Kabanata Kabanata 2 · Kaa’s Hunting

Kaa’s Hunting

His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the Buffalo’s pride.

Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide.

If ye find that the Bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed Sambhur can gore;

Ye need not stop work to inform us: we knew it ten seasons before.

Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,

For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.

“There is none like to me!” says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;

But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.

_Maxims of Baloo_

All that is told here happened some time before Mowgli was turned out of

the Seeonee Wolf Pack, or revenged himself on Shere Khan the tiger. 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 marks of our brothers except Tabaqui the

Jackal and the Hyaena whom we hate.” But Mowgli, as a man-cub, 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 above ground; what to say to Mang the

Bat when he disturbed him in the branches at midday; and how to warn the

water-snakes in the pools before he splashed down among them. None of

the Jungle People like being disturbed, and all are very ready to fly at

an intruder. Then, too, Mowgli was taught the 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 hungry.” And the answer is, “Hunt

then for food, but not for pleasure.”

All this will show you how much Mowgli had to learn by heart, and he

grew very tired of saying the same thing over a hundred times. But, as

Baloo said to Bagheera, one day when Mowgli had been cuffed and run off

in a temper, “A man’s cub is a man’s cub, and he must learn all the Law

of the Jungle.”

“But think how small he is,” said the Black Panther, who would have

spoiled Mowgli if he had had his own way. “How can his little head carry

all thy long talk?”

“Is there anything in the jungle too little to be killed? No. That is

why I teach him these things, and that is why I hit him, very softly,

when he forgets.”

“Softly! What dost thou know of softness, old Iron-feet?” Bagheera

grunted. “His face is all bruised today by thy--softness. Ugh.”

“Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me who love him than

that he should come to harm through ignorance,” 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 little beating?”

“Well, look to it then that thou dost not kill the man-cub. He is no

tree trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon. But what are those Master

Words? I am more likely to give help than to ask it”--Bagheera stretched

out one paw and admired the steel-blue, ripping-chisel talons at the end

of it--“still I should like to know.”

“I will call Mowgli and he shall say them--if he will. Come, Little

Brother!”

“My head is ringing like a bee tree,” said a sullen little voice over

their heads, and Mowgli slid down a tree trunk very angry and indignant,

adding as he reached the ground: “I come for Bagheera and not for thee,

fat old Baloo!”

“That is all one to me,” said Baloo, though he was hurt and grieved.

“Tell Bagheera, then, the Master Words of the Jungle that I have taught

thee this day.”

“Master Words for which people?” said Mowgli, delighted to show off.

“The jungle has many tongues. I know them all.”

“A little thou knowest, but not much. See, O Bagheera, they never thank

their teacher. Not one small wolfling has ever come back to thank

old Baloo for his teachings. Say the word for the Hunting-People,

then--great scholar.”

“We be of one blood, ye and I,” said Mowgli, giving the words the Bear

accent which all the Hunting People use.

“Good. Now for the birds.”

Mowgli repeated, with the Kite’s whistle at the end of the sentence.

“Now for the Snake-People,” said Bagheera.

The answer was a perfectly indescribable hiss, and Mowgli kicked up his

feet behind, clapped his hands together to applaud himself, and jumped

on to Bagheera’s back, where he sat sideways, drumming with his heels on

the glossy skin and making the worst faces he could think of at Baloo.

“There--there! That was worth a little bruise,” said the brown bear

tenderly. “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 water-snake, because

Baloo could not pronounce it, and how Mowgli was now reasonably safe

against all accidents in the jungle, because neither snake, bird, nor

beast would hurt him.

“No one then is to be feared,” Baloo wound up, patting his big furry

stomach with pride.

“Except his own tribe,” said Bagheera, under his breath; and then aloud

to Mowgli, “Have a care for my ribs, Little Brother! What is all this

dancing up and down?”

Mowgli had been trying to make himself heard by pulling at Bagheera’s

shoulder fur and kicking hard. When the two listened to him he was

shouting at the top of his voice, “And so I shall have a tribe of my

own, and lead them through the branches all day long.”

“What is this new folly, little dreamer of dreams?” said Bagheera.

“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-paws he could see the Bear was angry.

“Mowgli,” said Baloo, “thou hast been talking with the Bandar-log--the

Monkey People.”

Mowgli looked at Bagheera to see if the Panther was angry too, and

Bagheera’s eyes were as hard as jade stones.

