The Jungle Book
every bristle on his back lifted.
“He has hidden for a month to throw thee off thy guard. He crossed the
ranges last night with Tabaqui, hot-foot on thy trail,” said the Wolf,
panting.
Mowgli frowned. “I am not afraid of Shere Khan, but Tabaqui is very
cunning.”
“Have no fear,” said Gray Brother, licking his lips a little. “I met
Tabaqui in the dawn. Now he is telling all his wisdom to the kites, but
he told me everything before I broke his back. Shere Khan’s plan is to
wait for thee at the village gate this evening--for thee and for no one
else. He is lying up now, in the big dry ravine of the Waingunga.”
“Has he eaten today, or does he hunt empty?” said Mowgli, for the answer
meant life and death to him.
“He killed at dawn,--a pig,--and he has drunk too. Remember, Shere Khan
could never fast, even for the sake of revenge.”
“Oh! Fool, fool! What a cub’s cub it is! Eaten and drunk too, and he
thinks that I shall wait till he has slept! Now, where does he lie up?
If there were but ten of us we might pull him down as he lies. These
buffaloes will not charge unless they wind him, and I cannot speak their
language. Can we get behind his track so that they may smell it?”
“He swam far down the Waingunga to cut that off,” said Gray Brother.
“Tabaqui told him that, I know. He would never have thought of it
alone.” Mowgli stood with his finger in his mouth, thinking. “The big
ravine of the Waingunga. That opens out on the plain not half a mile
from here. I can take the herd round through the jungle to the head of
the ravine and then sweep down--but he would slink out at the foot. We
must block that end. Gray Brother, canst thou cut the herd in two for
me?”
“Not I, perhaps--but I have brought a wise helper.” Gray Brother trotted
off and dropped into a hole. Then there lifted up a huge gray head that
Mowgli knew well, and the hot air was filled with the most desolate cry
of all the jungle--the hunting howl of a wolf at midday.
“Akela! Akela!” said Mowgli, clapping his hands. “I might have known
that thou wouldst not forget me. We have a big work in hand. Cut the
herd in two, Akela. Keep the cows and calves together, and the bulls and
the plow buffaloes by themselves.”
The two wolves ran, ladies’-chain fashion, in and out of the herd, which
snorted and threw up its head, and separated into two clumps. In one,
the cow-buffaloes stood with their calves in the center, and glared
and pawed, ready, if a wolf would only stay still, to charge down and
trample the life out of him. In the other, the bulls and the young bulls
snorted and stamped, but though they looked more imposing they were much
less dangerous, for they had no calves to protect. No six men could have
divided the herd so neatly.
“What orders!” panted Akela. “They are trying to join again.”
Mowgli slipped on to Rama’s back. “Drive the bulls away to the left,
Akela. Gray Brother, when we are gone, hold the cows together, and drive
them into the foot of the ravine.”
“How far?” said Gray Brother, panting and snapping.
“Till the sides are higher than Shere Khan can jump,” shouted Mowgli.
“Keep them there till we come down.” The bulls swept off as Akela bayed,
and Gray Brother stopped in front of the cows. They charged down on him,
and he ran just before them to the foot of the ravine, as Akela drove
the bulls far to the left.
“Well done! Another charge and they are fairly started. Careful,
now--careful, Akela. A snap too much and the bulls will charge. Hujah!
This is wilder work than driving black-buck. Didst thou think these
creatures could move so swiftly?” Mowgli called.
“I have--have hunted these too in my time,” gasped Akela in the dust.
“Shall I turn them into the jungle?”
“Ay! Turn. Swiftly turn them! Rama is mad with rage. Oh, if I could only
tell him what I need of him to-day.”
The bulls were turned, to the right this time, and crashed into the
standing thicket. The other herd children, watching with the cattle half
a mile away, hurried to the village as fast as their legs could carry
them, crying that the buffaloes had gone mad and run away.
But Mowgli’s plan was simple enough. All he wanted to do was to make a
big circle uphill and get at the head of the ravine, and then take the
bulls down it and catch Shere Khan between the bulls and the cows; for
he knew that after a meal and a full drink Shere Khan would not be in
any condition to fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine. He was
soothing the buffaloes now by voice, and Akela had dropped far to the
rear, only whimpering once or twice to hurry the rear-guard. It was a
long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too near the ravine and
give Shere Khan warning. At last Mowgli rounded up the bewildered herd
at the head of the ravine on a grassy patch that sloped steeply down to
the ravine itself. From that height you could see across the tops of the
trees down to the plain below; but what Mowgli looked at was the sides
of the ravine, and he saw with a great deal of satisfaction that they
ran nearly straight up and down, while the vines and creepers that hung
over them would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out.
“Let them breathe, Akela,” he said, holding up his hand. “They have not
winded him yet. Let them breathe. I must tell Shere Khan who comes. We
have him in the trap.”
He put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine--it was almost
like shouting down a tunnel--and the echoes jumped from rock to rock.
After a long time there came back the drawling, sleepy snarl of a
full-fed tiger just wakened.
“Who calls?” said Shere Khan, and a splendid peacock fluttered up out of
the ravine screeching.
“I, Mowgli. Cattle thief, it is time to come to the Council Rock!
Down--hurry them down, Akela! Down, Rama, down!”
