The Jungle Book ..................................................................................................................................................1

Rudyard Kipling......................................................................................................................................1

Mowgli's Brothers ....................................................................................................................................1

MOWGLI'S BROTHERS ........................................................................................................................1

HUNTINGSONG OF THE SEEONEE PACK ...................................................................................13

KAA'S HUNTING .................................................................................................................................13

ROADSONG OF THE BANDARLOG ............................................................................................28

``TIGER! TIGER!''................................................................................................................................29

SHERE KHAN'S HIDE .........................................................................................................................38

The Song of Mowgli ........................................................................................................................38

THE WHITE SEAL ...............................................................................................................................39

LUKANNON .........................................................................................................................................50

``RIKKITIKKITAVI''.......................................................................................................................50

DARZEE'S CHAUNT (SUNG IN HONOUR OF RIKKITIKKITAVI)..........................................59

TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS .........................................................................................................60

BABY)...................................................................................................................................................69

HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS ............................................................................................................70

PARADESONG OF THE CAMP ANIMALS ....................................................................................80

ELEPHANTS OF THE GUNTEAM..................................................................................................80

GUNBULLOCKS...............................................................................................................................80

CAVALRY HORSES ............................................................................................................................81

SCREWGUN MULES........................................................................................................................81

COMMISSARIAT CAMELS ................................................................................................................81

ALL THE BEASTS TOGETHER .........................................................................................................81

It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's

rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in

the tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the

moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. ``Augrh!'' said Father Wolf, ``it is time to hunt

again''; and he was going to spring downhill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and

whined: ``Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves; and good luck and strong white teeth go with the

It was the jackal Tabaqui, the Dishlicker and the wolves of India despise Tabaqui because he runs

about making mischief, and telling tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village

rubbishheaps. They are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than any one else in the jungle, is apt to go

mad, and then he forgets that he was ever afraid of any one, and runs through the forest biting everything in

his way. Even the tiger hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can

overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it dewanee the madness and run.

``Enter, then, and look,'' said Father Wolf, stiffly; ``but there is no food here.''

``For a wolf, no,'' said Tabaqui; ``but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast. Who are we,

the Gidurlog [the Jackal People], to pick and choose?'' He scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found

``All thanks for this good meal,'' he said, licking his lips. ``How beautiful are the noble children! How large

are their eyes! And so young too! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kings are men

Now, Tabaqui knew as well as any one else that there is nothing so unlucky as to compliment children to

their faces; and it pleased him to see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.

Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and then he said spitefully:

``Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his huntinggrounds. He will hunt among these hills during the next

``He has no right!'' Father Wolf began angrily. ``By the Law of the Jungle he has no right to change his

quarters without fair warning. He will frighten every head of game within ten miles; and I I have to kill

``His mother did not call him Lungri [the Lame One] for nothing,'' said Mother Wolf, quietly. ``He has been

lame in one foot from his birth. That is why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers of the Waingunga are

angry with him, and he has come here to make our villagers angry. They will scour the jungle for him when

he is far away, and we and our children must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed: we are very grateful to

``Out!'' snapped Father Wolf. ``Out, and hunt with thy master. Thou hast done harm enough for one night.''

``I go,'' said Tabaqui, quietly. ``Ye can hear Shere Khan below in the thickets. I might have saved myself the

Father Wolf listened, and in the dark valley that ran down to a little river, he heard the dry, angry, snarly,

singsong whine of a tiger who has caught nothing and does not care if all the jungle knows it.

``The fool!'' said Father Wolf. ``To begin a night's work with that noise! Does he think that our buck are like

``H'sh! It is neither bullock nor buck that he hunts tonight,'' said Mother Wolf; ``it is Man.'' The whine had

changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to roll from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise

that bewilders woodcutters, and gipsies sleeping in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the very

``Man!'' said Father Wolf, showing all his white teeth. ``Faugh! Are there not enough beetles and frogs in the

The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to eat Man except

when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the huntinggrounds of his

pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that mankilling means, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on

elephants, with guns, and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then everybody in the

jungle suffers. The reason the beasts give among themselves is that Man is the weakest and most defenseless

of all living things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say too and it is true that maneaters

The purr grew louder, and ended in the fullthroated ``Aaarh!'' of the tiger's charge.

Then there was a howl an untigerish howl from Shere Khan. ``He has missed,'' said Mother Wolf.

Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan muttering and mumbling savagely, as he tumbled

``The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutters' campfire, so he has burned his feet,'' said

``Something is coming uphill,'' said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear. ``Get ready.''

The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with his haunches under him, ready for his

leap. Then, if you had been watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world the

wolf checked in midspring. He made his bound before he saw what it was he was jumping at, and then he

tried to stop himself. The result was that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing almost

Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked brown baby who could just walk, as soft

and as dimpled a little thing as ever came to a wolf's cave at night. He looked up into Father Wolf's face and

``Is that a man's cub?'' said Mother Wolf. ``I have never seen one. Bring it here.''

A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mouth an egg without breaking it, and though

Father Wolf's jaws closed right on the child's back not a tooth even scratched the skin, as he laid it down

``How little! How naked, and how bold!'' said Mother Wolf, softly. The baby was pushing his way

between the cubs to get close to the warm hide. ``Ahai! He is taking his meal with the others. And so this is a

man's cub. Now was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man's cub among her children?''

``I have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our pack or in my time,'' said Father Wolf. ``He is

altogether without hair, and I could kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is not afraid.''

The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Shere Khan's great square head and shoulders

were thrust into the entrance, Tabaqui, behind him, was squeaking: ``My Lord, my Lord, it went in here!''

``Shere Khan does us great honour,'' said Father Wolf, but his eyes were very angry. ``What does Shere Khan

``My quarry. A man's cub went this, way'' said Shere Khan. ``Its parents have run off. Give it to me.''

Shere Khan had jumped at a woodcutter's campfire, as Father Wolf had said, and was furious from the pain

of his burned feet. But Father Wolf knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in by.

Even where he was, Shere Khan's shoulders and fore paws were cramped for want of room, as a man's would

``The Wolves are a free people,'' said Father Wolf. ``They take orders from the Head of the Pack, and not

``Ye choose and ye do not choose! What talk is this of choosing? By the Bull that I killed, am I to stand

The tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward,

her eyes, like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.

``And it is I, Raksha [the Demon], who answer. The man's cub is mine, Lungri mine to me! He shall not

be killed. He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of

little naked cubs frogeater fishkiller, shall hunt thee! Now get hence, or by the Sambhur that I killed

(I eat no starved cattle), back thou goest to thy mother, burned beast of the jungle, lamer than ever thou

Father Wolf looked on amazed. He had almost forgotten the days when he won Mother Wolf in fair fight

from five other wolves, when she ran in the Pack and was not called the Demon for compliment's sake. Shere

Khan might have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother Wolf, for he knew that where

he was she had all the advantage of the ground, and would fight to the death. So he backed out of the

``Each dog barks in his own yard! We will see what the Pack will say to this fostering of mancubs. The cub

Mother Wolf threw herself down panting among the cubs, and Father Wolf said to her gravely:

``Shere Khan speaks this much truth. The cub must be shown to the Pack. Wilt thou still keep him, Mother?''

``Keep him!'' she gasped. ``He came naked, by night, alone and very hungry; yet he was not afraid! Look, he

has pushed one of my babes to one side already. And that lame butcher would have killed him, and would

have run off to the Waingunga while the villagers here hunted through all our lairs in revenge! Keep him?

Assuredly I will keep him. Lie still, little frog. O thou Mowgli, for Mowgli, the Frog, I will call thee,

The Law of the Jungle lays down very clearly that any wolf may, when he marries, withdraw from the Pack

he belongs to; but as soon as his cubs are old enough to stand on their feet he must bring them to the Pack

Council, which is generally held once a month at full moon, in order that the other wolves may identify them.

After that inspection the cubs are free to run where they please, and until they have killed their first buck no

excuse is accepted if a grown wolf of the Pack kills one of them. The punishment is death where the murderer

Father Wolf waited till his cubs could run a little, and then on the night of the Pack Meeting took them and

Mowgli and Mother Wolf to the Council Rock a hilltop covered with stones and boulders where a

hundred wolves could hide. Akela, the great gray Lone Wolf, who led all the Pack by strength and cunning,

lay out at full length on his rock, and below him sat forty or more wolves of every size and colour, from

badgercoloured veterans who could handle a buck alone, to young black threeyearolds who thought they

could. The Lone Wolf had led them for a year now. He had fallen twice into a wolftrap in his youth, and

once he had been beaten and left for dead; so he knew the manners and customs of men.

There was very little talking at the Rock. The cubs tumbled over one another in the center of the circle where

their mothers and fathers sat, and now and again a senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look at him

carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet. Sometimes a mother would push her cub far out into the

moonlight, to be sure that he had not been overlooked. Akela from his rock would cry: ``Ye know the Law

ye know the Law! Look well, O Wolves!'' And the anxious mothers would take up the call: ``Look

At last and Mother Wolf's neckbristles lifted as the time came Father Wolf pushed ``Mowgli, the

Frog,'' as they called him, into the center, where he sat laughing and playing with some pebbles that glistened

Akela never raised his head from his paws, but went on with the monotonous cry, ``Look well!'' A muffled

roar came up from behind the rocks the voice of Shere Khan crying, ``The cub is mine; give him to me.

Akela never even twitched his ears. All he said was, ``Look well, O Wolves! What have the Free People to do

There was a chorus of deep growls, and a young wolf in his fourth year flung back Shere Khan's question to

Now the Law of the Jungle lays down that if there is any dispute as to the right of a cub to be accepted by the

Pack, he must be spoken for by at least two members of the Pack who are not his father and mother.

``Who speaks for this cub?'' said Akela. ``Among the Free People, who speaks?'' There was no answer, and

Mother Wolf got ready for what she knew would be her last fight, if things came to fighting.

Then the only other creature who is allowed at the Pack Council Baloo, the sleepy brown bear who

teaches the wolf cubs the Law of the Jungle, old Baloo who can come and go where he pleases because he

``The man's cub the man's cub?'' he said. ``I speak for the man's cub. There is no harm in a man's cub. I

have no gift of words, but I speak the truth. Let him run with the Pack, and be entered with the others. I

``We need yet another,'' said Akela. ``Baloo has spoken, and he is our teacher for the young cubs. Who

A black shadow dropped down into the circle. It was Bagheera, the Black Panther, inky black all over, but

with the panther markings showing up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk. Everybody knew

Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path; for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo,

and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a

``O Akela, and ye, the Free People,'' he purred, ``I have no right in your assembly; but the Law of the Jungle

says that if there is a doubt which is not a killing matter in regard to a new cub, the life of that cub may be

bought at a price. And the Law does not say who may or may not pay that price. Am I right?''

``Good! good!'' said the young wolves, who are always hungry. ``Listen to Bagheera. The cub can be bought

``To kill a naked cub is shame. Besides, he may make better sport for you when he is grown. Baloo has

spoken in his behalf. Now to Baloo's word I will add one bull, and a fat one, newly killed, not half a mile

from here, if ye will accept the man's cub according to the Law. Is it difficult?''

There was a clamour of scores of voices, saying: ``What matter? He will die in the winter rains. He will

scorch in the sun. What harm can a naked frog do us? Let him run with the Pack. Where is the bull,

Bagheera? Let him be accepted.'' And then came Akela's deep bay, crying: ``Look well look well, O

Mowgli was still playing with the pebbles, and he did not notice when the wolves came and looked at him

one by one. At last they all went down the hill for the dead bull, and only Akela, Bagheera, Baloo, and

Mowgli's own wolves were left. Shere Khan roared still in the night, for he was very angry that Mowgli had

``Ay, roar well,'' said Bagheera, under his whiskers; ``for the time comes when this naked thing will make

``It was well done,'' said Akela. ``Men and their cubs are very wise. He may be a help in time.''

``Truly, a help in time of need; for none can hope to lead the Pack forever,'' said Bagheera.

Akela said nothing. He was thinking of the time that comes to every leader of every pack when his strength

goes from him and he gets feebler and feebler, till at last he is killed by the wolves and a new leader comes

``Take him, away'' he said to Father Wolf, ``and train him as befits one of the Free People.''

And that is how Mowgli was entered into the Seeonee wolfpack for the price of a bull and on Baloo's good

Now you must be content to skip ten or eleven whole years, and only guess at all the wonderful life that

Mowgli led among the wolves, because if it were written out it would fill ever so many books. He grew up

with the cubs, though they of course were grown wolves almost before he was a child, and Father Wolf

taught him his business, and the meaning of things in the jungle, till every rustle in the grass, every breath of

the warm night air, every note of the owls above his head, every scratch of a bat's claws as it roosted for a

while in a tree, and every splash of every little fish jumping in a pool, meant just as much to him as the work

of his office means to a business man. When he was not learning he sat out in the sun and slept, and ate, and

went to sleep again; when he felt dirty or hot he swam in the forest pools; and when he wanted honey (Baloo

told him that honey and nuts were just as pleasant to eat as raw meat) he climbed up for it, and that Bagheera

Bagheera would lie out on a branch and call, ``Come along, Little Brother,'' and at first Mowgli would cling

like the sloth, but afterward he would fling himself through the branches almost as boldly as the gray ape. He

took his place at the Council Rock, too, when the Pack met, and there he discovered that if he stared hard at

any wolf, the wolf would be forced to drop his eyes, and so he used to stare for fun.

At other times he would pick the long thorns out of the pads of his friends, for wolves suffer terribly from

thorns and burs in their coats. He would go down the hillside into the cultivated lands by night, and look very

curiously at the villagers in their huts, but he had a mistrust of men because Bagheera showed him a square

box with a dropgate so cunningly hidden in the jungle that he nearly walked into it, and told him it was a

He loved better than anything else to go with Bagheera into the dark warm heart of the forest, to sleep all

through the drowsy day, and at night see how Bagheera did his killing. Bagheera killed right and left as he

felt hungry, and so did Mowgli with one exception. As soon as he was old enough to understand things,

Bagheera told him that he must never touch cattle because he had been bought into the Pack at the price of a

bull's life. ``All the jungle is thine,'' said Bagheera, ``and thou canst kill everything that thou art strong

enough to kill; but for the sake of the bull that bought thee thou must never kill or eat any cattle young or old.

And he grew and grew strong as a boy must grow, who does not know that he is learning any lessons, and

Mother Wolf told him once or twice that Shere Khan was not a creature to be trusted, and that some day he

must kill Shere Khan; but though a young wolf would have remembered that advice every hour, Mowgli

forgot it because he was only a boy though he would have called himself a wolf if he had been able to

Shere Khan was always crossing his path in the jungle, for as Akela grew older and feebler the lame tiger had

come to be great friends with the younger wolves of the Pack, who followed him for scraps, a thing Akela

would never have allowed if he had dared to push his authority to the proper bounds. Then Shere Khan would

flatter them and wonder that such fine young hunters were content to be led by a dying wolf and a man's cub.

``They tell me,'' Shere Khan would say, ``that at Council ye dare not look him between the eyes''; and the

Bagheera, who had eyes and ears everywhere, knew something of this, and once or twice he told Mowgli in

so many words that Shere Khan would kill him some day; and Mowgli would laugh and answer: ``I have the

Pack and I have thee; and Baloo, though he is so lazy, might strike a blow or two for my sake. Why should I

It was one very warm day that a new notion came to Bagheera born of something that he had heard.

Perhaps Ikki, the Porcupine, had told him; but he said to Mowgli when they were deep in the jungle, as the

boy lay with his head on Bagheera's beautiful black skin: ``Little Brother, how often have I told thee that

``As many times as there are nuts on that palm,'' said Mowgli, who, naturally, could not count. ``What of it? I

am sleepy, Bagheera, and Shere Khan is all long tail and loud talk, like Mao, the Peacock.''

``But this is no time for sleeping. Baloo knows it, I know it, the Pack know it, and even the foolish, foolish

``Ho! ho!'' said Mowgli. ``Tabaqui came to me not long ago with some rude talk that I was a naked man's

cub, and not fit to dig pignuts; but I caught Tabaqui by the tail and swung him twice against a palmtree to

``That was foolishness; for though Tabaqui is a mischiefmaker, he would have told thee of something that

concerned thee closely. Open those eyes, Little Brother! Shere Khan dares not kill thee in the jungle for fear

of those that love thee; but remember, Akela is very old, and soon the day comes when he cannot kill his

buck, and then he will be leader no more. Many of the wolves that looked thee over when thou wast brought

to the Council first are old too, and the young wolves believe, as Shere Khan has taught them, that a mancub

``And what is a man that he should not run with his brothers?'' said Mowgli. ``I was born in the jungle; I have

obeyed the Law of the Jungle; and there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. Surely

Bagheera stretched himself at full length and half shut his eyes. ``Little Brother'' said he, ``feel under my

Mowgli put up his strong brown hand, and just under Bagheera's silky chin, where the giant rolling muscles

``There is no one in the jungle that knows that I, Bagheera, carry that mark the mark of the collar; and yet,

Little Brother, I was born among men, and it was among men that my mother died in the cages of the

King's Palace at Oodeypore. It was because of this that I paid the price for thee at the Council when thou wast

a little naked cub. Yes, I too was born among men. I had never seen the jungle. They fed me behind bars from

an iron pan till one night I felt that I was Bagheera, the Panther, and no man's plaything, and I broke the silly

lock with one blow of my paw, and came away; and because I had learned the ways of men, I became more

``Oh, thou art a man's cub,'' said the Black Panther, very tenderly; ``and even as I returned to my jungle, so

thou must go back to men at last, to the men who are thy brothers, if thou art not killed in the Council.''

``Look at me,'' said Bagheera; and Mowgli looked at him steadily between the eyes. The big panther turned

``That is why,'' he said, shifting his paw on the leaves. ``Not even I can look thee between the eyes, and I was

born among men, and I love thee, Little Brother. The others they hate thee because their eyes cannot meet

thine, because thou art wise; because thou hast pulled out thorns from their feet because thou art a man.''

``I did not know these things,'' said Mowgli, sullenly; and he frowned under his heavy black eyebrows.

``What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue. By thy very carelessness they know that

thou art a man. But be wise. It is in my heart that when Akela misses his next kill, and at each hunt it costs

him more to pin the buck, the Pack will turn against him and against thee. They will hold a jungle Council

at the Rock, and then and then.... I have it!'' said Bagheera, leaping up. ``Go thou down quickly to the

men's huts in the valley, and take some of the Red Flower which they grow there, so that when the time

comes thou mayest have even a stronger friend than I or Baloo or those of the Pack that love thee. Get the

By Red Flower Bagheera meant fire, only no creature in the jungle will call fire by its proper name. Every

``The Red Flower?'' said Mowgli. ``That grows outside their huts in the twilight. I will get some.''

``There speaks the man's cub,'' said Bagheera, proudly. ``Remember that it grows in little pots. Get one

``Good!'' said Mowgli. ``I go. But art thou sure, O my Bagheera'' he slipped his arm round the splendid

neck, and looked deep into the big eyes ``art thou sure that all this is Shere Khan's doing?''

``Then, by the Bull that bought me, I will pay Shere Khan full tale for this, and it may be a little over'' said

``That is a man. That is all a man,'' said Bagheera to himself, lying down again. ``Oh, Shere Khan, never was

Mowgli was far and far through the forest, running hard, and his heart was hot in him. He came to the cave as

the evening mist rose, and drew breath, and looked down the valley. The cubs were out, but Mother Wolf, at

the back of the cave, knew by his breathing that something was troubling her frog.

``Some bat's chatter of Shere Khan,'' he called back. ``I hunt among the ploughed fields tonight''; and he

plunged downward through the bushes, to the stream at the bottom of the valley. There he checked, for he

heard the yell of the Pack hunting, heard the bellow of a hunted Sambhur, and the snort as the buck turned at

bay. Then there were wicked, bitter howls from the young wolves: ``Akela! Akela! Let the Lone Wolf show

The Lone Wolf must have sprung and missed his hold, for Mowgli heard the snap of his teeth and then a yelp

He did not wait for anything more, but dashed on; and the yells grew fainter behind him as he ran into the

``Bagheera spoke truth,'' he panted, as he nestled down in some cattlefodder by the window of a hut.

Then he pressed his face close to the window and watched the fire on the hearth. He saw the husbandman's

wife get up and feed it in the night with black lumps; and when the morning came and the mists were all

white and cold, he saw the man's child pick up a wicker pot plastered inside with earth, fill it with lumps of

redhot charcoal, put it under his blanket, and go out to tend the cows in the byre.

``Is that all?'' said Mowgli. ``If a cub can do it there is nothing to fear''; so he strode around the corner and

met the boy, took the pot from his hand and disappeared into the mist while the boy howled with fear.

``They are very like me,'' said Mowgli, blowing into the pot, as he had seen the woman do. ``This thing will

die if I do not give it things to eat''; and he dropped twigs and dried bark on the red stuff. Halfway up the hill

``Akela has missed,'' said the panther. ``They would have killed him last night, but they needed thee also.

``I was among the ploughed lands. I am ready. Look!'' Mowgli held up the firepot.

``Good! Now, I have seen men thrust a dry branch into that stuff, and presently the Red Flower blossomed at

``No. Why should I fear? I remember now if it is not a dream how, before I was a wolf, I lay beside

All that day Mowgli sat in the cave tending his firepot and dipping dry branches into it to see how they

looked. He found a branch that satisfied him, and in the evening when Tabaqui came to the cave and told

him, rudely enough, that he was wanted at the Council Rock, he laughed till Tabaqui ran away. Then Mowgli

Akela the Lone Wolf lay by the side of his rock as a sign that the leadership of the Pack was open, and Shere

Khan with his following of scrapfed wolves walked to and fro openly, being flattered. Bagheera lay close to

Mowgli, and the firepot was between MowglI's knees. When they were all gathered together, Shere Khan

began to speak a thing he would never have dared to do when Akela was in his prime.

``He has no right,'' whispered Bagheera. ``Say so. He is a dog's son. He will be frightened.''

Mowgli sprang to his feet. ``Free People,'' he cried, ``does Shere Khan lead the Pack? What has a tiger to do

``Seeing that the leadership is yet open, and being asked to speak ``Shere Khan began.

``By whom?'' said Mowgli. ``Are we all jackals, to fawn on this cattlebutcher? The leadership of the Pack is

There were yells of ``Silence, thou man's cub!'' ``Let him speak; he has kept our law!'' And at last the seniors

When a leader of the Pack has missed his kill, he is called the Dead Wolf as long as he lives, which is not

``Free people, and ye too, jackals of Shere Khan, for twelve seasons I have led ye to and from the kill, and in

all that time not one has been trapped or maimed. Now I have missed my kill. Ye know how that plot was

made. Ye know how ye brought me up to an untried buck to make my weakness known. It was cleverly done.

Your right is to kill me here on the Council Rock now. Therefore I ask, 'Who comes to make an end of the

Lone Wolf?' For it is my right, by the Law of the Jungle, that ye come one by one.''

There was a long hush, for no single wolf cared to fight Akela to the death. Then Shere Khan roared: ``Bah!

What have we to do with this toothless fool? He is doomed to die! It is the mancub who has lived too long.

Free People, he was my meat from the first. Give him to me. I am weary of this manwolf folly. He has

troubled the jungle for ten seasons. Give me the mancub, or I will hunt here always, and not give you one

Then more than half the Pack yelled: ``A man a man! What has a man to do with us? Let him go to his

``And turn all the people of the villages against us?'' snarled Shere Khan. ``No; give him to me. He is a man,

Akela lifted his head again, and said: ``He has eaten our food; he has slept with us; he has driven game for us;

``Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a bull is little, but Bagheera's honour is

something that he will perhaps fight for,'' said Bagheera in his gentlest voice.

``A bull paid ten years ago!'' the Pack snarled. ``What do we care for bones ten years old?''

``Or for a pledge?'' said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under his lip. ``Well are ye called the Free People!''

``No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle!'' roared Shere Khan. ``Give him to me.''