“Thou hast been with the Monkey People--the gray apes--the people

without a law--the eaters of everything. That is great shame.”

“When Baloo hurt my head,” said Mowgli (he was still on his back), “I

went away, and the gray apes came down from the trees and had pity on

me. No one else cared.” He snuffled a little.

“The pity of the Monkey People!” Baloo snorted. “The stillness of the

mountain stream! The cool of the summer sun! And then, man-cub?”

“And then, 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 blood brother except that I had no tail, and should be their

leader some day.”

“They have no leader,” said Bagheera. “They lie. They have always lied.”

“They were very kind and bade me come again. Why have I never been taken

among the Monkey People? They stand on their feet as I do. They do

not hit me with their hard paws. They play all day. Let me get up! Bad

Baloo, let me up! I will play with them again.”

“Listen, man-cub,” said the Bear, and his voice rumbled like thunder on

a hot night. “I have taught thee all the Law of the Jungle for all the

peoples of the jungle--except the Monkey-Folk who live in the trees.

They have no law. They are outcasts. 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

heard me speak of the Bandar-log till today?”

“No,” said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still now Baloo

had finished.

“The Jungle-People put them out of their mouths and out of their 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

notice them even when they throw nuts and filth on our heads.”

He had hardly spoken when a shower of nuts and twigs spattered down

through the branches; and they could hear 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 tree-tops, and as beasts very seldom look

up, there was no occasion for the monkeys and the Jungle-People to cross

each other’s path. But whenever they found a sick wolf, or a wounded

tiger, or bear, the monkeys would torment him, and would throw sticks

and nuts at any beast for fun and in the hope of being noticed. Then

they would howl and shriek senseless songs, and invite the Jungle-People

to climb up their trees and fight them, or would start furious battles

over nothing among themselves, and leave the dead monkeys where the

Jungle-People could see them. They were always just going to have a

leader, and laws and customs of their own, but they never did, because

their memories would not hold over from day to day, and so they

compromised things by making up a saying, “What the Bandar-log think now

the jungle will think later,” and that comforted them a great deal. None

of the beasts could reach them, but on the other hand none of the beasts

would notice them, and that was why they were so pleased when Mowgli

came to play with them, and they heard how angry Baloo was.

They never meant to do any more--the Bandar-log never 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 huts of fallen branches without

thinking how he came to do it. The Monkey-People, watching in the trees,

considered his play most wonderful. This time, they said, they were

really going to have a leader and become the wisest people in the

jungle--so wise that everyone else would notice and envy them. Therefore

they followed Baloo and Bagheera and Mowgli through the jungle very

quietly till it was time for the midday nap, and Mowgli, who was

very much ashamed of himself, slept between the Panther and the Bear,

resolving to have no more to do with the Monkey People.

The next thing he remembered was feeling hands on his legs and

arms--hard, strong, little hands--and then a swash of branches in his

face, and then he was staring down through the swaying boughs as Baloo

woke the jungle with his deep cries and Bagheera bounded up the trunk

with every tooth bared. The Bandar-log howled with triumph and scuffled

away to the upper branches where Bagheera dared not follow, shouting:

“He has noticed us! Bagheera has noticed us. All the Jungle-People

admire us for our skill and our cunning.” Then they began their flight;

and the flight of the Monkey-People through tree-land is one of

the things nobody can describe. They have their regular roads and

crossroads, up hills and down hills, all laid out from fifty to seventy

or a hundred feet above ground, and by these they can travel even at

night if necessary. Two of the strongest monkeys caught Mowgli under

the arms and swung off with him through the treetops, twenty feet at a

bound. Had they been alone they could have gone twice as fast, but the

boy’s weight held them back. Sick and giddy as Mowgli was he could not

help enjoying the wild rush, though the glimpses of earth far down below

frightened him, and the terrible check and jerk at the end of the swing

over nothing but empty air brought his heart between his teeth. His

escort would rush him up a tree till he felt the thinnest topmost

branches crackle and bend under them, and then with a cough and a whoop

would fling themselves into the air 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 across 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 earth again. So, bounding and

crashing and whooping and yelling, the whole tribe of Bandar-log swept

along the tree-roads with Mowgli their prisoner.

