what had happened and the people guessed; but India is the one place
in the world where a man can do as he pleases and nobody asks why; and
the fact that Dewan Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., had resigned position,
palace, and power, and taken up the begging-bowl and ochre-coloured
dress of a Sunnyasi or holy man, was considered nothing extraordinary.
He had been, as the Old Law recommends, twenty years a youth, twenty
years a fighter- though he had never carried a weapon in his life- and
twenty years head of a household. He had used his wealth and his power
for what he knew both to be worth; he had taken honour when it came
his way; he had seen men and cities far and near, and men and cities
had stood up and honoured him. Now he would let these things go, as
a man drops the cloak he needs no longer.
Behind him, as he walked through the city gates, an antelope skin
and brass-handled crutch under his arm, and a begging-bowl of polished
brown coco-de-mer in his hand, barefoot, alone, with eyes cast on
the ground- behind him they were firing salutes from the bastions in
honour of his happy successor. Purun Dass nodded. All that life was
ended; and he bore it no more ill-will or good-will than a man bears
to a colourless dream of the night. He was a Sunnyasi- a houseless,
wandering mendicant, depending on his neighbours for his daily
bread; and so long as there is a morsel to divide in India neither
priest nor beggar starves. He had never in his life tasted meat, and
very seldom eaten even fish. A five-pound-note would have covered
his personal expenses for food through any one of the many years in
which he had been absolute master of millions of money. Even when he
was being lionized in London he had held before him his dream of peace
and quiet- the long, white, dusty Indian road, printed all over with
bare feet, the incessant, slow-moving traffic, and the
sharp-smelling wood-smoke curling up under the fig-trees in the
twilight, where the wayfarers sat at their evening meal.
When the time came to make that dream true the Prime Minister took
the proper steps, and in three days you might more easily have found a
bubble in the trough of the long Atlantic seas than Purun Dass among
the roving, gathering, separating millions of India.
At night his antelope skin was spread where the darkness overtook
him- sometimes in a Sunnyasi monastery by the roadside; sometimes by a
mud pillar shrine of Kala Pir, where the Jogis, who are another
misty division of holy men, would receive him as they do those who
know what castes and divisions are worth; sometimes on the outskirts
of a little Hindu village, where the children would steal up with
the food their parents had prepared; and sometimes on the pitch of the
bare grazing-grounds where the flame of his stick fire waked the
drowsy camels. It was all one to Purun Dass- or Purun Bhagat, as he
called himself now. Earth, people, and food were all one. But,
unconsciously, his feet drew him away northward and eastward; from the
south to Rohtak; from Rohtak to Kurnool; from Kurnool to ruined
Samanah, and then up-stream along the dried bed of the Gugger river
that fills only when the rain falls in the hills, till, one day, he
saw the far line of the great Himalayas.
Then Purun Bhagat smiled, for he remembered that his mother was of
Rajput Brahmin birth, from Kulu way- a Hill-woman, always homesick for
the snows- and that the least touch of Hill blood draws a man in the
end back to where he belongs.
'Yonder,' said Purun Bhagat, breasting the lower slopes of the
Sewaliks, where the cacti stand up like seven-branched candlesticks,
'yonder I shall sit down and get knowledge'; and the cool wind of
the Himalayas whistled about his ears as he trod the road that led
to Simla.
The last time he had come that way it had been in state, with a
clattering cavalry escort, to visit the gentlest and most affable of
Viceroys; and the two had talked for an hour together about mutual
friends in London, and what the Indian common folk really thought of
things. This time Purun Bhagat paid no calls, but leaned on the rail
of the Mall, watching the glorious view of the Plains spread out forty
miles below, till a native Mohammedan policeman told him he was
obstructing traffic; and Purun Bhagat salaamed reverently to the
Law, because he knew the value of it, and was seeking for a Law of his
own. Then he moved on, and slept that night in an empty hut at Chota
Simla, which looks like the very last end of the earth, but it was
only the beginning of his journey. He followed the Himalaya-Thibet
road, the little ten-foot track that is blasted out of solid rock,
or strutted out on timbers over gulfs a thousand feet deep; that
dips into warm, wet, shut-in valleys, and climbs across bare, grassy
hill-shoulders where the sun strikes like a burning-glass; or turns
through dripping, dark forests where the tree-ferns dress the trunks
from head to heel, and the pheasant calls to his mate. And he met
Thibetan herdsmen with their dogs and flocks of sheep, each sheep with
a little bag of borax on his back, and wandering wood-cutters, and
cloaked and blanketed Lamas from Thibet, coming into India on
pilgrimage, and envoys of little solitary Hill-states, posting
furiously on ring-straked and piebald ponies, or the cavalcade of a
Rajah paying a visit; or else for a long, clear day he would see
nothing more than a black bear grunting and rooting down below in
the valley. When he first started, the roar of the world he had left
still rang in his ears, as the roar of a tunnel rings a little after
the train has passed through; but when he had put the Mutteeanee
Pass behind him that was all done, and Purun Bhagat was alone with
himself, walking, wondering, and thinking, his eyes on the ground, and
his thoughts with the clouds.
One evening he crossed the highest pass he had met till then- it had
been a two days' climb- and came out on a line of snow-peaks that
belted all the horizon- mountains from fifteen to twenty thousand feet
high, looking almost near enough to hit with a stone, though they were
fifty or sixty miles away. The pass was crowned with dense, dark
forest- deodar, walnut, wild cherry, wild olive, and wild pear, but
mostly deodar, which is the Himalayan cedar; and under the shadow of
the deodars stood a deserted shrine to Kali- who is Durga, who is
Sitala, who is sometimes worshipped against the smallpox.
Purun Dass swept the stone floor clean, smiled at the grinning
statue, made himself a little mud fireplace at the back of the shrine,
spread his antelope skin on a bed of fresh pine needles, tucked his
bairagi- his brass-handled crutch- under his armpit, and sat down to
rest.
Immediately below him the hillside fell away, clean and cleared
for fifteen hundred feet, to where a little village of stone-walled
houses, with roofs of beaten earth, clung to the steep tilt. All round
it tiny terraced fields lay out like aprons of patchwork on the
knees of the mountain, and cows no bigger than beetles grazed
between the smooth stone circles of the threshing-floors. Looking
across the valley the eye was deceived by the size of things, and
could not at first realize that what seemed to be low scrub, on the
opposite mountain-flank, was in truth a forest of hundred-foot
pines. Purun Bhagat saw an eagle swoop across the enormous hollow, but
the great bird dwindled to a dot ere it was half-way over. A few bands
of scattered clouds strung up and down the valley, catching on a
shoulder of the hills, or rising up and dying out when they were level
with the head of the pass. And 'Here shall I find peace,' said Purun
Bhagat.
Now, a Hill-man makes nothing of a few hundred feet up or down,
and as soon as the villagers saw the smoke in the deserted shrine, the
village priest climbed up the terraced hillside to welcome the
stranger.