``He is our brother in all but blood,'' Akela went on; ``and ye would kill him here. In truth, I have lived too

long. Some of ye are eaters of cattle, and of others I have heard that, under Shere Khan's teaching, ye go by

dark night and snatch children from the villager's doorstep. Therefore I know ye to be cowards, and it is to

cowards I speak. It is certain that I must die, and my life is of no worth or I would offer that in the mancub's

place. But for the sake of the Honour of the Pack, a little matter that, by being without a leader, ye have

forgotten, I promise that if ye let the mancub go to his own place, I will not, when my time comes to die,

bare one tooth against ye. I will die without fighting. That will at least save the Pack three lives. More I

cannot do; but, if ye will, I can save ye the shame that comes of killing a brother against whom there is no

fault a brother spoken for and bought into the Pack according to the Law of the Jungle.''

``He is a man a man a man!'' snarled the Pack; and most of the wolves began to gather round Shere

``Now the business is in thy hands,'' said Bagheera to Mowgli. ``We can do no more except fight.''

Mowgli stood upright the firepot in his hands. Then he stretched out his arms, and yawned in the face of

the Council; but he was furious with rage and sorrow, for, wolflike, the wolves had never told him how they

``Listen, you!'' he cried. ``There is no need for this dog's jabber. Ye have told me so often tonight that I am a

man (though indeed I would have been a wolf with you to my life's end) that I feel your words are true. So I

do not call ye my brothers any more, but sag [dogs], as a man should. What ye will do, and what ye will not

do, is not yours to say. That matter is with me; and that we may see the matter more plainly, I, the man, have

He flung the firepot on the ground, and some of the red coals lit a tuft of dried moss that flared up as all the

Mowgli thrust his dead branch into the fire till the twigs lit and crackled, and whirled it above his head

``Thou art the master,'' said Bagheera, in an undertone. ``Save Akela from the death. He was ever thy friend.''

Akela, the grim old wolf who had never asked for mercy in his life, gave one piteous look at Mowgli as the

boy stood all naked, his long black hair tossing over his shoulders in the light of the blazing branch that made

``Good!'' said Mowgli, staring around slowly, and thrusting out his lower lip. ``I see that ye are dogs. I go

from you to my own people if they be my own people. The jungle is shut to me, and I must forget your

talk and your companionship; but I will be more merciful than ye are. Because I was all but your brother in

blood, I promise that when I am a man among men I will not betray ye to men as ye have betrayed me.'' He

kicked the fire with his foot, and the sparks flew up. ``There shall be no war between any of us and the Pack.

But here is a debt to pay before I go.'' He strode forward to where Shere Khan sat blinking stupidly at the

flames, and caught him by the tuft on his chin. Bagheera followed close, in case of accidents. ``Up, dog!''

Shere Khan's ears lay flat back on his head, and he shut his eyes, for the blazing branch was very near.

``This cattlekiller said he would kill me in the Council because he had not killed me when I was a cub. Thus

and thus, then, do we beat dogs when we are men! Stir a whisker, Lungri, and I ram the Red Flower down thy

gullet!'' He beat Shere Khan over the head with the branch, and the tiger whimpered and whined in an agony

``Pah! Singed junglecat go now! But remember when next I come to the Council Rock, as a man should

come, it will be with Shere Khan's hide on my head. For the rest, Akela goes free to live as he pleases. Ye

will not kill him, because that is not my will. Nor do I think that ye will sit here any longer, lolling out your

tongues as though ye were somebodies, instead of dogs whom I drive out thus! Go!''

The fire was burning furiously at the end of the branch, and Mowgli struck right and left round the circle, and

the wolves ran howling with the spark burning their fur. At last there were only Akela, Bagheera, and perhaps

ten wolves that had taken MowglI's part. Then something began to hurt Mowgli inside him, as he had never

been hurt in his life before, and he caught his breath and sobbed, and the tears ran down his face.

``What is it? What is it?'' he said. ``I do not wish to leave the jungle, and I do not know what this is. Am I

``No, Little Brother. Those are only tears such as men use,'' said Bagheera. ``Now I know thou art a man, and

a man's cub no longer. The jungle is shut indeed to thee henceforward. Let them fall, Mowgli; they are only

tears.'' So Mowgli sat and cried as though his heart would break; and he had never cried in all his life before.

``Now,'' he said, ``I will go to men. But first I must say farewell to my mother''; and he went to the cave

where she lived with Father Wolf, and he cried on her coat, while the four cubs howled miserably.

``Never while we can follow a trail,'' said the cubs. ``Come to the foot of the hill when thou art a man, and we

will talk to thee; and we will come into the croplands to play with thee by night.''

``Come soon!'' said Father Wolf. ``Oh, wise little Frog, come again soon; for we be old, thy mother and I.''

``Come soon,'' said Mother Wolf, ``little naked son of mine; for, listen, child of man, I loved thee more than

``I will surely come,'' said Mowgli; ``and when I come it will be to lay out Shere Khan's hide upon the

The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the hillside alone to the crops to meet those

But the Jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still. Maxims of Baloo.

All that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of the Seeonee wolfpack. It was in

the days when Baloo was teaching him the Law of the Jungle. The big, serious, old brown bear was delighted

to have so quick a pupil, for the young wolves will only learn as much of the Law of the Jungle as applies to

their own pack and tribe, and run away as soon as they can repeat the Hunting Verse: ``Feet that make no

noise; eyes that can see in the dark; ears that can hear the winds in their lairs, and sharp white teeth all

these things are the mark of our brothers except Tabaqui and the Hyena, whom we hate.'' But Mowgli, as a

mancub, had to learn a great deal more than this. Sometimes Bagheera, the Black Panther, would come

lounging through the jungle to see how his pet was getting on, and would purr with his head against a tree

while Mowgli recited the day's lesson to Baloo. The boy could climb almost as well as he could swim, and

swim almost as well as he could run; so Baloo, the Teacher of the Law, taught him the Wood and Water laws:

how to tell a rotten branch from a sound one; how to speak politely to the wild bees when he came upon a

hive of them fifty feet aboveground; what to say to Mang, the Bat, when he disturbed him in the branches at

midday; and how to warn the watersnakes in the pools before he splashed down among them. None of the

Jungle People like being disturbed, and all are very ready to fly at an intruder. Then, too, Mowgli was taught

the Strangers' Hunting Call, which must be repeated aloud till it is answered, whenever one of the Jungle

People hunts outside his own grounds. It means, translated: ``Give me leave to hunt here because I am

All this will show you how much Mowgli had to learn by heart, and he grew very tired of repeating the same

thing a hundred times; but, as Baloo said to Bagheera one day when Mowgli had been cuffed and had run off

in a temper: ``A man's cub is a man's cub, and he must learn all the Law of the Jungle.''

``But think how small he is,'' said the Black Panther, who would have spoiled Mowgli if he had had his own

``Is there anything in the jungle too little to be killed? No. That is why I teach him these things, and that is

``Softly! What dost thou know of softness, old Ironfeet?'' Bagheera grunted. ``His face is all bruised today

``Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me who love him than that he should come to harm

through ignorance,'' Baloo answered, very earnestly. ``I am now teaching him the Master Words of the Jungle

that shall protect him with the Birds and the Snake People, and all that hunt on four feet, except his own pack.

He can now claim protection, if he will only remember the Words, from all in the jungle. Is not that worth a

``Well, look to it then that thou dost not kill the mancub. He is no treetrunk to sharpen thy blunt claws

upon. But what are those Master Words? I am more likely to give help than to ask it'' Bagheera stretched

out one paw and admired the steelblue rippingchisel talons at the end of it ``Still I should like to know.''

``My head is ringing like a beetree,'' said a sullen voice over their heads, and Mowgli slid down a

treetrunk, very angry and indignant, adding, as he reached the ground: ``I come for Bagheera and not for

``That is all one to me,'' said Baloo, though he was hurt and grieved. ``Tell Bagheera, then, the Master Words

``Master Words for which people?'' said Mowgli, delighted to show off. ``The jungle has many tongues. I

``A little thou knowest, but not much. See, O Bagheera, they never thank their teacher! Not one small

wolfling has come back to thank old Baloo for his teachings. Say the Word for the Hunting People, then,

``We be of one blood, ye and I,'' said Mowgli, giving the words the Bear accent which all the Hunting People

The answer was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mowgli kicked up his feet behind, clapped his hands

together to applaud himself, and jumped on Bagheera's back, where he sat sideways, drumming with his heels

``There there! That was worth a little bruise,'' said the Brown Bear, tenderly. ``Some day thou wilt

remember me.'' Then he turned aside to tell Bagheera how he had begged the Master Words from Hathi, the

Wild Elephant, who knows all about these things, and how Hathi had taken Mowgli down to a pool to get the

Snake Word from a watersnake, because Baloo could not pronounce it, and how Mowgli was now

reasonably safe against all accidents in the jungle, because neither snake, bird, nor beast would hurt him.

``No one then is to be feared,'' Baloo wound up, patting his big furry stomach with pride.

``Except his own tribe,'' said Bagheera, under his breath; and then aloud to Mowgli: ``Have a care for my

Mowgli had been trying to make himself heard by pulling at Bagheera's shoulderfur and kicking hard. When

the two listened to him he was shouting at the top of his voice: ``And so I shall have a tribe of my own, and

``Yes, and throw branches and dirt at old Baloo,'' Mowgli went on. ``They have promised me this, ah!''

``Whoof!'' Baloo's big paw scooped Mowgli off Bagheera's back, and as the boy lay between the big fore

``Mowgli,'' said Baloo, ``thou hast been talking with the Bandarlog the Monkey People.''

Mowgli looked at Bagheera to see if the panther was angry too, and Bagheera's eyes were as hard as

``Thou hast been with the Monkey People the gray apes the people without a Law the eaters of

``When Baloo hurt my head,'' said Mowgli (he was still down on his back), ``I went away, and the gray apes

came down from the trees and had pity on me. No one else cared.'' He snuffled a little.

``The stillness of the mountain stream! The coo of the summer sun! And then, mancub?''

``And then and then they gave me nuts and pleasant things to eat, and they they carried me in their

arms up to the top of the trees and said I was their bloodbrother, except that I had no tail, and should be their

``They were very kind, and bade me come again. Why have I never been taken among the Monkey People?

They stand on their feet as I do. They do not hit me with hard paws. They play all day. Let me get up! Bad

``Listen, mancub,'' said the bear, and his voice rumbled like thunder on a hot night. ``I have taught thee all

the Law of the Jungle for all the Peoples of the Jungle except the Monkey Folk who live in the trees. They

have no Law. They are outcastes. They have no speech of their own but use the stolen words which they

overhear when they listen and peep and wait up above in the branches. Their way is not our way. They are

without leaders. They have no remembrance. They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people

about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter, and all is

forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not

go where the monkeys go; we do not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die. Hast thou ever

``No,'' said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still now that Baloo had finished.

``The Jungle People put them out of their mouths and out of their minds. They are very many, evil, dirty,

shameless, and they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed by the Jungle People. But we do not

He had hardly spoken when a shower of nuts and twigs spattered down through the branches; and they could

hear coughings and howlings and angry jumpings high up in the air among the thin branches.

``The Monkey People are forbidden,'' said Baloo, ``forbidden to the Jungle People. Remember.''

``Forbidden,'' said Bagheera; ``but I still think Baloo should have warned thee against them.''

``I I? How was I to guess he would play with such dirt. The Monkey People! Faugh!''

A fresh shower came down on their heads, and the two trotted away, taking Mowgli with them. What Baloo

had said about the monkeys was perfectly true. They belonged to the treetops, and as beasts very seldom

look up, there was no occasion for the monkeys and the Jungle People to cross one another's path. But

whenever they found a sick wolf, or a wounded tiger or bear, the monkeys would torment him, and would

throw sticks and nuts at any beast for fun and in the hope of being noticed. Then they would howl and shriek

senseless songs, and invite the Jungle People to climb up their trees and fight them, or would start furious

battles over nothing among themselves, and leave the dead monkeys where the Jungle People could see them.

They were always just going to have a leader and laws and customs of their own, but they never did, because

their memories would not hold over from day to day, and so they settled things by making up a saying:

``What the Bandarlog think now the Jungle will think later'': and that comforted them a great deal. None of

the beasts could reach them, but on the other hand none of the beasts would notice them, and that was why

they were so pleased when Mowgli came to play with them, and when they heard how angry Baloo was.

They never meant to do any more, the Bandarlog never mean anything at all, but one of them

invented what seemed to him a brilliant idea, and he told all the others that Mowgli would be a useful person

to keep in the tribe, because he could weave sticks together for protection from the wind; so, if they caught

him, they could make him teach them. Of course Mowgli, as a woodcutter's child, inherited all sorts of

instincts, and used to make little playhuts of fallen branches without thinking how he came to do it. The

Monkey People, watching in the trees, considered these huts most wonderful. This time, they said, they were

really going to have a leader and become the wisest people in the jungle so wise that every one else would

notice and envy them. Therefore they followed Baloo and Bagheera and Mowgli through the jungle very

quietly till it was time for the midday nap, and Mowgli, who was very much ashamed of himself, slept

between the panther and the bear, resolving to have no more to do with the Monkey People.

The next thing he remembered was feeling hands on his legs and arms, hard, strong little hands, and

then a swash of branches in his face; and then he was staring down through the swaying boughs as Baloo

woke the jungle with his deep cries and Bagheera bounded up the trunk with every tooth bared. The

Bandarlog howled with triumph, and scuffled away to the upper branches where Bagheera dared not follow,

shouting: ``He has noticed us! Bagheera has noticed us! All the Jungle People admire us for our skill and our

cunning!'' Then they began their flight; and the flight of the Monkey People through treeland is one of the

things nobody can describe. They have their regular roads and crossroads, uphills and downhills, all laid out

from fifty to seventy or a hundred feet aboveground, and by these they can travel even at night if necessary.

Two of the strongest monkeys caught Mowgli under the arms and swung off with him through the treetops,

twenty feet at a bound. Had they been alone they could have gone twice as fast, but the boy's weight held

them back. Sick and giddy as Mowgli was he could not help enjoying the wild rush, though the glimpses of

earth far down below frightened him, and the terrible check and jerk at the end of the swing over nothing but

His escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the weak topmost branches crackle and bend under them, and,

then, with a cough and a whoop, would fling themselves into the air outward and downward, and bring up

hanging by their hands or their feet to the lower limbs of the next tree. Sometimes he could see for miles and

miles over the still green jungle, as a man on the top of a mast can see for miles across the sea, and then the

branches and leaves would lash him across the face, and he and his two guards would be almost down to

So bounding and crashing and whooping and yelling, the whole tribe of Bandarlog swept along the

For a time he was afraid of being dropped; then he grew angry, but he knew better than to struggle; and then

he began to think. The first thing was to send back word to Baloo and Bagheera, for, at the pace the monkeys

were going, he knew his friends would be left far behind. It was useless to look down, for he could see only

the top sides of the branches, so he stared upward and saw, far away in the blue, Rann, the Kite, balancing

and wheeling as he kept watch over the jungle waiting for things to die. Rann noticed that the monkeys were

carrying something, and dropped a few hundred yards to find out whether their load was good to eat. He

whistled with surprise when he saw Mowgli being dragged up to a treetop, and heard him give the Kite call

for ``We be of one blood, thou and I.'' The waves of the branches closed over the boy, but Rann balanced

away to the next tree in time to see the little brown face come up again. ``Mark my trail!'' Mowgli shouted.

``In whose name, Brother?'' Rann had never seen Mowgli before, though of course he had heard of him.

The last words were shrieked as he was being swung through the air, but Rann nodded, and rose up till he

looked no bigger than a speck of dust, and there he hung, watching with his telescope eyes the swaying of the

``They never go far,'' he said with a chuckle. ``They never do what they set out to do. Always pecking at new

things are the Bandarlog. This time, if I have any eyesight, they have pecked down trouble for themselves,

Meanwhile, Baloo and Bagheera were furious with rage and grief. Bagheera climbed as he had never climbed

before, but the branches broke beneath his weight, and he slipped down, his claws full of bark.

``Why didst thou not warn the mancub!'' he roared to poor Baloo, who had set off at a clumsy trot in the

hope of overtaking the monkeys. ``What was the use of half slaying him with blows if thou didst not warn

``At that speed! It would not tire a wounded cow. Teacher of the Law, cubbeater a mile of that rolling to

and fro would burst thee open. Sit still and think! Make a plan. This is no time for chasing. They may drop

``Arrula! Whoo! They may have dropped him already, being tired of carrying him. Who can trust the

Bandarlog? Put dead bats on my head! Give me black bones to eat! Roll me into the hives of the wild bees

that I may be stung to death, and bury me with the hyena; for I am the most miserable of bears! Arulala!

Wahooa! O Mowgli, Mowgli! Why did I not warn thee against the Monkey Folk instead of breaking thy

head? Now perhaps I may have knocked the day's lesson out of his mind, and he will be alone in the jungle

``At least he gave me all the Words correctly a little time ago,'' said Bagheera, impatiently. ``Baloo, thou hast

neither memory nor respect. What would the jungle think if I, the Black Panther, curled myself up like Ikki,

``Unless and until they drop him from the branches in sport, or kill him out of idleness, I have no fear for the

mancub. He is wise and welltaught, and, above all, he has the eyes that make the Jungle People afraid. But

(and it is a great evil) he is in the power of the Bandarlog, and they, because they live in trees, have no fear

``Fool that I am! Oh, fat, brown, rootdigging fool that I am!'' said Baloo, uncoiling himself with a jerk. ``It

is true what Hathi, the Wild Elephant, says: 'To each his own fear'; and they, the Bandarlog, fear Kaa, the

Rock Snake. He can climb as well as they can. He steals the young monkeys in the night. The mere whisper

``What will he do for us? He is not of our tribe, being footless and with most evil eyes,'' said Bagheera.

``He is very old and very cunning. Above all, he is always hungry,'' said Baloo, hopefully.'' Promise him

``He sleeps for a full month after he has once eaten. He may be asleep now, and even were he awake, what if

he would rather kill his own goats?'' Bagheera, who did not know much about Kaa, was naturally suspicious.

``Then in that case, thou and I together, old hunter, may make him see reason.'' Here Baloo rubbed his faded

brown shoulder against the panther, and they went off to look for Kaa, the Rock Python.

They found him stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun, admiring his beautiful new coat for he

had been in retirement for the last ten days changing his skin, and now he was very splendid darting his

big bluntnosed head along the ground, and twisting the thirty feet of his body into fantastic knots and

``He has not eaten,'' said Baloo, with a grunt of relief, as soon as he saw the beautifully mottled brown and

yellow jacket. ``Be careful, Bagheera! He is always a little blind after he has changed his skin, and very quick

Kaa was not a poison snake in fact he rather despised the Poison Snakes for cowards; but his strength lay

in his hug, and when he had once lapped his huge coils round anybody there was no more to be said. ``Good

hunting!'' cried Baloo, sitting up on his haunches. Like all snakes of his breed Kaa was rather deaf, and did

not hear the call at first. Then he curled up ready for any accident, his head lowered.

``Good hunting for us all,'' he answered. ``Oho, Baloo, what dost thou do here? Good hunting, Bagheera. One

of us at least needs food. Is there any news of game afoot? A doe now, or even a young buck? I am as empty

``We are hunting,'' said Baloo, carelessly. He knew that you must not hurry Kaa. He is too big.

``Give me permission to come with you,'' said Kaa. ``A blow more or less is nothing to thee, Bagheera or

Baloo, but I I have to wait and wait for days in a wood path and climb half a night on the mere chance of a

young ape. Pss naw! The branches are not what they were when I was young. Rotten twigs and dry boughs

``I am a fair length a fair length,'' said Kaa, with a little pride. ``But for all that, it is the fault of this

newgrown timber. I came very near to falling on my last hunt, very near indeed, and the noise of my

slipping, for my tail was not tight wrapped round the tree, waked the Bandarlog, and they called me most

`` 'Footless, yellow earthworm,' `` said Bagheera under his whiskers, as though he were trying to remember

``Something of that kind it was that they shouted to us last moon, but we never noticed them. They will say

anything even that thou hast lost all thy teeth, and dare not face anything bigger than a kid, because (they

are indeed shameless, these Bandarlog) because thou art afraid of the hegoats' horns,'' Bagheera went

Now a snake, especially a wary old python like Kaa, very seldom shows that he is angry, but Baloo and

Bagheera could see the big swallowing muscles on either side of Kaa's throat ripple and bulge.

``The Bandarlog have shifted their grounds,'' he said, quietly. ``When I came up into the sun today I heard

``It it is the Bandarlog that we follow now,'' said Baloo; but the words stuck in his throat, for this was the

first time in his memory that one of the Jungle People had owned to being interested in the doings of the

``Beyond doubt, then, it is no small thing that takes two such hunters leaders in their own jungle, I am

certain on the trail of the Bandarlog,'' Kaa replied, courteously, as he swelled with curiosity.

``Indeed,'' Baloo began, ``I am no more than the old, and sometimes very foolish, Teacher of the Law to the

``Is Bagheera,'' said the Black Panther, and his jaws shut with a snap, for he did not believe in being humble.

``The trouble is this, Kaa. Those nutstealers and pickers of palmleaves have stolen away our mancub, of

``I heard some news from Ikki (his quills make him presumptuous) of a manthing that was entered into a

wolfpack, but I did not believe. Ikki is full of stories half heard and very badly told.''

``But it is true. He is such a mancub as never was,'' said Baloo. ``The best and wisest and boldest of

mancubs. My own pupil, who shall make the name of Baloo famous through all the jungles; and besides I

``Ts! Ts!'' said Kaa, shaking his head to and fro. ``I have also known what love is. There are tales I could tell

``That need a clear night when we are all well fed to praise properly,'' said Bagheera, quickly. ``Our mancub

is in the hands of the Bandarlog now, and we know that of all the Jungle People they fear Kaa alone.''

``They fear me alone. They have good reason,'' said Kaa.'' Chattering, foolish, vain vain, foolish, and

chattering are the monkeys. But a manthing in their hands is in no good luck. They grow tired of the nuts

they pick, and throw them down. They carry a branch half a day, meaning to do great things with it, and then

snap it in two. That manling is not to be envied. They called me also 'yellow fish,' was it not?''

``Worm worm earthworm,'' said Bagheera; ``as well as other things which I cannot now say for

``We must remind them to speak well of their master. Aaasssh! We must help their wandering memories.

``The jungle alone knows. Toward the sunset, I believe,'' said Baloo. ``We had thought that thou wouldst

``I? How? I take them when they come in my way, but I do not hunt the Bandarlog or frogs or green

Baloo looked up to see where the voice came from, and there was Rann, the Kite, sweeping down with the

sun shining on the upturned flanges of his wings. It was near Rann's bedtime, but he had ranged all over the

``I have seen Mowgli among the Bandarlog. He bade me tell you. I watched. The Bandarlog have taken

him beyond the river to the Monkey City to the Cold Lairs. They may stay there for a night, or ten nights,

or an hour. I have told the bats to watch through the dark time. That is my message. Good hunting, all you

``Full gorge and a deep sleep to you, Rann!'' cried Bagheera. ``I will remember thee in my next kill, and put

``It is nothing. It is nothing. The boy held the Master Word. I could have done no less,'' and Rann circled up

``He has not forgotten to use his tongue,'' said Baloo, with a chuckle of pride. ``To think of one so young

remembering the Master Word for the birds while he was being pulled across trees!''

``It was most firmly driven into him,'' said Bagheera. ``But I am proud of him, and now we must go to the

They all knew where that place was, but few of the Jungle People ever went there, because what they called

the Cold Lairs was an old deserted city, lost and buried in the jungle, and beasts seldom use a place that men

have once used. The wild boar will, but the huntingtribes do not. Besides, the monkeys lived there as much

as they could be said to live anywhere, and no selfrespecting animal would come within eyeshot of it

except in times of drouth, when the halfruined tanks and reservoirs held a little water.

``It is half a night's journey at full speed,'' said Bagheera. Baloo looked very serious. ``I will go as fast as I

``We dare not wait for thee. Follow, Baloo. We must go on the quickfoot Kaa and I.''

