Pleasant it is for the Little Tin Gods
When great Jove nods;
But Little Tin Gods make their little mistakes
In missing the hour when great Jove wakes.
As a general rule, it is inexpedient to meddle with questions of
State in a land where men are highly paid to work them out for you.
This tale is a justifiable exception.
Once in every five years, as you know, we indent for a new Viceroy;
and each Viceroy imports, with the rest of his baggage, a Private
Secretary, who may or may not be the real Viceroy, just as Fate
ordains. Fate looks after the Indian Empire because it is so big and
so helpless.
There was a Viceroy once who brought out with him a turbulent Private
Secretary--a hard man with a soft manner and a morbid passion for
work. This Secretary was called Wonder--John Fennil Wonder. The
Viceroy possessed no name--nothing but a string of counties and
two-thirds of the alphabet after them. He said, in confidence, that
he was the electro-plated figurehead of a golden administration, and
he watched in a dreamy, amused way Wonder's attempts to draw matters
which were entirely outside his province into his own hands. 'When we
are all cherubims together,' said His Excellency once, 'my dear, good
friend Wonder will head the conspiracy for plucking out Gabriel's
tail feathers or stealing Peter's keys. _Then_ I shall report him.'
But, though the Viceroy did nothing to check Wonder's officiousness,
other people said unpleasant things. May be the Members of Council
began it; but finally all Simla agreed that there was 'too much
Wonder and too little Viceroy' in that rule. Wonder was always
quoting 'His Excellency.' It was 'His Excellency this,' 'His
Excellency that,' 'In the opinion of His Excellency,' and so on. The
Viceroy smiled; but he did not heed. He said that, so long as his old
men squabbled with his 'dear, good Wonder,' they might be induced to
leave the Immemorial East in peace.
'No wise man has a Policy,' said the Viceroy. 'A Policy is the
blackmail levied on the Fool by the Unforeseen. I am not the former,
and I do not believe in the latter.'
I do not quite see what this means, unless it refers to an Insurance
Policy. Perhaps it was the Viceroy's way of saying. 'Lie low.'
That season came up to Simla one of these crazy people with only a
single idea. These are the men who make things move; but they are not
nice to talk to. This man's name was Mellish, and he had lived for
fifteen years on land of his own, in Lower Bengal, studying cholera.
He held that cholera was a germ that propagated itself as it flew
through a muggy atmosphere; and stuck in the branches of trees like a
wool-flake. The germ could be rendered sterile, he said, by
'Mellish's Own Invincible Fumigatory'--a heavy violet-black powder--'
the result of fifteen years' scientific investigation, Sir!'
Inventors seem very much alike as a caste. They talk loudly,
especially about 'conspiracies of monopolists'; they beat upon the
table with their fists; and they secrete fragments of their
inventions about their persons.
Mellish said that there was a Medical 'Ring' at Simla, headed by the
Surgeon-General, who was in league, apparently, with all the Hospital
Assistants in the Empire.
I forget exactly how he proved it, but it had something to do with
'skulking up to the Hills'; and what Mellish wanted was the
independent evidence of the Viceroy--'Steward of our Most Gracious
Majesty the Queen, Sir.' So Mellish went up to Simla, with
eighty-four pounds of Fumigatory in his trunk, to speak to the
Viceroy and to show him the merits of the invention.
But it is easier to see a Viceroy than to talk to him, unless you
chance to be as important as Mellishe of Madras. He was a
six-thousand-rupee man, so great that his daughters never 'married.'
They 'contracted alliances.' He himself was not paid. He 'received
emoluments,' and his journeys about the country were 'tours of
observation.' His business was to stir up the people in Madras with a
long pole--as you stir up tench in a pond--and the people had to come
up out of their comfortable old ways and gasp--'This is Enlightenment
and Progress. Isn't it fine!' Then they give Mellishe statues and
jasmine garlands, in the hope of getting rid of him.