When he met Purun Bhagat's eyes- the eyes of a man used to control
thousands- he bowed to the earth, took the begging-bowl without a
word, and returned to the village, saying, 'We have at last a holy
man. Never have I seen such a man. He is of the plains- but pale
coloured- a Brahmin of the Brahmins.' Then all the housewives of the
village said, 'Think you he will stay with us?' and each did her
best to cook the most savoury meal for the Bhagat. Hill-food is very
simple, but with buckwheat and Indian corn, and rice and red pepper,
and little fish out of the stream in the little valley, and honey from
the flue-like hives built in the stone walls, and dried apricots,
and turmeric, and wild ginger, and bannocks of flour, a devout woman
can make good things; and it was a full bowl that the priest carried
to the Bhagat. Was he going to stay? asked the priest. Would he need a
chela- a disciple- to beg for him? Had he a blanket against the cold
weather? Was the food good?
Purun Bhagat ate, and thanked the giver. It was in his mind to stay.
That was sufficient, said the priest. Let the begging-bowl be placed
outside the shrine, in the hollow made by those two twisted roots, and
daily should the Bhagat be fed; for the village felt honoured that
such a man- he looked timidly into the Bhagat's face- should tarry
among them.
That day saw the end of Purun Bhagat's wanderings. He had come to
the place appointed for him- the silence and the space. After this,
time stopped, and he, sitting at the mouth of the shrine, could not
tell whether he were alive or dead; a man with control of his limbs,
or a part of the hills, and the clouds, and the shifting rain, and
sunlight. He would repeat a Name softly to himself a hundred times,
till, at each repetition, he seemed to move more and more out of his
body, sweeping up to the doors of some tremendous discovery; but, just
as the door was opening, his body would drag him back, and, with
grief, he felt he was locked up again in the flesh and bones of
Purun Bhagat.
Every morning the filled begging-bowl was laid silently in the
crotch of the roots outside the shrine. Sometimes the priest brought
it; sometimes a Ladakhi trader, lodging in the village, and anxious to
get merit, trudged up the path; but, more often, it was the woman
who had cooked the meal overnight; and she would murmur, hardly
above her breath: 'Speak for me before the gods, Bhagat. Speak for
such an one, the wife of so-and-so!' Now and then some bold child
would be allowed the honour, and Purun Bhagat would hear him drop
the bowl and run as fast as his little legs could carry him, but the
Bhagat never came down to the village. It was laid out like a map at
his feet. He could see the evening gatherings held on the circle of
the threshing-floors, because that was the only level ground; could
see the wonderful unnamed green of the young rice, the indigo blues of
the Indian corn; the dock-like patches of buckwheat, and, in its
season, the red bloom of the amaranth, whose tiny seeds, being neither
grain nor pulse, make a food that can be lawfully eaten by Hindus in
time of fasts.
When the year turned, the roofs of the huts were all little
squares of purest gold, for it was on the roofs that they laid out
their cobs of corn to dry. Hiving and harvest, rice-sowing and
husking, passed before his eyes, all embroidered down there on the
many-sided fields, and he thought of them all, and wondered what
they all led to at the long last.
Even in populated India a man cannot a day sit still before the wild
things run over him as though he were a rock; and in that wilderness
very soon the wild things, who knew Kali's Shrine well, came back to
look at the intruder. The langurs, the big gray-whiskered monkeys of
the Himalayas, were, naturally, the first, for they are alive with
curiosity; and when they had upset the begging-bowl, and rolled it
round the floor, and tried their teeth on the brass-handled crutch,
and made faces at the antelope skin, they decided that the human being
who sat so still was harmless. At evening, they would leap down from
the pines, and beg with their hands for things to eat, and then
swing off in graceful curves. They liked the warmth of the fire,
too, and huddled round it till Purun Bhagat had to push them aside
to throw on more fuel; and in the morning, as often as not, he would
find a furry ape sharing his blanket. All day long, one or other of
the tribe would sit by his side, staring out at the snows, crooning
and looking unspeakably wise and sorrowful.
After the monkeys came the barasingh, that big deer which is
like our red deer, but stronger. He wished to rub off the velvet of
his horns against the cold stones of Kali's statue, and stamped his
feet when he saw the man at the shrine. But Purun Bhagat never
moved, and, little by little, the royal stag edged up and nuzzled
his shoulder. Purun Bhagat slid one cool hand along the hot antlers,
and the touch soothed the fretted beast, who bowed his head, and Purun
Bhagat very softly rubbed and ravelled off the velvet. Afterwards, the
barasingh brought his doe and fawn- gentle things that mumbled on
the holy man's blanket- or would come alone at night, his eyes green
in the fire-flicker, to take his share of fresh walnuts. At last,
the musk-deer, the shyest and almost the smallest of the deerlets,
came, too, her big, rabbity ears erect; even brindled, silent
mushick-nabha must needs find out what the light in the shrine
meant, and drop her moose-like nose into Purun Bhagat's lap, coming
and going with the shadows of the fire. Purun Bhagat called them all
'my brothers', and his low call of 'Bhai! Bhai!' would draw them
from the forest at noon if they were within earshot. The Himalayan
black bear, moody and suspicious- Sona, who has the V-shaped white
mark under his chin- passed that way more than once; and since the
Bhagat showed no fear, Sona showed no anger, but watched him, and came
closer, and begged a share of the caresses, and a dole of bread or
wild berries. Often, in the still dawns, when the Bhagat would climb
to the very crest of the notched pass to watch the red day walking
along the peaks of the snows, he would find Sona shuffling and
grunting at his heels, thrusting a curious forepaw under fallen
trunks, and bringing it away with a whoof of impatience; or his
early steps would wake Sona where he lay curled up, and the great
brute, rising erect, would think to fight, till he heard the
Bhagat's voice and knew his best friend.
Nearly all hermits and holy men who live apart from the big cities
have the reputation of being able to work miracles with the wild
things, but all the miracle lies in keeping still, in never making a
hasty movement, and, for a long time, at least, in never looking
directly at a visitor. The villagers saw the outlines of the
barasingh stalking like a shadow through the dark forest behind
the shrine; saw the minaul, the Himalayan pheasant, blazing in her
best colours before Kali's statue; and the langurs on their
haunches, inside, playing with the walnut shells. Some of the
children, too, had heard Sona singing to himself, bear-fashion, behind
the fallen rocks, and the Bhagat's reputation as miracle-worker
stood firm.
Yet nothing was further from his mind than miracles. He believed
that all things were one big Miracle, and when a man knows that much
he knows something to go upon. He knew for a certainty that there
was nothing great and nothing little in this world; and day and
night he strove to think out his way into the heart of things, back to
the place whence his soul had come.
So thinking, his untrimmed hair fell down about his shoulders, the
stone slab at the side of the antelope-skin was dented into a little
hole by the foot of his brass-handled crutch, and the place between
the tree-trunks, where the begging-bowl rested day after day, sunk and
wore into a hollow almost as smooth as the brown shell itself; and
each beast knew his exact place at the fire. The fields changed
their colours with the seasons; the threshing-floors filled and
emptied, and filled again and again; and again and again, when
winter came, the langurs frisked among the branches feathered with
light snow, till the mother-monkeys brought their sad-eyed little
babies up from the warmer valleys with the spring. There were few
changes in the village. The priest was older, and many of the little
children who used to come with the begging-dish sent their own
children now; and when you asked of the villagers how long their
holy man had lived in Kali's Shrine at the head of the pass, they
answered, 'Always.'