Baloo made one effort to hurry, but had to sit down panting, and so they left him to come on later, while

Bagheera hurried forward, at the rocking panthercanter. Kaa said nothing, but, strive as Bagheera might, the

huge Rock Python held level with him. When they came to a hillstream, Bagheera gained, because he

bounded across while Kaa swam, his head and two feet of his neck clearing the water, but on level ground

``By the Broken Lock that freed me,'' said Bagheera, when twilight had fallen, ``thou art no slowgoer.''

``All one. Let us go on,'' and Kaa seemed to pour himself along the ground, finding the shortest road with his

In the Cold Lairs the Monkey People were not thinking of Mowgli's friends at all. They had brought the boy

to the Lost City, and were very pleased with themselves for the time. Mowgli had never seen an indian city

before, and though this was almost a heap of ruins it seemed very wonderful and splendid. Some king had

built it long ago on a little hill. You could still trace the stone causeways that led up to the ruined gates where

the last splinters of wood hung to the worn, rusted hinges. Trees had grown into and out of the walls; the

battlements were tumbled down and decayed, and wild creepers hung out of the windows of the towers on the

A great roofless palace crowned the hill, and the marble of the courtyards and the fountains was split and

stained with red and green, and the very cobblestones in the courtyard where the king's elephants used to live

had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees. From the palace you could see the rows and rows of

roofless houses that made up the city, looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness; the shapeless

block of stone that had been an idol in the square where four roads met; the pits and dimples at street corners

where the public wells once stood, and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs sprouting on their sides.

The monkeys called the place their city, and pretended to despise the Jungle People because they lived in the

forest. And yet they never knew what the buildings were made for nor how to use them. They would sit in

circles on the hall of the king's councilchamber, and scratch for fleas and pretend to be men; or they would

run in and out of the roofless houses and collect pieces of plaster and old bricks in a corner, and forget where

they had hidden them, and fight and cry in scuffling crowds, and then break off to play up and down the

terraces of the king's garden, where they would shake the rosetrees and the oranges in sport to see the fruit

and flowers fall. They explored all the passages and dark tunnels in the palace and the hundreds of little dark

rooms; but they never remembered what they had seen and what they had not, and so drifted about in ones

and twos or crowds, telling one another that they were doing as men did. They drank at the tanks and made

the water all muddy, and then they fought over it, and then they would all rush together in mobs and shout:

``There are none in the jungle so wise and good and clever and strong and gentle as the Bandarlog.'' Then all

would begin again till they grew tired of the city and went back to the treetops, hoping the Jungle People

Mowgli, who had been trained under the Law of the Jungle, did not like or understand this kind of life. The

monkeys dragged him into the Cold Lairs late in the afternoon, and instead of going to sleep, as Mowgli

would have done after a long journey, they joined hands and danced about and sang their foolish songs.

One of the monkeys made a speech, and told his companions that Mowgli's capture marked a new thing in the

history of the Bandarlog, for Mowgli was going to show them how to weave sticks and canes together as a

protection against rain and cold. Mowgli picked up some creepers and began to work them in and out, and the

monkeys tried to imitate; but in a very few minutes they lost interest and began to pull their friends' tails or

``I want to eat,'' said Mowgli. ``I am a stranger in this part of the jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to

Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild pawpaws; but they fell to fighting on the

road, and it was too much trouble to go back with what was left of the fruit. Mowgli was sore and angry as

well as hungry and he roamed through the empty city giving the Strangers' Hunting Call from time to time,

but no one answered him, and Mowgli felt that he had reached a very bad place indeed.

``All that Baloo has said about the Bandarlog is true,'' he thought to himself. ``They have no Law, no

Hunting Call, and no leaders nothing but foolish words and little picking, thievish hands. So if I am

starved or killed here, it will be all my own fault. But I must try to return to my own jungle. Baloo will surely

But no sooner had he walked to the city wall than the monkeys pulled him back, telling him that he did not

know how happy he was, and pinching him to make him grateful. He set his teeth and said nothing, but went

with the shouting monkeys to a terrace above the red sandstone reservoirs that were half full of rainwater.

There was a ruined summerhouse of white marble in the center of the terrace, built for queens dead a

hundred years ago. The domed roof had half fallen in and blocked up the underground passage from the

palace by which the queens used to enter; but the walls were made of screens of marble tracery beautiful,

milkwhite fretwork, set with agates and cornelians and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up

behind the hill it shone through the openwork, casting shadows on the ground like blackvelvet embroidery.

Sore, sleepy, and hungry as he was, Mowgli could not help laughing when the Bandarlog began, twenty at a

time, to tell him how great and wise and strong and gentle they were, and how foolish he was to wish to leave

them. ``We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We

all say so, and so it must be true,'' they shouted. ``Now as you are a new listener and can carry our words back

to the Jungle People so that they may notice us in future, we will tell you all about our most excellent selves.''

Mowgli made no objection, and the monkeys gathered by hundreds and hundreds on the terrace to listen to

their own speakers singing the praises of the Bandarlog, and whenever a speaker stopped for want of breath

Mowgli nodded and blinked, and said ``Yes'' when they asked him a question, and his head spun with the

noise. ``Tabaqui, the Jackal, must have bitten all these people,'' he said to himself, ``and now they have the

madness. Certainly this is dewanee the madness. Do they never go to sleep? Now there is a cloud coming

to cover that moon. If it were only a big enough cloud I might try to run away in the darkness. But I am

That same cloud was being watched by two good friends in the ruined ditch below the city wall, for Bagheera

and Kaa, knowing well how dangerous the Monkey People were in large numbers, did not wish to run any

risks. The monkeys never fight unless they are a hundred to one, and few in the jungle care for those odds.

``I will go to the west wall,'' Kaa whispered, ``and come down swiftly with the slope of the ground in my

``I know it,'' said Bagheera. ``Would that Baloo were here; but we must do what we can. When that cloud

covers the moon I shall go to the terrace. They hold some sort of council there over the boy.''

``Good hunting,'' said Kaa, grimly, and glided away to the west wall. That happened to be the least ruined of

any, and the big snake was delayed a while before he could find a way up the stones.

The cloud hid the moon, and as Mowgli wondered what would come next he heard Bagheera's light feet on

the terrace. The Black Panther had raced up the slope almost without a sound, and was striking he knew

better than to waste time in biting right and left among the monkeys, who were seated round Mowgli in

circles fifty and sixty deep. There was a howl of fright and rage, and then as Bagheera tripped on the rolling,

kicking bodies beneath him, a monkey shouted: ``There is only one here! Kill him! Kill!'' A scuffling mass of

monkeys, biting, scratching, tearing, and pulling, closed over Bagheera, while five or six laid hold of

Mowgli, dragged him up the wall of the summerhouse, and pushed him through the hole of the broken

dome. A mantrained boy would have been badly bruised, for the fall was a good ten feet, but Mowgli fell as

``Stay there,'' shouted the monkeys, ``till we have killed thy friend. Later we will play with thee, if the Poison

``We be of one blood, ye and I,'' said Mowgli, quickly giving the Snake's Call. He could hear rustling and

hissing in the rubbish all round him, and gave the Call a second time to make sure.

``Down hoods all,'' said half a dozen low voices. Every old ruin in India becomes sooner or later a

dwellingplace of snakes, and the old summerhouse was alive with cobras. ``Stand still, Little Brother, lest

Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the openwork and listening to the furious din of the

fight round the Black Panther the yells and chatterings and scufflings, and Bagheera's deep, hoarse cough

as he backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under the heaps of his enemies. For the first time since he

``Baloo must be at hand; Bagheera would not have come alone,'' Mowgli thought; and then he called aloud:

``To the tank, Bagheera! Roll to the watertanks! Roll and plunge! Get to the water!''

Bagheera heard, and the cry that told him Mowgli was safe gave him new courage. He worked his way

Then from the ruined wall nearest the jungle rose up the rumbling warshout of Baloo. The old bear had done

his best, but he could not come before. ``Bagheera,'' he shouted, ``I am here! I climb! I haste! Ahuwora! The

He panted up the terrace only to disappear to the head in a wave of monkeys, but he threw himself squarely

on his haunches, and spreading out his fore paws, hugged as many as he could hold, and then began to hit

A crash and a splash told Mowgli that Bagheera had fought his way to the tank, where the monkeys could not

follow. The panther lay gasping for breath, his head just out of water, while the monkeys stood three deep on

the red stone steps, dancing up and down with rage, ready to spring upon him from all sides if he came out to

help Baloo. It was then that Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin, and in despair gave the Snake's Call for

protection, ``We be of one blood, ye and I,'' for he believed that Kaa had turned tail at the last minute.

Even Baloo, half smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling as he

Kaa had only just worked his way over the west wall, landing with a wrench that dislodged a copingstone

into the ditch. He had no intention of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled and uncoiled himself

once or twice, to be sure that every foot of his long body was in working order.

All that while the fight with Baloo went on, and the monkeys yelled in the tank round Bagheera, and Mang,

the Bat, flying to and fro, carried the news of the great battle over the jungle, till even Hathi, the Wild

Elephant, trumpeted, and, far away, scattered bands of the Monkey Folk woke and came leaping along the

treeroads to help their comrades in the Cold Lairs, and the noise of the fight roused all the daybirds for

Then Kaa came straight, quickly, and anxious to kill. The fighting strength of a python is in the driving blow

of his head, backed by all the strength and weight of his body. If you can imagine a lance, or a batteringram,

or a hammer, weighing nearly half a ton driven by a cool, quiet mind living in the handle of it, you can

imagine roughly what Kaa was like when he fought. A python four or five feet long can knock a man down if

he hits him fairly in the chest, and Kaa was thirty feet long, as you know. His first stroke was delivered into

the heart of the crowd round Baloo was sent home with shut mouth in silence, and there was no need of a

Generations of monkeys have been scared into good behaviour by the stories their elders told them of Kaa,

the nightthief, who could slip along the branches as quietly as moss grows, and steal away the strongest

monkey that ever lived; of old Kaa, who could make himself look so like a dead branch or a rotten stump that

Kaa was everything the monkeys feared in the jungle, for none of them knew the limits of his power, none of

them could look him in the face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug. And so they ran, stammering

with terror, to the walls and the roofs of the houses, and Baloo drew a deep breath of relief His fur was much

thicker than Bagheera's, but he had suffered sorely in the fight. Then Kaa opened his mouth for the first time

and spoke one long hissing word, and the faraway monkeys, hurrying to the defense of the Cold Lairs,

stayed where they were, cowering, till the loaded branches bent and cracked under them. The monkeys on the

walls and the empty houses stopped their cries, and in the stillness that fell upon the city Mowgli heard

Then the clamour broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls; they clung round the necks of

the big stone idols and shrieked as they skipped along the battlements; while Mowgli, dancing in the

summerhouse, put his eye to the screenwork and hooted owlfashion between his front teeth, to show his

``Get the mancub out of that trap; I can do no more,'' Bagheera gasped. ``Let us take the mancub and go.

``They will not move till I order them. Stay you sssso!'' Kaa hissed and the city was silent once more. ``I

could not come before, brother, but, I think I heard thee call'' this was to Bagheera.

``I I may have cried out in the battle,'' Bagheera answered. ``Baloo, art thou hurt?''

``I am not sure that they have not pulled me into a hundred little bearlings,'' said Baloo, gravely shaking one

leg after the other. ``Wow! I am sore. Kaa, we owe thee, I think, our lives Bagheera and I.''

``Here, in a trap. I cannot climb out,'' cried Mowgli. The curve of the broken dome was above his head.

``Take him away. He dances like Mao, the Peacock. He will crush our young,'' said the cobras inside.

``Hah!'' said Kaa, with a chuckle, ``he has friends everywhere, this manling. Stand back, Manling; and hide

Kaa looked carefully till he found a discoloured crack in the marble tracery showing a weak spot, made two

or three light taps with his head to get the distance, and then lifting up six feet of his body clear of the ground,

sent home half a dozen fullpower, smashing blows, nosefirst. The screenwork broke and fell away in a

cloud of dust and rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through the opening and flung himself between Baloo and

``I am sore, hungry, and not a little bruised; but, oh, they have handled ye grievously, my Brothers! Ye

``Others also,'' said Bagheera, licking his lips and looking at the monkeydead on the terrace and round the

``It is nothing, it is nothing if thou art safe, O my pride of all little frogs!'' whimpered Baloo.

``Of that we shall judge later,'' said Bagheera, in a dry voice that Mowgli did not at all like. ``But here is Kaa,

to whom we owe the battle and thou owest thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli.''

``So this is the manling,'' said Kaa. ``Very soft is his skin, and he is not so unlike the Bandarlog. Have a

care, Manling, that I do not mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my coat.''

``We be of one blood, thou and I,'' Mowgli answered. ``I take my life from thee, tonight. My kill shall be

``All thanks, Little Brother,'' said Kaa, though his eyes twinkled. ``And what may so bold a hunter kill? I ask

``I kill nothing, I am too little, but I drive goats toward such as can use them. When thou art empty

come to me and see if I speak the truth. I have some skill in these [he held out his hands], and if ever thou art

in a trap, I may pay the debt which I owe to thee, to Bagheera, and to Baloo, here. Good hunting to ye all, my

``Well said,'' growled Baloo, for Mowgli had returned thanks very prettily. The python dropped his head

lightly for a minute on Mowgli's shoulder. ``A brave heart and a courteous tongue,'' said he. ``They shall

carry thee far through the jungle, Manling. But now go hence quickly with thy friends. Go and sleep, for the

The moon was sinking behind the hills and the lines of trembling monkeys huddled together on the walls and

battlements looked like ragged, shaky fringes of things. Baloo went down to the tank for a drink, and

Bagheera began to put his fur in order, as Kaa glided out into the center of the terrace and brought his jaws

``Good! Begins now the Dance the Dance of the Hunger of Kaa. Sit still and watch.''

He turned twice or thrice in a big circle, weaving his head from right to left. Then he began making loops and

figures of eight with his body, and soft, oozy triangles that melted into squares and fiveside figures, and

coiled mounds, never resting, never hurrying, and never stopping his low, humming song. It grew darker and

darker, till at last the dragging, shifting coils disappeared, but they could hear the rustle of the scales.

Baloo and Bagheera stood still as stone, growling in their throats, their neckhair bristling, and Mowgli

``Bandarlog,'' said the voice of Kaa at last, ``can ye stir foot or hand without my order? Speak!''

The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and Bagheera took one stiff step forward

Mowgli laid his hands on Baloo and Bagheera to get them away, and the two great beasts started as though

``Keep thy hand on my shoulder,'' Bagheera whispered. ``Keep it there, or I must go back must go back to

``It is only old Kaa making circles on the dust,'' said mowgli; ``let us go''; and the three slipped off through a

``Whoof!'' said Baloo, when he stood under the still trees again. ``Never more will I make an ally of Kaa,''

``He knows more than we,'' said Bagheera, trembling. ``In a little time, had I stayed, I should have walked

``Many will walk that road before the moon rises again,'' said Baloo. ``He will have good hunting after his

``But what was the meaning of it all?'' said Mowgli, who did not know anything of a python's powers of

fascination. ``I saw no more than a big snake making foolish circles till the dark came. And his nose was all

``Mowgli,'' said Bagheera, angrily, ``his nose was sore on thy account; as my ears and sides and paws, and

Baloo's neck and shoulders are bitten on thy account. Neither Baloo nor Bagheera will be able to hunt with

``True; but he has cost us most heavily in time which might have been spent in good hunting, in wounds, in

hair, I am half plucked along my back, and last of all, in honour. For, remember, Mowgli, I, who am

the Black Panther, was forced to call upon Kaa for protection, and Baloo and I were both made stupid as little

birds by the HungerDance. All this, Mancub, came of thy playing with the Bandarlog.''

``True; it is true,'' said Mowgli, sorrowfully. ``I am an evil mancub, and my stomach is sad in me.''

Baloo did not wish to bring Mowgli into any more trouble, but he could not tamper with the Law, so he

mumbled, ``Sorrow never stays punishment. But remember, Bagheera, he is very little.''

``I will remember; but he has done mischief; and blows must be dealt now. Mowgli, hast thou anything to

Bagheera gave him half a dozen lovetaps; from a panther's point of view they would hardly have waked one

of his own cubs, but for a seven yearold boy they amounted to as severe a beating as you could wish to

avoid. When it was all over Mowgli sneezed, and picked himself up without a word.

``Now,'' said Bagheera, ``jump on my back, Little Brother, and we will go home.''

One of the beauties of Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores. There is no nagging afterward.

Mowgli laid his head down on Bagheera's back and slept so deeply that he never waked when he was put

Now we must go back to the last tale but one. When Mowgli left the wolf's cave after the fight with the Pack

at the Council Rock, he went down to the plowed lands where the villagers lived, but he would not stop there

because it was too near to the jungle, and he knew that he had made at least one bad enemy at the Council. So

he hurried on, keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley, and followed it at a steady jogtrot for

nearly twenty miles, till he came to a country that he did not know. The valley opened out into a great plain

dotted over with rocks and cut up by ravines. At one end stood a little village, and at the other the thick jungle

came down in a sweep to the grazinggrounds, and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a hoe. All

over the plain, cattle and buffaloes were grazing, and when the little boys in charge of the herds saw Mowgli

they shouted and ran away, and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian village barked. Mowgli

walked on, for he was feeling hungry, and when he came to the village gate he saw the big thornbush that

``Umph!'' he said, for he had come across more than one such barricade in his night rambles after things to

eat. ``So men are afraid of the People of the Jungle here also.'' He sat down by the gate, and when a man

came out he stood up, opened his mouth, and pointed down it to show that he wanted food. The man stared

and ran back up the one street of the village shouting for the priest, who was a big, fat man dressed in white,

with a red and yellow mark on his forehead. The priest came to the gate, and with him at least a hundred

``They have no manners, these Men Folk,'' said Mowgli to himself. ``Only the gray ape would behave as they

``What is there to be afraid of?'' said the priest. ``Look at the marks on his arms and legs. They are the bites

Of course, in playing together, the cubs had often nipped Mowgli harder than they intended, and there were

white scars all over his arms and legs. But he would have been the last person in the world to call these bites;

``Arre! Arre!'' said two or three women together. ``To be bitten by wolves, poor child! He is a handsome boy.

He has eyes like red fire. By my honour, Messua, he is not unlike thy boy that was taken by the tiger.''

``Let me look,'' said a woman with heavy copper rings on her wrists and ankles, and she peered at Mowgli

under the palm of her hand. ``Indeed he is not. He is thinner, but he has the very look of my boy.''

The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the richest villager in the place. So he

looked up at the sky for a minute, and said solemnly: ``What the jungle has taken the jungle has restored.

Take the boy into thy house, my sister, and forget not to honour the priest who sees so far into the lives of

``By the Bull that bought me,'' said Mowgli to himself, ``but all this talking is like another lookingover by

The crowd parted as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there was a red lacquered bedstead, a

great earthen grainchest with curious raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cookingpots, an image of a

Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real lookingglass, such as they sell at the country fairs.

She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and then she laid her hand on his head and looked into his

eyes; for she thought perhaps that he might be her real son come back from the jungle where the tiger had

taken him. So she said: ``Nathoo, O Nathoo!'' Mowgli did not show that he knew the name. ``Dost thou not

remember the day when I gave thee thy new shoes?'' She touched his foot, and it was almost as hard as horn.

``No,'' she said sorrowfully; ``those feet have never worn shoes, but thou art very like my Nathoo, and thou

Mowgli was uneasy, because he had never been under a roof before; but as he looked at the thatch, he saw

that he could tear it out any time if he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings. ``What is

the good of a man,'' he said to himself at last, ``if he does not understand man's talk? Now I am as silly and

It was not for fun that he had learned while he was with the wolves to imitate the challenge of bucks in the

jungle and the grunt of the little wild pig. So as soon as Messua pronounced a word Mowgli would imitate it

almost perfectly, and before dark he had learned the names of many things in the hut.

There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep under anything that looked so like a

panthertrap as that hut, and when they shut the door he went through the window. ``Give him his will,'' said

Messua's husband. ``Remember he can never till now have slept on a bed. If he is indeed sent in the place of

So Mowgli stretched himself in some long, clean grass at the edge of the field, but before he had closed his

``Phew!'' said Gray Brother (he was the eldest of Mother Wolf's cubs). ``This is a poor reward for following

thee twenty miles. Thou smellest of woodsmoke and cattle altogether like a man already. Wake, Little

``All except the wolves that were burned with the Red Flower. Now, listen. Shere Khan has gone away to

hunt far off till his coat grows again, for he is badly singed. When he returns he swears that he will lay thy

``There are two words to that. I also have made a little promise. But news is always good. I am tired tonight,

``Thou wilt not forget that thou art a wolf? Men will not make thee forget?'' said Gray Brother, anxiously.

``Never. I will always remember that I love thee and all in our cave; but also I will always remember that I

``And that thou mayest be cast out of another pack. Men are only men, Little Brother, and their talk is like the

talk of frogs in a pond. When I come down here again, I will wait for thee in the bamboos at the edge of the

For three months after that night Mowgli hardly ever left the village gate, he was so busy learning the ways

and customs of men. First he had to wear a cloth round him, which annoyed him horribly; and then he had to

learn about money, which he did not in the least understand, and about plowing, of which he did not see the

use. Then the little children in the village made him very angry. Luckily, the Law of the Jungle had taught

him to keep his temper, for in the jungle, life and food depend on keeping your temper; but when they made

fun of him because he would not play games or fly kites, or because he mispronounced some word, only the

knowledge that it was unsportsmanlike to kill little naked cubs kept him from picking them up and breaking

He did not know his own strength in the least. In the jungle he knew he was weak compared with the beasts,

And Mowgli had not the faintest idea of the difference that caste makes between man and man. When the

potter's donkey slipped in the claypit, Mowgli hauled it out by the tail, and helped to stack the pots for their

journey to the market at Khanhiwara. That was very shocking, too, for the potter is a lowcaste man, and his

donkey is worse. When the priest scolded him, Mowgli threatened to put him on the donkey, too, and the

priest told Messua's husband that Mowgli had better be set to work as soon as possible; and the village

headman told Mowgli that he would have to go out with the buffaloes next day, and herd them while they

grazed. No one was more pleased than Mowgli; and that night, because he had been appointed a servant of

the village, as it were, he went off to a circle that met every evening on a masonry platform under a great

figtree. It was the village club, and the headman and the watchman and the barbet (who knew all the

gossip of the village), and old Buldeo, the village hunter, who had a Tower musket, met and smoked. The

monkeys sat and talked in the upper branches, and there was a hole under the platform where a cobra lived,

and he had his little platter of milk every night because he was sacred; and the old men sat around the tree

and talked, and pulled at the big huqas (the waterpipes) till far into the night. They told wonderful tales of

gods and men and ghosts; and Buldeo told even more wonderful ones of the ways of beasts in the jungle, till

the eyes of the children sitting outside the circle bulged out of their heads. Most of the tales were about

animals, for the jungle was always at their door. The deer and the wild pig grubbed up their crops, and now

and again the tiger carried off a man at twilight, within sight of the village gates.

Mowgli, who naturally knew something about what they were talking of, had to cover his face not to show

that he was laughing, while Buldeo, the Tower musket across his knees, climbed on from one wonderful story

Buldeo was explaining how the tiger that had carried away Messua's son was a ghosttiger, and his body was

inhabited by the ghost of a wicked old moneylender, who had died some years ago. ``And I know that this is

true,'' he said, ``because Purun Dass always limped from the blow that he got in a riot when his

accountbooks were burned, and the tiger that I speak of he limps, too, for the tracks of his pads are

``Are all these tales such cobwebs and moontalk?'' said Mowgli. ``That tiger limps because he was born

lame, as every one knows. To talk of the soul of a moneylender in a beast that never had the courage of a

``Oho! It is the jungle brat, is it?'' said Buldeo. ``If thou art so wise, better bring his hide to Khanhiwara, for

the Government has set a hundred rupees [$30] on his life. Better still, do not talk when thy elders speak.''

Mowgli rose to go. ``All the evening I have lain here listening,'' he called back over his shoulder, ``and,

except once or twice, Buldeo has not said one word of truth concerning the jungle, which is at his very doors.