Mellishe came up to Simla 'to confer with the Viceroy.' That was one
of his perquisites. The Viceroy knew nothing of Mellishe except that
he was 'one of those middle-class deities who seem necessary to the
spiritual comfort of this Paradise of the Middle-classes,' and that,
in all probability he had 'suggested, designed, founded, and endowed
all the public institutions in Madras.' Which proves that His
Excellency, though dreamy, had experience of the ways of
six-thousand-rupee men.
Mellishe's name was E. Mellishe, and Mellish's was E.S. Mellish, and
they were both staying at the same hotel, and the Fate that looks
after the Indian Empire ordained that Wonder should blunder and drop
the final '_e_'; that the Chaprassi should help him, and that the
note which ran--
DEAR MR. MELLISH,--Can you set aside your other engagements, and
lunch with us at two to-morrow? His Excellency has an hour at your
disposal then,
should be given to Mellish with the Fumigatory. He nearly wept with
pride and delight, and at the appointed hour cantered to Peterhoff, a
big paper-bag full of the Fumigatory in his coat-tail pockets. He had
his chance, and he meant to make the most of it. Mellishe of Madras
had been so portentously solemn about his 'conference,' that Wonder
had arranged for a private tiffin,--no A.-D.-C.'s, no Wonder, no one
but the Viceroy, who said plaintively that he feared being left alone
with unmuzzled autocrats like the great Mellishe of Madras.
But his guest did not bore the Viceroy. On the contrary, he amused
him. Mellish was nervously anxious to go straight to his Fumigatory,
and talked at random until tiffin was over and His Excellency asked
him to smoke. The Viceroy was pleased with Mellish because he did not
talk 'shop.'
As soon as the cheroots were lit, Mellish spoke like a man; beginning
with his cholera-theory, reviewing his fifteen years' 'scientific
labours,' the machinations of the 'Simla Ring,' and the excellence of
his Fumigatory, while the Viceroy watched him between half-shut eyes
and thought--'Evidently this is the wrong tiger; but it is an
original animal.' Mellish's hair was standing on end with excitement,
and he stammered. He began groping in his coat-tails and, before the
Viceroy knew what was about to happen, he had tipped a bagful of his
powder into the big silver ash-tray.
'J-j-judge for yourself, Sir,' said Mellish. 'Y' Excellency shall
judge for yourself! Absolutely infallible, on my honour.'
He plunged the lighted end of his cigar into the powder, which began
to smoke like a volcano, and send up fat, greasy wreaths of
copper-coloured smoke. In five seconds the room was filled with a
most pungent and sickening stench--a reek that took fierce hold of
the trap of your wind-pipe and shut it. The powder hissed and fizzed,
and sent out blue and green sparks, and the smoke rose till you
could neither see, nor breathe, nor gasp. Mellish, however, was used
to it.
'Nitrate of strontia,' he shouted; 'baryta, bone-meal, _etcetera_!
Thousand cubic feet smoke per cubic inch. Not a germ could live--not
a germ, Y' Excellency!'
But His Excellency had fled, and was coughing at the foot of the
stairs, while all Peterhoff hummed like a hive. Red Lancers came in,
and the head Chaprassi who speaks English came in, and mace-bearers
came in, and ladies ran downstairs screaming, 'Fire'; for the smoke
was drifting through the house and oozing out of the windows, and
bellying along the verandahs, and wreathing and writhing across the
gardens. No one could enter the room where Mellish was lecturing on
his Fumigatory till that unspeakable powder had burned itself out.
Then an Aide-de-Camp, who desired the V.C., rushed through the
rolling clouds and hauled Mellish into the hall. The Viceroy was
prostrate with laughter, and could only waggle his hands feebly at
Mellish, who was shaking a fresh bagful of powder at him.
'Glorious! Glorious!' sobbed His Excellency. 'Not a germ, as you
justly observe, could exist! I can swear it. A magnificent success!'
Then he laughed till the tears came, and Wonder, who had caught the
real Mellishe snorting on the Mall, entered and was deeply shocked at
the scene. But the Viceroy was delighted, because he saw that Wonder
would presently depart. Mellish with the Fumigatory was also pleased,
for he felt that he had smashed the Simla Medical 'Ring.'
