As a man thinketh by James Allen

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
work in the public domain. As a Man Thinks by
James Allen Carapter one. Mauglise brothers now ran the kite
brings home the night that mang the bat sets free.
The herds are shut in byre and hut for loose
till dawn are we This is the hour of pride

(00:21):
and power. Tellone and tushen claw, Oh, hear the call
good hunting, all that keep the jungle law. Night song
in the jungle. It was seven o'clock of a very
warm evening in the Siennee Hills when Father Wulf woke
up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread
out his paws one after the other to get rid
of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wulf lay

(00:44):
with her big gray nose dropped across her fore tumbling
squealing cups, and the moon shone into the mouth of
the cave where they all lived. Augar, said father Wolf,
it is time to hunt again. He was going to
spring downhill when a little shadow with a bushy tail
crossed the threshold and whined, good luck. Go with you, o,

(01:05):
chief of the wolves. And good luck and strong white
teeth go with noble children, that they may never forget
the hungry in this world. Zero zero two five, good
luck go with you, o chief of the wolves. It
was the jackal Tobaki, the dish liquor, And the wolves
of India despise Tabaki because he runs about making mischief

(01:26):
and telling tales and eating rags and pieces of leather
from the village rubbish heaps. But they are afraid of
him too, because Tobaki, more than any one else in
the jungle, is apt to go mad. And then he
forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs
through the forest, biting everything in his way. Even the
tiger runs and hides when little Tobaki goes mad, For

(01:49):
madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a
wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it
dewani the madness. And run enter then, and look, said
father wolf stiffly. But there is no food here for
a wolf, no, said Tobaki. But for so mean a
person as myself, a dry bone is a good feast.

(02:12):
Who are we the gitter log the jackal people to
pick and choose He scuttled to the back of the cave,
where he found the bone of a buck with some
meat on it, and sat cracking the end merrily. All
thanks for this good meal, he said, licking his lips.
How beautiful are the noble children, How large are their eyes?

(02:33):
And so young too. Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered
that the children of kings are men from the beginning.
Now Tobaki knew as well as any one else that
there is nothing so unlucky as to compliment children to
their faces. It pleased him to see mother and father
Wolf look uncomfortable. Tobaki sat still, rejoicing in the mischief

(02:56):
that he had made, And then he said, spitefully, sheer Khan,
the big one, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will
hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he
has told me. Sheer Khan was the tiger who lived
near the waing Gunga River twenty miles away. He has
no right, Father Wulf began angrily. By the law of

(03:17):
the jungle. He has no right to change his quarters
without due warning. He will frighten every head of game
within ten miles. And I I have to kill for
two these days his mother did not call him lungry asterisk,
the lame one plus four nothing, said mother Wolf quietly.
He has been lame in one foot from his berth.

(03:39):
That is why he has only killed cattle. Now the
villagers of the Wayne Gunga are angry with him, and
he has come here to make our villagers angry. They
will scour the jungle for him when he is far away,
and we and our children must run when the grass
is set alight. Indeed, we are very grateful to shear Khan.
Shall I tell him of your gratitude, said Tobaki out,

(04:03):
snapped father Wolf. Out and hunt with thy master. Thou
hast done harm enough for one night, I go, said
Tabaki quietly. Ye can hear sheer con below in the thickets?
I might have saved myself the message. Father Wolf listened,
and below, in the valley that ran down to a

(04:24):
little river, he heard the dry, angry snarly sings on
wine of a tiger who has caught nothing and does
not care if all the jungle knows it. The fool,
said father Wolf, to begin a night's work with that noise?
Does he think that our buck are like his fat
wing Gunga? Bullocks h s h. It is neither bullock

(04:45):
nor buck he hunts tonight, said mother Wolf. It is man.
The wine had changed to a sort of humming purr
that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass.
It was the noise that bewilders woodcutters and gipsies sleeping
in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the
very mouth of the tiger man, said father Wolf, showing

(05:07):
all his white teeth fall. Are there not enough beetles
and frogs in the tanks that he must eat man?
And on our ground too. The law of the jungle,
which never orders anything without a reason forbids every beast
to eat man, except when he is killing to show
his children how to kill, and then he must hunt
outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe. The

(05:30):
real reason for this is that man killing means sooner
or later the arrival of white men on elephants with
guns and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets
and torches. Then everybody in the jungle suffers. The reason
the beasts give among themselves is that man is the
weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it

(05:51):
is unsportsmanlike to touch him, they say too, And it
is true that man eaters become mangy and lose their teeth.
The her grew louder and ended in the full throated
air of the tiger's charge. Then there was a howl,
an untigerish howl from sheer Khan. He has missed, said