How, then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins which he says he has seen?''

``It is full time that boy went to herding,'' said the headman, while Buldeo puffed and snorted at Mowgli's

The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle and buffaloes out to graze in the early

morning, and bring them back at night; and the very cattle that would trample a white man to death allow

themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at by children that hardly come up to their noses. So long as

the boys keep with the herds they are safe, for not even the tiger will charge a mob of cattle. But if they

straggle to pick flowers or hunt lizards, they are sometimes carried off. Mowgli went through the village

street in the dawn, sitting on the back of Rama, the great herd bull; and the slatyblue buffaloes, with their

long, backwardsweeping horns and savage eyes, rose out of their byres, one by one, and followed him, and

Mowgli made it very clear to the children with him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes with a long

polished bamboo, and told Kamya, one of the boys, to graze the cattle by themselves, while he went on with

An Indian grazingground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little ravines, among which the herds

scatter and disappear. The buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie wallowing

or basking in the warm mud for hours. Mowgli drove them on to the edge of the plain where the Waingunga

River came out of the jungle; then he dropped from Rama's neck, trotted off to a bamboo clump, and found

Gray Brother. ``Ah,'' said Gray Brother, ``I have waited here very many days. What is the meaning of this

``It is an order,'' said Mowgli. ``I am a village herd for a while. What news of Shere Khan?''

``He has come back to this country, and has waited here a long time for thee. Now he has gone off again, for

``Very good,'' said Mowgli. ``So long as he is away do thou or one of the brothers sit on that rock so that I

can see thee as I come out of the village. When he comes back wait for me in the ravine by the dhaktree in

Then Mowgli picked out a shady place, and lay down and slept while the buffaloes grazed round him.

Herding in India is one of the laziest things in the world. The cattle move and crunch, and lie down, and

move on again, and they do not even low. They only grunt, and the buffaloes very seldom say anything, but

get down into the muddy pools one after another, and work their way into the mud till only their noses and

staring chinablue eyes show above the surface, and there they lie like logs. The sun makes the rocks dance

in the heat, and the herdchildren hear one kite (never any more) whistling almost out of sight overhead, and

they know that if they died, or a cow died that kite would sweep down, and the next kite miles away would

see him drop and follow, and the next, and the next, and almost before they were dead there would be a score

of hungry kites come out of nowhere. Then they sleep and wake and sleep again, and weave little baskets of

dried grass and put grasshoppers in them; or catch two prayingmantises and make them fight; or string a

necklace of red and black junglenuts; or watch a lizard basking on a rock, or a snake hunting a frog near the

wallows. Then they sing long, long songs with odd native quavers at the end of them, and the day seems

longer than most people's whole lives, and perhaps they make a mud castle with mud figures of men and

horses and buffaloes, and put reeds into the men's hands, and pretend that they are kings and the figures are

their armies or that they are gods to be worshiped. Then evening comes, and the children call, and the

buffaloes lumber up out of the sticky mud with noises like gunshots going off one after the other, and they

Day after day Mowgli would lead the buffaloes out to their wallows, and day after day he would see Gray

Brother's back a mile and a half away across the plain (so he knew that Shere Khan had not come back), and

day after day he would lie on the grass listening to the noise around him, and dreaming of old days in the

jungle. If Shere Khan had made a false step with his lame paw up in the jungles by the Waingunga, Mowgli

At last a day came when he did not see Gray Brother at the signal place, and he laughed and headed the

buffaloes for the ravine by the dhaktree, which was all covered with goldenred flowers. There sat Gray

``He has hidden for a month to throw thee off thy guard. He crossed the ranges last night with Tabaqui,

``Have no fear,'' said Gray Brother, licking his lips a little. ``I met Tabaqui in the dawn. Now he is telling all

his wisdom to the kites, but he told me everything before I broke his back. Shere Khan's plan is to wait for

thee at the village gate this evening for thee and for no one else. He is lying up now in the big dry ravine

``Has he eaten today, or does he hunt empty?'' said Mowgli, for the answer meant life or death to him.

``He killed at dawn, a pig and he has drunk too. Remember, Shere Khan could never fast even for the

``Oh! Fool, fool! What a cub's cub it is! Eaten and drunk too, and he thinks that I shall wait till he has slept!

Now, where does he lie up? If there were but ten of us we might pull him down as he lies. These buffaloes

will not charge unless they wind him, and I cannot speak their language. Can we get behind his track so that

``Tabaqui told him that, I know. He would never have thought of it alone.'' Mowgli stood with his finger in

his mouth, thinking. ``The big ravine of the Waingunga. That opens out on the plain not half a mile from

here. I can take the herd round through the jungle to the head of the ravine and then sweep down but he

would slink out at the foot. We must block that end. Gray Brother, canst thou cut the herd in two for me?''

``Not I, perhaps but I have brought a wise helper.'' Gray Brother trotted off and dropped into a hole. Then

there lifted up a huge gray head that Mowgli knew well, and the hot air was filled with the most desolate cry

``Akela! Akela!'' said Mowgli, clapping his hands. ``I might have known that thou wouldst not forget me. We

have a big work in hand. Cut the herd in two, Akela. Keep the cows and calves together, and the bulls and the

The two wolves ran, ladies'chain fashion, in and out of the herd, which snorted and threw up its head and

separated into two clumps. In one the cowbuffaloes stood, with their calves in the center, and glared and

pawed, ready, if a wolf would only stay still, to charge down and trample the life out of him. In the other the

bulls and the young bulls snorted and stampeded; but, though they looked more imposing, they were much

less dangerous, for they had no calves to protect. No six men could have divided the herd so neatly.

Mowgli slipped on to Rama's back. ``Drive the bulls away to the left, Akela. Gray Brother, when we are gone

``Till the sides are higher than Shere Khan can jump,'' shouted Mowgli. ``Keep them there till we come

down.'' The bulls swept off as Akela bayed, and Gray Brother stopped in front of the cows. They charged

down on him, and he ran just before them to the foot of the ravine, as Akela drove the bulls far to the left.

``Well done! Another charge and they are fairly started. Careful, now careful, Akela. A snap too much,

and the bulls will charge. Hujah! This is wilder work than driving blackbuck. Didst thou think these

``I have have hunted these too in my time,'' gasped Akela in the dust. ``Shall I turn them into the jungle?''

``Ay, turn! Swiftly turn them. Rama is mad with rage. Oh, if I could only tell him what I need of him

The bulls were turned to the right this time, and crashed into the standing thicket. The other herdchildren,

watching with the cattle half a mile away, hurried to the village as fast as their legs could carry them, crying

But Mowgli's plan was simple enough. All he wanted to do was to make a big circle uphill and get at the head

of the ravine, and then take the bulls down it and catch Shere Khan between the bulls and the cows, for he

knew that after a meal and a full drink Shere Khan would not be in any condition to fight or to clamber up the

sides of the ravine. He was soothing the buffaloes now by voice, and Akela had dropped far to the rear, only

whimpering once or twice to hurry the rearguard. It was a long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too

near the ravine and give Shere Khan warning. At last Mowgli rounded up the bewildered herd at the head of

the ravine on a grassy patch that sloped steeply down to the ravine itself. From that height you could see

across the tops of the trees down to the plain below: but what Mowgli looked at was the sides of the ravine,

and he saw with a great deal of satisfaction that they ran nearly straight up and down, and the vines and

creepers that hung over them would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out.

``Let them breathe, Akela,'' he said, holding up his hand. ``They have not winded him yet. Let them breathe. I

He put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine, it was almost like shouting down a tunnel,

After a long time there came back the drawling, sleepy snarl of a fullfed tiger just awakened.

``Who calls?'' said Shere Khan, and a splendid peacock fluttered up out of the ravine, screeching.

``I, Mowgli. Cattlethief, it is time to come to the Council Rock! Down hurry them down, Akela. Down,

The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope, but Akela gave tongue in the full huntingyell, and

they pitched over one after the other just as steamers shoot rapids, the sand and stones spurting up round

them. Once started, there was no chance of stopping, and before they were fairly in the bed of the ravine

``Ha! Ha!'' said Mowgli, on his back. ``Now thou knowest!'' and the torrent of black horns, foaming muzzles,

and staring eyes whirled down the ravine like boulders in floodtime; the weaker buffaloes being shouldered

out to the sides of the ravine where they tore through the creepers. They knew what the business was before

them the terrible charge of the buffaloherd, against which no tiger can hope to stand. Shere Khan heard

the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up, and lumbered down the ravine, looking from side to side for

some way of escape, but the walls of the ravine were straight, and he had to keep on, heavy with his dinner

and his drink, willing to do anything rather than fight. The herd splashed through the pool he had just left,

bellowing till the narrow cut rang. Mowgli heard an answering bellow from the foot of the ravine, saw Shere

Khan turn (the tiger knew if the worse came to the worst it was better to meet the bulls than the cows with

their calves), and then Rama tripped, stumbled, and went on again over something soft, and, with the bulls at

his heels, crashed full into the other herd, while the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their feet by the

shock of the meeting. That charge carried both herds out into the plain, goring and stamping and snorting.

Mowgli watched his time, and slipped off Rama's neck, laying about him right and left with his stick.

``Quick, Akela! Break them up. Scatter them, or they will be fighting one another. Drive them away, Akela.

Akela and Gray Brother ran to and fro nipping the buffaloes' legs, and though the herd wheeled once to

charge up the ravine again, Mowgli managed to turn Rama, and the others followed him to the wallows.

Shere Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead, and the kites were coming for him already.

``Brothers, that was a dog's death,'' said Mowgli, feeling for the knife he always carried in a sheath round his

neck now that he lived with men. ``But he would never have shown fight. His hide will look well on the

A boy trained among men would never have dreamed of skinning a tenfoot tiger alone, but Mowgli knew

better than any one else how an animal's skin is fitted on, and how it can be taken off. But it was hard work,

and Mowgli slashed and tore and grunted for an hour, while the wolves lolled out their tongues, or came

Presently a hand fell on his shoulder, and looking up he saw Buldeo with the Tower musket. The children had

told the village about the buffalo stampede, and Buldeo went out angrily, only too anxious to correct Mowgli

for not taking better care of the herd. The wolves dropped out of sight as soon as they saw the man coming.

``What is this folly?'' said Buldeo, angrily. ``To think that thou canst skin a tiger! Where did the buffaloes kill

him? It is the Lame Tiger too, and there is a hundred rupees on his head. Well, well, we will overlook thy

letting the herd run off, and perhaps I will give thee one of the rupees of the reward when I have taken the

skin to Khanhiwara.'' He fumbled in his waistcloth for flint and steel, and stooped down to singe Shere

Khan's whiskers. Most native hunters singe a tiger's whiskers to prevent his ghost haunting them.

``Hum!'' said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin of a fore paw. ``So thou wilt take the hide to

Khanhiwara for the reward, and perhaps give me one rupee? Now it is in my mind that I need the skin for my

``What talk is this to the chief hunter of the village? Thy luck and the stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped

thee to this kill. The tiger has just fed, or he would have gone twenty miles by this time. Thou canst not even

skin him properly, little beggarbrat, and forsooth I, Buldeo, must be told not to singe his whiskers. Mowgli,

I will not give thee one anna of the reward, but only a very big beating. Leave the carcass!''

``By the Bull that bought me,'' said Mowgli, who was trying to get at the shoulder, ``must I stay babbling to

Buldeo, who was still stooping over Shere Khan's head, found himself sprawling on the grass, with a gray

wolf standing over him, while Mowgli went on skinning as though he were alone in all India.

``Yees,'' he said, between his teeth. ``Thou art altogether right, Buldeo. Thou wilt never give me one anna of

the reward. There is an old war between this lame tiger and myself a very old war, and I have won.''

To do Buldeo justice, if he had been ten years younger he would have taken his chance with Akela had he

met the wolf in the woods, but a wolf who obeyed the orders of this boy who had private wars with

maneating tigers was not a common animal. It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind, thought Buldeo, and he

wondered whether the amulet round his neck would protect him. He lay as still as still, expecting every

``I am an old man. I did not know that thou wast anything more than a herdboy. May I rise up and go away,

``Go, and peace go with thee. Only, another time do not meddle with my game. Let him go, Akela.''

Buldeo hobbled away to the village as fast as he could, looking back over his shoulder in case Mowgli should

change into something terrible. When he got to the village he told a tale of magic and enchantment and

Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight before he and the wolves had drawn the great gay

``Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home! Help me to herd them, Akela.''

The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the village Mowgli saw lights, and heard

the conches and bells in the temple blowing and banging. Half the village seemed to be waiting for him by

the gate. ``That is because I have killed Shere Khan,'' he said to himself; but a shower of stones whistled

about his ears, and the villagers shouted: ``Sorcerer! Wolf's brat! Jungledemon! Go away! Get hence

quickly, or the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot, Buldeo, shoot!''

The old Tower musket went off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed in pain.

``More sorcery!'' shouted the villagers. ``He can turn bullets. Buldeo, that was thy buffalo.''

``They are not unlike the Pack, these brothers of thine,'' said Akela, sitting down composedly. ``It is in my

``Wolf! Wolf's cub! Go away!'' shouted the priest, waving a sprig of the sacred tulsi plant.

``Again? Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because I am a wolf. Let us go, Akela.''

A woman it was Messua ran across to the herd, and cried: ``Oh, my son, my son! They say thou art a

sorcerer who can turn himself into a beast at will. I do not believe, but go away or they will kill thee. Buldeo

Mowgli laughed a little short ugly laugh, for a stone had hit him in the mouth. ``Run back, Messua. This is

one of the foolish tales they tell under the big tree at dusk. I have at least paid for thy son's life. Farewell; and

run quickly, for I shall send the herd in more swiftly than their brickbats. I am no wizard, Messua. Farewell!

The buffaloes were anxious enough to get to the village. They hardly needed Akela's yell, but charged

``Keep count!'' shouted Mowgli, scornfully. ``It may be that I have stolen one of them. Keep count, for I will

do your herding no more. Fare you well, children of men, and thank Messua that I do not come in with my

He turned on his heel and walked away with the Lone Wolf; and as he looked up at the stars he felt happy.

``No more sleeping in traps for me, Akela. Let us get Shere Khan's skin and go away. No; we will not hurt

When the moon rose over the plain, making it look all milky, the horrified villagers saw Mowgli, with two

wolves at his heels and a bundle on his head, trotting across at the steady wolf's trot that eats up the long

miles like fire. Then they banged the temple bells and blew the conches louder than ever; and Messua cried,

and Buldeo embroidered the story of his adventures in the jungle, till he ended by saying that Akela stood up

The moon was just going down when Mowgli and the two wolves came to the hill of the Council Rock, and

``They have cast me out from the Man Pack, Mother,'' shouted Mowgli, ``but I come with the hide of Shere

Khan to keep my word.'' Mother Wolf walked stiffly from the cave with the cubs behind her, and her eyes

``I told him on that day, when he crammed his head and shoulders into this cave, hunting for thy life, Little

``Little Brother, it is well done,'' said a deep voice in the thicket. ``We were lonely in the jungle without

thee,'' and Bagheera came running to Mowgli's bare feet. They clambered up the Council Rock together, and

Mowgli spread the skin out on the flat stone where Akela used to sit, and pegged it down with four slivers of

bamboo, and Akela lay down upon it, and called the old call to the Council, ``Look look well, O Wolves!''

Ever since Akela had been deposed, the Pack had been without a leader, hunting and fighting at their own

pleasure. But they answered the call from habit, and some of them were lame from the traps they had fallen

into, and some limped from shotwounds, and some were mangy from eating bad food, and many were

missing; but they came to the Council Rock, all that were left of them, and saw Shere Khan's striped hide on

the rock, and the huge claws dangling at the end of the empty, dangling feet. It was then that Mowgli made

up a song without any rhymes, a song that came up into his throat all by itself, and he shouted it aloud,

leaping up and down on the rattling skin, and beating time with his heels till he had no more breath left, while

``Look well, O Wolves. Have I kept my word?'' said Mowgli when he had finished; and the wolves bayed

``Lead us again, O Akela. Lead us again, O Mancub, for we be sick of this lawlessness, and we would be

``Nay,'' purred Bagheera, ``that may not be. When ye are fullfed, the madness may come upon ye again.

Not for nothing are ye called the Free People. Ye fought for freedom, and it is yours. Eat it, O Wolves.''

``Man Pack and Wolf Pack have cast me out,'' said Mowgli. ``Now I will hunt alone in the jungle.''

So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from that day on. But he was not always

Bring up the great bullbuffaloes, the blueskinned herdbulls with the angry eyes.

MOWGLI'S SONG THAT HE SANG AT THE COUNCIL ROCK WHEN HE DANCED ON SHERE KHAN'S HIDE 38

Lend me thy coat, Shere Khan. Lend me thy gay striped coat that I may go to the Council Rock.

By the Bull that bought me I have made a promise a little promise. Only thy coat is lacking before I keep

With the knife with the knife that men use with the knife of the hunter, the man, I will stoop down for

Waters of the Waingunga, bear witness that Shere Khan gives me his coat for the love that he bears me.

My mouth is cut and wounded with the stones from the village, but my heart is very light because I have

These two things fight together in me as the snakes fight in the spring. The water comes out of my eyes; yet I

All these things happened several years ago at a place called Novastoshnah, or North East Point, on the Island

of St. Paul, away and away in the Bering Sea. Limmershin, the Winter Wren, told me the tale when he was

blown on to the rigging of a steamer going to Japan, and I took him down into my cabin and warmed and fed

him for a couple of days till he was fit to fly back to St. Paul's again. Limmershin is a very odd little bird, but

Nobody comes to Novastoshnah except on business, and the only people who have regular business there are

the seals. They come in the summer months by hundreds and hundreds of thousands out of the cold gray sea;

for Novastoshnah Beach has the finest accommodation for seals of any place in all the world.

Sea Catch knew that, and every spring would swim from whatever place he happened to be in would

swim like a torpedoboat straight for Novastoshnah and spend a month fighting with his companions for a

good place on the rocks as close to the sea as possible. Sea Catch was fifteen years old, a huge gray furseal

with almost a mane on his shoulders, and long, wicked dogteeth. When he heaved himself up on his front

flippers he stood more than four feet clear of the ground and his weight, if any one had been bold enough to

weigh him, was nearly seven hundred pounds. He was scarred all over with the marks of savage fights, but he

was always ready for just one fight more. He would put his head on one side, as though he were afraid to look

his enemy in the face; then he would shoot it out like lightning, and when the big teeth were firmly fixed on

the other seal's neck, the other seal might get away if he could, but Sea Catch would not help him.

Yet Sea Catch never chased a beaten seal, for that was against the Rules of the Beach. He only wanted room

by the sea for his nursery; but as there were forty or fifty thousand other seals hunting for the same thing each

spring, the whistling, bellowing, roaring, and blowing on the beach was something frightful.

From a little hill called Hutchinson's Hill you could look over three and a half miles of ground covered with

fighting seals; and the surf was dotted all over with the heads of seals hurrying to land and begin their share

of the fighting. They fought in the breakers, they fought in the sand, and they fought on the smoothworn

basalt rocks of the nurseries; for they were just as stupid and unaccommodating as men. Their wives never

came to the island until late in May or early in June, for they did not care to be torn to pieces; and the young

two, three, and fouryearold seals who had not begun housekeeping went inland about half a mile

through the ranks of the fighters and played about on the sanddunes in droves and legions, and rubbed off

every single green thing that grew. They were called the holluschickie, the bachelors, and there were

Sea Catch had just finished his fortyfifth fight one spring when Matkah, his soft, sleek, gentleeyed wife,

came up out of the sea, and he caught her by the scruff of the neck and dumped her down on his reservation,

It was not the fashion for Sea Catch to eat anything during the four months he stayed on the beaches, and so

his temper was generally bad. Matkah knew better than to answer back. She looked around and cooed: ``How

He was scratched and bleeding in twenty places; one eye was almost blind, and his sides were torn to ribbons.

``Oh, you men, you men!'' Matkah said, fanning herself with her hind flipper. ``Why can't you be sensible

and settle your places quietly? You look as though you had been fighting with the Killer Whale.''

``I have n't been doing anything but fight since the middle of May. The beach is disgracefully crowded this

season. I've met at least a hundred seals from Lukannon Beach, househunting. Why can't people stay where

``I've often thought we should be much happier if we hauled out at Otter Island instead of this crowded

``Bah! Only the holluschickie go to Otter Island. If we went there they would say we were afraid. We must

Sea Catch sunk his head proudly between his fat shoulders and pretended to go to sleep for a few minutes, but

all the time he was keeping a sharp lookout for a fight. Now that all the seals and their wives were on the land

you could hear their clamour miles out to sea above the loudest gales. At the lowest counting there were over

a million seals on the beach old seals, mother seals, tiny babies, and holluschickie, fighting, scuffling,

bleating, crawling, and playing together, going down to the sea and coming up from it in gangs and

regiments, lying over every foot of ground as far as the eye could reach, and skirmishing about in brigades

through the fog. It is nearly always foggy at Novastoshnah, except when the sun comes out and makes

Kotick, Matkah's baby, was born in the middle of that confusion, and he was all head and shoulders, with

pale, watery blue eyes, as tiny seals must be; but there was something about his coat that made his mother

``Empty clamshells and dry seaweed!'' snorted Sea Catch. ``There never has been such a thing in the world

``I can't help that,'' said Matkah; ``there's going to be now''; and she sang the low, crooning sealsong, that all

the mother seals sing to their babies: You must n't swim till you're six weeks old,

Of course the little fellow did not understand the words at first. He paddled and scrambled about by his

mother's side, and learned to scuffle out of the way when his father was fighting with another seal, and the

two rolled and roared up and down the slippery rocks. Matkah used to go to sea to get things to eat, and the

baby was fed only once in two days; but then he ate all he could, and throve upon it.

The first thing he did was to crawl inland, and there he met tens of thousands of babies of his own age, and

they played together like puppies, went to sleep on the clean sand, and played again. The old people in the

nurseries took no notice of them, and the holluschickie kept to their own grounds, so the babies had a

When Matkah came back from her deepsea fishing she would go straight to their playground and call as a

sheep calls for a lamb, and wait until she heard Kotick bleat. Then she would take the straightest of straight

lines in his direction, striking out with her fore flippers and knocking the youngsters head over heels right and

left. There were always a few hundred mothers hunting for their children through the playgrounds, and the

babies were kept lively; but, as Matkah told Kotick, ``So long as you don't lie in muddy water and get mange;

or rub the hard sand into a cut or scratch; and so long as you never go swimming when there is a heavy sea,

Little seals can no more swim than little children, but they are unhappy till they learn. The first time that

Kotick went down to the sea a wave carried him out beyond his depth, and his big head sank and his little

hind flippers flew up exactly as his mother had told him in the song, and if the next wave had not thrown him

After that he learned to lie in a beachpool and let the wash of the waves just cover him and lift him up while

he paddled, but he always kept his eye open for big waves that might hurt. He was two weeks learning to use

his flippers; and all that while he floundered in and out of the water, and coughed and grunted and crawled up

the beach and took catnaps on the sand, and went back again, until at last he found that he truly belonged to

Then you can imagine the times that he had with his companions, ducking under the rollers; or coming in on

top of a comber and landing with a swash and a splutter as the big wave went whirling far up the beach; or

standing up on his tail and scratching his head as the old people did; or playing ``I'm the King of the Castle''

on slippery, weedy rocks that just stuck out of the wash. Now and then he would see a thin fin, like a big

shark's fin, drifting along close to shore, and he knew that that was the Killer Whale, the Grampus, who eats

young seals when he can get them; and Kotick would head for the beach like an arrow, and the fin would jig

Late in October the seals began to leave St. Paul's for the deep sea, by families and tribes, and there was no

more fighting over the nurseries, and the holluschickie played anywhere they liked. ``Next year,'' said Matkah

to Kotick, ``you will be a holluschickie; but this year you must learn how to catch fish.''