Few men could tell a story like His Excellency when he took the
trouble, and his account of 'my dear, good Wonder's friend with the
powder' went the round of Simla, and flippant folk made Wonder
unhappy by their remarks.
But His Excellency told the tale once too often--for Wonder. As he
meant to do. It was at a Seepee Picnic. Wonder was sitting just
behind the Viceroy.
'And I really thought for a moment,' wound up His Excellency, 'that
my dear, good Wonder had hired an assassin to clear his way to the
throne!'
Every one laughed; but there was a delicate sub-tinkle in the
Viceroy's tone which Wonder understood. He found that his health was
giving way; and the Viceroy allowed him to go, and presented him with
a flaming 'character' for use at Home among big people.
'My fault entirely,' said His Excellency, in after seasons, with a
twinkle in his eye. 'My inconsistency must always have been
distasteful to such a masterly man.'
'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_.
When Mowgli left the wolf's cave after the fight with the Pack at the
Council Rock, he went down to the ploughed 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 thornbush 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.
'_Arré! arré!_' 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 honour, 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.'
The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the
richest villager in the place. So he looked up at the sky for a
minute, and said solemnly: 'What the jungle has taken the jungle has
restored. Take the boy into thy house, my sister, and forget not to
honour the priest who sees so far into the lives of men.'
'By the Bull that bought me,' said Mowgli to himself, 'but all this
talking is like another looking over by the Pack! Well, if I am a
man, a man I must be.'
The crowd parted as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there
was a red lacquered bedstead, a great earthen grain-chest with funny
raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking-pots, an image of
a Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking-glass,
such as they sell at the country fairs for eight cents.
She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and then she laid
her hand on his head and looked into his eyes; for she thought
perhaps that he might be her real son come back from the jungle where
the tiger had taken him. So she said: 'Nathoo, O Nathoo!' Mowgli did
not show that he knew the name. 'Dost thou not remember the day when
I gave thee thy new shoes?' She touched his foot, and it was almost
as hard as horn. 'No,' she said, sorrowfully; 'those feet have never
worn shoes, but thou art very like my Nathoo, and thou shalt be my
son.'
Mowgli was uneasy, because he had never been under a roof before; but
as he looked at the thatch, he saw that he could tear it out any time
if he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings.
'What is the good of a man,' he said to himself at last, 'if he does
not understand man's talk? Now I am as silly and dumb as a man would
be with us in the jungle. I must speak their talk.'
He had not learned while he was with the wolves to imitate the
challenge of bucks in the jungle and the grunt of the little wild pig
for fun. So, as soon as Messua pronounced a word Mowgli would imitate
it almost perfectly, and before dark he had learned the name of many
things in the hut.
There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep
under anything that looked so like a panther-trap as that hut, and
when they shut the door he went through the window. 'Give him his
will,' said Messua's husband. 'Remember he can never till now have
slept on a bed. If he is indeed sent in the place of our son he will
not run away.'
So Mowgli stretched himself in some long clean grass at the edge of
the field, but before he had closed his eyes a soft gray nose poked
him under the chin.
'Phew!' said Gray Brother (he was the eldest of Mother Wolfs cubs).
'This is a poor reward for following thee twenty miles. Thou smellest
of wood-smoke and cattle--altogether like a man already. Wake, Little
Brother; I bring news.'
'Are all well in the jungle?' said Mowgli, hugging him.
'All except the wolves that were burned with the Red Flower. Now,
listen. Shere Khan has gone away to hunt far off till his coat grows
again, for he is badly singed. When he returns he swears that he will
lay thy bones in the Waingunga.'
'There are two words to that. I also have made a little promise. But
news is always good. I am tired to-night,--very tired with new
things, Gray Brother,--but bring me the news always.'
'Thou wilt not forget that thou art a wolf? Men will not make thee
forget?' said Gray Brother, anxiously.
'Never. I will always remember that I love thee and all in our cave;
but also I will always remember that I have been cast out of the
Pack.'
'And that thou may'st be cast out of another pack. Men are only men,
Little Brother, and their talk is like the talk of frogs in a pond.
When I come down here again, I will wait for thee in the bamboos at
the edge of the grazing-ground.'