(06:11):
Mother Wolf. What is it? Father Wulf ran out a
few paces and heard sheer Khan muttering and mumbling savagely
as he tumbled about in the scrub. The fool has
had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutter's
camp fire, and has burned his feet, said Father Wulf,
with a grunt. Tobaki is with him. Something is coming

(06:32):
up hill, said Mother Wulf, twitching one ear. Get ready.
The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father
Wulf dropped with his haunches under him, ready for his leap. Then,
if you had been watching, you would have seen the
most wonderful thing in the world. The wolf checked in
mid spring. He made his bound before he saw what

(06:53):
it was he was jumping at, and then he tried
to stop himself. The result was that he shot up
straight into the air for four or five feet, landing
almost where he left ground man, he snapped a man's cub. Look.
Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch,

(07:14):
stood a naked brown baby who could just walk as
soft and as dimpled a little atom as ever came
to a wolf's cave at night. He looked up into
Father Wolf's face and laughed. Is that a man's cub?
Said Mother Wolf? I have never seen one bring it here?
A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs, can, if necessary,

(07:36):
mouth an egg without breaking it. And though Father Wolf's
jaws closed right on the child's back, not a tooth
even scratched the skin as he laid it down among
the cubs. How little, how naked, an how bold, said
Mother Wolf softly. The baby was pushing his way between
the cubs to get close to the warm hide. A hi,

(07:59):
he is taking meal with the others, and so this
is a man's cub. Now was there ever a wolf
that could boast of a man's cub among her children?
I have heard now and again of such a thing,
but never in our pack or in my time, said
father Wolf. He is altogether without hair, and I could
kill him with a touch of my foot. But see,

(08:22):
he looks up and is not afraid. The moonlight was
blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Sheer
Khan's great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance.
Tobaki behind him was squeaking, my lord, my lord, it
went in here. Sher Khan does us great honor, said
Father Wolf, but his eyes were very angry. What does

(08:45):
sher Khan need my quarry? A man's cub went this way,
said sher Khan. Its parents have run off. Give it
to me. Sheer Khan had jumped at a woodcutter's camp fire,
as Father Wolf had said, and was furious from the
pain of his burnt feet. But Father Wulf knew that

(09:05):
the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a
tiger to come in by. Even where he was. Sheer
Khan's shoulders and forepaws were cramped for want of room,
as a man's would be if he tried to fight
in a barrel. The wolves are a free people, said
Father Wolf. They take orders from the head of the
pack and not from any striped cattle killer. The man's

(09:27):
cub is ours to kill. If we choose, ye choose,
and ye do not choose. What talk is this? Of
choosing by the bull that I killed. Am I to
stand nosing into your dog's den for my fair dues.
It is I sheer Khan who speak zero zero three one.

(09:47):
But the tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. The
tiger's roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wulf shook
herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward her eyes
like two green moons in the dar darkness, facing the
blazing eyes of sher Khan. And it is I Raksha Asterisk,
the demon plus who answers the man's cub is mine,

(10:10):
lungry mine to me. He shall not be killed. He
shall live, to run with the pack, and to hunt
with the pack. And in the end, look, you hunter
of little naked cubs, frog eater, fish killer, he shall
hunt thee Now get hence or by the samber that
I killed, I eat no starved cattle back. Thou goest

(10:30):
to thy mother, burned beast of the jungle, lamer than
ever thou camest into the world. Go. Father Wulf looked unamazed.
He had almost forgotten the days when he won Mother
Wolf in fair fight from five other wolves, when she
ran in the pack and was not called the demon
for compliment's sake. Sheer Khan might have faced Father Wolf,

(10:52):
but he could not stand up against Mother Wulf, for
he knew that where he was, she had all the
advantage of the ground and would fight to the death.
So he backed out of the cave, mouth growling, and
when he was clear, he shouted, each dog barks in
his own yard. We will see what the pack will
say to this fostering of man cubs. The cub is mine,

(11:12):
and to my teeth he will come in the end
o bush tailed thieves. Mother Wulf threw herself down panting
among the cubs, and Father Wulf said to her gravely,
sheer Khan speaks this much truth. The cub must be
shown to the pack. Wilt thou still keep him? Mother?
Keep him? She gasped. He came naked by night, alone

(11:35):
and very hungry, Yet he was not afraid. Look, he
has pushed one of my babes to one side already,
and that lame butcher would have killed him and would
have run off to the wing Ganga, while the villagers
here hunted through all our lairs in revenge. Keep him, assuredly,
I will keep him. Lie still little frog, O, thou Mowgli.

