Book: The Second Jungle Book

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"He will be rested before he picks it up again," said Bagheera
coolly, as he slipped round a tree-trunk, in the game of
blindman's-buff that they were playing. "NOW, what does the
lean thing do?"

"Eat or blow smoke out of his mouth. Men always play with their
mouths," said Mowgli; and the silent trailers saw the old man
fill and light and puff at a water-pipe, and they took good note
of the smell of the tobacco, so as to be sure of Buldeo in the
darkest night, if necessary.

Then a little knot of charcoal-burners came down the path, and
naturally halted to speak to Buldeo, whose fame as a hunter
reached for at least twenty miles round. They all sat down and
smoked, and Bagheera and the others came up and watched while
Buldeo began to tell the story of Mowgli, the Devil-child,
from one end to another, with additions and inventions. How he
himself had really killed Shere Khan; and how Mowgli had turned
himself into a wolf, and fought with him all the afternoon, and
changed into a boy again and bewitched Buldeo's rifle, so that
the bullet turned the corner, when he pointed it at Mowgli,
and killed one of Buldeo's own buffaloes; and how the village,
knowing him to be the bravest hunter in Seeonee, had sent him
out to kill this Devil-child. But meantime the village had got
hold of Messua and her husband, who were undoubtedly the father
and mother of this Devil-child, and had barricaded them in
their own hut, and presently would torture them to make them
confess they were witch and wizard, and then they would be
burned to death.

"When?" said the charcoal-burners, because they would very much
like to be present at the ceremony.

Buldeo said that nothing would be done till he returned,
because the village wished him to kill the Jungle Boy first.
After that they would dispose of Messua and her husband, and
divide their lands and buffaloes among the village. Messua's
husband had some remarkably fine buffaloes, too. It was an
excellent thing to destroy wizards, Buldeo thought; and people
who entertained Wolf-children out of the Jungle were clearly
the worst kind of witches.

But, said the charcoal-burners, what would happen if the English
heard of it? The English, they had heard, were a perfectly mad
people, who would not let honest farmers kill witches in peace.

Why, said Buldeo, the head-man of the village would report that
Messua and her husband had died of snake-bite. THAT was all
arranged, and the only thing now was to kill the Wolf-child.
They did not happen to have seen anything of such a creature?

The charcoal-burners looked round cautiously, and thanked their
stars they had not; but they had no doubt that so brave a man as
Buldeo would find him if any one could. The sun was getting
rather low, and they had an idea that they would push on to
Buldeo's village and see that wicked witch. Buldeo said that,
though it was his duty to kill the Devil-child, he could not
think of letting a party of unarmed men go through the Jungle,
which might produce the Wolf-demon at any minute, without his
escort. He, therefore, would accompany them, and if the
sorcerer's child appeared--well, he would show them how the best
hunter in Seeonee dealt with such things. The Brahmin, he said,
had given him a charm against the creature that made everything
perfectly safe.

"What says he? What says he? What says he?" the wolves repeated
every few minutes; and Mowgli translated until he came to the
witch part of the story, which was a little beyond him, and
then he said that the man and woman who had been so kind to him
were trapped.

"Does Man trap Man?" said Bagheera.

"So he says. I cannot understand the talk. They are all mad
together. What have Messua and her man to do with me that they
should be put in a trap; and what is all this talk about the
Red Flower? I must look to this. Whatever they would do to
Messua they will not do till Buldeo returns. And so----" Mowgli
thought hard, with his fingers playing round the haft of the
skinning-knife, while Buldeo and the charcoal-burners went off
very valiantly in single file.

"I go hot-foot back to the Man-Pack," Mowgli said at last.

"And those?" said Gray Brother, looking hungrily after the brown
backs of the charcoal-burners.

"Sing them home," said Mowgli, with a grin; I do not wish them
to be at the village gates till it is dark. Can ye hold them?"

Gray Brother bared his white teeth in contempt. We can head them
round and round in circles like tethered goats--if I know Man."

"That I do not need. Sing to them a little, lest they be lonely
on the road, and, Gray Brother, the song need not be of the
sweetest. Go with them, Bagheera, and help make that song.
When night is shut down, meet me by the village--Gray Brother
knows the place."

"It is no light hunting to work for a Man-cub. When shall I
sleep?" said Bagheera, yawning, though his eyes showed that he
was delighted with the amusement. "Me to sing to naked men!
But let us try."