They set out together across the Pacific, and Matkah showed Kotick how to sleep on his back with his

flippers tucked down by his side and his little nose just out of the water. No cradle is so comfortable as the

long, rocking swell of the Pacific. When Kotick felt his skin tingle all over, Matkah told him he was learning

the ``feel of the water,'' and that tingly, prickly feelings meant bad weather coming, and he must swim hard

``In a little time,'' she said, ``you'll know where to swim to, but just now we'll follow Sea Pig, the Porpoise,

for he is very wise.'' A school of porpoises were ducking and tearing through the water, and little Kotick

followed them as fast as he could. ``How do you know where to go to?'' he panted. The leader of the school

rolled his white eyes, and ducked under. ``My tail tingles, youngster,'' he said. ``That means there's a gale

behind me. Come along! When you're south of the Sticky Water [he meant the Equator], and your tail tingles,

that means there's a gale in front of you and you must head north. Come along. The water feels bad here.''

This was one of very many things that Kotick learned, and he was always learning. Matkah taught him how

to follow the cod and the halibut along the undersea banks, and wrench the rockling out of his hole among

the weeds; how to skirt the wrecks lying a hundred fathoms below water, and dart like a riflebullet in at one

porthole and out at another as the fishes ran; how to dance on the top of the waves when the lightning was

racing all over the sky, and wave his flipper politely to the Stumpytailed Albatross and the Manofwar

Hawk as they went down the wind; how to jump three or four feet clear of the water, like a dolphin, flippers

close to the side and tail curved; to leave the flyingfish alone because they are all bony; to take the

shoulderpiece out of a cod at full speed ten fathoms deep and never to stop and look at a boat or a ship, but

particularly a row boat. At the end of six months, what Kotick did not know about deepsea fishing was not

One day, however, as he was lying half asleep in the warm water somewhere off the Island of Juan

Fernandez, he felt faint and lazy all over, just as human people do when the spring is in their legs, and he

remembered the good firm beaches of Novastoshnah seven thousand miles away; the games his companions

played, the smell of the seaweed, the sealroar, and the fighting. That very minute he turned north, swimming

steadily, and as he went on he met scores of his mates, all bound for the same place, and they said:

``Greeting, Kotick! This year we are all holluschickie, and we can dance the Firedance in the breakers off

Kotick's fur was almost pure white now, and though he felt very proud of it, he only said: ``Swim quickly!

My bones are aching for the land.'' And so they all came to the beaches where they had been born and heard

That night Kotick danced the Firedance with the yearling seals. The sea is full of fire on summer nights all

the way down from Novastoshnah to Lukannon, and each seal leaves a wake like burning oil behind him, and

a flaming flash when he jumps, and the waves break in great phosphorescent streaks and swirls. Then they

went inland to the holluschickie grounds, and rolled up and down in the new wild wheat, and told stories of

what they had done while they had been at sea. They talked about the Pacific as boys would talk about a

wood that they had been nutting in, and if any one had understood them, he could have gone away and made

such a chart of that ocean as never was. The threeand fouryearold holluschickie romped down from

Hutchinson's Hill, crying: ``Out of the way, youngsters! The sea is deep, and you don't know all that's in it

yet. Wait till you've rounded the Horn. Hi, you yearling, where did you get that white coat?''

``I did n't get it,'' said Kotick; ``it grew.'' And just as he was going to roll the speaker over, a couple of

blackhaired men with flat red faces came from behind a sanddune, and Kotick, who had never seen a man

before, coughed and lowered his head. The holluschickie just bundled off a few yards and sat staring stupidly.

The men were no less than Kerick Booterin, the chief of the sealhunters on the island, and Patalamon, his

son. They came from the little village not half a mile from the seal nurseries, and they were deciding what

seals they would drive up to the killingpens (for the seals were driven just like sheep), to be turned into

Kerick Booterin turned nearly white under his oil and smoke, for he was an Aleut, and Aleuts are not clean

people. Then he began to mutter a prayer. ``Don't touch him, Patalamon. There has never been a white seal

since since I was born. Perhaps it is old Zaharrof's ghost. He was lost last year in the big gale.''

``I'm not going near him,'' said Patalamon. ``He's unlucky. Do you really think he is old Zaharrof come back?

``Don't look at him,'' said Kerick. ``Head off that drove of fouryearolds. The men ought to skin two

hundred today, but it's the beginning of the season, and they are new to the work. A hundred will do.

Patalamon rattled a pair of seal's shoulderbones in front of a herd of holluschickie and they stopped dead,

puffing and blowing. Then he stepped near, and the seals began to move, and Kerick headed them inland, and

they never tried to get back to their companions. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of seals watched them

being driven, but they went on playing just the same. Kotick was the only one who asked questions, and none

of his companions could tell him anything, except that the men always drove seals in that way, for six weeks

``I am going to follow,'' he said, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head as he shuffled along in the wake

``The white seal is coming after us,'' said Patalamon. ``That's the first time a seal has ever come to the

``Hsh! Don't look behind you,'' said Kerick. ``It is Zaharrof's ghost! I must speak to the priest about this.''

The distance to the killinggrounds was only half a mile, but it took an hour to cover, because if the seals

went too fast Kerick knew that they would get heated and then their fur would come off in patches when they

were skinned. So they went on very slowly, past SeaLion's Neck, past Webster House, till they came to the

Salt House just beyond the sight of the seals on the beach. Kotick followed, panting and wondering. He

thought that he was at the world's end, but the roar of the seal nurseries behind him sounded as loud as the

roar of a train in a tunnel. Then Kerick sat down on the moss and pulled out a heavy pewter watch and let the

drove cool off for thirty minutes, and Kotick could hear the fogdew dripping from the brim of his cap. Then

ten or twelve men, each with an ironbound club three or four feet long, came up, and Kerick pointed out one

or two of the drove that were bitten by their companions or were too hot, and the men kicked those aside with

their heavy boots made of the skin of a walrus's throat, and then Kerick said: ``Let go!'' and then the men

Ten minutes later little Kotick did not recognize his friends any more, for their skins were ripped off from the

That was enough for Kotick. He turned and galloped (a seal can gallop very swiftly for a short time) back to

the sea, his little new mustache bristling with horror. At SeaLion's Neck, where the great sealions sit on the

edge of the surf, he flung himself flipper overhead into the cool water, and rocked there, gasping miserably.

``What's here?'' said a sealion, gruffly; for as a rule the sealions keep themselves to themselves.

``Scoochnie! Ochen scoochnie!'' (``I'm lonesome, very lonesome!'') said Kotick. ``They're killing all the

The sealion turned his head inshore. ``Nonsense,'' he said; ``your friends are making as much noise as ever.

You must have seen old Kerick polishing off a drove. He's done that for thirty years.''

``It's horrible,'' said Kotick, backing water as a wave went over him, and steadying himself with a

screwstroke of his flippers that brought him up all standing within three inches of a jagged edge of rock.

``Well done for a yearling!'' said the sealion, who could appreciate good swimming. ``I suppose it is rather

awful from your way of looking at it; but if you seals will come here year after year, of course the men get to

know of it, and unless you can find an island where no men ever come, you will always be driven.''

``I've followed the poltoos [the halibut] for twenty years, and I can't say I've found it yet. But look here

you seem to have a fondness for talking to your betters; suppose you go to Walrus Islet and talk to Sea Vitch.

He may know something. Don't flounce off like that. It's a sixmile swim, and if I were you I should haul out

Kotick thought that that was good advice, so he swam round to his own beach, hauled out, and slept for half

an hour, twitching all over, as seals will. Then he headed straight for Walrus Islet, a little low sheet of rocky

island almost due northeast from Novastoshnah, all ledges of rock and gulls' nests, where the walrus herded

He landed close to old Sea Vitch the big, ugly, bloated, pimpled, fatnecked, longtusked walrus of the

North Pacific, who has no manners except when he is asleep as he was then, with his hind flippers half in

``Hah! Ho! Hmph! What's that?'' said Sea Vitch, and he struck the next walrus a blow with his tusks and

waked him up, and the next struck the next, and so on till they were all awake and staring in every direction

``Hi! It's me,'' said Kotick, bobbing in the surf and looking like a little white slug.

``Well! May I be skinned!'' said Sea Vitch, and they all looked at Kotick as you can fancy a club full

of drowsy old gentlemen would look at a little boy. Kotick did not care to hear any more about skinning just

then; he had seen enough of it; so he called out: ``Is n't there any place for seals to go where men don't ever

``Go and find out,'' said Sea Vitch, shutting his eyes. ``Run away. We're busy here.''

Kotick made his dolphinjump in the air and shouted as loud as he could: ``Clameater! Clameater!'' He

knew that Sea Vitch never caught a fish in his life, but always rooted for clams and seaweeds; though he

pretended to be a very terrible person. Naturally the Chickies and the Gooverooskies and the Epatkas, the

Burgomaster Gulls and the Kittiwakes and the Puffins, who are always looking for a chance to be rude, took

up the cry, and so Limmershin told me for nearly five minutes you could not have heard a gun fired on

Walrus Islet. All the population was yelling and screaming'' Clameater! Stareek [old man]!'' while Sea Vitch

``Go and ask Sea Cow,'' said Sea Vitch. ``If he is living still, he'll be able to tell you.''

``He's the only thing in the sea uglier than Sea Vitch,'' screamed a burgomaster gull, wheeling under Sea

Kotick swam back to Novastoshnah, leaving the gulls to scream. There he found that no one sympathized

with him in his little attempts to discover a quiet place for the seals. They told him that men had always

driven the holluschickie it was part of the day's work and that if he did not like to see ugly things he

should not have gone to the killinggrounds. But none of the other seals had seen the killing, and that made

``What you must do,'' said old Sea Catch, after he had heard his son's adventures, ``is to grow up and be a big

seal like your father, and have a nursery on the beach, and then they will leave you alone. In another five

years you ought to be able to fight for yourself.'' Even gentle Matkah, his mother, said: ``You will never be

able to stop the killing. Go and play in the sea, Kotick.'' And Kotick went off and danced the Firedance with

That autumn he left the beach as soon as he could, and set off alone because of a notion in his bullethead.

He was going to find Sea Cow, if there was such a person in the sea, and he was going to find a quiet island

with good firm beaches for seals to live on, where men could not get at them. So he explored and explored by

himself from the North to the South Pacific, swimming as much as three hundred miles in a day and a night.

He met with more adventures than can be told, and narrowly escaped being caught by the Basking Shark, and

the Spotted Shark, and the Hammerhead, and he met all the untrustworthy ruffians that loaf up and down the

high seas, and the heavy polite fish, and the scarletspotted scallops that are moored in one place for

hundreds of years, and grow very proud of it; but he never met Sea Cow, and he never found an island that he

If the beach was good and hard, with a slope behind it for seals to play on, there was always the smoke of a

whaler on the horizon, boiling down blubber, and Kotick knew what that meant. Or else he could see that

seals had once visited the island and been killed off, and Kotick knew that where men had come once they

He picked up with an old stumpytailed albatross, who told him that Kerguelen Island was the very place for

peace and quiet, and when Kotick went down there he was all but smashed to pieces against some wicked

black cliffs in a heavy sleetstorm with lightning and thunder. Yet as he pulled out against the gale he could

see that even there had once been a seal nursery. And it was so in all the other islands that he visited.

Limmershin gave a long list of them, for he said that Kotick spent five seasons exploring, with a four months'

rest each year at Novastoshnah, where the holluschickie used to make fun of him and his imaginary islands.

He went to the Gallapagos, a horrid dry place on the Equator, where he was nearly baked to death; he went to

the Georgia Islands, the Orkneys, Emerald Island, Little Nightingale Island, Gough's Island, Bouvet's Island,

the Crossets, and even to a little speck of an island south of the Cape of Good Hope. But everywhere the

People of the Sea told him the same things. Seals had come to those islands once upon a time, but men had

killed them all off. Even when he swam thousands of miles out of the Pacific, and got to a place called Cape

Corientes (that was when he was coming back from Gough's Island), he found a few hundred mangy seals on

That nearly broke his heart, and he headed round the Horn back to his own beaches; and on his way north he

hauled out on an island full of green trees, where he found an old, old seal who was dying, and Kotick caught

fish for him and told him all his sorrows. ``Now,'' said Kotick, ``I am going back to Novastoshnah, and if I

The old seal said: ``Try once more. I am the last of the Lost Rookery of Masafuera, and in the days when men

killed us by the hundred thousand there was a story on the beaches that some day a white seal would come

out of the north and lead the seal people to a quiet place. I am old and I shall never live to see that day, but

And Kotick curled up his mustache (it was a beauty), and said: ``I am the only white seal that has ever been

born on the beaches, and I am the only seal, black or white, who ever thought of looking for new islands.''

That cheered him immensely; and when he came back to Novastoshnah that summer, Matkah, his mother,

begged him to marry and settle down, for he was no longer a holluschick, but a fullgrown seacatch, with a

curly white mane on his shoulders, as heavy, as big, and as fierce as his father. ``Give me another season,'' he

said. ``Remember, Mother, it is always the seventh wave that goes farthest up the beach.''

Curiously enough, there was another seal who thought that she would put off marrying till the next year, and

Kotick danced the Firedance with her all down Lukannon Beach the night before he set off on his last

This time he went westward, because he had fallen on the trail of a great shoal of halibut, and he needed at

least one hundred pounds of fish a day to keep him in good condition. He chased them till he was tired, and

then he curled himself up and went to sleep on the hollows of the groundswell that sets in to Copper island.

He knew the coast perfectly well, so about midnight, when he felt himself gently bumped on a weed bed, he

said: ``Hm, tide's running strong tonight,'' and turning over under water opened his eyes slowly and

stretched. Then he jumped like a cat, for he saw huge things nosing about in the shoal water and browsing on

``By the Great Combers of Magellan!'' he said beneath his mustache. ``Who in the Deep Sea are these

They were like no walrus, sealion, seal, bear, whale, shark, fish, squid, or scallop that Kotick had ever seen

before. They were between twenty and thirty feet long, and they had no hind flippers, but a shovellike tail

that looked as if it had been whittled out of wet leather. Their heads were the most foolishlooking things you

ever saw, and they balanced on the ends of their tails in deep water when they were n't grazing, bowing

solemnly to one another and waving their front flippers as a fat man waves his arm.

``Ahem!'' said Kotick. ``Good sport, gentlemen?'' The big things answered by bowing and waving their

flippers like the FogFootman. When they began feeding again Kotick saw that their upper lip was split into

two pieces, that they could twitch apart about a foot and bring together again with a whole bushel of seaweed

between the splits. They tucked the stuff into their mouths and chumped solemnly.

``Messy style of feeding that,'' said Kotick. They bowed again, and Kotick began to lose his temper. ``Very

good,'' he said. ``if you do happen to have an extra joint in your front flipper you need n't show off so. I see

you bow gracefully, but I should like to know your names.'' The split lips moved and twitched, and the glassy

``Well!'' said Kotick, ``you're the only people I've ever met uglier than Sea Vitch and with worse

Then he remembered in a flash what the Burgomaster Gull had screamed to him when he was a little yearling

at Walrus islet, and he tumbled backward in the water, for he knew that he had found Sea Cow at last.

The sea cows went on schlooping and grazing, and chumping in the weed and Kotick asked them questions in

every language that he had picked up in his travels; and the Sea People talk nearly as many languages as

human beings. But the Sea Cow did not answer, because Sea Cow cannot talk. He has only six bones in his

neck where he ought to have seven, and they say under the sea that that prevents him from speaking even to

his companions; but, as you know, he has an extra joint in his fore flipper, and by waving it up and down and

By daylight Kotick's mane was standing on end and his temper was gone where the dead crabs go. Then the

Sea Cow began to travel northward very slowly, stopping to hold absurd bowing councils from time to time,

and Kotick followed them, saying to himself: ``People who are such idiots as these are would have been

killed long ago if they had n't found out some safe island; and what is good enough for the Sea Cow is good

It was weary work for Kotick. The herd never went more than forty or fifty miles a day, and stopped to feed

at night, and kept close to the shore all the time; while Kotick swam round them, and over them, and under

them, but he could not hurry them up one halfmile. As they went farther north they held a bowing council

every few hours, and Kotick nearly bit off his mustache with impatience till he saw that they were following

One night they sank through the shiny water sank like stones and, for the first time since he had known

them, began to swim quickly. Kotick followed, and the pace astonished him, for he never dreamed that Sea

Cow was anything of a swimmer. They headed for a cliff by the shore, a cliff that ran down into deep water,

and plunged into a dark hole at the foot of it, twenty fathoms under the sea. It was a long, long swim, and

Kotick badly wanted fresh air before he was out of the dark tunnel they led him through.

``My wig!'' he said, when he rose, gasping and puffing, into open water at the farther end. ``It was a long

The sea cows had separated, and were browsing lazily along the edges of the finest beaches that Kotick had

ever seen. There were long stretches of smooth worn rock running for miles, exactly fitted to make seal

nurseries, and there were playgrounds of hard sand, sloping inland behind them, and there were rollers for

seal to dance in, and long grass to roll in, and sanddunes to climb up and down, and best of all, Kotick knew

by the feel of the water, which never deceives a true Sea Catch, that no men had ever come there.

The first thing he did was to assure himself that the fishing was good, and then he swam along the beaches

and counted up the delightful low sandy islands half hidden in the beautiful rolling fog. Away to the

northward out to sea ran a line of bars and shoals and rocks that would never let a ship come within six miles

of the beach; and between the islands and the mainland was a stretch of deep water that ran up to the

perpendicular cliffs, and somewhere below the cliffs was the mouth of the tunnel.

``It's Novastoshnah over again, but ten times better,'' said Kotick. ``Sea Cow must be wiser than I thought.

Men can't come down the cliffs, even if there were any men; and the shoals to seaward would knock a ship to

He began to think of the seal he had left behind him, but though he was in a hurry to go back to

Novastoshnah, he thoroughly explored the new country, so that he would be able to answer all questions.

Then he dived and made sure of the mouth of the tunnel, and raced through to the southward. No one but a

sea cow or a seal would have dreamed of there being such a place, and when he looked back at the cliffs even

He was six days going home, though he was not swimming slowly; and when he hauled out just above

SeaLion's Neck the first person he met was the seal who had been waiting for him, and she saw by the look

But the holluschickie and Sea Catch, his father, and all the other seals, laughed at him when he told them

what he had discovered, and a young seal about his own age said: ``This is all very well, Kotick, but you can't

come from no one knows where and order us off like this. Remember we've been fighting for our nurseries,

The other seals laughed at this, and the young seal began twisting his head from side to side. He had just

``I've no nursery to fight for,'' said Kotick. ``I want only to show you all a place where you will be safe.

``Oh, if you're trying to back out, of course I've no more to say,'' said the young seal, with an ugly chuckle.

``Will you come with me if I win?'' said Kotick; and a green light came into his eyes, for he was very angry at

He had no time to change his mind, for Kotick's head darted out and his teeth sunk in the blubber of the

young seal's neck. Then he threw himself back on his haunches and hauled his enemy down the beach, shook

him, and knocked him over. Then Kotick roared to the seals: ``I've done my best for you these five seasons

past. I've found you the island where you'll be safe, but unless your heads are dragged off your silly necks

Limmershin told me that never in his life and Limmershin sees ten thousand big seals fighting every year

never in all his little life did he see anything like Kotick's charge into the nurseries. He flung himself at

the biggest seacatch he could find, caught him by the throat, choked him and bumped him and banged him

till he grunted for mercy, and then threw him aside and attacked the next. You see, Kotick had never fasted

for four months as the big seals did every year, and his deepsea swimmingtrips kept him in perfect

condition, and best of all, he had never fought before. His curly white mane stood up with rage, and his eyes

Old Sea Catch, his father, saw him tearing past, hauling the grizzled old seals about as though they had been

halibut, and upsetting the young bachelors in all directions; and Sea Catch gave one roar and shouted: ``He

may be a fool, but he is the best fighter on the Beaches. Don't tackle your father, my son. He's with you!''

Kotick roared in answer, and old Sea Catch waddled in, his mustache on end, blowing like a locomotive,

while Matkah and the seal that was going to marry Kotick cowered down and admired their menfolk. It was a

gorgeous fight, for the two fought as long as there was a seal that dared lift up his head, and then they

At night, just as the Northern Lights were winking and flashing through the fog, Kotick climbed a bare rock

and looked down on the scattered nurseries and the torn and bleeding seals. ``Now'' he said, ``I've taught you

``My wig!'' said old Sea Catch, boosting himself up stiffly, for he was fearfully mauled. ``The Killer Whale

himself could not have cut them up worse. Son, I'm proud of you, and what's more, I'll come with you to your

``Hear you, fat pigs of the sea! Who comes with me to the Sea Cow's tunnel? Answer, or I shall teach you

There was a murmur like the ripple of the tide all up and down the beaches. ``We will come,'' said thousands

Then Kotick dropped his head between his shoulders and shut his eyes proudly. He was not a white seal any

more, but red from head to tail. All the same he would have scorned to look at or touch one of his wounds.

A week later he and his army (nearly ten thousand holluschickie and old seals) went away north to the Sea

Cow's tunnel, Kotick leading them, and the seals that stayed at Novastoshnah called them idiots. But next

spring when they all met off the fishingbanks of the Pacific, Kotick's seals told such tales of the new

Of course it was not all done at once, for the seals need a long time to turn things over in their minds, but year

by year more seals went away from Novastoshnah, and Lukannon, and the other nurseries, to the quiet,

sheltered beaches where Kotick sits all the summer through, getting bigger and fatter and stronger each year,

This is the great deepsea song that all the St. Paul seals sing when they are heading back to their beaches in

This is the story of the great war that Rikkitikkitavi fought singlehanded, through the bathrooms of the

big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment. Darzee, the tailorbird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the muskrat,

who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice; but

He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and his

habits. His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased,

with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottlebrush, and

his warcry as he scuttled through the long grass, was: ``Rikktikktikkitikkitchk!''

One day, a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived with his father and mother, and

carried him, kicking and clucking, down a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of grass floating there, and

clung to it till he lost his senses. When he revived, he was lying in the hot sun on the middle of a garden path,

very draggled indeed, and a small boy was saying: ``Here's a dead mongoose. Let's have a funeral.''

``No,'' said his mother; ``let's take him in and dry him. Perhaps he is n't really dead.''

They took him into the house, and a big man picked him up between his finger and thumb and said he was

not dead but half choked; so they wrapped him in cottonwool, and warmed him, and he opened his eyes and

``Now,'' said the big man (he was an Englishman who had just moved into the bungalow); ``don't frighten

It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with

curiosity. The motto of all the mongoose family is, ``Run and find out''; and Rikkitikki was a true

mongoose. He looked at the cottonwool, decided that it was not good to eat, ran all round the table, sat up

and put his fur in order, scratched himself, and jumped on the small boy's shoulder.

``Don't be frightened, Teddy,'' said his father. ``That's his way of making friends.''

Rikkitikki looked down between the boy's collar and neck, snuffed at his ear, and climbed down to the floor,

``Good gracious,'' said Teddy's mother, ``and that's a wild creature! I suppose he's so tame because we've

``All mongooses are like that,'' said her husband. ``If Teddy does n't pick him up by the tail, or try to put him

in a cage, he'll run in and out of the house all day long. Let's give him something to eat.''

They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikkitikki liked it immensely, and when it was finished he went

out into the veranda and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. Then he felt

``There are more things to find out about in this house,'' he said to himself, ``than all my family could find out

He spent all that day roaming over the house, He nearly drowned himself in the bathtubs, put his nose into

the ink on a writingtable, and burned it on the end of the big man's cigar, for he climbed up in the big man's

lap to see how writing was done. At nightfall he ran into Teddy's nursery to watch how kerosene lamps were

lighted, and when Teddy went to bed Rikkitikki climbed up too; but he was a restless companion, because

he had to get up and attend to every noise all through the night, and find out what made it. Teddy's mother

and father came in, the last thing, to look at their boy, and Rikkitikki was awake on the pillow. ``I don't like

that,'' said Teddy's mother; ``he may bite the child.'' ``He'll do no such thing,'' said the father. ``Teddy's safer

with that little beast than if he had a bloodhound to watch him. If a snake came into the nursery now ''

Early in the morning Rikkitikki came to early breakfast in the veranda riding on Teddy's shoulder, and they

gave him banana and some boiled egg; and he sat on all their laps one after the other, because every

wellbroughtup mongoose always hopes to be a housemongoose some day and have rooms to run about

in, and Rikkitikki's mother (she used to live in the General's house at Segowlee) had carefully told Rikki

Then Rikkitikki went out into the garden to see what was to be seen. It was a large garden, only half

cultivated, with bushes as big as summerhouses of Marshal Niel roses, lime and orange trees, clumps of

bamboos, and thickets of high grass. Rikkitikki licked his lips. ``This is a splendid huntingground,'' he

said, and his tail grew bottlebrushy at the thought of it, and he scuttled up and down the garden, snuffing

It was Darzee, the tailorbird, and his wife. They had made a beautiful nest by pulling two big leaves

together and stitching them up the edges with fibers, and had filled the hollow with cotton and downy fluff.