For three months after that night Mowgli hardly ever left the village
gate, he was so busy learning the ways and customs of men. First he
had to wear a cloth round him, which annoyed him horribly; and then
he had to learn about money, which he did not in the least
understand, and about ploughing, of which he did not see the use.
Then the little children in the village made him very angry. Luckily,
the Law of the Jungle had taught him to keep his temper, for in the
jungle, life and food depend on keeping your temper; but when they
made fun of him because he would not play games or fly kites, or
because he mispronounced some word, only the knowledge that it was
unsportsmanlike to kill little naked cubs kept him from picking them
up and breaking them in two. He did not know his own strength in the
least. In the jungle he knew he was weak compared with the beasts,
but in the village, people said that he was as strong as a bull. He
certainly had no notion of what fear was, for when the village priest
told him that the god in the temple would be angry with him if he ate
the priest's mangoes, he picked up the image, brought it over to the
priest's house, and asked the priest to make the god angry and he
would be happy to fight him. It was a horrible scandal, but the
priest hushed it up, and Messua's husband paid much good silver to
comfort the god. And Mowgli had not the faintest idea of the
difference that caste makes between man and man. When the potter's
donkey slipped in the clay-pit, Mowgli hauled it out by the tail, and
helped to stack the pots for their journey to the market at
Khanhiwara. That was very shocking, too, for the potter is a
low-caste man, and his donkey is worse. When the priest scolded him,
Mowgli threatened to put him on the donkey, too, and the priest told
Messua's husband that Mowgli had better be set to work as soon as
possible; and the village headman told Mowgli that he would have to
go out with the buffaloes next day, and herd them while they grazed.
No one was more pleased than Mowgli; and that night, because he had
been appointed a servant of the village, as it were, he went off to a
circle that met every evening on a masonry platform under a great
fig-tree. It was the village club, and the head-man and the watchman
and the barber, who knew all the gossip of the village, and old
Buldeo, the village hunter, who had a Tower musket, met and smoked.
The monkeys sat and talked in the upper branches, and there was a
hole under the platform where a cobra lived, and he had his little
platter of milk every night because he was sacred; and the old men
sat around the tree and talked, and pulled at the big _huqas_ (the
water-pipes) till far into the night. They told wonderful tales of
gods and men and ghosts; and Buldeo told even more wonderful ones of
the ways of beasts in the jungle, till the eyes of the children
sitting outside the circle bulged out of their heads. Most of the
tales were about animals, for the jungle was always at their door.
The deer and the wild pig grubbed up their crops, and now and again
the tiger carried off a man at twilight, within sight of the village
gates.
Mowgli, who naturally knew something about what they were talking of,
had to cover his face not to show that he was laughing, while Buldeo,
the Tower musket across his knees, climbed on from one wonderful
story to another, and Mowgli's shoulders shook.
Buldeo was explaining how the tiger that had carried away Messua's
son was a ghost-tiger, and his body was inhabited by the ghost of a
wicked, old money-lender, who had died some years ago. 'And I know
that this is true,' he said, 'because Purun Dass always limped from
the blow that he got in a riot when his account-books were burned,
and the tiger that I speak of _he_ limps, too, for the tracks of his
pads are unequal.'
'True, true, that must be the truth,' said the graybeards, nodding
together.
'Are all these tales such cobwebs and moontalk?' said Mowgli. 'That
tiger limps because he was born lame, as every one knows. To talk of
the soul of a money-lender in a beast that never had the courage of a
jackal is child's talk.'
Buldeo was speechless with surprise for a moment, and the head-man
stared.
'Oho! It is the jungle brat, is it?' said Buldeo. 'If thou art so
wise, better bring his hide to Khanhiwara, for the Government has set
a hundred rupees on his life. Better still, talk not when thy elders
speak.'
Mowgli rose to go. 'All the evening I have lain here listening,' he
called back, over his shoulder, 'and, except once or twice, Buldeo
has not said one word of truth concerning the jungle, which is at his
very doors. How then shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods,
and goblins which he says he has seen?'
'It is full time that boy went to herding,' said the headman, while
Buldeo puffed and snorted at Mowgli's impertinence.