He lowered his head so that the sound would travel, and cried a
long, long, "Good hunting"--a midnight call in the afternoon,
which was quite awful enough to begin with. Mowgli heard it
rumble, and rise, and fall, and die off in a creepy sort of
whine behind him, and laughed to himself as he ran through the
Jungle. He could see the charcoal-burners huddled in a knot; old
Buldeo's gun-barrel waving, like a banana-leaf, to every point
of the compass at once. Then Gray Brother gave the Ya-la-hi!
Yalaha! call for the buck-driving, when the Pack drives the
nilghai, the big blue cow, before them, and it seemed to come
from the very ends of the earth, nearer, and nearer, and nearer,
till it ended in a shriek snapped off short. The other three
answered, till even Mowgli could have vowed that the full Pack
was in full cry, and then they all broke into the magnificent
Morning-song in the Jungle, with every turn, and flourish, and
grace-note that a deep-mouthed wolf of the Pack knows. This is a
rough rendering of the song, but you must imagine what it sounds
like when it breaks the afternoon hush of the Jungle:--

One moment past our bodies cast
No shadow on the plain;
Now clear and black they stride our track,
And we run home again.
In morning hush, each rock and bush
Stands hard, and high, and raw:
Then give the Call: "Good rest to all
That keep The Jungle Law!"

Now horn and pelt our peoples melt
In covert to abide;
Now, crouched and still, to cave and hill
Our Jungle Barons glide.
Now, stark and plain, Man's oxen strain,
That draw the new-yoked plough;
Now, stripped and dread, the dawn is red
Above the lit talao.

Ho! Get to lair! The sun's aflare
Behind the breathing grass:
And cracking through the young bamboo
The warning whispers pass.
By day made strange, the woods we range
With blinking eyes we scan;
While down the skies the wild duck cries
"The Day--the Day to Man!"

The dew is dried that drenched our hide
Or washed about our way;
And where we drank, the puddled bank
Is crisping into clay.
The traitor Dark gives up each mark
Of stretched or hooded claw;
Then hear the Call: "Good rest to all
That keep the Jungle Law!"

But no translation can give the effect of it, or the yelping
scorn the Four threw into every word of it, as they heard the
trees crash when the men hastily climbed up into the branches,
and Buldeo began repeating incantations and charms. Then they
lay down and slept, for, like all who live by their own
exertions, they were of a methodical cast of mind; and no one
can work well without sleep.

Meantime, Mowgli was putting the miles behind him, nine to the
hour, swinging on, delighted to find himself so fit after all
his cramped months among men. The one idea in his head was to
get Messua and her husband out of the trap, whatever it was;
for he had a natural mistrust of traps. Later on, he promised
himself, he would pay his debts to the village at large.

It was at twilight when he saw the well-remembered grazing-
grounds, and the dhak-tree where Gray Brother had waited for him
on the morning that he killed Shere Khan. Angry as he was at the
whole breed and community of Man, something jumped up in his
throat and made him catch his breath when he looked at the
village roofs. He noticed that every one had come in from the
fields unusually early, and that, instead of getting to their
evening cooking, they gathered in a crowd under the village
tree, and chattered, and shouted.

"Men must always he making traps for men, or they are not
content," said Mowgli. "Last night it was Mowgli--but that
night seems many Rains ago. To-night it is Messua and her man.
To-morrow, and for very many nights after, it will be Mowgli's
turn again."

He crept along outside the wall till he came to Messua's hut,
and looked through the window into the room. There lay Messua,
gagged, and bound hand and foot, breathing hard, and groaning:
her husband was tied to the gaily-painted bedstead. The door of
the hut that opened into the street was shut fast, and three or
four people were sitting with their backs to it.

Mowgli knew the manners and customs of the villagers very
fairly. He argued that so long as they could eat, and talk,
and smoke, they would not do anything else; but as soon as
they had fed they would begin to be dangerous. Buldeo would be
coming in before long, and if his escort had done its duty,
Buldeo would have a very interesting tale to tell. So he went
in through the window, and, stooping over the man and the woman,
cut their thongs, pulling out the gags, and looked round the hut
for some milk.

Messua was half wild with pain and fear (she had been beaten
and stoned all the morning), and Mowgli put his hand over
her mouth just in time to stop a scream. Her husband was only
bewildered and angry, and sat picking dust and things out of
his torn beard.

"I knew--I knew he would come," Messua sobbed at last. "Now do
I KNOW that he is my son!" and she hugged Mowgli to her heart.
Up to that time Mowgli had been perfectly steady, but now he
began to tremble all over, and that surprised him immensely.

"Why are these thongs? Why have they tied thee?" he asked,
after a pause.