For a time he was afraid of being dropped. Then he grew angry but knew

better than to struggle, and then he began to think. The first thing was

to send back word to 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 only see the topsides 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 saw that the monkeys were carrying something, and dropped a

few hundred yards to find out whether their load was good to eat. He

whistled with surprise when he saw Mowgli being dragged up to a treetop

and heard him give the Kite call for--“We be of one blood, thou and I.”

The waves of the branches closed over the boy, but Rann balanced away to

the next tree in time to see the little brown face come up again. “Mark

my trail!” Mowgli shouted. “Tell Baloo of the Seeonee Pack and Bagheera

of the Council Rock.”

“In whose name, Brother?” Rann had never seen Mowgli before, though of

course he had heard of him.

“Mowgli, the Frog. Man-cub they call me! Mark my trail!”

The last words were shrieked as he was being swung through the air, but

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

treetops as Mowgli’s escort whirled along.

“They never go far,” he said with a chuckle. “They never do what they

set out to do. Always pecking at new things are the Bandar-log. This

time, if I have any eye-sight, they have pecked down trouble for

themselves, for Baloo is no fledgling and Bagheera can, as I know, kill

more than goats.”

So he rocked on his wings, his feet gathered up under him, and waited.

Meantime, Baloo and Bagheera were furious with rage and grief. Bagheera

climbed as he had never climbed before, but the thin branches broke

beneath his weight, and he slipped down, his claws full of bark.

“Why didst thou not warn the man-cub?” he roared to poor 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 him?”

“Haste! O haste! We--we may catch them yet!” Baloo panted.

“At that speed! It would not tire a wounded cow. Teacher of the

Law--cub-beater--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 him if we follow too close.”

“Arrula! Whoo! They may have dropped him already, being tired of

carrying him. Who can trust the Bandar-log? Put dead bats on my head!

Give me black bones to eat! Roll me into the hives of the wild bees

that I may be stung to death, and bury me with the Hyaena, for I am 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 without the Master Words.”

Baloo clasped his paws over his ears and rolled to and fro moaning.

“At least he gave me all the Words correctly a little time ago,” said

Bagheera impatiently. “Baloo, thou hast neither memory nor respect. What

would the jungle think if I, the Black Panther, curled myself up like

Ikki the Porcupine, and howled?”

“What do I care what the jungle thinks? He may be dead by now.”

“Unless and until they drop him from the branches in sport, or kill him

out of idleness, I have no fear for the man-cub. He is wise and well

taught, and above all he has the eyes that make the Jungle-People

afraid. But (and it is a great evil) he is in the power of the

Bandar-log, and they, because they live in trees, have no fear of any of

our people.” Bagheera licked one forepaw thoughtfully.

“Fool that I am! Oh, fat, brown, root-digging 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 Bandar-log, fear

Kaa the Rock Snake. He can climb as well as they can. He steals the

young monkeys in the night. The whisper of his name makes their wicked

tails cold. Let us go to Kaa.”

“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 many goats.”

“He sleeps for a full month after he has once eaten. He may be asleep

now, and even were he awake what if he would rather kill his own goats?”

Bagheera, who did not know much about Kaa, was naturally suspicious.

“Then in that case, thou and I together, old hunter, might 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 blunt-nosed head along the ground, and twisting the thirty feet

of his body into fantastic knots and curves, and licking his lips as he

thought of his dinner to come.

“He has not eaten,” said 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 to strike.”

Kaa was not a poison snake--in fact he rather despised the poison snakes

as cowards--but his strength lay in his hug, and when he had once

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

as a dried well.”

“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. Psshaw! The branches are not what they were when I was young.

Rotten twigs and dry boughs are they all.”

“Maybe thy great weight has something to do with the matter,” said

Baloo.

“I am a fair length--a fair length,” said Kaa with a little pride. “But

for all that, it is the fault of this new-grown timber. I came very

near to falling on my last hunt--very near indeed--and the noise of my

slipping, for my tail was not tight wrapped around the tree, waked the

Bandar-log, and they called me most evil names.”

“Footless, yellow earth-worm,” said Bagheera under his whiskers, as

though he were trying to remember something.

“Sssss! Have they ever called me that?” said Kaa.

“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 wilt not face anything bigger than a kid, because (they

are indeed shameless, these Bandar-log)--because thou art afraid of the

he-goat’s horns,” Bagheera went on sweetly.

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 Bandar-log have shifted their grounds,” he said quietly. “When I

came up into the sun today I heard them whooping among the tree-tops.”