Then came such summer rains as had not been known in the Hills for
many seasons. Through three good months the valley was wrapped in
cloud and soaking mist- steady, unrelenting downfall, breaking off
into thunder-shower after thunder-shower. Kali's Shrine stood above
the clouds, for the most part, and there was a whole month in which
the Bhagat never caught a glimpse of his village. It was packed away
under a white floor of cloud that swayed and shifted and rolled on
itself and bulged upward, but never broke from its piers- the
streaming flanks of the valley.
All the time he heard nothing but the sound of a million little
waters, overhead from the trees, and underfoot along the ground,
soaking through the pine-needles, dripping from the tongues of
draggled fern, and spouting in newly-torn muddy channels down the
slopes. Then the sun came out, and drew forth the good incense of
the deodars and the rhododendrons, and that far-off, clean smell the
Hill People call 'the smell of the snows'. The hot sunshine lasted for
a week, and then the, rains gathered together for their last downpour,
and the water fell in sheets that flayed off the skin of the ground
and leaped back in mud. Purun Bhagat heaped his fire high that
night, for he was sure his brothers would need warmth; but never a
beast came to the shrine, though he called and called till he
dropped asleep, wondering what had happened in the woods.
It was in the black heart of the night, the rain drumming like a
thousand drums, that he was roused by a plucking at his blanket,
and, stretching out, felt the little hand of a langur. 'It is better
here than in the trees' he said sleepily, loosening a fold of blanket;
'take it and be warm.' The monkey caught his hand and pulled hard. 'Is
it food, then?' said Purun Bhagat. 'Wait awhile, and I will prepare
some.' As he kneeled to throw fuel on the fire the langur ran to the
door of the shrine, crooned, and ran back again, plucking at the man's
knee.
'What is it? What is thy trouble, Brother?' said Purun Bhagat, for
the langur's eyes were full of things that he could not tell.
'Unless one of thy caste be in a trap- and none set traps here- I will
not go into that weather. Look, Brother, even the barasingh comes
for shelter.'
The deer's antlers clashed as he strode into the shrine, clashed
against the grinning statue of Kali. He lowered them in Purun Bhagat's
direction and stamped uneasily, hissing through his half-shut
nostrils.
'Hai! Hai! Hai!' said the Bhagat, snapping his fingers. 'Is this
payment for a night's lodging?' But the deer pushed him towards the
door, and as he did so Purun Bhagat heard the sound of something
opening with a sigh, and saw two slabs of the floor draw away from
each other, while the sticky earth below smacked its lips.
'Now I see,' said Purun Bhagat. 'No blame to my brothers that they
did not sit by the fire tonight. The mountain is falling. And yet- why
should I go?' His eye fell on the empty begging-bowl, and his face
changed. 'They have given me good food daily since- since I came, and,
if I am not swift, tomorrow there will not be one mouth in the valley.
Indeed, I must go and warn them below. Back there, Brother! Let me get
to the fire.'
The barasingh backed unwillingly as Purun Bhagat drove a torch
deep into the flame, twirling it till it was well lit. 'Ah! ye came to
warn me,' he said, rising. 'Better than that we shall do, better
than that. Out, now, and lend me thy neck, Brother, for I have but two
feet.'
He clutched the bristling withers of the barasingh with his
right hand, held the torch away with his left, and stepped out of
the shrine into the desperate night. There was no breath of wind,
but the rain nearly drowned the torch as the great deer hurried down
the slope, sliding on his haunches. As soon as they were clear of
the forest more of the Bhagat's brothers joined them. He heard, though
he could not see, the langurs pressing about him, and behind them
the uhh! uhh! of Sona. The rain matted his long white hair into
ropes; the water splashed beneath his bare feet, and his yellow robe
clung to his frail old body, but he stepped down steadily, leaning
against the barasingh. He was no longer a holy man, but Sir Purun
Dass, K.C.I.E., Prime Minister of no small State, a man accustomed
to command, going out to save life. Down the steep plashy path they
poured all together, the Bhagat and his brothers, down and down till
the deer clicked and stumbled on the wall of a threshing-floor, and
snorted because he smelt Man. Now they were at the head of the one
crooked village street, and the Bhagat beat with his crutch at the
barred windows of the blacksmith's house as his torch blazed up in the
shelter of the eaves. 'Up and out!' cried Purun Bhagat; and he did not
know his own voice, for it was years since he had spoken aloud to a
man. 'The hill falls! The hill is failing! Up and out, oh, you
within!'
'It is our Bhagat,' said the blacksmith's wife. 'He stands among his
beasts. Gather the little ones and give the call.'
It ran from house to house, while the beasts, cramped in the
narrow way, surged and huddled round the Bhagat, and Sona puffed
impatiently.
The people hurried into the street- they were no more than seventy
souls all told- and in the glare of their torches they saw their
Bhagat holding back the terrified barasingh, while the monkeys
plucked piteously at his skirts, and Sona sat on his haunches and
roared.
'Across the valley and up the next hill!' shouted Purun Bhagat.
'Leave none behind! We follow!'
Then the people ran as only Hill-folk can run, for they knew that in
a landslide you must climb for the highest ground across the valley.
They fled, splashing through the little river at the bottom, and
panted up the terraced fields on the far side, while the Bhagat and
his brethren followed. Up and up the opposite mountain they climbed,
calling to each other by name- the roll-call of the village- and at
their heels toiled the big barasingh, weighted by the failing
strength of Purun Bhagat. At last the deer stopped in the shadow of
a deep pine-wood, five hundred feet up the hillside. His instinct,
that had warned him of the coming slide, told him he would be safe
here.
Purun Bhagat dropped fainting by his side, for the chill of the rain
and that fierce climb were killing him; but first he called to the
scattered torches ahead, 'Stay and count your numbers'; then,
whispering to the deer as he saw the lights gather in a cluster: 'Stay
with me, Brother. Stay- till- I- go!'
There was a sigh in the air that grew to a mutter, and a mutter that
grew to a roar, and a roar that passed all sense of hearing, and the
hillside on which the villagers stood was hit in the darkness, and
rocked to the blow. Then a note as steady, deep, and true as the
deep C of the organ drowned everything for perhaps five minutes, while
the very roots of the pines quivered to it. It died away, and the
sound of the rain quivered to it. It died away, and the sound of the
rain falling on miles of hard ground and grass changed to the
muffled drums of water on soft earth. That told its own tale.
Never a villager- not even the priest- was bold enough to speak to
the Bhagat who had saved their lives. They crouched under the pines
and waited till the day. When it came they looked across the valley,
and saw that what had been forest, and terraced field, and
track-threaded grazing-ground was one raw, red, fan-shaped smear, with
a few trees flung head-down on the scarp. That red ran high up the
hill of their refuge, damming back the little river, which had begun
to spread into a brick-coloured lake. Of the village, of the road to
the shrine, of the shrine itself, and the forest behind, there was
no trace. For one mile in width and two thousand feet in sheer depth
the mountain-side had come away bodily, planed clean from head to
heel.