"To be put to the death for making a son of thee--what else?"
said the man sullenly. "Look! I bleed."

Messua said nothing, but it was at her wounds that Mowgli
looked, and they heard him grit his teeth when he saw the blood.

"Whose work is this?" said he. "There is a price to pay."

"The work of all the village. I was too rich. I had too many
cattle. THEREFORE she and I are witches, because we gave
thee shelter."

"I do not understand. Let Messua tell the tale."

"I gave thee milk, Nathoo; dost thou remember?" Messua said
timidly. "Because thou wast my son, whom the tiger took, and
because I loved thee very dearly. They said that I was thy
mother, the mother of a devil, and therefore worthy of death."

"And what is a devil?" said Mowgli. "Death I have seen."

The man looked up gloomily, but Messua laughed. "See!" she said
to her husband, "I knew--I said that he was no sorcerer. He is
my son--my son!"

"Son or sorcerer, what good will that do us?" the man answered.
"We be as dead already."

"Yonder is the road to the Jungle"--Mowgli pointed through the
window. "Your hands and feet are free. Go now."

"We do not know the Jungle, my son, as--as thou knowest," Messua
began. "I do not think that I could walk far."

"And the men and women would he upon our backs and drag us here
again," said the husband.

"H'm!" said Mowgli, and he tickled the palm of his hand with the
tip of his skinning-knife; "I have no wish to do harm to any one
of this village--YET. But I do not think they will stay thee.
In a little while they will have much else to think upon. Ah!"
he lifted his head and listened to shouting and trampling
outside. "So they have let Buldeo come home at last?"

"He was sent out this morning to kill thee," Messua cried.
"Didst thou meet him?"

"Yes--we--I met him. He has a tale to tell and while he is
telling it there is time to do much. But first I will learn
what they mean. Think where ye would go, and tell me when
I come back."

He bounded through the window and ran along again outside the
wall of the village till he came within ear-shot of the crowd
round the peepul-tree. Buldeo was lying on the ground, coughing
and groaning, and every one was asking him questions. His hair
had fallen about his shoulders; his hands and legs were skinned
from climbing up trees, and he could hardly speak, but he felt
the importance of his position keenly. From time to time he
said something about devils and singing devils, and magic
enchantment, just to give the crowd a taste of what was coming.
Then he called for water.

"Bah!" said Mowgli. "Chatter--chatter! Talk, talk! Men are
blood-brothers of the Bandar-log. Now he must wash his mouth
with water; now he must blow smoke; and when all that is done
he has still his story to tell. They are very wise people--men.
They will leave no one to guard Messua till their ears are
stuffed with Buldeo's tales. And--I grow as lazy as they!"

He shook himself and glided back to the hut. Just as he was at
the window he felt a touch on his foot.

"Mother," said he, for he knew that tongue well, what dost
THOU here?"

"I heard my children singing through the woods, and I followed
the one I loved best. Little Frog, I have a desire to see
that woman who gave thee milk," said Mother Wolf, all wet
with the dew.

"They have bound and mean to kill her. I have cut those ties,
and she goes with her man through the Jungle."

"I also will follow. I am old, but not yet toothless." Mother
Wolf reared herself up on end, and looked through the window
into the dark of the hut.

In a minute she dropped noiselessly, and all she said was:
"I gave thee thy first milk; but Bagheera speaks truth:
Man goes to Man at the last."

"Maybe," said Mowgli, with a very unpleasant look on his face;
"but to-night I am very far from that trail. Wait here, but do
not let her see."

"THOU wast never afraid of ME, Little Frog," said Mother Wolf,
backing into the high grass, and blotting herself out, as she
knew how.

"And now," said Mowgli cheerfully, as he swung into the hut
again, "they are all sitting round Buldeo, who is saying that
which did not happen. When his talk is finished, they say they
will assuredly come here with the Red--with fire and burn you
both. And then?"

"I have spoken to my man," said Messua. Khanhiwara is thirty
miles from here, but at Khanhiwara we may find the English--"

"And what Pack are they?" said Mowgli.

"I do not know. They be white, and it is said that they govern
all the land, and do not suffer people to burn or beat each
other without witnesses. If we can get thither to-night, we
live. Otherwise we die."

"Live, then. No man passes the gates to-night. But what does HE
do?" Messua's husband was on his hands and knees digging up the
earth in one corner of the hut.

"It is his little money," said Messua. "We can take
nothing else."

"Ah, yes. The stuff that passes from hand to hand and never
grows warmer. Do they need it outside this place also?"
said Mowgli.