“It--it is the Bandar-log that we follow now,” said Baloo, but the words

stuck in his throat, for that was the first time in his memory that one

of the Jungle-People had owned to being interested in the doings of the

monkeys.

“Beyond doubt then it is no small thing that takes two such

hunters--leaders in their own jungle I am certain--on the trail of the

Bandar-log,” 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 Seeonee wolf-cubs, and Bagheera

here--”

“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

nut-stealers and pickers of palm leaves have stolen away our man-cub of

whom thou hast perhaps heard.”

“I heard some news from Ikki (his quills make him presumptuous) of a

man-thing that was entered into a wolf pack, but I did not believe. Ikki

is full of stories half heard and very badly told.”

“But it is true. He is such a man-cub as never was,” said Baloo. “The

best and wisest and boldest of man-cubs--my own pupil, who shall

make the name of Baloo famous through all the jungles; and besides,

I--we--love him, Kaa.”

“Ts! Ts!” said Kaa, weaving his head to and fro. “I also have known what

love is. There are tales I could tell that--”

“That need a clear night when we are all well fed to praise properly,”

said Bagheera quickly. “Our man-cub is in the hands of the Bandar-log

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

man-thing 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 they snap it in two. That man-thing

is not to be envied. They called me also--`yellow fish’ was it not?”

“Worm--worm--earth-worm,” said Bagheera, “as well as other things which

I cannot now say for shame.”

“We must remind them to speak well of their master. Aaa-ssp! We must

help their wandering memories. Now, whither went they with the cub?”

“The jungle alone knows. Toward the sunset, I believe,” said Baloo. “We

had thought that thou wouldst know, Kaa.”

“I? How? I take them when they come in my way, but I do not hunt the

Bandar-log, or frogs--or green scum on a water-hole, for that matter.”

“Up, Up! Up, Up! Hillo! Illo! Illo, look up, Baloo of the Seeonee Wolf

Pack!”

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 jungle

looking for the Bear and had missed him in the thick foliage.

“What is it?” said Baloo.

“I have seen Mowgli among the Bandar-log. He bade me tell you. I

watched. The Bandar-log 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 below!”

“Full gorge and a deep sleep to you, Rann,” cried Bagheera. “I will

remember thee in my next kill, and put aside the head for thee alone, O

best of kites!”

“It is nothing. It is nothing. The boy held the Master Word. I could

have done no less,” and Rann circled up again to his roost.

“He has not forgotten to use his tongue,” said Baloo with a chuckle of

pride. “To think of one so young remembering the Master Word for the

birds too while he was being pulled across trees!”

“It was most firmly driven into him,” said Bagheera. “But I am proud of

him, and now we must go to the Cold Lairs.”

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 hunting tribes do not.

Besides, the monkeys lived there as much as they could be said to live

anywhere, and no self-respecting animal would come within eyeshot of it

except in times of drought, when the half-ruined tanks and reservoirs

held a little water.

[Illustration: The “Cold Lairs”]

“It is half a night’s journey--at full speed,” said Bagheera, and Baloo

looked very serious. “I will go as fast as I can,” he said anxiously.

“We dare not wait for thee. Follow, Baloo. We must go on the

quick-foot--Kaa and I.”

“Feet or no feet, I can keep abreast of all thy four,” said Kaa shortly.

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 quick

panther-canter. Kaa said nothing, but, strive as Bagheera might, the

huge Rock-python held level with him. When they came to a hill stream,

Bagheera gained, because he bounded across while Kaa swam, his head and

two feet of his neck clearing the water, but on level ground Kaa made up

the distance.

“By the Broken Lock that freed me,” said Bagheera, when twilight had

fallen, “thou art no slow goer!”

“I am hungry,” said Kaa. “Besides, they called me speckled frog.”

“Worm--earth-worm, and yellow to boot.”

“All one. Let us go on,” and Kaa seemed to pour himself along the

ground, finding the shortest road with his steady eyes, and keeping to

it.

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 much pleased with themselves for the time. Mowgli had never seen an

Indian city before, and though this was almost a heap of ruins it seemed

very wonderful and splendid. Some king had built it long ago on a little

hill. You could still trace the stone causeways that led up to the

ruined gates where the last splinters of wood hung to the worn, rusted

hinges. Trees had grown into and out of the walls; the battlements were

tumbled down and decayed, and wild creepers hung out of the windows of

the towers on the walls in bushy hanging clumps.