And the villagers, one by one, crept through the wood to pray before
their Bhagat. They saw the barasingh standing over him, who fled
when they came near, and they heard the langurs wailing in the
branches, and Sona moaning up the hill; but their Bhagat was dead,
sitting cross-legged, his back against a tree, his crutch under his
armpit, and his face turned to the northeast.
The priest said: 'Behold a miracle after a miracle, for in this very
attitude must all Sunnyasis be buried! Therefore, where he now is we
will build the temple to our holy man.'
They built the temple before a year was ended, a little stone and
earth shrine, and they called the hill the Bhagat's Hill, and they
worship there with lights and flowers and offerings to this day. But
they do not know that the saint of their worship is the late Sir Purun
Dass, K.C.I.E., D.C.L., Ph.D., etc., once Prime Minister of the
progressive and enlightened State of Mohiniwala, and honorary or
corresponding member of more learned and scientific societies than
will ever do any good in this world or the next.
A SONG OF KABIR
-
Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands!
Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands!
He has gone from the guddee and put on the shroud,
And departed in guise of bairagi avowed!
-
Now the white road to Delhi is mat for his feet,
The sal and the kikar must guard him from heat;
His home is the camp, and the waste, and the crowd-
He is seeking the Way, a bairagi avowed!
-
He has looked upon Man and his eyeballs are clear
(There was One; there is One, and but One, saith Kabir);
The Red Mist of Doing is thinned to a cloud-
He has taken the Path, a bairagi avowed!
-
To learn and discern of his brother the clod,
Of his brother the brute, and his brother the God,
He has gone from the council and put on the shroud
('Can ye hear?' saith Kabir), a bairagi avowed!
LETTING IN THE JUNGLE
-
Veil them, cover them, wall them round,
Blossom and creeper and weed;
Let us forget the sight and the sound,
And the smell and the touch of the breed!
-
Fat black ash by the altar-stone
Here is the white-foot rain!
And the does bring forth in the fields unsown,
And none may frighten them again;
And the blind walls crumble, unknown, o'erthrown,
And none may inhabit again!
-
You will remember, if you have read the tales in the first Jungle
Book, that after Mowgli had pinned Shere Khan's hide to the Council
Rock, he told as many as were left of the Seeonee Pack that
henceforward he would hunt in the Jungle alone; and the four
children of Mother and Father Wolf said that they would hunt with him.
But it is not easy to change all one's life at once- particularly in
the Jungle. The first thing Mowgli did, when the disorderly Pack had
slunk off, was to go to the home-cave, and sleep for a day and a
night. Then he told Mother Wolf and Father Wolf as much as they
could understand of his adventures among men; and when he made the
morning sun flicker up and down the blade of his skinning-knife- the
same he had skinned Shere Khan with- they said he had learned
something. Then Akela and Gray Brother had to explain their share of
the great buffalo-drive in the ravine, and Baloo toiled up the hill to
hear all about it, and Bagheera scratched himself all over with pure
delight at the way in which Mowgli had managed his war.
It was long after sunrise, but no one dreamed of going to sleep, and
from time to time, Mother Wolf would throw up her head, and sniff a
deep snuff of satisfaction as the wind brought her the smell of the
tiger-skin on the Council Rock.
'But for Akela and Gray Brother here,' Mowgli said, at the end, 'I
could have done nothing. Oh, mother, mother! if thou hadst seen the
blue herd-bulls pour down the ravine, or hurry through the gates
when the Man-Pack flung stones at me!'
'I am glad I did not see that last,' said Mother Wolf, stiffly.
'It is not my custom to suffer my cubs to be driven to and fro
like jackals! I would have taken a price from the Man-Pack; but I
would have spared the woman who gave thee the milk. Yes, I would
have spared her alone.'
'Peace, peace, Raksha!' said Father Wolf, lazily. 'Our Frog has come
back again- so wise that his own father must lick his feet; and what
is a cut, more or less, on the head? Leave Man alone.' Baloo and
Bagheera both echoed: 'Leave Man alone.'
Mowgli, his head on Mother Wolf's side, smiled contentedly, and said
that, for his own part, he never wished to see, or hear, or smell
Man again.
'But what,' said Akela, cocking one ear, 'but what if men do not
leave thee alone, Little Brother?'
'We be five,' said Gray Brother, looking round at the company, and
snapping his jaws on the last word.
'We also might attend to that hunting,' said Bagheera, with a little
switch-switch of his tail, looking at Baloo. 'But why think of Man
now, Akela?'
'For this reason,' the Lone Wolf answered. 'When that yellow thief's
hide was hung up on the rock, I went back along our trail to the
village, stepping in my tracks, turning aside, and lying down, to make
a mixed trail in case any should follow us. But when I had fouled
the trail so that I myself hardly knew it again, Mang, the Bat, came
hawking between the trees, and hung up above me. Said Mang, "The
village of the Man-Pack, where they cast out the Man-cub, hums like
a hornet's nest."'
'It was a big stone that I threw,' chuckled Mowgli, who had often
amused himself by throwing ripe paw-paws into a hornet's nest, and
racing to the nearest pool before the hornets caught him.
'I asked of Mang what he had seen. He said that the Red Flower
blossomed at the gate of the village, and men sat about it carrying
guns. Now I know, for I have good cause'- Akela looked here at the
old dry scars on his flank and side- 'that men do not carry guns for
pleasure. Presently, Little Brother, a man with a gun follows our
trail- if, indeed, he be not already on it.'
'But why should he? Men have cast me out. What more do they need?'
said Mowgli angrily.
'Thou art a man, Little Brother,' Akela returned. 'It is not for us,
the Free Hunters, to tell thee what thy brethren do, or why.'
He had just time to snatch up his paw as the skinning-knife cut deep
into the ground below. Mowgli struck quicker than an average human eye
could follow, but Akela was a wolf; and even a dog, who is very far
removed from the wild wolf, his ancestor, can be waked out of deep
sleep by a cart-wheel touching his flank, and can spring away unharmed
before that wheel comes on.
'Another time,' Mowgli said, quietly, returning the knife to its
sheath, 'speak of the Man-Pack and of Mowgli in two breaths- not
one.'
'Phff! That is a sharp tooth,' said Akela, snuffing at the blade's
cut in the earth, 'but living with the Man-Pack has spoiled thine eye,
Little Brother. I could have killed a buck while thou wast striking.'
Bagheera sprang to his feet, thrust up his head as far as he
could, sniffed, and stiffened through every curve in his body. Gray
Brother followed his example quickly, keeping a little to his left
to get the wind that was blowing from the right, while Akela bounded
fifty yards up-wind, and, half-crouching, stiffened too. Mowgli looked
on enviously. He could smell things as very few human beings could,
but he had never reached the hair-trigger-like sensitiveness of a
Jungle nose; and his three months in the smoky village had put him
back sadly. However, he dampened his finger, rubbed it on his nose,
and stood erect to catch the upper scent, which, though the
faintest, is the truest.
'Man!' Akela growled, dropping on his haunches.
'Buldeo!' said Mowgli, sitting down. 'He follows our trail, and
yonder is the sunlight on his gun. Look!'