The man stared angrily. "He is a fool, and no devil," he
muttered. With the money I can buy a horse. We are too bruised
to walk far, and the village will follow us in an hour."

"I say they will NOT follow till I choose; but a horse is
well thought of, for Messua is tired." Her husband stood up
and knotted the last of the rupees into his waist-cloth.
Mowgli helped Messua through the window, and the cool night
air revived her, but the Jungle in the starlight looked very dark
and terrible.

"Ye know the trail to Khanhiwara?" Mowgli whispered.

They nodded.

'Good. Remember, now, not to be afraid. And there is no need to
go quickly. Only--only there may be some small singing in the
Jungle behind you and before."

"Think you we would have risked a night in the Jungle through
anything less than the fear of burning? It is better to be
killed by beasts than by men," said Messua's husband; but Messua
looked at Mowgli and smiled.

"I say," Mowgli went on, just as though he were Baloo repeating
an old Jungle Law for the hundredth time to a foolish cub--
"I say that not a tooth in the Jungle is bared against you;
not a foot in the Jungle is lifted against you. Neither man
nor beast shall stay you till you come within eye-shot of
Khanhiwara. There will be a watch about you." He turned quickly
to Messua, saying, "HE does not believe, but thou wilt believe?"

"Ay, surely, my son. Man, ghost, or wolf of the Jungle,
I believe."

"HE will be afraid when he hears my people singing. Thou wilt
know and understand. Go now, and slowly, for there is no need of
any haste. The gates are shut."

Messua flung herself sobbing at Mowgli's feet, but he lifted her
very quickly with a shiver. Then she hung about his neck and
called him every name of blessing she could think of, but her
husband looked enviously across his fields, and said: "IF we
reach Khanhiwara, and I get the ear of the English, I will bring
such a lawsuit against the Brahmin and old Buldeo and the others
as shall eat the village to the bone. They shall pay me twice
over for my crops untilled and my buffaloes unfed. I will have
a great justice."

Mowgli laughed. "I do not know what justice is, but--come next
Rains. and see what is left."

They went off toward the Jungle, and Mother Wolf leaped from her
place of hiding.

"Follow!" said Mowgli; "and look to it that all the Jungle knows
these two are safe. Give tongue a little. I would call
Bagheera."

The long, low howl rose and fell, and Mowgli saw Messua's
husband flinch and turn, half minded to run back to the hut.

"Go on," Mowgli called cheerfully. "I said there might be
singing. That call will follow up to Khanhiwara. It is Favour
of the Jungle."

Messua urged her husband forward, and the darkness shut down on
them and Mother Wolf as Bagheera rose up almost under Mowgli's
feet, trembling with delight of the night that drives the Jungle
People wild.

"I am ashamed of thy brethren," he said, purring. "What? Did
they not sing sweetly to Buldeo?" said Mowgli.

"Too well! Too well! They made even ME forget my pride, and,
by the Broken Lock that freed me, I went singing through the
Jungle as though I were out wooing in the spring! Didst thou
not hear us?"

"I had other game afoot. Ask Buldeo if he liked the song. But
where are the Four? I do not wish one of the Man-Pack to leave
the gates to-night."

"What need of the Four, then?" said Bagheera, shifting from foot
to foot, his eyes ablaze, and purring louder than ever. "I can
hold them, Little Brother. Is it killing at last? The singing
and the sight of the men climbing up the trees have made me very
ready. Who is Man that we should care for him--the naked brown
digger, the hairless and toothless, the eater of earth? I have
followed him all day--at noon--in the white sunlight. I herded
him as the wolves herd buck. I am Bagheera! Bagheera! Bagheera!
As I dance with my shadow, so danced I with those men. Look!"
The great panther leaped as a kitten leaps at a dead leaf
whirling overhead, struck left and right into the empty air,
that sang under the strokes, landed noiselessly, and leaped
again and again, while the half purr, half growl gathered head
as steam rumbles in a boiler. "I am Bagheera--in the jungle--
in the night, and my strength is in me. Who shall stay my
stroke? Man-cub, with one blow of my paw I could beat thy head
flat as a dead frog in the summer!"

"Strike, then!" said Mowgli, in the dialect of the village, NOT
the talk of the Jungle, and the human words brought Bagheera to
a full stop, flung back on haunches that quivered under him, his
head just at the level of Mowgli's. Once more Mowgli stared, as
he had stared at the rebellious cubs, full into the beryl-green
eyes till the red glare behind their green went out like the
light of a lighthouse shut off twenty miles across the sea;
till the eyes dropped, and the big head with them--dropped
lower and lower, and the red rasp of a tongue grated on
Mowgli's instep.

