The Jungle Book
When he got to the village he told a tale of magic and enchantment and
sorcery that made the priest look very grave.
Mowgli went on with his work, but it was nearly twilight before he and
the wolves had drawn the great gay skin clear of the body.
“Now we must hide this and take the buffaloes home! Help me to herd
them, Akela.”
The herd rounded up in the misty twilight, and when they got near the
village Mowgli saw lights, and heard the conches and bells in the temple
blowing and banging. Half the village seemed to be waiting for him
by the gate. “That is because I have killed Shere Khan,” he said
to himself. But a shower of stones whistled about his ears, and the
villagers shouted: “Sorcerer! Wolf’s brat! Jungle demon! Go away! Get
hence quickly or the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot,
Buldeo, shoot!”
The old Tower musket went off with a bang, and a young buffalo bellowed
in pain.
“More sorcery!” shouted the villagers. “He can turn bullets. Buldeo,
that was thy buffalo.”
“Now what is this?” said Mowgli, bewildered, as the stones flew thicker.
“They are not unlike the Pack, these brothers of thine,” said Akela,
sitting down composedly. “It is in my head that, if bullets mean
anything, they would cast thee out.”
“Wolf! Wolf’s cub! Go away!” shouted the priest, waving a sprig of the
sacred tulsi plant.
“Again? Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because I
am a wolf. Let us go, Akela.”
A woman--it was Messua--ran across to the herd, and cried: “Oh, my son,
my son! They say thou art a sorcerer who can turn himself into a beast
at will. I do not believe, but go away or they will kill thee. Buldeo
says thou art a wizard, but I know thou hast avenged Nathoo’s death.”
“Come back, Messua!” shouted the crowd. “Come back, or we will stone
thee.”
Mowgli laughed a little short ugly laugh, for a stone had hit him in
the mouth. “Run back, Messua. This is one of the foolish tales they tell
under the big tree at dusk. I have at least paid for thy son’s life.
Farewell; and run quickly, for I shall send the herd in more swiftly
than their brickbats. I am no wizard, Messua. Farewell!”
“Now, once more, Akela,” he cried. “Bring the herd in.”
The buffaloes were anxious enough to get to the village. They hardly
needed Akela’s yell, but charged through the gate like a whirlwind,
scattering the crowd right and left.
“Keep count!” shouted Mowgli scornfully. “It may be that I have stolen
one of them. Keep count, for I will do your herding no more. Fare you
well, children of men, and thank Messua that I do not come in with my
wolves and hunt you up and down your street.”
He turned on his heel and walked away with the Lone Wolf, and as he
looked up at the stars he felt happy. “No more sleeping in traps for me,
Akela. Let us get Shere Khan’s skin and go away. No, we will not hurt
the village, for Messua was kind to me.”
When the moon rose over the plain, making it look all milky, the
horrified villagers saw Mowgli, with two wolves at his heels and a
bundle on his head, trotting across at the steady wolf’s trot that eats
up the long miles like fire. Then they banged the temple bells and blew
the conches louder than ever. And Messua cried, and Buldeo embroidered
the story of his adventures in the jungle, till he ended by saying that
Akela stood up on his hind legs and talked like a man.
The moon was just going down when Mowgli and the two wolves came to the
hill of the Council Rock, and they stopped at Mother Wolf’s cave.
“They have cast me out from the Man-Pack, Mother,” shouted Mowgli, “but
I come with the hide of Shere Khan to keep my word.”
Mother Wolf walked stiffly from the cave with the cubs behind her, and
her eyes glowed as she saw the skin.
“I told him on that day, when he crammed his head and shoulders into
this cave, hunting for thy life, Little Frog--I told him that the hunter
would be the hunted. It is well done.”
“Little Brother, it is well done,” said a deep voice in the thicket.
“We were lonely in the jungle without thee,” and Bagheera came running
to Mowgli’s bare feet. They clambered up the Council Rock together, and
Mowgli spread the skin out on the flat stone where Akela used to sit,
and pegged it down with four slivers of bamboo, and Akela lay down upon
it, and called the old call to the Council, “Look--look well, O Wolves,”
exactly as he had called when Mowgli was first brought there.
Ever since Akela had been deposed, the Pack had been without a leader,
hunting and fighting at their own pleasure. But they answered the call
from habit; and some of them were lame from the traps they had fallen
into, and some limped from shot wounds, and some were mangy from eating
bad food, and many were missing. But they came to the Council Rock, all
that were left of them, and saw Shere Khan’s striped hide on the rock,
and the huge claws dangling at the end of the empty dangling feet. It
was then that Mowgli made up a song that came up into his throat all
by itself, and he shouted it aloud, leaping up and down on the rattling
skin, and beating time with his heels till he had no more breath left,
while Gray Brother and Akela howled between the verses.
“Look well, O Wolves. Have I kept my word?” said Mowgli. And the wolves
bayed “Yes,” and one tattered wolf howled:
“Lead us again, O Akela. Lead us again, O Man-cub, for we be sick of
this lawlessness, and we would be the Free People once more.”
“Nay,” purred Bagheera, “that may not be. When ye are full-fed, the
madness may come upon you again. Not for nothing are ye called the Free
People. Ye fought for freedom, and it is yours. Eat it, O Wolves.”