A great roofless palace crowned the hill, and the marble of the

courtyards and the fountains was split, and stained with red and green,

and the very cobblestones in the courtyard where the king’s elephants

used to live had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees.

From the palace you could see the rows and rows of roofless houses that

made up the city looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness;

the shapeless block of stone that had been an idol in the square where

four roads met; the pits and dimples at street corners where the public

wells once stood, and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs

sprouting on their sides. The monkeys called the place their city, and

pretended to despise the Jungle-People because they lived in the forest.

And yet they never knew what the buildings were made for nor how to

use them. They would sit in circles on the hall of the king’s council

chamber, and scratch for fleas and pretend to be men; or they would run

in and out of the roofless houses and collect pieces of plaster and old

bricks in a corner, and forget where they had hidden them, and fight

and cry in scuffling crowds, and then break off to play up and down the

terraces of the king’s garden, where they would shake the rose trees and

the oranges in sport to see the fruit and flowers fall. They explored

all the passages and dark tunnels in the palace and the hundreds of

little dark rooms, but they never remembered what they had seen and what

they had not; and so drifted about in ones and twos or crowds telling

each other that they were doing as men did. They drank at the tanks and

made the water all muddy, and then they fought over it, and then they

would all rush together in mobs and shout: “There is no one in the

jungle so wise and good and clever and strong and gentle as the

Bandar-log.” Then all would begin again till they grew tired of the city

and went back to the tree-tops, hoping the Jungle-People would notice

them.

Mowgli, who had been trained under the Law of the Jungle, did not like

or understand this kind of life. The monkeys dragged him into the Cold

Lairs late in the afternoon, and instead of going to sleep, as Mowgli

would have done after a long journey, they joined hands and danced about

and sang their foolish songs. One of the monkeys made a speech and told

his companions that Mowgli’s capture marked a new thing in the history

of the Bandar-log, for Mowgli was going to show them how to weave sticks

and canes together as a protection against rain and cold. Mowgli picked

up some creepers and began to work them in and out, and the monkeys

tried to imitate; but in a very few minutes they lost interest and began

to pull their friends’ tails or jump up and down on all fours, coughing.

“I wish to eat,” said Mowgli. “I am a stranger in this part of the

jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt here.”

Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild

pawpaws. But they 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 Bandar-log is true,” he thought to himself. “They

have no Law, no Hunting Call, and no leaders--nothing but foolish words

and little picking thievish hands. So if I am starved or killed here,

it will be all my own fault. But I must try to return to my own jungle.

Baloo will surely beat me, but that is better than chasing silly rose

leaves with the Bandar-log.”

No sooner had he walked to the city wall than the monkeys pulled him

back, telling him that he did not know how happy he was, and pinching

him to make him grateful. He set his teeth and said nothing, but went

with the shouting monkeys to a terrace above the red sandstone

reservoirs that were half-full of rain water. There was a ruined

summer-house of white marble in the 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 milk-white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians

and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up behind the hill it

shone through the open work, casting shadows on the ground like black

velvet embroidery. Sore, sleepy, and hungry as he was, Mowgli could not

help laughing when the Bandar-log began, twenty at a time, to tell him

how great and wise and strong and gentle they were, and how foolish he

was to wish to leave them. “We are great. We are free. We are

wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all

say so, and so it must be true,” they shouted. “Now as you are a new

listener and can carry our words back to the Jungle-People so that they

may notice us in 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 Bandar-log, and whenever a speaker stopped for want of

breath they would all shout together: “This is true; we all say so.”

Mowgli nodded and blinked, and said “Yes” when they asked him a

question, and his head spun with the noise. “Tabaqui the Jackal must

have bitten all these people,” he said to himself, “and now they have

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

tired.”

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 favor. They will not throw themselves upon

my back in their hundreds, but--”

“I know it,” said Bagheera. “Would that Baloo were here, but we must do

what we can. When that cloud covers the moon I shall go 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

awhile 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 man-trained boy would have been badly bruised, for the fall was a

good fifteen feet, but Mowgli fell as Baloo had taught him to fall, and

landed on his feet.

“Stay there,” shouted the monkeys, “till we have killed thy friends, and

later we will play with thee--if the Poison-People leave thee alive.”

