MOWGLI’S BROTHERS
Now Rann, the Kite, brings home
the night That Mang, the Bat, sets free—
The herds are shut in byre and
hut, For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and
power, Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call!—Good hunting
all That keep the Jungle Law!
Night–Song in the Jungle.
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 noble children, that they may never forget
the hungry in this world.”
“‘GOOD LUCK GO WITH YOU, O CHIEF
OF THE WOLVES.’”
It was the jackal—Tabaqui, the
Dish–licker—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 rubbish–heaps. 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 Gidur–log [the Jackal People], to pick and choose?” He
scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found the bone of a buck
with some meat on it, and sat cracking the end merrily.
“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 from the
beginning.”
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 hunting–grounds. He will hunt among these hills during
the next moon, so he has told me.”
Shere Khan was the tiger who
lived near the Waingunga River, twenty miles away.
“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 for
two, these days.”
“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 Shere Khan!”
“Shall I tell him of your
gratitude?” said Tabaqui.
“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 message.”
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 his fat Waingunga bullocks?”
“H’sh! It is neither bullock nor
buck that he hunts to–night,” 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
wood–cutters, and gipsies sleeping in the open, and makes them run
sometimes into the very mouth of the tiger.
“Man!” said Father Wolf, showing
all his white teeth. “Faugh! Are there not enough beetles and frogs
in the tanks that he must eat Man—and on our ground too!”
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 hunting–grounds of his pack or tribe.
The real reason for this is that man– killing 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 man–eaters become mangy, and lose their
teeth.
The purr grew louder, and ended
in the full–throated “Aaarh!” of the tiger’s charge.
Then there was a howl—an
untigerish howl—from Shere Khan. “He has missed,” said Mother Wolf.
“What is it?”
Father Wolf ran out a few paces
and heard Shere Khan muttering and mumbling savagely, as he tumbled
about in the scrub.
“The fool has had no more sense
than to jump at a wood–cutters’ camp–fire, so he has burned his
feet,” said Father Wolf, with a grunt. “Tabaqui is with him.”
“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 mid–spring. 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 where he left ground.
“Man!” he snapped. “A man’s cub.
Look!”
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 laughed.
“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 among the
cubs.
“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 honor,”
said Father Wolf, but his eyes were very angry. “What does Shere
Khan need?”
“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
wood–cutter’s camp–fire, 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 be if he tried to fight in a
barrel.
“The Wolves are a free people,”
said Father Wolf. “They take orders from the Head of the Pack, and
not from any striped cattle–killer. The man’s cub is ours—to kill
if we choose.”
“Ye choose and ye do not choose!
What talk is this of choosing? By the Bull that I killed, am I to
stand nosing into your dog’s den for my fair dues? It is I, Shere
Khan, who speak!”
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.
“THE TIGER’S ROAR FILLED THE CAVE
WITH THUNDER.”
“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—frog–eater—fish–killer, he 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 camest into the world! Go!”
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 cave– mouth
growling, and when he was clear he shouted:
“Each dog barks in his own yard!
We will see what the Pack will say to this fostering of man–cubs.
The cub is mine, and to my teeth he will come in the end, O
bush–tailed thieves!”
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
time will come when thou wilt hunt Shere Khan as he has hunted
thee!”
“But what will our Pack say?”
said Father Wolf.
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 can be found; and
if you think for a minute you will see that this must be so.
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 color, from badger–colored
veterans who could handle a buck alone, to young black
three–year–olds who thought they could. The Lone Wolf had led them
for a year now. He had fallen twice into a wolf–trap in his youth,
and once he had been beaten and left for dead; so he knew the
manners and customs of men.
THE MEETING AT THE COUNCIL
ROCK.
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— look well, O Wolves!”
At last—and Mother Wolf’s
neck–bristles 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 in the
moonlight.
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. What have the Free People to do with a man’s
cub?”
Akela never even twitched his
ears. All he said was, “Look well, O Wolves! What have the Free
People to do with the orders of any save the Free People? Look
well!”
There was a chorus of deep
growls, and a young wolf in his fourth year flung back Shere Khan’s
question to Akela: “What have the Free People to do with a man’s
cub?”
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 eats only nuts and roots
and honey—rose up on his hind quarters and grunted.
“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 myself will teach
him.”
“We need yet another,” said
Akela. “Baloo has spoken, and he is our teacher for the young cubs.
Who speaks besides Baloo?”
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 skin softer than down.
“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 for a price. It is the Law.”
“Knowing that I have no right to
speak here, I ask your leave.” “Speak then,” cried twenty
voices.
“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 clamor 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 Wolves!”
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 not been handed over to him.
“Ay, roar well,” said Bagheera,
under his whiskers; “for the time comes when this naked thing will
make thee roar to another tune, or I know nothing of Man.”
“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 up—to be
killed in his turn.
“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 wolf–pack for the price of a bull and on
Baloo’s good word.
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 showed him how to do.
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.
“BAGHEERA WOULD LIE OUT ON A
BRANCH AND CALL, ‘COME ALONG, LITTLE BROTHER.’”
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 drop–gate so
cunningly hidden in the jungle that he nearly walked into it, and
told him it was a trap.
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. That is the Law of the Jungle.” Mowgli
obeyed faithfully.
And he grew and grew strong as a
boy must grow who does not know that he is learning any lessons,
and who has nothing in the world to think of except things to
eat.
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 speak in any human
tongue.
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 young wolves would
growl and bristle.
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 be afraid?”
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 Shere Khan is thy enemy?”
“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.”