It was no more than a splash of sunlight, for a fraction of a
second, on the brass clamps of the old Tower musket, but nothing in
the Jungle winks with just that flash, except when the clouds race
over the sky. Then a piece of mica, or a little pool, or even a
highly-polished leaf will flash like a heliograph. But that day was
cloudless and still.
'I knew men would follow,' said Akela, triumphantly. 'Not for
nothing have I led the Pack!'
Mowgli's four wolves said nothing, but ran downhill on their
bellies, melting into the thorn and under-brush.
'Whither go ye, and without word?' Mowgli called.
'H'sh! We roll his skull here before mid-day!' Gray Brother
answered.
'Back! Back and wait! Man does not eat Man!' Mowgli shrieked.
'Who was a wolf but now? Who drove the knife at me for thinking he
might be a Man?' said Akela, as the Four turned back sullenly and
dropped to heel.
'Am I to give reason for all I choose to do?' said Mowgli,
furiously.
'That is Man! There speaks Man!' Bagheera muttered under his
whiskers. 'Even so did men talk round the King's cages at Oodeypore.
We of the Jungle know that Man is wisest of all. If we trusted our
ears we should know that of all things he is most foolish.' Raising
his voice, he added, 'The Man-cub is right in this. Men hunt in packs.
To kill one, unless we know what the others will do, is bad hunting.
Come, let us see what this Man means towards us.'
'We will not come,' Gray Brother growled. 'Hunt alone, Little
Brother. We know our own minds! The skull would have been ready to
bring by now.'
Mowgli had been looking from one to the other of his friends, his
chest heaving and his eyes full of tears. He strode forward, and,
dropping on one knee, said: 'Do I not know my mind? Look at me!'
They looked uneasily, and when their eyes wandered, he called them
back again and again, till their hair stood up all over their
bodies, and they trembled in every limb, while Mowgli stared and
stared.
'Now,' said he, 'of us five, which is leader?'
'Thou art leader, Little Brother,' said Gray Brother, and he
licked Mowgli's foot.
'Follow, then,' said Mowgli, and the four followed at his heels with
their tails between their legs.
'This comes of living with the Man-Pack,' said Bagheera, slipping
down after them. 'There is more in the Jungle now than Jungle Law,
Baloo.'
The old bear said nothing, but he thought many things.
Mowgli cut across noiselessly through the Jungle, at right angles to
Buldeo's path, till, parting the undergrowth, he saw the old man,
his musket on his shoulder, running up the two days' old trail at a
dog-trot.
You will remember that Mowgli had left the village with the heavy
weight of Shere Khan's raw hide on his shoulders, while Akela and Gray
Brother trotted behind, so that the trail was very clearly marked.
Presently Buldeo came to where Akela, as you know, had gone back and
mixed it all up. Then he sat down, and coughed and grunted, and made
little casts round and about into the Jungle to pick it up again,
and all the time he could have thrown a stone over those who were
watching him. No one can be so silent as a wolf when he does not
care to be heard; and Mowgli, though the wolves thought he moved
very clumsily, could come and go like a shadow. They ringed the old
man as a school of porpoises ring a steamer at full speed, and as they
ringed him they talked unconcernedly, for their speech began below the
lowest end of the scale that untaught human beings can hear. (The
other end is bounded by the high squeak of Mang, the Bat, which very
many people cannot catch at all. From that note all the bird and bat
and insect talk takes on.)
'This is better than any kill,' said Gray Brother, as Buldeo stooped
and peered and puffed. 'He looks like a lost pig in the Jungles by the
river. What does he say?' Buldeo was muttering savagely.
Mowgli translated. 'He says that packs of wolves must have danced
round me. He says that he never saw such a trail in his life. He
says he is tired.'
'He will be rested before he picks it up again,' said Bagheera
coolly, as he slipped round a tree-trunk, in the game of
blind-man's-buff that they were playing. 'Now, what does the lean
thing do?'
'Eat or blow smoke out of his mouth. Men always play with their
mouths,' said Mowgli; and the silent trailers saw the old man fill and
light, and puff at a water-pipe, and they took good note of the
smell of the tobacco, so as to be sure of Buldeo in the darkest night,
if necessary.
Then a little knot of charcoal-burners came down the path, and
naturally halted to speak to Buldeo, whose fame as a hunter reached
for at least twenty miles round. They all sat down and smoked, and
Bagheera and the others came up and watched while Buldeo began to tell
the story of Mowgli, the Devil-child, from one end to another, with
additions and inventions. How he himself had really killed Shere Khan;
and how Mowgli had turned himself into a wolf, and fought with him all
the afternoon, and changed into a boy again and bewitched Buldeo's
rifle, so that the bullet turned the corner, when he pointed it at
Mowgli, and killed one of Buldeo's own buffaloes; and how the village,
knowing him to be the bravest hunter in Seeonee, had sent him out to
kill this Devil-child. But meantime the village had got hold of Messua
and her husband, who were undoubtedly the father and mother of this
Devil-child, and had barricaded them in their own hut, and presently
would torture them to make them confess they were witch and wizard,
and then they would be burned to death.
'When?' said the charcoal-burners, because they would very much like
to be present at the ceremony.
Buldeo said that nothing would be done till he returned, because the
village wished him to kill the Jungle Boy first. After that they would
dispose of Messua and her husband, and divide their land and buffaloes
among the village. Messua's husband had some remarkably fine
buffaloes, too. It was an excellent thing to destroy wizards, Buldeo
thought; and people who entertained Wolf-children out of the Jungle
were clearly the worst kind of witches.
But, said the charcoal-burners, what would happen if the English
heard of it? The English, they had been told, were a perfectly mad
people, who would not let honest farmers kill witches in peace.
Why, said Buldeo, the head-man of the village would report that
Messua and her husband had died of snake-bite. That was all
arranged, and the only thing now was to kill the Wolf-child. They
did not happen to have seen anything of such a creature?
The charcoal-burners looked round cautiously, and thanked their
stars they had not; but they had no doubt that so brave a man as
Buldeo would find him if anyone could. The sun was getting rather low,
and they had an idea that they would push on to Buldeo's village and
see the wicked witch. Buldeo said that, though it was his duty to kill
the Devil-child, he could not think of letting a party of unarmed
men go through the Jungle, which might reveal the Wolf-demon at any
minute, without his escort. He, therefore, would accompany them, and
if the sorcerer's child appeared- well, he would show them how the
best hunter in Seeonee dealt with such things. The Brahmin, he said,
had given him a charm against the creature that made everything
perfectly safe.
'What says he? What says he? What says he?' the wolves repeated
every few minutes; and Mowgli translated until he came to the witch
part of the story, which was a little beyond him, and then he said
that the man and woman who had been so kind to him were trapped.
'Do men trap men?' said Gray Brother.
'So he says. I cannot understand the talk. They are all mad
together. What have Messua and her man to do with me that they
should be put in a trap; and what is all this talk about the Red
Flower? I must look to this. Whatever they would do to Messua they
will not do till Buldeo returns. And so-' Mowgli thought hard, with
his fingers playing round the haft of his skinning-knife, while Buldeo
and the charcoal-burners went off very valiantly in single file.
'I go hot-foot back to the Man-Pack,' Mowgli said at last.