“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.

“Even ssso! Down hoods all!” said half a dozen low voices (every ruin

in India becomes sooner or later a dwelling place of snakes, and the old

summerhouse was alive with cobras). “Stand still, Little Brother, for

thy feet may do us harm.”

Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the open work and

listening to the furious din of the fight round the Black Panther--the

yells and chatterings and scufflings, and Bagheera’s deep, hoarse cough

as he backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under the heaps of his

enemies. For the first time since he was born, Bagheera was fighting for

his life.

“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

water tanks. Roll and plunge! Get to the water!”

Bagheera heard, and the cry that told him Mowgli was safe gave him new

courage. He worked his way desperately, inch by inch, straight for the

reservoirs, halting in silence. Then from the ruined wall nearest the

jungle rose up the rumbling war-shout of 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 stones slip under my feet! Wait my

coming, O most infamous Bandar-log!” He panted up the terrace only

to disappear to the head in a wave of monkeys, but he threw himself

squarely on his haunches, and, spreading out his forepaws, hugged as

many as he could hold, and then began to hit with a regular bat-bat-bat,

like the flipping strokes of a paddle wheel. A crash and a splash told

Mowgli that Bagheera had fought his way to the tank where the monkeys

could not follow. The Panther lay gasping for breath, his head just

out of the water, while the monkeys stood three deep on the red steps,

dancing up and down with rage, ready to spring upon him from all sides

if he came out to help 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 heard the Black

Panther asking for help.

Kaa had only just worked his way over the west wall, landing with a

wrench that dislodged a coping stone into the ditch. He had no intention

of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled and uncoiled himself

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

working order. All that while the fight with 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 tree-roads to help their

comrades in the Cold Lairs, and the noise of the fight roused all the

day birds for miles round. 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 battering ram, or a hammer weighing nearly half

a ton driven by a cool, quiet mind living in the handle of it, you can

roughly imagine 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. It was sent home with shut

mouth in silence, and there was no need of a second. The monkeys

scattered with cries of--“Kaa! It is Kaa! Run! Run!”

Generations of monkeys had been scared into good behavior by the stories

their elders told them of Kaa, the night thief, who could slip along the

branches as quietly as moss grows, and steal away the strongest monkey

that ever lived; of old Kaa, who could make himself look so like a dead

branch or a rotten stump that the wisest were deceived, till the branch

caught them. Kaa was everything that the monkeys feared in the jungle,

for none of them knew the limits of his power, none of them could look

him in the face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug. And so

they ran, stammering with terror, to the walls and the roofs of the

houses, and 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 far-away monkeys, hurrying to the defense of the Cold Lairs, stayed

where they were, cowering, till the loaded branches bent and crackled

under them. The monkeys on the walls and the empty houses stopped

their cries, and in the stillness that fell upon the city Mowgli heard

Bagheera shaking his wet sides as he came up from the tank. Then the

clamor broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls. They

clung around 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 owl-fashion between his front

teeth, to show his derision and contempt.

“Get the man-cub out of that trap; I can do no more,” Bagheera gasped.

“Let us take the man-cub and go. They may attack again.”

“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 did not pull 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.”

“No matter. Where is the manling?”

“Here, in a trap. I cannot climb out,” cried Mowgli. The curve of the

broken dome was above his head.

“Take him away. He dances like 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 you, O Poison People. I break

down the wall.”

Kaa looked carefully till he found a discolored crack in the marble

tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head

to get the distance, and then lifting up six feet of his body clear

of the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power smashing blows,

nose-first. The screen-work broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and

rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through the opening and flung himself between

Baloo and Bagheera--an arm around each big neck.

“Art thou hurt?” said Baloo, hugging him softly.

“I am sore, hungry, and not a little bruised. But, oh, they have handled

ye grievously, my Brothers! Ye bleed.”

“Others also,” said Bagheera, licking his lips and looking at the

monkey-dead on the terrace and round the tank.

“It is nothing, it is nothing, if thou art safe, oh, my pride of all

little frogs!” whimpered 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.”

Mowgli turned and saw the great Python’s head swaying a foot above his

own.

“So this is the manling,” said Kaa. “Very soft is his skin, and he is

not unlike the Bandar-log. Have a care, manling, that I do not mistake

thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my coat.”

“We be one blood, thou and I,” Mowgli answered. “I take my life from

thee tonight. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O Kaa.”