``We are very miserable,'' said Darzee. ``One of our babies fell out of the nest yesterday and Nag ate him.''

``H'm!'' said Rikkitikki, ``that is very sad but I am a stranger here. Who is Nag?''

Darzee and his wife only cowered down in the nest without answering, for from the thick grass at the foot of

the bush there came a low hiss a horrid cold sound that made Rikkitikki jump back two clear feet. Then

inch by inch out of the grass rose up the head and spread hood of Nag, the big black cobra, and he was five

feet long from tongue to tail. When he had lifted onethird of himself clear of the ground, he stayed

balancing to and fro exactly as a dandeliontuft balances in the wind, and he looked at Rikkitikki with the

wicked snake's eyes that never change their expression, whatever the snake may be thinking of.

``Who is Nag?'' he said. ``I am Nag. The great god Brahm put his mark upon all our people when the first

cobra spread his hood to keep the sun off Brahm as he slept. Look, and be afraid!''

He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikkitikki saw the spectaclemark on the back of it that looks

exactly like the eye part of a hookandeye fastening. He was afraid for the minute; but it is impossible for a

mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and though Rikkitikki had never met a live cobra

before, his mother had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose's business in life was to

fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too, and at the bottom of his cold heart he was afraid.

``Well,'' said Rikkitikki, and his tail began to fluff up again, ``marks or no marks, do you think it is right for

Nag was thinking to himself, and watching the least little movement in the grass behind Rikkitikki. He

knew that mongooses in the garden meant death sooner or later for him and his family; but he wanted to get

Rikkitikki off his guard. So he dropped his head a little, and put it on one side.

Rikkitikki knew better than to waste time in staring. He jumped up in the air as high as he could go, and just

under him whizzed by the head of Nagaina, Nag's wicked wife. She had crept up behind him as he was

talking, to make an end of him; and he heard her savage hiss as the stroke missed. He came down almost

across her back, and if he had been an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to break

her back with one bite; but he was afraid of the terrible lashing returnstroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but

did not bite long enough, and he jumped clear of the whisking tail, leaving Nagaina torn and angry.

``Wicked, wicked Darzee!'' said Nag, lashing up as high as he could reach toward the nest in the thornbush;

Rikkitikki felt his eyes growing red and hot (when a mongoose's eyes grow red, he is angry), and he sat

back on his tail and hind legs like a little kangaroo, and looked all around him, and chattered with rage. But

Nag and Nagaina had disappeared into the grass. When a snake misses its stroke, it never says anything or

gives any sign of what it means to do next. Rikkitikki did not care to follow them, for he did not feel sure

that he could manage two snakes at once. So he trotted off to the gravel path near the house, and sat down to

If you read the old books of natural history, you will find they say that when the mongoose fights the snake

and happens to get bitten, he runs off and eats some herb that cures him, That is not true. The victory is only a

matter of quickness of eye and quickness of foot, snake's blow against mongoose's jump, and as no eye

can follow the motion of a snake's head when it strikes, that makes things much more wonderful than any

magic herb. Rikkitikki knew he was a young mongoose, and it made him all the more pleased to think that

he had managed to escape a blow from behind. It gave him confidence in himself, and when Teddy came

But just as Teddy was stooping, something flinched a little in the dust, and a tiny voice said: ``Be careful. I

am death!'' It was Karait, the dusty brown snakeling that lies for choice on the dusty earth; and his bite is as

dangerous as the cobra's. But he is so small that nobody thinks of him, and so he does the more harm to

Rikkitikki's eyes grew red again, and he danced up to Karait with the peculiar rocking, swaying motion that

he had inherited from his family. It looks very funny, but it is so perfectly balanced a gait that you can fly off

from it at any angle you please; and in dealing with snakes this is an advantage. If Rikkitikki had only

known, he was doing a much more dangerous thing than fighting Nag for Karait is so small, and can turn so

quickly, that unless Rikki bit him close to the back of the head, he would get the returnstroke in his eye or

lip. But Rikki did not know: his eyes were all red, and he rocked back and forth, looking for a good place to

hold. Karait struck out. Rikki jumped sideways and tried to run in, but the wicked little dusty gray head

lashed within a fraction of his shoulder, and he had to jump over the body, and the head followed his heels

Teddy shouted to the house: ``Oh, look here! Our mongoose is killing a snake''; and Rikkitikki heard a

scream from Teddy's mother. His father ran out with a stick, but by the time he came up, Karait had lunged

out once too far, and Rikkitikki had sprung, jumped on the snake's back, dropped his head far between his

fore legs, bitten as high up the back as he could get hold, and rolled away. That bite paralyzed Karait, and

Rikkitikki was just going to eat him up from the tail, after the custom of his family at dinner, when he

remembered that a full meal wakes a slow mongoose, and if he wanted all his strength and quickness ready,

He went away for a dustbath under the castoroil bushes, while Teddy's father beat the dead Karait. ``What

is the use of that?'' thought Rikkitikki. ``I have settled it all''; and then Teddy's mother picked him up from

the dust and hugged him, crying that he had saved Teddy from death, and Teddy's father said that he was a

providence, and Teddy looked on with big scared eyes. Rikkitikki was rather amused at all the fuss, which,

of course, he did not understand. Teddy's mother might just as well have petted Teddy for playing in the dust.

That night, at dinner, walking to and fro among the wineglasses on the table, he could have stuffed himself

three times over with nice things; but he remembered Nag and Nagaina, and though it was very pleasant to be

patted and petted by Teddy's mother, and to sit on Teddy's shoulder, his eyes would get red from time to time,

Teddy carried him off to bed, and insisted on Rikkitikki sleeping under his chin. Rikkitikki was too well

bred to bite or scratch, but as soon as Teddy was asleep he went off for his nightly walk round the house, and

in the dark he ran up against Chuchundra, the muskrat, creeping round by the wall. Chuchundra is a

brokenhearted little beast. He whimpers and cheeps all the night, trying to make up his mind to run into the

``Don't kill me,'' said Chuchundra, almost weeping. ``Rikkitikki, don't kill me.''

``Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes,'' said Chuchundra, more sorrowfully than ever. ``And how am I

``There's not the least danger,'' said Rikkitikki; ``but Nag is in the garden, and I know you don't go there.''

``H'sh! Nag is everywhere, Rikkitikki. You should have talked to Chua in the garden.''

Chuchundra sat down and cried till the tears rolled off his whiskers. ``I am a very poor man,'' he sobbed. ``I

never had spirit enough to run out into the middle of the room. H'sh! I must n't tell you anything. Can't you

Rikkitikki listened. The house was as still as still, but he thought he could just catch the faintest

scratchscratch in the world, a noise as faint as that of a wasp walking on a windowpane, the dry

``That's Nag or Nagaina,'' he said to himself; ``and he is crawling into the bathroom sluice. You're right,

He stole off to Teddy's bathroom, but there was nothing there, and then to Teddy's mother's bathroom. At

the bottom of the smooth plaster wall there was a brick pulled out to make a sluice for the bathwater, and as

Rikkitikki stole in by the masonry curb where the bath is put, he heard Nag and Nagaina whispering

``When the house is emptied of people,'' said Nagaina to her husband, ``he will have to go away, and then the

garden will be our own again. Go in quietly, and remember that the big man who killed Karait is the first one

``But are you sure that there is anything to be gained by killing the people?'' said Nag.

``Everything. When there were no people in the bungalow, did we have any mongoose in the garden? So long

as the bungalow is empty, we are king and queen of the garden; and remember that as soon as our eggs in the

``I had not thought of that,'' said Nag. ``I will go, but there is no need that we should hunt for Rikkitikki

afterward. I will kill the big man and his wife, and the child if I can, and come away quietly Then the

Rikkitikki tingled all over with rage and hatred at this, and then Nag's head came through the sluice, and his

five feet of cold body followed it. Angry as he was, Rikkitikki was very frightened as he saw the size of the

big cobra. Nag coiled himself up raised his head, and looked into the bathroom in the dark, and Rikki could

``Now, if I kill him here, Nagaina will know; and if I fight him on the open floor, the odds are in his favour.

Nag waved to and fro, and then Rikkitikki heard him drinking from the biggest waterjar that was used to

fill the bath. ``That is good,'' said the snake. ``Now, when Karait was killed, the big man had a stick. He may

have that stick still, but when he comes in to bathe in the morning he will not have a stick. I shall wait here

till he comes. Nagaina do you hear me? I shall wait here in the cool till daytime.''

There was no answer from outside, so Rikkitikki knew Nagaina had gone away. Nag coiled himself down,

coil by coil, round the bulge at the bottom of the waterjar, and Rikkitikki stayed still as death. After an

hour he began to move, muscle by muscle, toward the jar. Nag was asleep, and Rikkitikki looked at his big

back, wondering which would be the best place for a good hold. ``If I don't break his back at the first jump,''

said Rikki, ``he can still fight; and if he fights O Rikki!'' He looked at the thickness of the neck below the

hood, but that was too much for him; and a bite near the tail would only make Nag savage.

``It must be the head,'' he said at last; ``the head above the hood; and, when I am once there, I must not let

Then he jumped. The head was lying a little clear of the waterjar, under the curve of it; and, as his teeth met,

Rikki braced his back against the bulge of the red earthenware to hold down the head. This gave him just one

second's purchase, and he made the most of it. Then he was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog

to and fro on the floor, up and down, and round in great circles; but his eyes were red, and he held on as the

body cartwhipped over the floor, upsetting the tin dipper and the soapdish and the fleshbrush, and banged

against the tin side of the bath. As he held he closed his jaws tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would be

banged to death, and, for the honour of his family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked. He was

dizzy, aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off like a thunderclap just behind him; a hot

wind knocked him senseless and red fire singed his fur. The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had

Rikkitikki held on with his eyes shut, for now he was quite sure he was dead; but the head did not move,

and the big man picked him up and said: ``It's the mongoose again, Alice; the little chap has saved our lives

now.'' Then Teddy's mother came in with a very white face, and saw what was left of Nag, and Rikkitikki

dragged himself to Teddy's bedroom and spent half the rest of the night shaking himself tenderly to find out

When morning came he was very stiff, but well pleased with his doings. ``Now I have Nagaina to settle with,

and she will be worse than five Nags, and there's no knowing when the eggs she spoke of will hatch.

Without waiting for breakfast, Rikkitikki ran to the thornbush where Darzee was singing a song of triumph

at the top of his voice. The news of Nag's death was all over the garden, for the sweeper had thrown the body

``Oh, you stupid tuft of feathers!'' said Rikkitikki, angrily. ``Is this the time to sing?''

``Nag is dead is dead is dead!'' sang Darzee. ``The valiant Rikkitikki caught him by the head and held

fast. The big man brought the bangstick and Nag fell in two pieces! He will never eat my babies again.''

``All that's true enough; but where's Nagaina?'' said Rikkitikki, looking carefully round him.

``Nagaina came to the bathroom sluice and called for Nag,'' Darzee went on; ``and Nag came out on the end

of a stick the sweeper picked him up on the end of a stick and threw him upon the rubbishheap. Let us

sing about the great, the redeyed Rikkitikki!'' and Darzee filled his throat and sang.

``If I could get up to your nest, I'd roll all your babies out!'' said Rikkitikki. ``You don't know when to do

the right thing at the right time. You're safe enough in your nest there, but it's war for me down here. Stop

``For the great, the beautiful Rikkitikki's sake I will stop,'' said Darzee. ``What is it, O Killer of the terrible

``On the rubbishheap by the stables, mourning for Nag. Great is Rikkitikki with the white teeth.''

``In the melonbed, on the end nearest the wall, where the sun strikes nearly all day. She had them there

``And you never thought it worth while to tell me? The end nearest the wall, you said?''

``Not eat exactly; no. Darzee, if you have a grain of sense you will fly off to the stables and pretend that your

wing is broken, and let Nagaina chase you away to this bush! I must get to the melonbed, and if I went there

Darzee was a featherbrained little fellow who could never hold more than one idea at a time in his head; and

just because he knew that Nagaina's children were born in eggs like his own, he did n't think at first that it

was fair to kill them. But his wife was a sensible bird, and she knew that cobra's eggs meant young cobras

later on; so she flew off from the nest, and left Darzee to keep the babies warm, and continue his song about

She fluttered in front of Nagaina by the rubbishheap, and cried out, ``Oh, my wing is broken! The boy in the

house threw a stone at me and broke it.'' Then she fluttered more desperately than ever.

Nagaina lifted up her head and hissed, ``You warned Rikkitikki when I would have killed him. Indeed and

truly, you've chosen a bad place to be lame in.'' And she moved toward Darzee's wife, slipping along over the

``Well! It may be some consolation to you when you're dead to know that I shall settle accounts with the boy.

My husband lies on the rubbishheap this morning, but before night the boy in the house will lie very still.

What is the use of running away? I am sure to catch you. Little fool, look at me!''

Darzee's wife knew better than to do that, for a bird who looks at a snake's eyes gets so frightened that she

cannot move. Darzee's wife fluttered on, piping sorrowfully, and never leaving the ground, and Nagaina

Rikkitikki heard them going up the path from the stables, and he raced for the end of the melonpatch near

the wall. There, in the warm litter about the melons, very cunningly hidden, he found twentyfive eggs, about

``I was not a day too soon,'' he said; for he could see the baby cobras curled up inside the skin, and he knew

that the minute they were hatched they could each kill a man or a mongoose. He bit off the tops of the eggs as

fast as he could, taking care to crush the young cobras, and turned over the litter from time to time to see

whether he had missed any. At last there were only three eggs left, and Rikkitikki began to chuckle to

``Rikkitikki, I led Nagaina toward the house, and she has gone into the veranda, and oh, come quickly

Rikktikki smashed two eggs, and tumbled backward down the melonbed with the third egg in his mouth,

and scuttled to the veranda as hard as he could put foot to the ground. Teddy and his mother and father were

there at early breakfast; but Rikkitikki saw that they were not eating anything. They sat stonestill, and their

faces were white. Nagaina was coiled up on the matting by Teddy's chair, within easy striking distance of

``Son of the big man that killed Nag,'' she hissed, ``stay still. I am not ready yet. Wait a little. Keep very still,

all you three. If you move I strike, and if you do not move I strike. Oh, foolish people, who killed my Nag!''

Teddy's eyes were fixed on his father, and all his father could do was to whisper, ``Sit still, Teddy. You must

``All in good time,'' said she, without moving her eyes. ``I will settle my account with you presently. Look at

your friends, Rikkitikki. They are still and white; they are afraid. They dare not move, and if you come a

``Look at your eggs,'' said Rikkitikki, ``in the melonbed near the wall. Go and look, Nagaina.'' The big

snake turned half round, and saw the egg on the veranda. ``Ahh! Give it to me,'' she said.

Rikkitikki put his paws one on each side of the egg, and his eyes were bloodred. ``What price for a snake's

egg? For a young cobra? For a young kingcobra? For the last the very last of the brood? The ants are

Nagaina spun clear round, forgetting everything for the sake of the one egg; and Rikkitikki saw Teddy's

father shoot out a big hand, catch Teddy by the shoulder and drag him across the little table with the

``Tricked! Tricked! Tricked! Rikktcktck!'' chuckled Rikkitikki. ``The boy is safe, and it was I I I

that caught Nag by the hood last night in the bathroom.'' Then he began to jump up and down, all four feet

together, his head close to the floor. ``He threw me to and fro, but he could not shake me off. He was dead

before the big man blew him in two. I did it. Rikkitikkitcktck! Come then, Nagaina. Come and fight with

Nagaina saw that she had lost her chance of killing Teddy, and the egg lay between Rikkitikki's paws.

``Give me the egg, Rikkitikki. Give me the last of my eggs, and I will go away and never come back,'' she

``Yes, you will go away, and you will never come back; for you will go to the rubbishheap with Nag. Fight,

Rikkitikki was bounding all round Nagaina, keeping just out of the reach of her stroke, his little eyes like

hot coals. Nagaina gathered herself together, and flung out at him. Rikkitikki jumped up and backward.

Again and again and again she struck, and each time her head came with a whack on the matting of the

veranda and she gathered herself together like a watchspring. Then Rikkitikki danced in a circle to get

behind her, and Nagaina spun round to keep her head to his head, so that the rustle of her tail on the matting

He had forgotten the egg. It still lay on the veranda, and Nagaina came nearer and nearer to it, till at last,

while Rikkitikki was drawing breath, she caught it in her mouth, turned to the veranda steps, and flew like

an arrow down the path, with Rikkitikki behind her. When the cobra runs for her life, she goes like a

Rikkitikki knew that he must catch her, or all the trouble would begin again. She headed straight for the

long grass by the thornbush, and as he was running Rikkitikki heard Darzee still singing his foolish little

song of triumph. But Darzee's wife was wiser. She flew off her nest as Nagaina came along, and flapped her

wings about Nagaina's head. If Darzee had helped they might have turned her; but Nagaina only lowered her

hood and went on. Still, the instant's delay brought Rikkitikki up to her, and as she plunged into the rathole

where she and Nag used to live, his little white teeth were clenched on her tail, and he went down with her

and very few mongooses, however wise and old they may be, care to follow a cobra into its hole. It was dark

in the hole; and Rikkitikki never knew when it might open out and give Nagaina room to turn and strike at

him. He held on savagely, and struck out his feet to act as brakes on the dark slope of the hot, moist earth.

Then the grass by the mouth of the hole stopped waving, and Darzee said: ``It is all over with Rikkitikki!

We must sing his deathsong. Valiant Rikkitikki is dead! For Nagaina will surely kill him underground.''

So he sang a very mournful song that he made up all on the spur of the minute, and just as he got to the most

touching part the grass quivered again, and Rikkitikki, covered with dirt, dragged himself out of the hole leg

by leg, licking his whiskers. Darzee stopped with a little shout. Rikkitikki shook some of the dust out of his

fur and sneezed. ``It is all over,'' he said. ``The widow will never come out again.'' And the red ants that live

between the grass stems heard him, and began to troop down one after another to see if he had spoken the

Rikkitikki curled himself up in the grass and slept where he was slept and slept till it was late in the

``Now,'' he said, when he awoke, ``I will go back to the house, Tell the Coppersmith, Darzee, and he will tell

The Coppersmith is a bird who makes a noise exactly like the beating of a little hammer on a copper pot; and

the reason he is always making it is because he is the towncrier to every Indian garden, and tells all the news

to everybody who cares to listen. As Rikkitikki went up the path, he heard his ``attention'' notes like a tiny

dinnergong; and then the steady ``Dingdongtock! Nag is dead dong! Nagaina is dead!

Dingdongtock!'' That set all the birds in the garden singing, and the frogs croaking; for Nag and Nagaina

When Rikki got to the house, Teddy and Teddy's mother (she looked very white still, for she had been

fainting) and Teddy's father came out and almost cried over him; and that night he ate all that was given him

till he could eat no more, and went to bed on Teddy's shoulder, where Teddy's mother saw him when she

``He saved our lives and Teddy's life,'' she said to her husband. ``Just think, he saved all our lives.''

``Oh, it's you,'' said he. ``What are you bothering for? All the cobras are dead; and if they were n't I'm here.''

Rikkitikki had a right to be proud of himself; but he did not grow too proud, and he kept that garden as a

mongoose should keep it, with tooth and jump and spring and bite, till never a cobra dared show its head

Kala Nag, which means Black Snake, had served the Indian Government in every way that an elephant could

serve it for fortyseven years, and as he was fully twenty years old when he was caught, that makes him

nearly seventy a ripe age for an elephant. He remembered pushing, with a big leather pad on his forehead,

at a gun stuck in deep mud, and that was before the Afghan war of 1842, and he had not then come to his full

strength. His mother, Radha Pyari, Radha the darling, who had been caught in the same drive with

Kala Nag, told him before his little milk tusks had dropped out, that elephants who were afraid always got

hurt; and Kala Nag knew that that advice was good, for the first time that he saw a shell burst he backed,

screaming, into a stand of piled rifles, and the bayonets pricked him in all his softest places. So, before he

was twentyfive, he gave up being afraid, and so he was the bestloved and the bestlookedafter elephant

in the service of the Government of India. He had carried tents, twelve hundred pounds' weight of tents, on

the march in Upper India: he had been hoisted into a ship at the end of a steamcrane and taken for days

across the water, and made to carry a mortar on his back in a strange and rocky country very far from India,

and had seen the Emperor Theodore lying dead in Magdala, and had come back again in the steamer entitled,

so the soldiers said, to the Abyssinian war medal. He had seen his fellowelephants die of cold and epilepsy

and starvation and sunstroke up at a place called Ali Musjid, ten years later; and afterward he had been sent

down thousands of miles south to haul and pile big baulks of teak in the timberyards at Moulmein. There he

had half killed an insubordinate young elephant who was shirking his fair share of the work.

After that he was taken off timberhauling, and employed, with a few score other elephants who were trained

to the business, in helping to catch wild elephants among the Garo hills. Elephants are very strictly preserved

by the Indian Government. There is one whole department which does nothing else but hunt them, and catch

them, and break them in, and send them up and down the country as they are needed for work.

Kala Nag stood ten fair feet at the shoulders, and his tusks had been cut off short at five feet, and bound

round the ends, to prevent them splitting, with bands of copper; but he could do more with those stumps than

When, after weeks and weeks of cautious driving of scattered elephants across the hills, the forty or fifty wild

monsters were driven into the last stockade, and the big dropgate, made of treetrunks lashed together,

jarred down behind them, Kala Nag, at the word of command, would go into that flaring, trumpeting

pandemonium (generally at night, when the flicker of the torches made it difficult to judge distances), and,

picking out the biggest and wildest tusker of the mob, would hammer him and hustle him into quiet while the

There was nothing in the way of fighting that Kala Nag, the old wise Black Snake, did not know, for he had

stood up more than once in his time to the charge of the wounded tiger, and, curling up his soft trunk to be

out of harm's way, had knocked the springing brute sideways in midair with a quick sicklecut of his head,

that he had invented all by himself; had knocked him over, and kneeled upon him with his huge knees till the

life went out with a gasp and a howl, and there was only a fluffy striped thing on the ground for Kala Nag to

``Yes,'' said Big Toomai, his driver, the son of Black Toomai who had taken him to Abyssinia, and grandson

of Toomai of the Elephants who had seen him caught, ``there is nothing that the Black Snake fears except me.

He has seen three generations of us feed him and groom him, and he will live to see four.''

``He is afraid of me also,'' said Little Toomai, standing up to his full height of four feet, with only one rag

upon him. He was ten years old, the eldest son of Big Toomai, and, according to custom, he would take his

father's place on Kala Nag's neck when he grew up, and would handle the heavy iron ankus, the

elephantgoad that had been worn smooth by his father, and his grandfather, and his greatgrandfather. He

knew what he was talking of; for he had been born under Kala Nag's shadow, had played with the end of his

trunk before he could walk, had taken him down to water as soon as he could walk, and Kala Nag would no

more have dreamed of disobeying his shrill little orders than he would have dreamed of killing him on that

day when Big Toomai carried the little brown baby under Kala Nag's tusks, and told him to salute his master

``Yes,'' said Little Toomai, ``he is afraid of me,'' and he took long strides up to Kala Nag, called him a fat old

``Wah!'' said Little Toomai, ``thou art a big elephant,'' and he wagged his fluffy head, quoting his father.

