"Men are always more ready to eat than to run," Mowgli answered,
trotting in and out between the low scrub bushes of the new Jungle
they were exploring. Bagheera, a little to his left, made an
indescribable noise in his throat.
"Here is one that has done with feeding," said he. A tumbled bundle of
gay-colored clothes lay under a bush, and round it was some spilt
flour.
"That was done by the bamboo again," said Mowgli. "See! that white
dust is what men eat. They have taken the kill from this one,--he
carried their food,--and given him for a kill to Chil, the Kite."
"It is the third," said Bagheera.
"I will go with new, big frogs to the Father of Cobras, and feed him
fat," said Mowgli to himself. "The drinker of elephant's blood is
Death himself--but still I do not understand!"
"Follow!" said Bagheera.
They had not gone half a mile further when they heard Ko, the Crow,
singing the death-song in the top of a tamarisk under whose shade
three men were lying. A half-dead fire smoked in the center of the
circle, under an iron plate which held a blackened and burned cake of
unleavened bread. Close to the fire, and blazing in the sunshine, lay
the ruby-and-turquoise ankus.
"The thing works quickly; all ends here," said Bagheera. "How did
_these_ die, Mowgli? There is no mark on any."
A Jungle-dweller gets to learn by experience as much as many doctors
know of poisonous plants and berries. Mowgli sniffed the smoke that
came up from the fire, broke off a morsel of the blackened bread,
tasted it, and spat it out again.
"Apple of Death," he coughed. "The first must have made it ready in
the food for _these_, who killed him, having first killed the Gond."
"Good hunting, indeed! The kills follow close," said Bagheera.
"Apple of Death" is what the Jungle call thorn-apple or dhatura, the
readiest poison in all India.
"What now?" said the panther. "Must thou and I kill each other for
yonder red-eyed slayer?"
"Can it speak?" said Mowgli, in a whisper. "Did I do it a wrong when I
threw it away? Between us two it can do no wrong, for we do not desire
what men desire. If it be left here, it will assuredly continue to
kill men one after another as fast as nuts fall in a high wind. I have
no love to men, but even I would not have them die six in a night."
"What matter? They are only men. They killed one another and were well
pleased," said Bagheera. "That first little woodman hunted well."
"They are cubs none the less; and a cub will drown himself to bite
the moon's light on the water. The fault was mine," said Mowgli, who
spoke as though he knew all about everything. "I will never again
bring into the Jungle strange things--not though they be as beautiful
as flowers. This"--he handled the ankus gingerly--"goes back to the
Father of Cobras. But first we must sleep, and we cannot sleep near
these sleepers. Also we must bury _him_, lest he run away and kill
another six. Dig me a hole under that tree."
"But, Little Brother," said Bagheera, moving off to the spot, "I tell
thee it is no fault of the blood-drinker. The trouble is with men."
"All one," said Mowgli. "Dig the hole deep. When we wake I will take
him up and carry him back."
* * * * *
Two nights later, as the White Cobra sat mourning in the darkness of
the vault, ashamed, and robbed, and alone, the turquoise ankus whirled
through the hole in the wall, and clashed on the floor of golden
coins.
"Father of Cobras," said Mowgli (he was careful to keep the other side
of the wall), "get thee a young and ripe one of thine own people to
help thee guard the King's Treasure so that no man may come away
alive any more."
"Ah-ha! It returns, then. I said the thing was Death. How comes it
that thou art still alive?" the old Cobra mumbled, twining lovingly
round the ankus-haft.
"By the Bull that bought me, I do not know! That thing has killed six
times in a night. Let him go out no more."
[Illustration]