“All thanks, Little Brother,” said Kaa, though his eyes twinkled. “And

what may so bold a hunter kill? I ask that I may follow when next he

goes abroad.”

“I kill nothing,--I am too little,--but I drive goats 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 masters.”

“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 moon sets, and what follows it

is not well that thou shouldst see.”

The moon was sinking behind the hills and the lines of trembling monkeys

huddled together on the walls and battlements looked like ragged shaky

fringes of things. Baloo went down to the tank for a drink and Bagheera

began to put his fur in order, as Kaa glided out into the center of the

terrace and brought his jaws together with a ringing snap that drew all

the monkeys’ eyes upon him.

“The moon sets,” he said. “Is there yet light enough to see?”

From the walls came a moan like the wind in the tree-tops--“We see, O

Kaa.”

“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 five-sided

figures, and coiled mounds, never resting, never hurrying, and never

stopping his low humming song. It grew darker and darker, till at last

the dragging, shifting coils disappeared, but they could hear the rustle

of the scales.

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

their neck hair bristling, and Mowgli watched and wondered.

“Bandar-log,” said the voice of Kaa at last, “can ye stir foot or hand

without my order? Speak!”

“Without thy order we cannot stir foot or hand, O Kaa!”

“Good! Come all one pace nearer to me.”

The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and

Bagheera took one stiff step forward with them.

“Nearer!” hissed Kaa, and they all moved again.

Mowgli laid his hands on Baloo and Bagheera to get them away, and the

two great beasts started as though they had been waked from a dream.

“Keep thy hand on my shoulder,” Bagheera whispered. “Keep it there, or I

must go back--must go back to Kaa. Aah!”

“It is only old Kaa making circles on the dust,” said Mowgli. “Let us

go.” And the three slipped off through a gap in the walls to the jungle.

“Whoof!” said Baloo, when he stood under the still trees again. “Never

more will I make an ally of Kaa,” and he shook himself all over.

“He knows more than we,” said Bagheera, trembling. “In a little time,

had I stayed, I should have walked down his throat.”

“Many will walk by that road before the moon rises again,” said Baloo.

“He will have good hunting--after his own fashion.”

“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

sore. Ho! Ho!”

“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

pleasure for many days.”

“It is nothing,” said Baloo; “we have the man-cub again.”

“True, but he has cost us heavily in time which might have been spent in

good hunting, in wounds, in hair--I am half plucked along my back--and

last of all, in honor. 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 Hunger Dance. All this,

man-cub, came of thy playing with the Bandar-log.”

“True, it is true,” said Mowgli sorrowfully. “I am an evil man-cub, and

my stomach is sad in me.”

“Mf! What says the Law of the Jungle, Baloo?”

Baloo did not wish to bring Mowgli into any more trouble, but he could

not tamper with the Law, so he mumbled: “Sorrow never stays punishment.

But remember, Bagheera, he is very little.”

“I will remember. But he has done mischief, and blows must be dealt now.

Mowgli, hast thou anything to say?”

“Nothing. I did wrong. Baloo and thou are wounded. It is just.”

Bagheera gave him half a dozen love-taps from a panther’s point of

view (they would hardly have waked one of his own cubs), but for a

seven-year-old boy they amounted to as severe a beating as you could

wish to avoid. When it was all over Mowgli sneezed, and picked himself

up without a word.

“Now,” said 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 down in the home-cave.

Road-Song of the Bandar-Log

Here we go in a flung festoon,

Half-way up to the jealous moon!

Don’t you envy our pranceful bands?

Don’t you wish you had extra hands?

Wouldn’t you like if your tails were--so--

Curved in the shape of a Cupid’s bow?

Now you’re angry, but--never mind,

_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!_

Here we sit in a branchy row,

Thinking of beautiful things we know;

Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,

All complete, in a minute or two--

Something noble and wise and good,

Done by merely wishing we could.

We’ve forgotten, but--never mind,

_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!_

All the talk we ever have heard

Uttered by bat or beast or bird--

Hide or fin or scale or feather--

Jabber it quickly and all together!

Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!

Now we are talking just like men!

Let’s pretend we are ... never mind,

_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!_

This is the way of the Monkey-kind.

_Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines,

That rocket by where, light and high, the wild grape swings.

By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make,

Be sure, be sure, we’re going to do some splendid things!_