``The Government may pay for elephants, but they belong to us mahouts. When thou art old, Kala Nag, there

will come some rich Rajah, and he will buy thee from the Government, on account of thy size and thy

manners, and then thou wilt have nothing to do but to carry gold earrings in thy ears, and a gold howdah on

thy back and a red cloth covered with gold on thy sides, and walk at the head of the processions of the King.

Then I shall sit on thy neck, O Kala Nag, with a silver ankus, and men will run before us with golden sticks,

crying, 'Room for the King's elephant!' That will be good, Kala Nag, but not so good as this hunting in the

``Umph!'' said Big Toomai. ``Thou art a boy and as wild as a buffalocalf. This running up and down among

the hills is not the best Government service. I am getting old, and I do not love wild elephants. Give me brick

elephantlines, one stall to each elephant, and big stumps to tie them to safely, and flat, broad roads to

exercise upon instead of this comeandgo camping. Aha, the Cawnpore barracks were good. There was a

Little Toomai remembered the Cawnpore elephantlines and said nothing. He very much preferred the camp

life, and hated those broad, flat roads, with the daily grubbing for grass in the foragereserve, and the long

hours when there was nothing to do except to watch Kala Nag fidgeting in his pickets.

What Little Toomai liked was to scramble up bridlepaths that only an elephant could take; the dip into the

valley below; the glimpses of the wild elephants browsing miles away; the rush of the frightened pig and

peacock under Kala Nag's feet; the blinding warm rains, when all the hills and valleys smoked; the beautiful

misty mornings when nobody knew where they would camp that night; the steady, cautious drive of the wild

elephants, and the mad rush and blaze and hullaballoo of the last night's drive when the elephants poured into

the stockade like boulders in a landslide, found that they could not get out, and flung themselves at the heavy

posts only to be driven back by yells and flaring torches and volleys of blank cartridge.

Even a little boy could be of use there, and Toomai was as useful as three boys. He would get his torch and

wave it, and yell with the best. But the really good time came when the driving out began, and the Keddah,

that is, the stockade, looked like a picture of the end of the world, and men had to make signs to one another,

because they could not hear themselves speak. Then Little Toomai would climb up to the top of one of the

quivering stockadeposts, his sunbleached brown hair flying loose all over his shoulders, and he looking

like a goblin in the torchlight; and as soon as there was a lull you could hear his highpitched yells of

encouragement to Kala Nag, above the trumpeting and crashing, and snapping of ropes, and groans of the

tethered elephants. ``Mail, mail, Kala Nag! (Go on, go on, Black Snake!) Dant do! (Give him the tusk!)

Somalo! Somalo! (Careful, careful!) Maro! Mar! (Hit him, hit him! ) Mind the post! Arre! Arre! Hai! Yai!

Kyaaah!'' he would shout, and the big fight between Kala Nag and the wild elephant would sway to and fro

across the Keddah, and the old elephantcatchers would wipe the sweat out of their eyes, and find time to

He did more than wriggle. One night he slid down from the post and slipped in between the elephants, and

threw up the loose end of a rope, which had dropped, to a driver who was trying to get a purchase on the leg

of a kicking young calf (calves always give more trouble than fullgrown animals). Kala Nag saw him,

caught him in his trunk, and handed him up to Big Toomai, who slapped him then and there, and put him

Next morning he gave him a scolding, and said: ``Are not good brick elephantlines and a little tentcarrying

enough, that thou must needs go elephantcatching on thy own account, little worthless? Now those foolish

hunters, whose pay is less than my pay, have spoken to Petersen Sahib of the matter.'' Little Toomai was

frightened. He did not know much of white men, but Petersen Sahib was the greatest white man in the world

to him. He was the head of all the Keddah operations the man who caught all the elephants for the

Government of India, and who knew more about the ways of elephants than any living man.

``Happen! the worst that can happen. Petersen Sahib is a madman. Else why should he go hunting these wild

devils? He may even require thee to be an elephantcatcher, to sleep anywhere in these feverfilled jungles,

and at last to be trampled to death in the Keddah. It is well that this nonsense ends safely. Next week the

catching is over, and we of the plains are sent back to our stations. Then we will march on smooth roads, and

forget all this hunting. But son, I am angry that thou shouldst meddle in the business that belongs to these

dirty Assamese junglefolk. Kala Nag will obey none but me, so I must go with him into the Keddah, but he

is only a fighting elephant, and he does not help to rope them. So I sit at my ease, as befits a mahout, not a

mere hunter, a mahout, I say, and a man who gets a pension at the end of his service. Is the family of

Toomai of the Elephants to be trodden underfoot in the dirt of a Keddah? Bad one! Wicked one! Worthless

son! Go and wash Kala Nag and attend to his ears, and see that there are no thorns in his feet; or else Petersen

Sahib will surely catch thee and make thee a wild hunter a follower of elephant's foottracks, a

Little Toomai went off without saying a word, but he told Kala Nag all his grievances while he was

examining his feet. ``No matter,'' said Little Toomai, turning up the fringe of Kala Nag's huge right ear.

``They have said my name to Petersen Sahib, and perhaps and perhaps and perhaps who knows?

The next few days were spent in getting the elephants together, in walking the newly caught wild elephants

up and down between a couple of tame ones, to prevent them from giving too much trouble on the downward

march to the plains, and in taking stock of the blankets and ropes and things that had been worn out or lost in

Petersen Sahib came in on his clever sheelephant Pudmini; he had been paying off other camps among the

hills, for the season was coming to an end, and there was a native clerk sitting at a table under a tree, to pay

the drivers their wages. As each man was paid he went back to his elephant, and joined the line that stood

ready to start. The catchers, and hunters, and beaters, the men of the regular Keddah, who stayed in the jungle

year in and year out, sat on the back of the elephants that belonged to Petersen Sahib's permanent force, or

leaned against the trees with their guns across their arms, and made fun of the drivers who were going away,

Big Toomai went up to the clerk with Little Toomai behind him, and Machua Appa, the headtracker, said in

an undertone to a friend of his, ``There goes one piece of good elephantstuff at least. 'Tis a pity to send that

Now Petersen Sahib had ears all over him, as a man must have who listens to the most silent of all living

things the wild elephant. He turned where he was lying all along on Pudmini's back, and said, ``What is

that? I did not know of a man among the plainsdrivers who had wit enough to rope even a dead elephant.''

``This is not a man, but a boy. He went into the Keddah at the last drive, and threw Barmac there the rope,

when we were trying to get that young calf with the blotch on his shoulder away from his mother.''

Machua Appa pointed at Little Toomai, and Petersen Sahib looked, and Little Toomai bowed to the earth.

``He throw a rope? He is smaller than a picketpin. Little one, what is thy name?'' said Petersen Sahib.

Little Toomai was too frightened to speak, but Kala Nag was behind him, and Toomai made a sign with his

hand, and the elephant caught him up in his trunk and held him level with Pudmini's forehead, in front of the

great Petersen Sahib. Then Little Toomai covered his face with his hands, for he was only a child, and except

``Oho!'' said Petersen Sahib, smiling underneath his mustache, ``and why didst thou teach thy elephant that

trick? Was it to help thee steal green corn from the roofs of the houses when the ears are put out to dry?''

``Not green corn, Protector of the Poor, melons,'' said Little Toomai, and all the men sitting about broke

into a roar of laughter. Most of them had taught their elephants that trick when they were boys. Little Toomai

was hanging eight feet up in the air, and he wished very much that he were eight feet underground.

``He is Toomai, my son, Sahib,'' said Big Toomai, scowling. ``He is a very bad boy, and he will end in a jail,

``Of that I have my doubts,'' said Petersen Sahib. ``A boy who can face a full Keddah at his age does not end

in jails. See, little one, here are four annas to spend in sweetmeats because thou hast a little head under that

great thatch of hair. In time thou mayest become a hunter too.'' Big Toomai scowled more than ever.

``Remember, though, that Keddahs are not good for children to play in,'' Petersen Sahib went on.

``Yes,'' Petersen Sahib smiled again. ``When thou hast seen the elephants dance. That is the proper time.

Come to me when thou hast seen the elephants dance, and then I will let thee go into all the Keddahs.''

There was another roar of laughter, for that is an old joke among elephantcatchers, and it means just never.

There are great cleared flat places hidden away in the forests that are called elephants' ballrooms, but even

these are found only by accident, and no man has ever seen the elephants dance. When a driver boasts of his

skill and bravery the other drivers say, ``And when didst thou see the elephants dance?''

Kala Nag put Little Toomai down, and he bowed to the earth again and went away with his father, and gave

the silver fouranna piece to his mother, who was nursing his babybrother, and they all were put up on Kala

Nag's back, and the line of grunting, squealing elephants rolled down the hillpath to the plains. It was a very

lively march on account of the new elephants, who gave trouble at every ford, and who needed coaxing or

Big Toomai prodded Kala Nag spitefully, for he was very angry, but Little Toomai was too happy to speak.

Petersen Sahib had noticed him, and given him money, so he felt as a private soldier would feel if he had

``What did Petersen Sahib mean by the elephantdance?'' he said, at last, softly to his mother.

Big Toomai heard him and grunted. ``That thou shouldst never be one of these hillbuffaloes of trackers.

An Assamese driver, two or three elephants ahead, turned round angrily, crying: ``Bring up Kala Nag and

knock this youngster of mine into good behaviour. Why should Petersen Sahib have chosen me to go down

with you donkeys of the ricefields? Lay your beast alongside, Toomai, and let him prod with his tusks. By

all the Gods of the Hills, these new elephants are possessed, or else they can smell their companions in the

Kala Nag hit the new elephant in the ribs and knocked the wind out of him, as Big Toomai said, ``We have

swept the hills of wild elephants at the last catch. It is only your carelessness in driving. Must I keep order

``Hear him!'' said the other driver. ``We have swept the hills! Ho! ho! You are very wise, you plainspeople.

Any one but a mudhead who never saw the jungle would know that they know that the drivers are ended for

the season. Therefore all the wild elephants tonight will but why should I waste wisdom on a

``Ohe, little one. Art thou there? Well, I will tell thee, for thou hast a cool head. They will dance, and it

behooves thy father, who has swept all the hills of all the elephants, to doublechain his pickets tonight.''

``What talk is this?'' said Big Toomai. ``For forty years, father and son, we have tended elephants, and we

``Yes; but a plainsman who lives in a hut knows only the four walls of his hut. Well, leave thy elephants

unshackled tonight and see what comes; as for their dancing, I have seen the place where BapreeBap!

how many windings has the Dihang River? Here is another ford, and we must swim the calves. Stop still, you

And in this way, talking and wrangling and splashing through the rivers, they made their first march to a sort

of receivingcamp for the new elephants; but they lost their tempers long before they got there.

Then the elephants were chained by their hind legs to their big stumps of pickets, and extra ropes were fitted

to the new elephants, and the fodder was piled before them, and the hilldrivers went back to Petersen Sahib

through the afternoon light, telling the plainsdrivers to be extra careful that night, and laughing when the

Little Toomai attended to Kala Nag's supper, and as evening fell, wandered through the camp, unspeakably

happy, in search of a tomtom. When an Indian child's heart is full, he does not run about and make a noise

in an irregular fashion. He sits down to a sort of revel all by himself. And Little Toomai had been spoken to

by Petersen Sahib! If he had not found what he wanted I believe he would have burst. But the

sweetmeatseller in the camp lent him a little tomtom a drum beaten with the flat of the hand and he

sat down, crosslegged, before Kala Nag as the stars began to come out, the tomtom in his lap, and he

thumped and he thumped and he thumped, and the more he thought of the great honour that had been done to

him, the more he thumped, all alone among the elephantfodder. There was no tune and no words, but the

The new elephants strained at their ropes, and squealed and trumpeted from time to time, and he could hear

his mother in the camp hut putting his small brother to sleep with an old, old song about the great God Shiv,

who once told all the animals what they should eat. It is a very soothing lullaby, and the first verse says: Shiv,

Little Toomai came in with a joyous tunkatunk at the end of each verse, till he felt sleepy and stretched

At last the elephants began to lie down one after another as is their custom, till only Kala Nag at the right of

the line was left standing up; and he rocked slowly from side to side, his ears put forward to listen to the night

wind as it blew very slowly across the hills. The air was full of all the night noises that, taken together, make

one big silence the click of one bamboostem against the other, the rustle of something alive in the

undergrowth, the scratch and squawk of a halfwaked bird (birds are awake in the night much more often

than we imagine), and the fall of water ever so far away. Little Toomai slept for some time and when he

waked it was brilliant moonlight, and Kala Nag was still standing up with his ears cocked. Little Toomai

turned, rustling in the fodder, and watched the curve of his big back against half the stars in heaven, and

while he watched he heard, so far away that it sounded no more than a pinhole of noise pricked through the

All the elephants in the lines jumped up as if they had been shot, and their grunts at last waked the sleeping

mahouts, and they came out and drove in the picketpegs with big mallets, and tightened this rope and

knotted that till all was quiet. One new elephant had nearly grubbed up his picket, and Big Toomai took off

Kala Nag's legchain and shackled that elephant fore foot to hind foot, but slipped a loop of grassstring

round Kala Nag's leg, and told him to remember that he was tied fast. He knew that he and his father and his

grandfather had done the very same thing hundreds of times before. Kala Nag did not answer to the order by

gurgling, as he usually did. He stood still, looking out across the moonlight, his head a little raised and his

``Look to him if he grows restless in the night,'' said Big Toomai to Little Toomai, and he went into the hut

and slept. Little Toomai was just going to sleep, too, when he heard the coir string snap with a little ``tang''

and Kala Nag rolled out of his pickets as slowly and as silently as a cloud rolls out of the mouth of a valley.

Little Toomai pattered after him, barefooted, down the road in the moonlight, calling under his breath,

``Kala Nag! Kala Nag! Take me with you, O Kala Nag!'' The elephant turned without a sound, took three

strides back to the boy in the moonlight, put down his trunk, swung him up to his neck, and almost before

There was one blast of furious trumpeting from the lines, and then the silence shut down on everything, and

Kala Nag began to move. Sometimes a tuft of high grass washed along his sides as a wave washes along the

sides of a ship, and sometimes a cluster of wildpepper vines would scrape along his back, or a bamboo

would creak where his shoulder touched it; but between those times he moved absolutely without any sound,

drifting through the thick Garo forest as though it had been smoke. He was going uphill, but though Little

Toomai watched the stars in the rifts of the trees, he could not tell in what direction.

Then Kala Nag reached the crest of the ascent and stopped for a minute, and Little Toomai could see the tops

of the trees lying all speckled and furry under the moonlight for miles and miles, and the bluewhite mist

over the river in the hollow. Toomai leaned forward and looked, and he felt that the forest was awake below

him awake and alive and crowded. A big brown fruiteating bat brushed past his ear; a porcupine's quills

rattled in the thicket, and in the darkness between the treestems he heard a hogbear digging hard in the

Then the branches closed over his head again, and Kala Nag began to go down into the valley not quietly

this time, but as a runaway gun goes down a steep bank in one rush. The huge limbs moved as steadily as

pistons, eight feet to each stride, and the wrinkled skin of the elbowpoints rustled. The undergrowth on

either side of him ripped with a noise like torn canvas, and the saplings he heaved away right and left with his

shoulders sprang back again, and banged him on the flank, and great trails of creepers, all matted together,

hung from his tusks as he threw his head from side to side and plowed out his pathway. Then Little Toomai

laid himself down close to the great neck, lest a swinging bough should sweep him to the ground, and he

The grass began to get squashy, and Kala Nag's feet sucked and squelched as he put them down, and the night

mist at the bottom of the valley chilled Little Toomai. There was a splash and a trample, and the rush of

running water, and Kala Nag strode through the bed of a river feeling his way at each step. Above the noise

of the water, as it swirled round the elephant's legs, Little Toomai could hear more splashing and some

trumpeting both upstream and down great grunts and angry snortings, and all the mist about him seemed

``Ai!'' he said, half aloud, his teeth chattering. ``The elephantfolk are out tonight. It is the dance, then.''

Kala Nag swashed out of the water, blew his trunk clear, and began another climb; but this time he was not

alone, and he had not to make his path. That was made already, six feet wide, in front of him, where the bent

junglegrass was trying to recover itself and stand up. Many elephants must have gone that way only a few

minutes before. Little Toomai looked back, and behind him a great wild tusker with his little pig's eyes

glowing like hot coals, was just lifting himself out of the misty river. Then the trees closed up again, and they

went on and up, with trumpeting and crashings, and the sound of breaking branches on every side of them.

At last Kala Nag stood still between two treetrunks at the very top of the hill. They were part of a circle of

trees that grew round an irregular space of some three or four acres, and in all that space, as Little Toomai

could see, the ground had been trampled down as hard as a brick floor. Some trees grew in the center of the

clearing, but their bark was rubbed away, and the white wood beneath showed all shiny and polished in the

patches of moonlight. There were creepers hanging from the upper branches, and the bells of the flowers of

the creepers, great waxy white things like convolvuluses, hung down fast asleep; but within the limits of the

The moonlight showed it all irongray, except where some elephants stood upon it, and their shadows were

inky black. Little Toomai looked, holding his breath, with his eyes starting out of his head, and as he looked,

more and more and more elephants swung out into the open from between the treetrunks. Little Toomai

could count only up to ten, and he counted again and again on his fingers till he lost count of the tens, and his

head began to swim. Outside the clearing he could hear them crashing in the undergrowth as they worked

their way up the hillside; but as soon as they were within the circle of the treetrunks they moved like ghosts.

There were whitetusked wild males, with fallen leaves and nuts and twigs lying in the wrinkles of their

necks and the folds of their ears; fat slowfooted sheelephants, with restless, little pinkyblack calves only

three or four feet high running under their stomachs; young elephants with their tusks just beginning to show,

and very proud of them; lanky, scraggy oldmaid elephants, with their hollow anxious faces, and trunks like

rough bark; savage old bullelephants, scarred from shoulder to flank with great weals and cuts of bygone

fights, and the caked dirt of their solitary mudbaths dropping from their shoulders; and there was one with a

broken tusk and the marks of the fullstroke, the terrible drawing scrape, of a tiger's claws on his side.

They were standing head to head, or walking to and fro across the ground in couples, or rocking and swaying

Toomai knew that so long as he lay still on Kala Nag's neck nothing would happen to him; for even in the

rush and scramble of a Keddahdrive a wild elephant does not reach up with his trunk and drag a man off the

neck of a tame elephant; and these elephants were not thinking of men that night. Once they started and put

their ears forward when they heard the chinking of a legiron in the forest, but it was Pudmini, Petersen

Sahib's pet elephant, her chain snapped short off, grunting, snuffling up the hillside. She must have broken

her pickets, and come straight from Petersen Sahib's camp; and Little Toomai saw another elephant, one that

he did not know, with deep ropegalls on his back and breast. He, too, must have run away from some camp

At last there was no sound of any more elephants moving in the forest, and Kala Nag rolled out from his

station between the trees and went into the middle of the crowd, clucking and gurgling, and all the elephants

Still lying down, Little Toomai looked down upon scores and scores of broad backs, and wagging ears, and

tossing trunks, and little rolling eyes. He heard the click of tusks as they crossed other tusks by accident, and

the dry rustle of trunks twined together, and the chafing of enormous sides and shoulders in the crowd, and

the incessant flick and hissh of the great tails. Then a cloud came over the moon, and he sat in black darkness;

but the quiet, steady hustling and pushing and gurgling went on just the same. He knew that there were

elephants all round Kala Nag, and that there was no chance of backing him out of the assembly; so he set his

teeth and shivered. In a Keddah at least there was torchlight and shouting, but here he was all alone in the

Then an elephant trumpeted, and they all took it up for five or ten terrible seconds. The dew from the trees

above spattered down like rain on the unseen backs, and a dull booming noise began, not very loud at first,

and Little Toomai could not tell what it was; but it grew and grew, and Kala Nag lifted up one fore foot and

then the other, and brought them down on the ground onetwo, onetwo, as steadily as triphammers. The

elephants were stamping altogether now, and it sounded like a wardrum beaten at the mouth of a cave. The

dew fell from the trees till there was no more left to fall, and the booming went on, and the ground rocked

and shivered, and Little Toomai put his hands up to his ears to shut out the sound. But it was all one gigantic

jar that ran through him this stamp of hundreds of heavy feet on the raw earth. Once or twice he could feel

Kala Nag and all the others surge forward a few strides, and the thumping would change to the crushing

sound of juicy green things being bruised, but in a minute or two the boom of feet on hard earth began again.

A tree was creaking and groaning somewhere near him. He put out his arm and felt the bark, but Kala Nag

moved forward, still tramping, and he could not tell where he was in the clearing. There was no sound from

the elephants, except once, when two or three little calves squeaked together. Then he heard a thump and a

shuffle, and the booming went on. It must have lasted fully two hours, and Little Toomai ached in every

The morning broke in one sheet of pale yellow behind the green hills, and the booming stopped with the first

ray, as though the light had been an order. Before Little Toomai had got the ringing out of his head, before

even he had shifted his position, there was not an elephant in sight except Kala Nag, Pudmini, and the

elephant with the ropegalls, and there was neither sign nor rustle nor whisper down the hillsides to show

Little Toomai stared again and again. The clearing, as he remembered it, had grown in the night. More trees

stood in the middle of it, but the undergrowth and the junglegrass at the sides had been rolled back. Little

Toomai stared once more. Now he understood the trampling. The elephants had stamped out more room

had stamped the thick grass and juicy cane to trash, the trash into slivers, the slivers into tiny fibers, and the

``Wah!'' said Little Toomai, and his eyes were very heavy. ``Kala Nag, my lord, let us keep by Pudmini and

The third elephant watched the two go away, snorted, wheeled round, and took his own path. He may have

belonged to some little native king's establishment, fifty or sixty or a hundred miles away.

Two hours later, as Petersen Sahib was eating early breakfast, his elephants, who had been doublechained

that night, began to trumpet, and Pudmini, mired to the shoulders, with Kala Nag, very footsore, shambled

Little Toomai's face was gray and pinched, and his hair was full of leaves and drenched with dew; but he

tried to salute Petersen Sahib, and cried faintly: ``The dance the elephantdance! I have seen it, and I

But, since native children have no nerves worth speaking of, in two hours he was lying very contentedly in

Petersen Sahib's hammock with Petersen Sahib's shootingcoat under his head, and a glass of warm milk, a

little brandy, with a dash of quinine inside of him, and while the old hairy, scarred hunters of the jungles sat

three deep before him, looking at him as though he were a spirit, he told his tale in short words, as a child

``Now, if I lie in one word, send men to see, and they will find that the elephantfolk have trampled down

more room in their danceroom, and they will find ten and ten, and many times ten, tracks leading to that

danceroom. They made more room with their feet. I have seen it. Kala Nag took me, and I saw. Also Kala

Little Toomai lay back and slept all through the long afternoon and into the twilight, and while he slept

Petersen Sahib and Machua Appa followed the track of the two elephants for fifteen miles across the hills.

Petersen Sahib had spent eighteen years in catching elephants, and he had only once before found such a

danceplace. Machua Appa had no need to look twice at the clearing to see what had been done there, or to

``The child speaks truth,'' said he. ``All this was done last night, and I have counted seventy tracks crossing

the river. See, Sahib, where Pudmini's legiron cut the bark of that tree! Yes; she was there too.''

