_ 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 Chil
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 tra-il!"
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.
"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.
___
End of Kaa's Hunting [A story from Kipling's The Jungle Book] _