'And those?' said Gray Brother, looking hungrily after the brown
backs of the charcoal-burners.
'Sing them home,' said Mowgli with a grin; 'I do not wish them to be
at the village gate till it is dark. Can ye hold them?' Gray Brother
bared his white teeth in contempt. 'We can head them round and round
in circles like tethered goats- if I know Man.'
'That I do not need. Sing to them a little lest they be lonely on
the road, and, Gray Brother, the song need not be of the sweetest.
Go with them, Bagheera, and help make that song. When night is laid
down, meet me by the village- Gray Brother knows the place.'
'It is no light hunting to track for a Man-cub. When shall I sleep?'
said Bagheera, yawning, though his eyes showed he was delighted with
the amusement. 'Me to sing to naked men! But let us try.'
He lowered his head so that the sound would travel, and cried a
long, long 'Good hunting'- a midnight call in the afternoon, which was
quite awful enough to begin with. Mowgli heard it rumble, and rise,
and fall, and die off in a creepy sort of whine behind him, and
laughed to himself as he ran through the Jungle. He could see the
charcoal-burners huddled in a knot; old Buldeo's gun-barrel waving,
like a banana-leaf, to every point of the compass at once. Then Gray
Brother gave the Ya-la-hi! Yalaha! call for the buck-driving, when
the Pack drives the Nilghai, the big blue cow, before them, and it
seemed to come from the very ends of the earth, nearer, and nearer,
and nearer, till it ended in a shriek snapped off short. The other
three answered, till even Mowgli could have vowed that the Full Pack
was in full cry, and then they all broke into the magnificent
Morning-song in the Jungle, with every turn, and flourish, and
grace-note, that a deep-mouthed wolf of the Pack knows. This is a
rough rendering of the song, but you must imagine what it sounds
like when it breaks the afternoon hush of the Jungle:
-
One moment past our bodies cast
No shadow on the plain;
Now clear and black they stride our track,
And we run home again.
In morning-hush, each rock and bush
Stands hard, and high, and raw:
Then give the Call: 'Good rest to all
That keep the Jungle Law!'
-
Now horn and pelt our peoples melt
In covert to abide;
Now crouched and still, to cave and hill
Our Jungle Barons glide.
Now, stark and plain, Man's oxen strain,
That draw the new-yoked plough;
Now stripped and dread the dawn is red
Above the lit talao.
-
Ho! Get to lair! The sun's aflare
Behind the breathing grass:
And creaking through the young bamboo
The warning whispers pass.
By day made strange, the woods we range
With blinking eyes we scan;
While down the skies the wild duck cries:
'The Day- the Day to Man!'
-
The dew is dried that drenched our hide,
Or washed about our way;
And where we drank, the puddled bank
Is crisping into clay.
The traitor Dark gives up each mark
Of stretched or hooded claw;
Then hear the Call: 'Good rest to all
That keep the Jungle Law!'
-
But no translation can give the effect of it, or the yelping scorn
the Four threw into every word of it, as they heard the trees crash
when the men hastily climbed up into the branches, and Buldeo began
repeating incantations and charms. Then they laid down and slept,
for like all who live by their own exertions, they were of a
methodical cast of mind; and no one can work well without sleep.
Meantime, Mowgli was putting the miles behind him, nine to the hour,
swinging on, delighted to find himself so fit after all his cramped
months among men. The one idea in his head was to get Messua and her
husband out of the trap, whatever it was, for he had a natural
mistrust of traps. Later on, he promised himself, he would begin to
pay his debts to the village at large.
It was at twilight when he saw the well-remembered
grazing-grounds, and the dhak-tree where Gray Brother had waited for
him on the morning that he killed Shere Khan. Angry as he was at the
whole breed and community of Man, something jumped up in his throat
and made him catch his breath when he looked at the village roofs.
He noticed that everyone had come in from the fields unusually
early, and that, instead of getting to their evening cooking, they
gathered in a crowd under the village tree, and chattered, and
shouted.
'Men must always be making traps for men, or they are not
content,' said Mowgli. 'Two nights ago it was Mowgli- but that night
seems many Rains old. Tonight it is Messua and her man. Tomorrow,
and for very many nights after, it will be Mowgli's turn again.'
He crept along outside the wall till he came to Messua's hut, and
looked through the window into the room. There lay Messua, gagged, and
bound hand and foot, breathing hard, and groaning; her husband was
tied to the gaily painted bedstead. The door of the hut that opened
into the street was shut fast, and three or four people were sitting
with their backs to it.
Mowgli knew the manners and customs of the villagers very fairly. He
argued that so long as they could eat, and talk, and smoke, they would
not do anything else; but as soon as they had fed they would begin
to be dangerous. Buldeo would be coming in before long, and if his
escort had done its duty Buldeo would have a very interesting tale
to tell. So he went in through the window, and, stooping over the
man and the woman, cut their thongs, pulling out the gag, and looked
round the hut for some milk.
Messua was half wild with pain and fear (she had been beaten and
stoned all the morning), and Mowgli put his hand over her mouth just
in time to stop a scream. Her husband was only bewildered and angry,
and sat picking dust and things out of his torn beard.
'I knew- I knew he would come,' Messua sobbed at last. 'Now do I
know that he is my son'; and she caught Mowgli to her heart. Up to
that time Mowgli had been perfectly steady, but here he began to
tremble all over, and that surprised him immensely.
'Why are these thongs? Why have they tied thee?' he asked, after a
pause.
'To be put to the death for making a son of thee- what else?' said
the man, sullenly. 'Look! I bleed.'
Messua said nothing, but it was at her wounds that Mowgli
looked, and they heard him grit his teeth when he saw the blood.
'Whose work is this?' said he. 'There is a price to pay.'
'The work of all the village. I was too rich. I had too many cattle.
Therefore she and I are witches, because we gave thee shelter.'
'I do not understand. Let Messua tell the tale.'
'I gave thee milk, Nathoo; dost thou remember?' Messua said,
timidly. 'Because thou wast my son, whom the tiger took, and because I
loved thee very dearly. They said that I was thy mother, the mother of
a devil, and therefore worthy of death.'
'And what is a devil?' said Mowgli. 'Death I have seen.'
The man looked up gloomily under his eyebrows, but Messua laughed.
'See!' she said to her husband, 'I knew- I said that he was no
sorcerer! He is my son- my son!'
'Son or sorcerer, what good will that do us?' the man answered.
'We be as dead already.'
'Yonder is the road through the Jungle'- Mowgli pointed through
the window. 'Your hands and feet are free. Go now.'
'We do not know the Jungle, my son, as- as thou knowest,' Messua
began. 'I do not think that I could walk far.'
'And the men and women would be upon our backs and drag us here
again,' said the husband.
'H'm!' said Mowgli, and he tickled the palm of his hand with the tip
of his skinning-knife; 'I have no wish to do harm to anyone of this
village- yet. But I do not think they will stay thee. In a little
while they will have much to think upon. Ah!' he lifted his head and
listened to shouting and trampling outside. 'So they have let Buldeo
come home at last?'
'He was sent out this morning to kill thee,' Messua cried.
'Didst thou meet him?'