They looked at each other, and up and down, and they wondered; for the ways of elephants are beyond the

``Forty years and five,'' said Machua Appa, ``have I followed my lord, the elephant, but never have I heard

that any child of man had seen what this child has seen. By all the Gods of the Hills, it is what can we

When they got back to camp it was time for the evening meal. Petersen Sahib ate alone in his tent, but he

gave orders that the camp should have two sheep and some fowls, as well as a doubleration of flour and rice

Big Toomai had come up hotfoot from the camp in the plains to search for his son and his elephant, and

now that he had found them he looked at them as though he were afraid of them both. And there was a feast

by the blazing campfires in front of the lines of picketed elephants, and Little Toomai was the hero of it all;

and the big brown elephantcatchers, the trackers and drivers and ropers, and the men who know all the

secrets of breaking the wildest elephants, passed him from one to the other, and they marked his forehead

with blood from the breast of a newly killed junglecock, to show that he was a forester, initiated and free of

And at last, when the flames died down, and the red light of the logs made the elephants look as though they

had been dipped in blood too, Machua Appa, the head of all the drivers of all the Keddahs Machua Appa,

Petersen Sahib's other self, who had never seen a made road in forty years: Machua Appa, who was so great

that he had no other name than Machua Appa leaped to his feet, with Little Toomai held high in the air

above his head, and shouted: ``Listen, my brothers. Listen, too, you my lords in the lines there, for I, Machua

Appa, am speaking! This little one shall no more be called Little Toomai, but Toomai of the Elephants, as his

greatgrandfather was called before him. What never man has seen he has seen through the long night, and

the favour of the elephantfolk and of the Gods of the Jungles is with him. He shall become a great tracker;

he shall become greater than I, even I, Machua Appa! He shall follow the new trail, and the stale trail, and the

mixed trail, with a clear eye! He shall take no harm in the Keddah when he runs under their bellies to rope the

wild tuskers; and if he slips before the feet of the charging bullelephant that bullelephant shall know who

he is and shall not crush him. Aihai! my lords in the chains,'' he whirled up the line of pickets, ``here is

the little one that has seen your dances in your hidden places the sight that never man saw. Give him

honour, my lords! Salaam karo, my children. Make your salute to Toomai of the Elephants! Gunga Pershad,

ahaa! Hira Guj, Birchi Guj, Kuttar Guj, ahaa! Pudmini, thou hast seen him at the dance, and thou too,

Kala Nag, my pearl among elephants! ahaa! Together! To Toomai of the Elephants. Barrao!''

And at that last wild yell the whole line flung up their trunks till the tips touched their foreheads, and broke

out into the full salute the crashing trumpetpeal that only the Viceroy of India hears, the Salaamut of the

Keddah. But it was all for the sake of Little Toomai, who had seen what never man had seen before the

It had been raining heavily for one whole month raining on a camp of thirty thousand men, thousands of

camels, elephants, horses, bullocks, and mules, all gathered together at a place called Rawal Pindi, to be

reviewed by the Viceroy of India. He was receiving a visit from the Amir of Afghanistan a wild king of a

very wild country; and the Amir had brought with him for a bodyguard eight hundred men and horses who

had never seen a camp or a locomotive before in their lives savage men and savage horses from

somewhere at the back of Central Asia. Every night a mob of these horses would be sure to break their

heelropes, and stampede up and down the camp through the mud in the dark, or the camels would break

loose and run about and fall over the ropes of the tents, and you can imagine how pleasant that was for men

trying to go to sleep. My tent lay far away from the camel lines, and I thought it was safe, but one night a man

popped his head in and shouted, ``Get out, quick! They're coming! My tent's gone!''

I knew who ``they'' were; so I put on my boots and waterproof and scuttled out into the slush. Little Vixen,

my foxterrier, went out through the other side; and then there was a roaring and a grunting and bubbling,

and I saw the tent cave in, as the pole snapped, and begin to dance about like a mad ghost. A camel had

blundered into it, and wet and angry as I was, I could not help laughing. Then I ran on, because I did not

know how many camels might have got loose, and before long I was out of sight of the camp, plowing my

At last I fell over the tailend of a gun, and by that knew I was somewhere near the Artillery lines where the

cannon were stacked at night. As I did not want to plowter about any more in the drizzle and the dark, I put

my waterproof over the muzzle of one gun, and made a sort of wigwam with two or three rammers that I

found, and lay along the tail of another gun, wondering where Vixen had got to, and where I might be.

Just as I was getting ready to sleep, I heard a jingle of harness and a grunt, and a mule passed me shaking his

wet ears. He belonged to a screwgun battery, for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings and chains

and things on his saddlepad. The screwguns are tidy little cannon made in two pieces, that are screwed

together when the time comes to use them. They are taken up mountains, anywhere that a mule can find a

Behind the mule there was a camel, with his big soft feet squelching and slipping in the mud, and his neck

bobbing to and fro like a strayed hen's. Luckily, I knew enough of beast language not wildbeast

language, but campbeast language, of course from the natives to know what he was saying.

He must have been the one that flopped into my tent, for he called to the mule, ``What shall I do? Where shall

I go? I have fought with a white thing that waved, and it took a stick and hit me on the neck.'' (That was my

``Oh, it was you,'' said the mule, ``you and your friends, that have been disturbing the camp? All right. You'll

be beaten for this in the morning; but I may as well give you something on account now.''

I heard the harness jingle as the mule backed and caught the camel two kicks in the ribs that rang like a drum.

``Another time,'' he said, ``you'll know better than to run through a mulebattery at night, shouting 'Thieves

The camel doubled up camelfashion, like a twofoot rule, and sat down whimpering. There was a regular

beat of hoofs in the darkness, and a big troophorse cantered up as steadily as though he were on parade,

``It's disgraceful,'' he said, blowing out his nostrils. ``Those camels have racketed through our lines again

the third time this week. How's a horse to keep his condition if he is n't allowed to sleep? Who's here?''

``I'm the breechpiece mule of number two gun of the First Screw Battery,'' said the mule, ``and the other's

``Number Fifteen, E troop, Ninth Lancers Dick Cunliffe's horse. Stand over a little, there.''

``Oh, beg your pardon,'' said the mule. ``It's too dark to see much. Are n't these camels too sickening for

``My lords,'' said the camel humbly, ``we dreamed bad dreams in the night, and we were very much afraid. I

am only a baggagecamel of the 39th Native Infantry, and I am not so brave as you are, my lords.''

``Then why the pickets did n't you stay and carry baggage for the 39th Native Infantry, instead of running all

``They were such very bad dreams,'' said the camel. ``I am sorry. Listen! What is that? Shall we run on

``Sit down,'' said the mule, ``or you'll snap your long legs between the guns.'' He cocked one ear and listened.

``Bullocks!'' he said; ``gunbullocks. On my word, you and your friends have waked the camp very

I heard a chain dragging along the ground, and a yoke of the great sulky white bullocks that drag the heavy

siegeguns when the elephants won't go any nearer to the firing, came shouldering along together; and almost

``That's one of our recruits,'' said the old mule to the troophorse. ``He's calling for me. Here, youngster, stop

The gunbullocks lay down together and began chewing the cud, but the young mule huddled close to Billy.

``Things!'' he said; ``fearful and horrible things, Billy! They came into our lines while we were asleep. D'you

``I've a very great mind to give you a number one kicking,'' said Billy.'' The idea of a fourteenhand mule

``Gently, gently!'' said the troophorse. ``Remember they are always like this to begin with. The first time I

ever saw a man (it was in Australia when I was a threeyearold) I ran for half a day, and if I'd seen a camel I

Nearly all our horses for the English cavalry are brought to India from Australia, and are broken in by the

``True enough,'' said Billy. ``Stop shaking, youngster. The first time they put the full harness with all its

chains on my back, I stood on my fore legs and kicked every bit of it off. I had n't learned the real science of

``But this was n't harness or anything that jingled,'' said the young mule. ``You know I don't mind that now,

Billy. It was Things like trees, and they fell up and down the lines and bubbled; and my headrope broke, and

I could n't find my driver and I could n't find you, Billy, so I ran off with with these gentlemen. ``

``H'm!'' said Billy. ``As soon as I heard the camels were loose I came away on my own account, quietly.

When a battery a screwgun mule calls gunbullock gentlemen, he must be very badly shaken up. Who

The gunbullock rolled their cuds, and answered both together: ``The seventh yoke of the first gun of the Big

Gun Battery. We were asleep when the camels came, but when we were trampled on we got up and walked

away. It is better to lie quiet in the mud than to be disturbed on good bedding. We told your friend here that

there was nothing to be afraid of, but he knew so much that he thought otherwise. Wah!''

``That comes of being afraid,'' said Billy. ``You get laughed at by gunbullocks. I hope you like it, young

The young mule's teeth snapped, and I heard him say something about not being afraid of any beefy old

bullock in the world; but the bullock only clicked their horns together and went on chewing.

``Now, don't be angry after you've been afraid. That's the worst kind of cowardice,'' said the troophorse.

``Anybody can be forgiven for being scared in the night, I think, if they see things they don't understand.

We've broken out of our pickets, again and again, four hundred and fifty of us, just because a new recruit got

to telling tales of whipsnakes at home in Australia till we were scared to death of the loose ends of our

``That's all very well in camp,'' said Billy; ``I'm not above stampeding myself, for the fun of the thing, when I

``Oh, that's quite another set of new shoes,'' said the troophorse. ``Dick Cunliffe's on my back then, and

drives his knees into me, and all I have to do is to watch where I am putting my feet, and to keep my hind

``By the Blue Gums of the Black Blocks,'' snorted the troophorse, ``do you mean to say that you are n't

taught to be bridlewise in your business? How can you do anything, unless you can spin round at once when

the rein is pressed on your neck? It means life or death to your man, and of course that's life or death to you.

Get round with your hind legs under you the instant you feel the rein on your neck. If you have n't room to

swing round, rear up a little and come round on your hind legs. That's being bridlewise.''

``We are n't taught that way,'' said Billy the mule stiffly. ``We're taught to obey the man at our head: step off

when he says so, and step in when he says so. I suppose it comes to the same thing. Now, with all this fine

fancy business and rearing, which must be very bad for your hocks, what do you do?''

``That depends,'' said the troophorse. ``Generally I have to go in among a lot of yelling, hairy men with

knives, long shiny knives, worse than the farrier's knives, and I have to take care that Dick's boot is

just touching the next man's boot without crushing it. I can see Dick's lance to the right of my right eye, and I

know I'm safe. I should n't care to be the man or horse that stood up to Dick and me when we're in a hurry''

``A lot I should have cared whose fault it was, if it hurt!'' said the young mule.

``You must,'' said the troophorse. ``If you don't trust your man, you may as well run away at once. That's

what some of our horses do, and I don't blame them. As I was saying, it was n't Dick's fault. The man was

lying on the ground, and I stretched myself not to tread on him, and he slashed up at me. Next time I have to

``H'm!'' said Billy; ``it sounds very foolish. Knives are dirty things at any time. The proper thing to do is to

climb up a mountain with a wellbalanced saddle, hang on by all four feet and your ears too, and creep and

crawl and wriggle along, till you come out hundreds of feet above any one else, on a ledge where there's just

room enough for your hoofs. Then you stand still and keep quiet, never ask a man to hold your head,

young 'un, keep quiet while the guns are being put together, and then you watch the little poppy shells

``They say that when a mule trips you can split a hen's ear,'' said Billy. ``Now and again perhaps a badly

packed saddle will upset a mule, but it's very seldom. I wish I could show you our business. It's beautiful.

Why, it took me three years to find out what the men were driving at. The science of the thing is never to

show up against the skyline, because, if you do, you may get fired at. Remember that, young 'un. Always

keep hidden as much as possible, even if you have to go a mile out of your way. I lead the battery when it

``Fired at without the chance of running into the people who are firing!'' said the troophorse, thinking hard.

``Oh no, you would n't; you know that as soon as the guns are in position they'll do all the charging. That's

The baggagecamel had been bobbing his head to and fro for some time past, anxious to get a word in

``I I I have fought a little, but not in that climbing way or that running way.''

``No. Now you mention it,'' said Billy, ``you don't look as though you were made for climbing or running

``Oh, my crupper and breastplate!'' said the troophorse under his breath. ``Sat down?''

``We sat down a Hundred of us,'' the camel went on, ``in a big square, and the men piled our packs and

saddles outside the square, and they fired over our backs, the men did, on all sides of the square.''

``What sort of men? Any men that came along?'' said the troophorse. ``They teach us in ridingschool to lie

down and let our masters fire across us, but Dick Cunliffe is the only man I'd trust to do that. It tickles my

``What does it matter who fires across you?'' said the camel. ``There are plenty of men and plenty of other

camels close by, and a great many clouds of smoke. I am not frightened then. I sit still and wait.''

``And yet,'' said Billy, ``you dream bad dreams and upset the camp at night. Well! well! Before I'd lie down,

not to speak of sitting down, and let a man fire across me, my heels and his head would have something to

There was a long silence, and then one of the gunbullocks lifted up his big head and said, ``This is very

``Oh, go on,'' said Billy. ``Please don't mind me. I suppose you fellows fight standing on your tails?''

``Only one way,'' said the two together. (They must have been twins.) ``This is that way. To put all twenty

yoke of us to the big gun as soon as Two Tails trumpets.'' (``Two Tails'' is camp slang for the elephant.)

``To show that he is not going any nearer to the smoke on the other side. Two Tails is a great coward. Then

we tug the big gun all together Heya Hullah! Heeyah! Hullah! We do not climb like cats nor run like

calves. We go across the level plain, twenty yoke of us, till we are unyoked again, and we graze while the big

guns talk across the plain to some town with mud walls, and pieces of the wall fall out, and the dust goes up

``That time or any other. Eating is always good. We eat till we are yoked up again and tug the gun back to

where Two Tails is waiting for it. Sometimes there are big guns in the city that speak back, and some of us

are killed, and then there is all the more grazing for those that are left. This is Fate nothing but Fate. None

the less, Two Tails is a great coward. That is the proper way to fight. We are brothers from Hapur. Our father

``Well, I've certainly learned something tonight,'' said the troophorse. ``Do you gentlemen of the

screwgun battery feel inclined to eat when you are being fired at with big guns, and Two Tails is behind

``About as much as we feel inclined to sit down with knives. I never heard such stuff. A mountain ledge, a

wellbalanced load, a driver you can trust to let you pick your own way, and I'm your mule; but the other

``Of course,'' said the troophorse, ``every one is not made in the same way, and I can quite see that your

``Never you mind my family on my father's side,'' said Billy angrily; for every mule hates to be reminded that

his father was a donkey. ``My father was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull down and bite and kick

Brumby means wild horse without any breeding. Imagine the feelings of Sunol if a carhorse called her a

``skate,'' and you can imagine how the Australian horse felt. I saw the white of his eye glitter in the dark.

``See here, you son of an imported Malaga jackass,'' he said between his teeth, ``I'd have you know that I'm

related on my mother's side to Carbine, winner of the Melbourne Cup, and where I come from we are n't

accustomed to being ridden over roughshod by any parrotmouthed, pigheaded mule in a popgun

``On your hind legs!'' squealed Billy. They both reared up facing each other, and I was expecting a furious

fight, when a gurgly, rumbly voice called out of the darkness to the right ``Children, what are you fighting

Both beasts dropped down with a snort of disgust, for neither horse nor mule can bear to listen to an

``It's Two Tails!'' said the troophorse. ``I can't stand him. A tail at each end is n't fair!''

``My feelings exactly,'' said Billy, crowding into the troophorse for company. ``We're very alike in some

``I suppose we've inherited them from our mothers,'' said the troophorse. ``It's not worth quarreling about.

``Yes,'' said Two Tails, with a laugh all up his trunk. ``I'm picketed for the night. I've heard what you fellows

The bullocks and the camel said, half aloud: ``Afraid of Two Tails what nonsense!'' And the bullocks

went on: ``We are sorry that you heard, but it is true. Two Tails, why are you afraid of the guns when they

``Well,'' said Two Tails, rubbing one hind leg against the other, exactly like a little boy saying a piece, ``I

``I know it, and I know you are a good deal braver than you think you are. But it's different with me. My

``That's another way of fighting, I suppose?'' said Billy, who was recovering his spirits.

``You don't know what that means, of course, but I do. It means betwixt and between, and that is just where I

am. I can see inside my head what will happen when a shell bursts; and you bullocks can't.''

``I can,'' said the troophorse. ``At least a little bit. I try not to think about it.''

``I can see more than you, and I do think about it. I know there's a great deal of me to take care of, and I

know that nobody knows how to cure me when I'm sick. All they can do is to stop my driver's pay till I get

``You could put a whole regiment of Dicks on my back without making me feel any better. I know just

``We do,'' said the bullocks. ``It is red stuff that soaks into the ground and smells.''

``Don't talk of it,'' he said. ``I can smell it, now, just thinking of it. It makes me want to run when I have

``But it is not here,'' said the camel and the bullocks. ``Why are you so stupid?''

``It's vile stuff,'' said Billy. ``I don't want to run, but I don't want to talk about it.''

Two Tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it jingled. ``Oh, I'm not talking to you. You can't see inside

``No. We see out of our four eyes,'' said the bullocks. ``We see straight in front of us.''

``If I could do that and nothing else you would n't be needed to pull the big guns at all. If I was like my

captain he can see things inside his head before the firing begins, and he shakes all over, but he knows too

much to run away if I was like him I could pull the guns. But if I were as wise as all that I should never be

here. I should be a king in the forest, as I used to be, sleeping half the day and bathing when I liked. I have n't

``That's all very fine,'' said Billy; ``but giving a thing a long name does n't make it any better''

``You'll understand better in a minute,'' said Two Tails angrily. ``Now, just you explain to me why you don't

``Stop that!'' said Billy and the troophorse together, and I could hear them stamp and shiver. An elephant's

``I sha'n't stop,'' said Two Tails. ``Won't you explain that, please? Hhrrmph! Rrrt! Rrrmph! Rrrhha!'' Then He

stopped suddenly, and I heard a little whimper in the dark, and knew that Vixen had found me at last. She

knew as well as I did that if there is one thing in the world the elephant is more afraid of than another it is a

little barking dog; so she stopped to bully Two Tails in his pickets, and yapped round his big feet. Two Tails

shuffled and squeaked. ``Go away, little dog!'' He said. ``Don't snuff at my ankles, or I'll kick at you. Good

little dog nice little doggie, then! Go home, you yelping little beast! Oh, why does n't some one take her

``Seems to me,'' said Billy to the troophorse, ``that our friend Two Tails is afraid of most things. Now, if I

had a full meal for every dog I've kicked across the paradeground, I should be as fat as Two Tails nearly.'' I

whistled, and Vixen ran up to me, muddy all over, and licked my nose, and told me a long tale about hunting

for me all through the camp. I never let her know that I understood beast talk, or she would have taken all

sorts of liberties. So I buttoned her into the breast of my overcoat, and Two Tails shuffled and stamped and

``Extraordinary! Most extraordinary!'' he said. ``It runs in our family. Now, where has that nasty little beast

``We all seem to be affected in various ways,'' He went on, blowing his nose. ``Now, you gentlemen were

``Not alarmed, exactly,'' said the troophorse, ``but it made me feel as though I had hornets where my saddle

``I'm frightened of a little dog, and the camel here is frightened by bad dreams in the night.''

``It is very lucky for us that we have n't all got to fight in the same, way'' said the troophorse.

``What I want to know,'' said the young mule, who had been quiet for a long time ``what I want to know

``Hukm hai!'' (It is an order) said the camel with a gurgle; and Two Tails and the bullocks repeated, ``Hukm

``The man who walks at your head Or sits on your back Or holds the noserope Or twists your

tail,'' said Billy and the troophorse and the camel and the bullocks one after the other.

``Now you want to know too much, young 'un,'' said Billy, ``and that is one way of getting kicked. All you

``He's quite right,'' said Two Tails. ``I can't always obey, because I'm betwixt and between; but Billy's right.

Obey the man next to you who gives the order, or you'll stop all the battery, besides getting a thrashing.''

The gunbullocks got up to go. ``Morning is coming,'' they said. ``We will go back to our lines. It is true that

we see only out of our eyes, and we are not very clever; but still, we are the only people tonight who have

Nobody answered, and the troophorse said, to change the conversation, ``Where's that little dog? A dog

``Here I am,'' yapped Vixen, ``under the gun tail with my man. You big, blundering beast of a camel you, you

``Of course he is,'' said Vixen. ``Do you suppose I'm looked after by a black bullockdriver?''

They plunged forward in the mud, and managed somehow to run their yoke on the pole of an

``Now you have done it,'' said Billy calmly. ``Don't struggle. You're hung up till daylight. What on earth's the

The bullocks went off into the long hissing snorts that Indian cattle give, and pushed and crowded and slued

``You'll break your necks in a minute,'' said the troophorse. ``What's the matter with white men? I live with

``They eat us! Pull!'' said the near bullock: the yoke snapped with a twang, and they lumbered off

I never knew before what made Indian cattle so afraid of Englishmen. We eat beef a thing that no

``May I be flogged with my own padchains! Who'd have thought of two big lumps like those losing their

``Never mind. I'm going to look at this man. Most of the white men, I know, have things in their pockets,''

``I'll leave you, then. I can't say I'm overfond of 'em myself. Besides, white men who have n't a place to

sleep in are more than likely to be thieves, and I've a good deal of Government property on my back. Come

along, young 'un, and we'll go back to our lines. Goodnight, Australia! See you on parade tomorrow, I

suppose. Goodnight, old Haybale! try to control your feelings, won't you? Goodnight, Two Tails! If

Billy the mule stumped off with the swaggering limp of an old campaigner, as the troophorse's head came

nuzzling into my breast, and I gave him biscuits; while Vixen, who is a most conceited little dog, told him

``I'm coming to the parade tomorrow in my dogcart,'' she said. ``Where will you be?''

``On the left hand of the second squadron. I set the time for all my troop, little lady,'' he said politely. ``Now I

must go back to Dick. My tail's all muddy, and he'll have two hours' hard work dressing me for the parade.''

The big parade of all the thirty thousand men was held that afternoon and Vixen and I had a good place close

to the Viceroy and the Amir of Afghanistan, with his high big black hat of astrakhan wool and the great

diamond star in the center. The first part of the review was all sunshine, and the regiments went by in wave

upon wave of legs all moving together, and guns all in a line, till our eyes grew dizzy. Then the cavalry came

up, to the beautiful cavalry canter of ``Bonnie Dundee,'' and Vixen cocked her ear where she sat on the

dogcart. The second squadron of the lancers shot by, and there was the troophorse, with his tail like spun

silk, his head pulled into his breast, one ear forward and one back, setting the time for all his squadron, his

legs going as smoothly as waltzmusic. Then the big guns came by, and I saw Two Tails and two other

elephants harnessed in line to a fortypounder siegegun while twenty yoke of oxen walked behind. The

seventh pair had a new yoke, and they looked rather stiff and tired. Last came the screwguns, and Billy the

mule carried himself as though he commanded all the troops, and his harness was oiled and polished till it

winked. I gave a cheer all by myself for Billy the mule, but he never looked right or left.

The rain began to fall again, and for a while it was too misty to see what the troops were doing. They had

made a big halfcircle across the plain, and were spreading out into a line. That line grew and grew and grew

till it was threequarters of a mile long from wing to wing one solid wall of men, horses, and guns. Then

it came on straight toward the Viceroy and the Amir, and as it got nearer the ground began to shake, like the

Unless you have been there you cannot imagine what a frightening effect this steady comedown of troops

has on the spectators, even when they know it is only a review. I looked at the Amir. Up till then he had not

shown the shadow of a sign of astonishment or anything else; but now his eyes began to get bigger and

bigger, and he picked up the reins on his horse's neck, and looked behind him. For a minute it seemed as

though he were going to draw his sword and slash his way out through the English men and women in the

carriages at the back. Then the advance stopped dead, the ground stood still, the whole line saluted, and thirty

bands began to play all together. That was the end of the review, and the regiments went off to their camps in

Then I heard an old, grizzled, longhaired Central Asian chief, who had come down with the Amir, asking

``They obey, as the men do. Mule, horse, elephant, or bullock, he obeys his driver, and the driver his

sergeant, and the sergeant his lieutenants, and the lieutenant his captain, and the captain his major, and the

major his colonel, and the colonel his brigadier commanding three regiments, and the brigadier his general,

``Would it were so in Afghanistan!'' said the chief; ``for there we obey only our own wills.''

``And for that reason,'' said the native officer, twirling his mustache, ``your Amir whom you do not obey

10. MOWGLI'S SONG THAT HE SANG AT THE COUNCIL ROCK WHEN HE DANCED ON SHERE KHAN'S HIDE, page = 41

17. SHIV AND THE GRASSHOPPER (THE SONG THAT TOOMAI'S MOTHER SANG TO THE BABY), page = 72