EPISODE: 9.

"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.....