'Yes- we- I met him. He has a tale to tell; and while he is
telling it there is time to do much. But first I will learn what
they mean. Think where ye would go, and tell me when I come back.'
He bounded through the window and ran along again outside the wall
of the village till he came within earshot of the crowd round the
peepul-tree. Buldeo was lying on the ground, coughing and groaning,
and everyone was asking him questions. His hair had fallen about his
shoulders; his hands and legs were skinned from climbing up trees, and
he could hardly speak, but he felt the importance of his position
keenly. From time to time he said something about devils and singing
devils, and magic enchantment, just to give the crowd a taste of
what was coming. Then he called for water.
'Bah!' said Mowgli. 'Chatter- chatter! Talk, talk! Men are
blood-brothers of the Bandar-log. Now he must wash his mouth with
water; now he must blow smoke; and when all that is done he has
still his story to tell. They are very wise people- men. They will
leave no one to guard Messua till their ears are stuffed with Buldeo's
tales. And- I grow as lazy as they!' He shook himself and glided
back to the hut. Just as he was at the window he felt a touch on his
foot.
'Mother,' said he, for he knew that tongue well, 'what dost thou
here?'
'I heard my children singing through the woods, and I followed the
one I loved best. Little Frog, I have a desire to see that woman who
gave thee milk,' said Mother Wolf, all wet with the dew.
'They have bound and mean to kill her. I have cut those ties, and
she goes with her man through the Jungle.'
'I also will follow. I am old, but not yet toothless.' Mother Wolf
reared herself up on end, and looked through the window into the
dark of the hut.
In a minute she dropped noiselessly, and all she said was: 'I gave
thee thy first milk; but Bagheera speaks truth: Man goes to Man at the
last.'
'Maybe,' said Mowgli, with a very unpleasant look on his face;
'but tonight I am very far from that trail. Wait here, but do not
let her see.'
'Thou wast never afraid of me, Little Frog,' said Mother Wolf,
backing into the high grass, and blotting herself out, as she knew
how.
'And now,' said Mowgli, cheerfully, as he swung into the hut
again, 'they are all sitting round Buldeo, who is saying that which
did not happen. When his talk is finished, they say they will
assuredly come here with the Red- with fire and burn you both. And
then?'
'I have spoken to my man,' said Messua. 'Kanhiwara is thirty miles
from here, but at Kanhiwara we may find the English-'
'And what Pack are they?' said Mowgli.
'I do not know. They be white, and it is said that they govern all
the land, and do not suffer people to burn or beat each other
without witnesses. If we can get thither tonight we live. Otherwise we
die.'
'Live then. No man passes the gates tonight. But what does he do?'
Messua's husband was on his hands and knees digging up the earth in
one corner of the hut.
'It is his little money,' said Messua. 'We can take nothing else.'
'Ah, yes. The stuff that passes from hand to hand and never grows
warmer. Do they need it outside this place also?' said Mowgli.
The man stared angrily. 'He is a fool, and no devil,' he muttered.
'With the money I can buy a horse. We are too bruised to walk far, and
the village will follow us in an hour.'
'I say they will not follow till I choose, but a horse is well
thought of, for Messua is tired.' Her husband stood up and knotted the
last of the rupees into his waist-cloth. Mowgli helped Messua
through the window, and the cool night air revived her, but the Jungle
in the starlight looked very dark and terrible.
'Ye know the trail to Kanhiwara?' Mowgli whispered.
They nodded.
'Good. Remember, now, not to be afraid. And there is no need to go
quickly. Only- only there may be some small singing in the Jungle
behind you and before.'
'Think you we would have risked a night in the Jungle through
anything less than the fear of burning? It is better to be killed by
beasts than by men,' said Messua's husband; but Messua looked at
Mowgli and smiled.
'I say,' Mowgli went on, just as though he were Baloo repeating an
old Jungle Law for the hundredth time to an inattentive cub, 'I say
that not a tooth in the Jungle is bared against you; not a foot in the
Jungle is lifted against you. Neither man nor beast shall stay you
till you come within eye-shot of Kanhiwara. There will be a watch
about you.' He turned quickly to Messua, saying, 'He does not
believe, but thou wilt believe?'
'Ay, surely, my son. Man, ghost, or wolf of the Jungle, I believe.'
'He will be afraid when he hears my people singing. Thou wilt know
and understand. Go now, and slowly, for there is no need of any haste.
The gates are shut.'
Messua flung herself sobbing at Mowgli's feet, but he lifted her
very quickly with a shiver. Then she hung about his neck and called
him every name of blessing she could think of, but her husband
looked enviously across his fields, and said: 'If we reach
Kanhiwara, and I get the ear of the English, I will bring such a
lawsuit against the Brahmin and old Buldeo and the others as shall eat
this village to the bone. They shall pay me twice over for my crops
untilled and my buffaloes unfed. I will have a great justice.'
Mowgli laughed. 'I do not know what justice is, but- come thou
back next Rains and see what is left.'
They went off toward the Jungle, and Mother Wolf leaped from her
place of hiding.
'Follow!' said Mowgli; 'and look to it that all the Jungle knows
these two are safe. Give tongue a little. I would call Bagheera.'
The long, low howl rose and fell, and Mowgli saw Messua's husband
flinch and turn, half minded to run back to the hut.
'Go on,' Mowgli shouted, cheerfully. 'I said there might be singing.
That call will follow up to Kanhiwara. It is the Favour of the
Jungle.'
Messua urged her husband forward, and the darkness shut down on them
and Mother Wolf as Bagheera rose up almost under Mowgli's feet,
trembling with delight of the night that drives the Jungle People
wild.
'I am ashamed of thy brethren,' he said, purring.
'What? Did they not sing sweetly to Buldeo?' said Mowgli.
'Too well! Too well! They made even me forget my pride, and, by
the Broken Lock that freed me, I went singing through the Jungle as
though I were out wooing in the spring! Didst thou not hear us?'
'I had other game afoot. Ask Buldeo if he liked the song. But
where are the Four? I do not wish one of the Man-Pack to leave the
gates tonight.'
'What need of the Four, then?' said Bagheera, shifting from foot
to foot, his eyes ablaze, and purring louder than ever. 'I can hold
them, Little Brother. Is it killing at last? The singing and the sight
of the men climbing up the trees have made me very ready. Who is Man
that we should care for him- the naked brown digger, the hairless
and toothless, the eater of earth? I have followed him all day- at
noon- in the white sunlight. I herded him as the wolves herd buck. I
am Bagheera! Bagheera! Bagheera! As I dance with my shadow so I danced
with those men. Look!' The great panther leaped as a kitten leaps at a
dead leaf whirling overhead, struck left and right into the empty air,
that sung under the strokes, landed noiselessly, and leaped again
and again, while the half purr, half growl gathered head as steam
rumbles in a boiler. 'I am Bagheera- in the Jungle- in the night,
and my strength is in me. Who shall stay my stroke? Man-cub, with
one blow of my paw I could beat thy head flat as a dead frog in the
summer!'