“Man-Pack and Wolf-Pack have cast me out,” said Mowgli. “Now I will hunt
alone in the jungle.”
“And we will hunt with thee,” said the four cubs.
So Mowgli went away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle from
that day on. But he was not always alone, because, years afterward, he
became a man and married.
But that is a story for grown-ups.
Mowgli’s Song
THAT HE SANG AT THE COUNCIL ROCK WHEN HE
DANCED ON SHERE KHAN’S HIDE
The Song of Mowgli—I, Mowgli, am singing. Let the jungle listen to the
things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would kill—would kill! At the gates in the twilight
he would kill Mowgli, the Frog!
He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for when wilt thou drink
again? Sleep and dream of the kill.
I am alone on the grazing-grounds. Gray Brother, come to me! Come to
me, Lone Wolf, for there is big game afoot!
Bring up the great bull buffaloes, the blue-skinned herd bulls with the
angry eyes. Drive them to and fro as I order.
Sleepest thou still, Shere Khan? Wake, oh, wake! Here come I, and the
bulls are behind.
Rama, the King of the Buffaloes, stamped with his foot. Waters of the
Waingunga, whither went Shere Khan?
He is not Ikki to dig holes, nor Mao, the Peacock, that he should fly.
He is not Mang the Bat, to hang in the branches. Little bamboos that
creak together, tell me where he ran?
_Ow!_ He is there. _Ahoo!_ He is there. Under the feet of Rama lies the
Lame One! Up, Shere Khan!
Up and kill! Here is meat; break the necks of the bulls!
_Hsh!_ He is asleep. We will not wake him, for his strength is very
great. The kites have come down to see it. The black ants have come up
to know it. There is a great assembly in his honor.
_Alala!_ I have no cloth to wrap me. The kites will see that I am
naked. I am ashamed to meet all these people.
Lend me thy coat, Shere Khan. Lend me thy gay striped coat that I may
go to the Council Rock.
By the Bull that bought me I made a promise—a little promise. Only thy
coat is lacking before I keep my word.
With the knife, with the knife that men use, with the knife of the
hunter, I will stoop down for my gift.
Waters of the Waingunga, Shere Khan gives me his coat for the love that
he bears me. Pull, Gray Brother! Pull, Akela! Heavy is the hide of
Shere Khan.
The Man Pack are angry. They throw stones and talk child’s talk. My
mouth is bleeding. Let me run away.
Through the night, through the hot night, run swiftly with me, my
brothers. We will leave the lights of the village and go to the low
moon.
Waters of the Waingunga, the Man-Pack have cast me out. I did them no
harm, but they were afraid of me. Why?
Wolf Pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is shut to me and the
village gates are shut. Why?
As Mang flies between the beasts and birds, so fly I between the
village and the jungle. Why?
I dance on the hide of Shere Khan, but my heart is very heavy. My mouth
is cut and wounded with the stones from the village, but my heart is
very light, because I have come back to the jungle. Why?
These two things fight together in me as the snakes fight in the
spring. The water comes out of my eyes; yet I laugh while it falls.
Why?
I am two Mowglis, but the hide of Shere Khan is under my feet.
All the jungle knows that I have killed Shere Khan. Look—look well, O
Wolves!
_Ahae!_ My heart is heavy with the things that I do not understand.
The White Seal
Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, then soft be thy pillow,
Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas!
Seal Lullaby
All these things happened several years ago at a place called
Novastoshnah, or North East Point, on the Island of St. Paul, away and
away in the Bering Sea. Limmershin, the Winter Wren, told me the tale
when he was blown on to the rigging of a steamer going to Japan, and I
took him down into my cabin and warmed and fed him for a couple of days
till he was fit to fly back to St. Paul’s again. Limmershin is a very
quaint little bird, but he knows how to tell the truth.
Nobody comes to Novastoshnah except on business, and the only people
who have regular business there are the seals. They come in the summer
months by hundreds and hundreds of thousands out of the cold gray sea.
For Novastoshnah Beach has the finest accommodation for seals of any
place in all the world.
Sea Catch knew that, and every spring would swim from whatever place
he happened to be in--would swim like a torpedo-boat straight for
Novastoshnah and spend a month fighting with his companions for a good
place on the rocks, as close to the sea as possible. Sea Catch was
fifteen years old, a huge gray fur seal with almost a mane on his
shoulders, and long, wicked dog teeth. When he heaved himself up on his
front flippers he stood more than four feet clear of the ground, and his
weight, if anyone had been bold enough to weigh him, was nearly seven
hundred pounds. He was scarred all over with the marks of savage fights,
but he was always ready for just one fight more. He would put his head
on one side, as though he were afraid to look his enemy in the face;
then he would shoot it out like lightning, and when the big teeth were
firmly fixed on the other seal’s neck, the other seal might get away if
he could, but Sea Catch would not help him.
Yet Sea Catch never chased a beaten seal, for that was against the Rules
of the Beach. He only wanted room by the sea for his nursery. But as
there were forty or fifty thousand other seals hunting for the same
thing each spring, the whistling, bellowing, roaring, and blowing on the
beach was something frightful.
From a little hill called Hutchinson’s Hill, you could look over three
and a half miles of ground covered with fighting seals; and the surf was