The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the
cattle and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning, and bring
them back at night; and the very cattle that would trample a white
man to death allow themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at
by children that hardly come up to their noses. So long as the boys
keep with the herds they are safe, for not even the tiger will charge
a mob of cattle. But if they straggle to pick flowers or hunt
lizards, they are sometimes carried off. Mowgli went through the
village street in the dawn, sitting on the back of Rama, the great
herd bull; and the slaty-blue buffaloes, with their long,
backward-sweeping horns and savage eyes, rose out of their byres, one
by one, and followed him, and Mowgli made it very clear to the
children with him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes with
a long, polished bamboo, and told Kamya, one of the boys, to graze
the cattle by themselves, while he went on with the buffaloes, and to
be very careful not to stray away from the herd.
An Indian grazing-ground is all rocks, and scrubs, and tussocks, and
little ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear. The
buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they
lie wallowing or basking in the warm mud for hours. Mowgli drove them
on to the edge of the plain where the Waingunga came out of the
jungle; then he dropped from Rama's neck, trotted off to a bamboo
clump and found Gray Brother. 'Ah,' said Gray Brother, 'I have waited
here very many days. What is the meaning of this cattle-herding
work?'
'It is an order,' said Mowgli; 'I am a village herd for a while. What
news of Shere Khan?'
'He has come back to this country, and has waited here a long time
for thee. Now he has gone off again, for the game is scarce. But he
means to kill thee.'
'Very good,' said Mowgli. 'So long as he is away do thou or one of
the four brothers sit on that rock, so that I can see thee as I come
out of the village. When he comes back wait for me in the ravine by
the _dhâk_-tree in the centre of the plain. We need not walk into
Shere Khan's mouth.'
Then Mowgli picked out a shady place, and lay down and slept while
the buffaloes grazed round him. Herding, in India, is one of the
laziest things in the world. The cattle move and crunch, and lie
down, and move on again, and they do not even low. They only grunt,
and the buffaloes very seldom say anything, but get down into the
muddy pools one after another, and work their way into the mud till
only their noses and staring china-blue eyes show above the surface,
and then they lie like logs. The sun makes the rocks dance in the
heat, and the herd-children hear one kite (never any more) whistling
almost out of sight overhead, and they know that if they died, or a
cow died, that kite would sweep down, and the next kite miles away
would see him drop and follow, and the next, and the next, and
almost before they were dead there would be a score of hungry kites
come out of nowhere. Then they sleep and wake and sleep again, and
weave little baskets of dried grass and put grasshoppers in them, or
catch two praying mantises and make them fight; or string a necklace
of red and black jungle-nuts, or watch a lizard basking on a rock, or
a snake hunting a frog near the wallows. Then they sing long, long
songs with odd native quavers at the end of them, and the day seems
longer than most people's whole lives, and perhaps they make a mud
castle with mud figures of men and horses and buffaloes, and put
reeds into the men's hands, and pretend that they are kings and the
figures are their armies, or that they are gods to be worshipped.
Then evening comes and the children call, and the buffaloes lumber up
out of the sticky mud with noises like gunshots going off one after
the other, and they all string across the gray plain back to the
twinkling village lights.
Day after day Mowgli would lead the buffaloes out to their wallows,
and day after day he would see Gray Brother's back a mile and a half
away across the plain (so he knew that Shere Khan had not come back),
and day after day he would lie on the grass listening to the noises
round him, and dreaming of old days in the jungle. If Shere Khan had
made a false step with his lame paw up in the jungles by the
Waingunga, Mowgli would have heard him in those long still mornings.
At last a day came when he did not see Gray Brother at the signal
place, and he laughed and headed the buffaloes for the ravine by the
_dhâk_-tree, which was all covered with golden-red flowers. There sat
Gray Brother, 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 to-day, 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
mid-day.
'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 plough-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 centre, 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 today.'
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. I must tell Shere Khan who comes. We have him in
a 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 flood-time; 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 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, and 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 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. _Wallah!_ 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 any one 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. 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 gray 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! Wolfs 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.
'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.