'Strike, then!' said Mowgli, in the dialect of the village, not
the talk of the Jungle; and the human words brought Bagheera to a full
stop, flung back on his haunches that quivered under him, his head
just at the level of Mowgli's. Once more Mowgli stared, as he had
stared at the rebellious cubs, full into the beryl-green eyes, till
the red glare behind their green went out like the light of a
lighthouse shut off twenty miles across the sea; till the eyes
dropped, and the big head with them dropped lower and lower, and the
red rasp of a tongue grated on Mowgli's instep.
'Brother- Brother- Brother!' the boy whispered, stroking steadily
and lightly from the neck along the heaving back: 'Be still, be still!
It is the fault of the night, and no fault of thine.'
'It was the smells of the night,' said Bagheera, penitently. 'This
air cries aloud to me. But how dost thou know?'
Of course the air round an Indian village is full of all kinds of
smells, and to any creature who does nearly all his thinking through
his nose, smells are as maddening as music and drugs are to human
beings. Mowgli gentled the panther for a few minutes longer, and he
lay down like a cat before a fire, his paws tucked under his breast,
and his eyes half shut.
'Thou art of the Jungle and not of the Jungle,' he said at last.
'And I am only a black panther. But I love thee, Little Brother.'
'They are very long at their talk under the tree,' Mowgli said,
without noticing the last sentence. 'Buldeo must have told many tales.
They should come soon to drag the woman and her man out of the trap
and put them into the Red Flower. They will find that trap sprung. Ho!
Ho!'
'Nay, listen,' said Bagheera. 'The fever is out of my blood now. Let
them find me there! Few would leave their houses after meeting me.
It is not the first time I have been in a cage; and I do not think
they will tie me with cords.'
'Be wise, then,' said Mowgli, laughing; for he was beginning to feel
as reckless as the panther, who had glided into the hut.
'Pah!' Bagheera puffed; 'This place is rank with Man, but here is
just such a bed as they gave me to lie upon in the King's cages at
Oodeypore. Now I lie down.' Mowgli heard the strings of the cot
crack under the great brute's weight. 'By the Broken Lock that freed
me, they will think they have caught big game! Come and sit beside me,
Little Brother; we will give them "good hunting" together!'
'No; I have another thought in my stomach. The Man-Pack shall not
know what share I have in the sport. Make thine own hunt. I do not
wish to see them.'
'Be it so,' said Bagheera. 'Now they come!'
The conference under the peepul-tree had been growing noisier and
noisier, at the far end of the village. It broke in wild yells, and
a rush up the street of men and women, waving clubs and bamboos and
sickles and knives. Buldeo and the Brahmin were at the head of it, but
the mob was close at their heels, and they cried, 'The witch and the
wizard! Let us see if hot coins will make them confess! Burn the hut
over their heads! We will teach them to shelter Wolf-devils! Nay, beat
them first! Torches! More torches! Buldeo, heat the gun-barrel!'
Here was some little difficulty with the catch of the door. It had
been very firmly fastened, but the crowd tore it away bodily, and
the light of the torches streamed into the room where, stretched at
full length on the bed, his paws crossed and lightly hung down over
one end, black as the Pit and terrible as a demon, was Bagheera. There
was one half-minute of desperate silence, as the front ranks of the
crowd clawed and tore their way back from the threshold, and in that
minute Bagheera raised his head and yawned- elaborately, carefully,
and ostentatiously- as he would yawn when he wished to insult an
equal. The fringed lips drew back and up; the red tongue curled; the
lower jaw dropped and dropped till you could see half-way down the hot
gullet; and the gigantic dog-teeth stood clear to the pit of the
gums till they rang together, upper and under, with the snick of
steel-faced wards shooting home round the edges of a safe. Next minute
the street was empty; Bagheera had leaped back through the window, and
stood at Mowgli's side, while a yelling, screaming torrent scrambled
and tumbled one over another in their panic haste to get to their
huts.
'They will not stir till the day comes,' said Bagheera, quietly.
'And now?'
The silence of the afternoon sleep seemed to have overtaken the
village, but, as they listened, they could hear the sound of heavy
grain-boxes being dragged over earthen floors and pushed against
doors. Bagheera was quite right; the village would not stir till
daylight. Mowgli sat still and thought, and his face grew darker and
darker.
'What have I done?' said Bagheera, at last, fawning.
'Nothing but great good. Watch them now till the day. I sleep.'
Mowgli ran off into the Jungle, and dropped across a rock, and slept
and slept the day round, and the night back again.
When he waked, Bagheera was at his side, and there lay a
newly-killed buck at his feet. Bagheera watched curiously while Mowgli
went to work with his skinning-knife, ate and drank, and turned over
with his chin in his hands.
'The man and thy woman came safe within eye-shot of Kanhiwara,'
Bagheera said. 'Thy mother sent the word back by Chil. They found a
horse before midnight of the night they were freed, and went very
quickly. Is not that well?'
'That is well,' said Mowgli.
'And thy Man-Pack in the village did not stir till the sun was
high this morning. Then they ate their food and ran back quickly to
their houses.'
'Did they, by chance, see thee?'
'It may have been. I was rolling in the dust before the gate at
dawn, and I may have made also some small song to myself. Now,
Little Brother, there is nothing more to do. Come hunting with me
and Baloo. He has new hives that he wishes to show, and we all
desire thee back again as of old. Take off that look which makes
even me afraid. The man and woman will not be put into the Red
Flower, and all goes well in the Jungle. Is it not true? Let us forget
the Man-Pack.'
'They shall be forgotten- in a little while. Where does Hathi feed
tonight?'
'Where he chooses. Who can answer for the Silent One? But why?
What is there Hathi can do which we cannot?'
'Bid him and his three sons come here to me.'
'But, indeed, and truly, Little Brother, it is not- it is not seemly
to say "Come", and "Go", to Hathi. Remember, he is the Master of the
Jungle, and before the Man-Pack changed the look on thy face, he
taught thee a Master-word of the Jungle.'
'That is all one. I have a Master-word for him now. Bid him come
to Mowgli, the Frog, and if he does not hear at first, bid him come
because of the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore.'
'The Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore,' Bagheera repeated two or
three times to make sure. 'I go. Hathi can but be angry at the
worst, and I would give a moon's hunting to hear a Master-word that
compels the Silent One.'
He went away, leaving Mowgli stabbing furiously with his
skinning-knife into the earth. Mowgli had never seen human blood in
his life before till he had seen, and- what meant much more to him-
smelled Messua's blood on the thongs that bound her. And Messua had
been kind to him, and, so far as he knew anything about love, he loved
Messua as completely as he hated the rest of mankind. But deeply as he
loathed them, their talk, their cruelty and their cowardice, not for
anything the Jungle had to offer could he bring himself to take a
human life, and have that terrible scent of blood back again in his
nostrils. His plan was simpler but much more thorough; and he
laughed to himself when he thought that it was one of old Buldeo's
tales told under the peepul-tree in the evening that had put the
idea into his head.
'It was a Master-word,' Bagheera whispered in his ear. 'They
were feeding by the river, and they obeyed as though they were
bullocks. Look, where they come now!'
Hathi and his three sons had appeared in their usual way, without
a sound. The mud of the river was still fresh on their flanks, and
Hathi was thoughtfully chewing the green stem of a |
|
