The Second Jungle Book. Rudyard Kipling
Little Brother."
"This is no time to carry weight. I can still stand alone, but – indeed we be no fatted bullocks, we too."
Bagheera looked along his ragged, dusty flank and whispered: "Last night I killed a bullock under the yoke. So low was I brought that I think I should not have dared to spring if he had been loose. Wou!"
Mowgli laughed. "Yes, we be great hunters now," said he. "I am very bold – to eat grubs," and the two came down together through the crackling undergrowth to the river-bank and the lace-work of shoals that ran out from it in every direction.
"The water cannot live long," said Baloo, joining them. "Look across. Yonder are trails like the roads of Man."
On the level plain of the further bank the stiff jungle-grass had died standing, and, dying, had mummied. The beaten tracks of the deer and the pig, all heading toward the river, had striped that colorless plain with dusty gullies driven through the ten-foot grass, and, early as it was, each long avenue was full of first-comers hastening to the water. You could hear the does and fawns coughing in the snuff-like dust.
Up-stream, at the bend of the sluggish pool round the Peace Rock, and Warden of the Water Truce, stood Hathi, the wild elephant, with his sons, gaunt and gray in the moonlight, rocking to and fro – always rocking. Below him a little were the vanguard of the deer; below these, again, the pig and the wild buffalo; and on the opposite bank, where the tall trees came down to the water's edge, was the place set apart for the Eaters of Flesh – the tiger, the wolves, the panther, and the bear, and the others.
"We are under one Law, indeed," said Bagheera, wading into the water and looking across at the lines of clicking horns and starting eyes where the deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro. "Good hunting, all you of my blood," he added, lying down at full length, one flank thrust out of the shallows; and then, between his teeth, "But for that which is the Law it would be very good hunting."
The quick-spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence, and a frightened whisper ran along the ranks. "The Truce! Remember the Truce!"
"Peace there, peace!" gurgled Hathi, the wild elephant. "The Truce holds, Bagheera. This is no time to talk of hunting."
"Who should know better than I?" Bagheera answered, rolling his yellow eyes up-stream. "I am an eater of turtles – a fisher of frogs. Ngaayah! Would I could get good from chewing branches!"
"We wish so, very greatly," bleated a young fawn, who had only been born that spring, and did not at all like it. Wretched as the Jungle People were, even Hathi could not help chuckling; while Mowgli, lying on his elbows in the warm water, laughed aloud, and beat up the scum with his feet.
"Well spoken, little bud-horn," Bagheera purred. "When the Truce ends that shall be remembered in thy favor," and he looked keenly through the darkness to make sure of recognizing the fawn again.
Gradually the talking spread up and down the drinking-places. One could hear the scuffling, snorting pig asking for more room; the buffaloes grunting among themselves as they lurched out across the sand-bars, and the deer telling pitiful stories of their long foot-sore wanderings in quest of food. Now and again they asked some question of the Eaters of Flesh across the river, but all the news was bad, and the roaring hot wind of the Jungle came and went between the rocks and the rattling branches, and scattered twigs and dust on the water.
"The men-folk, too, they die beside their plows," said a young sambhur. "I passed three between sunset and night. They lay still, and their bullocks with them. We also shall lie still in a little."
"The river has fallen since last night," said Baloo. "O Hathi, hast thou ever seen the like of this drought?"
"It will pass, it will pass," said Hathi, squirting water along his back and sides.
"We have one here that cannot endure long," said Baloo; and he looked toward the boy he loved.
"I?" said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. "I have no long fur to cover my bones, but – but if thy hide were taken off, Baloo – "
Hathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely:
"Man-cub, that is not seemly to tell a Teacher of the Law. Never have I been seen without my hide."
"Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it were, like the cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked. Now that brown husk of thine – " Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way, when Bagheera put out a paddy paw and pulled him over backward into the water.
"Worse and worse," said the Black Panther, as the boy rose spluttering. "First, Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a cocoanut. Be careful that he does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do."
"And what is that?" said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute, though that is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle.
"Break thy head," said Bagheera quietly, pulling him under again.
"It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher," said the bear, when Mowgli had been ducked for the third time.
"Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing running to and fro makes a monkey-jest of those who have once been good hunters, and pulls the best of us by the whisker for sport." This was Shere Khan, the Lame Tiger, limping down to the water. He waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the deer on the opposite bank; then he dropped his square, frilled head and began to lap, growling: "The Jungle has become a whelping-ground for naked cubs now. Look at me, Man-cub!"
Mowgli looked – stared, rather – as insolently as he knew how, and in a minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. "Man-cub this, and Man-cub that," he rumbled, going on with his drink, "the cub is neither man nor cub, or he would have been afraid. Next season I shall have to beg his leave for a drink. Aurgh!"
"That may come, too," said Bagheera, looking him steadily between the eyes. "That may come, too – Faugh, Shere Khan! – what new shame hast thou brought here?"
The Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and dark oily streaks were floating from it down-stream.
"Man!" said Shere Khan coolly, "I killed an hour since." He went on purring and growling to himself.
The line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper went up that grew to a cry: "Man! Man! He has killed Man!" Then all looked toward Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed not to hear. Hathi never does anything till the time comes, and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long.
"At such a season as this to kill Man! Was no other game afoot?" said Bagheera scornfully, drawing himself out of the tainted water, and shaking each paw, cat-fashion, as he did so.
"I killed for choice – not for food." The horrified whisper began again, and Hathi's watchful little white eye cocked itself in Shere Khan's direction. "For choice," Shere Khan drawled. "Now come I to drink and make me clean again. Is there any to forbid?"
Bagheera's back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind, but Hathi lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly.
"Thy kill was from choice?" he asked; and when Hathi asks a question it is best to answer.
"Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi." Shere Khan spoke almost courteously.
"Yes, I know," Hathi answered; and, after a little silence, "Hast thou drunk thy fill?"
"For to-night, yes."
"Go, then. The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but the Lame Tiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when – when we suffer together – Man and Jungle People alike. Clean or unclean, get to thy lair, Shere Khan!"
The last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi's three sons rolled forward half a pace, though there was no need. Shere Khan slunk away, not daring to growl, for he knew – what every one else knows – that when the last comes to the last, Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.
"What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?" Mowgli whispered in Bagheera's ear. "To kill Man is always shameful. The Law says so. And yet Hathi says – "
"Ask