The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope, but Akela gave
tongue in the full hunting-yell, and they pitched over one after the
other, just as steamers shoot rapids, the sand and stones spurting up
round them. Once started, there was no chance of stopping, and before
they were fairly in the bed of the ravine Rama winded Shere Khan and
bellowed.
“Ha! Ha!” said Mowgli, on his back. “Now thou knowest!” and the torrent
of black horns, foaming muzzles, and staring eyes whirled down the
ravine just as boulders go down in floodtime; the weaker buffaloes being
shouldered out to the sides of the ravine where they tore through the
creepers. They knew what the business was before them--the terrible
charge of the buffalo herd against which no tiger can hope to stand.
Shere Khan heard the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up, and
lumbered down the ravine, looking from side to side for some way of
escape, but the walls of the ravine were straight and he had to hold on,
heavy with his dinner and his drink, willing to do anything rather than
fight. The herd splashed through the pool he had just left, bellowing
till the narrow cut rang. Mowgli heard an answering bellow from the foot
of the ravine, saw Shere Khan turn (the tiger knew if the worst came
to the worst it was better to meet the bulls than the cows with their
calves), and then Rama tripped, stumbled, and went on again over
something soft, and, with the bulls at his heels, crashed full into the
other herd, while the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their feet
by the shock of the meeting. That charge carried both herds out into the
plain, goring and stamping and snorting. Mowgli watched his time, and
slipped off Rama’s neck, laying about him right and left with his stick.
“Quick, Akela! Break them up. Scatter them, or they will be fighting one
another. Drive them away, Akela. Hai, Rama! Hai, hai, hai! my children.
Softly now, softly! It is all over.”
Akela and Gray Brother ran to and fro nipping the buffaloes’ legs,
and though the herd wheeled once to charge up the ravine again, Mowgli
managed to turn Rama, and the others followed him to the wallows.
Shere Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead, and the kites were
coming for him already.
“Brothers, that was a dog’s death,” said Mowgli, feeling for the knife
he always carried in a sheath round his neck now that he lived with men.
“But he would never have shown fight. His hide will look well on the
Council Rock. We must get to work swiftly.”
A boy trained among men would never have dreamed of skinning a ten-foot
tiger alone, but Mowgli knew better than anyone else how an animal’s
skin is fitted on, and how it can be taken off. But it was hard work,
and Mowgli slashed and tore and grunted for an hour, while the wolves
lolled out their tongues, or came forward and tugged as he ordered them.
Presently a hand fell on his shoulder, and looking up he saw Buldeo with
the Tower musket. The children had told the village about the buffalo
stampede, and Buldeo went out angrily, only too anxious to correct
Mowgli for not taking better care of the herd. The wolves dropped out of
sight as soon as they saw the man coming.
“What is this folly?” said Buldeo angrily. “To think that thou canst
skin a tiger! Where did the buffaloes kill him? It is the Lame Tiger
too, and there is a hundred rupees on his head. Well, well, we will
overlook thy letting the herd run off, and perhaps I will give thee one
of the rupees of the reward when I have taken the skin to Khanhiwara.”
He fumbled in his waist cloth for flint and steel, and stooped down to
singe Shere Khan’s whiskers. Most native hunters always singe a tiger’s
whiskers to prevent his ghost from haunting them.
“Hum!” said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin of a
forepaw. “So thou wilt take the hide to Khanhiwara for the reward, and
perhaps give me one rupee? Now it is in my mind that I need the skin for
my own use. Heh! Old man, take away that fire!”
“What talk is this to the chief hunter of the village? Thy luck and the
stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped thee to this kill. The tiger has
just fed, or he would have gone twenty miles by this time. Thou canst
not even skin him properly, little beggar brat, and forsooth I, Buldeo,
must be told not to singe his whiskers. Mowgli, I will not give thee one
anna of the reward, but only a very big beating. Leave the carcass!”
“By the Bull that bought me,” said Mowgli, who was trying to get at the
shoulder, “must I stay babbling to an old ape all noon? Here, Akela,
this man plagues me.”
Buldeo, who was still stooping over Shere Khan’s head, found himself
sprawling on the grass, with a gray wolf standing over him, while Mowgli
went on skinning as though he were alone in all India.
“Ye-es,” he said, between his teeth. “Thou art altogether right, Buldeo.
Thou wilt never give me one anna of the reward. There is an old war
between this lame tiger and myself--a very old war, and--I have won.”
To do Buldeo justice, if he had been ten years younger he would have
taken his chance with Akela had he met the wolf in the woods, but a wolf
who obeyed the orders of this boy who had private wars with man-eating
tigers was not a common animal. It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind,
thought Buldeo, and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would
protect him. He lay as still as still, expecting every minute to see
Mowgli turn into a tiger too.
“Maharaj! Great King,” he said at last in a husky whisper.
“Yes,” said Mowgli, without turning his head, chuckling a little.
“I am an old man. I did not know that thou wast anything more than a
herdsboy. May I rise up and go away, or will thy servant tear me to
pieces?”
“Go, and peace go with thee. Only, another time do not meddle with my
game. Let him go, Akela.”
Buldeo hobbled away to the village as fast as he could, looking back
over his shoulder in case Mowgli should change into something terrible.