"Brother--Brother--Brother!" the boy whispered, stroking
steadily and lightly from the neck along the heaving back.
"Be still, be still! It is the fault of the night, and no
fault of thine."

"It was the smells of the night," said Bagheera penitently.
"This air cries aloud to me. But how dost THOU know?"

Of course the air round an Indian village is full of all kinds
of smells, and to any creature who does nearly all his thinking
through his nose, smells are as maddening as music and drugs are
to human beings. Mowgli gentled the panther for a few minutes
longer, and he lay down like a cat before a fire, his paws
tucked under his breast, and his eyes half shut.

"Thou art of the Jungle and NOT of the Jungle," he said at
last. "And I am only a black panther. But I love thee,
Little Brother."

"They are very long at their talk under the tree," Mowgli said,
without noticing the last sentence. "Buldeo must have told many
tales. They should come soon to drag the woman and her man out
of the trap and put them into the Red Flower. They will find
that trap sprung. Ho! ho!"

"Nay, listen," said Bagheera. "The fever is out of my blood now.
Let them find ME there! Few would leave their houses after
meeting me. It is not the first time I have been in a cage;
and I do not think they will tie ME with cords."

"Be wise, then," said Mowgli, laughing; for he was beginning to
feel as reckless as the panther, who had glided into the hut.

"Pah!" Bagheera grunted. "This place is rank with Man, but here
is just such a bed as they gave me to lie upon in the King's
cages at Oodeypore. Now I lie down." Mowgli heard the strings of
the cot crack under the great brute's weight. "By the Broken
Lock that freed me, they will think they have caught big game!
Come and sit beside me, Little Brother; we will give them 'good
hunting' together!"

"No; I have another thought in my stomach. The Man-Pack shall
not know what share I have in the sport. Make thine own hunt.
I do not wish to see them."

"Be it so," said Bagheera. "Ah, now they come!"

The conference under the peepul-tree had been growing noisier
and noisier, at the far end of the village. It broke in wild
yells, and a rush up the street of men and women, waving clubs
and bamboos and sickles and knives. Buldeo and the Brahmin were
at the head of it, but the mob was close at their heels, and
they cried, "The witch and the wizard! Let us see if hot coins
will make them confess! Burn the hut over their heads! We will
teach them to shelter wolf-devils! Nay, beat them first!
Torches! More torches! Buldeo, heat the gun-barrels!"

Here was some little difficulty with the catch of the door.
It had been very firmly fastened, but the crowd tore it away
bodily, and the light of the torches streamed into the room
where, stretched at full length on the bed, his paws crossed and
lightly hung down over one end, black as the Pit, and terrible
as a demon, was Bagheera. There was one half-minute of desperate
silence, as the front ranks of the crowd clawed and tore their
way back from the threshold, and in that minute Bagheera raised
his head and yawned--elaborately, carefully, and ostentatiously
--as he would yawn when he wished to insult an equal. The
fringed lips drew back and up; the red tongue curled; the lower
jaw dropped and dropped till you could see half-way down the hot
gullet; and the gigantic dog-teeth stood clear to the pit of the
gums till they rang together, upper and under, with the snick of
steel-faced wards shooting home round the edges of a safe.
Next instant the street was empty; Bagheera had leaped back
through the window, and stood at Mowgli's side, while a yelling,
screaming torrent scrambled and tumbled one over another in their
panic haste to get to their own huts.

"They will not stir till day comes," said Bagheera quietly.
"And now?"

The silence of the afternoon sleep seemed to have overtaken the
village; but, as they listened, they could hear the sound of
heavy grain-boxes being dragged over earthen floors and set down
against doors. Bagheera was quite right; the village would not
stir till daylight. Mowgli sat still, and thought, and his face
grew darker and darker.

"What have I done?" said Bagheera, at last coming to his
feet, fawning.

"Nothing but great good. Watch them now till the day. I sleep."
Mowgli ran off into the Jungle, and dropped like a dead man
across a rock, and slept and slept the day round, and the night
back again.

When he waked, Bagheera was at his side, and there was a newly-
killed buck at his feet. Bagheera watched curiously while Mowgli
went to work with his skinning-knife, ate and drank, and turned
over with his chin in his hands.

"The man and the woman are come safe within eye-shot of
Khanhiwara," Bagheera said. "Thy lair mother sent the word back
by Chil, the Kite. They found a horse before midnight of the
night they were freed, and went very quickly. Is not that well?"

"That is well," said Mowgli.

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