EPISODE: 10.

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.

Road-Song of the Bandar-Log

Here we go in a flung festoon,

Half-way up to the jealous moon!

Don't you envy our pranceful bands?

Don't you wish you had extra hands?

Wouldn't you like if your tails were—so—

Curved in the shape of a Cupid's bow?

Now you're angry, but—never mind,

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

Here we sit in a branchy row,

Thinking of beautiful things we know;

Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,

All complete, in a minute or two—

Something noble and wise and good,

Done by merely wishing we could.

We've forgotten, but—never mind,

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

All the talk we ever have heard

Uttered by bat or beast or bird—

Hide or fin or scale or feather—

Jabber it quickly and all together!

Excellent! Wonderful! Once again! Now we are talking just like men!

Let's pretend we are ... never mind,

Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

This is the way of the Monkey-kind.

Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines,

That rocket by where, light and high, the wild grape swings.

By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make,

Be sure, be sure, we're going to do some splendid things!

"Tiger! Tiger!"

What of the hunting, hunter bold?

Brother, the watch was long and cold.

What of the quarry ye went to kill?

Brother, he crops in the jungle still.

Where is the power that made your pride?

Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.

Where is the haste that ye hurry by?

Brother, I go to my lair—to die.

Now we must go back to the first tale. When Mowgli left the

wolf's cave after the fight with the Pack at the Council Rock, he

went down to the plowed lands where the villagers lived, but he

would not stop there because it was too near to the jungle, and

he knew that he had made at least one bad enemy at the

Council. So he hurried on, keeping to the rough road that ran

down the valley, and followed it at a steady jog-trot for nearly

twenty miles, till he came to a country that he did not know.

The valley opened out into a great plain dotted over with rocks

and cut up by ravines. At one end stood a little village, and at

the other the thick jungle came down in a sweep to the grazing-

grounds, and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a

hoe. All over the plain, cattle and buffaloes were grazing, and

when the little boys in charge of the herds saw Mowgli they

shouted and ran away, and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian village barked. Mowgli walked on, for he was

feeling hungry, and when he came to the village gate he saw the

big thorn-bush that was drawn up before the gate at twilight,

pushed to one side.

"Umph!" he said, for he had come across more than one such

barricade in his night rambles after things to eat. "So men are

afraid of the People of the Jungle here also." He sat down by the

gate, and when a man came out he stood up, opened his mouth,

and pointed down it to show that he wanted food. The man

stared, and ran back up the one street of the village shouting for

the priest, who was a big, fat man dressed in white, with a red

and yellow mark on his forehead. The priest came to the gate,

and with him at least a hundred people, who stared and talked

and shouted and pointed at Mowgli.

"They have no manners, these Men Folk," said Mowgli to

himself. "Only the gray ape would behave as they do." So he

threw back his long hair and frowned at the crowd.

"What is there to be afraid of?" said the priest. "Look at the

marks on his arms and legs. They are the bites of wolves. He is

but a wolf-child run away from the jungle."

Of course, in playing together, the cubs had often nipped

Mowgli harder than they intended, and there were white scars

all over his arms and legs. But he would have been the last

person in the world to call these bites, for he knew what real

biting meant.

"Arre! Arre!" said two or three women together. "To be bitten

by wolves, poor child! He is a handsome boy. He has eyes like

red fire. By my honor, Messua, he is not unlike thy boy that was

taken by the tiger."

"Let me look," said a woman with heavy copper rings on her

wrists and ankles, and she peered at Mowgli under the palm of

her hand. "Indeed he is not. He is thinner, but he has the very

look of my boy.....