Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (345 page)

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 settled 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 when 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 wood-cutter’s child, inherited all sorts of instincts, and used to make little play-huts of fallen branches without thinking how he came to do it. The Monkey People, watching in the trees, considered these huts 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 every one 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 cross-roads, uphills and downhills, all laid out from fifty to seventy or a hundred feet aboveground, 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 tree-tops, 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 weak 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 over 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 he 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 see only the top sides 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 noticed 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 tree-top, 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 Rann 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 tree-tops 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 eyesight, they have pecked down trouble for themselves, for Baloo is no fledgling and Bagheera can, as I know, kill more than goats.”

Then he rocked on his wings, his feet gathered up under him, and waited.

Meanwhile, Baloo and Bagheera were furious with rage and grief. Bagheera climbed as he had never climbed before, but the 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 hyena; for I am the 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 his one fore paw 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 mere 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, may 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 for 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.
Pss naw!
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 round the tree, waked the Bandar-log, and they called me most evil names.”

“‘Footless, yellow earthworm,’” 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 dare not face anything bigger than a kid, because (they are indeed shameless, these Bandar-log) — because thou art afraid of the he-goats’ 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 this 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, shaking 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 manling is not to be envied. They called me also — ’yellow fish,’ was it not?”

“Worm — worm — earthworm,” said Bagheera; “as well as other things which I cannot now say for shame.”