(11:58):
For Mowgli the frog, I will the The time will
come when thou wilt hunt Sheer Khan as he has
hunted thee. But what will our pack, say, said father Wolf.
The law of the Jumble lays down very clearly that
any wolf may, when he marries, withdraw from the pack
he belongs to. But as soon as his cubs are
old enough to stand on their feet, he must bring

(12:20):
them to the pack council, which is generally held once
a month at full moon, in order that the other
wolves may identify them. After that inspection, the cubs are
free to run where they please, and until they have
killed their first buck, no excuse is accepted. If a
grown wolf of the pack kills one of them, the
punishment is death where the murderer can be found. And

(12:40):
if you think for a minute, you will see that
this must be so. Five thousand and twenty nine of
the Council Rock. Father Wulf waited till his cubs could
run a little, and then, on the night of the
pack meeting, took them and Mowgli and Mother Wolf to
the Council Rock, a hilltop covered with stones and boulders
where a hundred wolves could hide. Akella, the great gray

(13:02):
lone wolf who led all the pack by strength and cunning,
lay out at full length on his rock, and below
him sat forty or more wolves of every size and color,
from badger colored veterans who could handle a buck alone
to young black three year olds who thought they could.
The lone wolf had led them for a year now,
He had fallen twice into a wolf trap in his youth,

(13:23):
and once he had been beaten and left for dead,
so he knew the manners and customs of men. There
was very little talking at the rock. The cubs tumbled
over each other in the center of the circle where
their mothers and fathers sat. And now and again a
senior wolf would go quietly up to a cub, look
at him carefully, and return to his place on noiseless feet.

(13:45):
Sometimes a mother would push her cub far out into
the moonlight to be sure that he had not been overlooked.
A Kella from his rock would cry, ye know the law,
Ye know the law, Look well, o wolves, and the
anxious mothers would take up the call, look look well,
o wolves. At last, and mother Wulf's neck bristles lifted

(14:07):
as the time came. Father Wolf pushed moudly the frog
as they called him, into the center, where he sat,
laughing and playing with some pebbles that glistened in the moonlight.
Akella never raised his head from his paws, but went
on with the monotonous cry look well. A muffled roar
came up from behind the rocks, the voice of sheer Khan, crying,

(14:28):
the cub is mine, Give him to me. What have
the free people to do with a man's cub? Akella
never even twitched his ears. All he said was, look well,
o wolves, what have the free people to do with
the orders of any save the free people? Look well?

(14:48):
Zero zero three seven. At the meeting at the council rock,
there was a chorus of deep growls, and a young
wolf in his fourth year, flung back sheer Khan's question
to Akella, what have the free people to do with
a man cup? Now? The law of the jungle lays
down that if there is any dispute as to the
right of a cub to be accepted by the pack,
he must be spoken for by at least two members

(15:10):
of the pack who are not his father and mother.
Who speaks for this cub, said Akella. Among the free
people who speaks, there was no answer, and Mother Wolf
got ready for what she knew would be her last fight.
If things came to fighting. Then the only other creature
who is allowed at the pack council Balow, the sleepy

(15:30):
brown bear, who teaches the wolf cubs the law of
the jungle. Old Ballew, who can come and go where
he pleases because he eats only nuts and roots and
honey rows upon his hind quarters and grunted the man's cub,
the man's cub, he said, I speak for the man's cub.
There is no harm in a man's cub. I have

(15:51):
no gift of words, but I speak the truth. Let
him run with the pack and be entered with the others.
I myself will teach him. We need yet another, said Akella.
Balu has spoken, and he is our teacher for the
young cubs. Who speaks besides Balou? A black shadow dropped

(16:12):
down into the circle. It was Bagheera, the black panther,
inky black all over, but with the panther markings showing
up in certain lights like the pattern of watered silk.
Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path.
For he was as cunning as Tobaki, as bold as
the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant.

(16:33):
But he had a voice as soft as wild honey
dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.
O a kella, and ye the free people, he purred,
I have no right in your assembly. But the law
of the jungle says that if there is a doubt
which is not a killing matter in regard to a
new cub, the life of that cub may be bought
at a price, And the law does not say who

(16:54):
may or may not pay that price. Am I right? Good? Good?
Said the young wolves who are always hungry. Listen to Bagheera.
The cub can be bought for a price. It is
the law. Knowing that I have no right to speak here,
I ask your leave speak, then, cried twenty voices. To

(17:18):
kill a naked cub is shame. Besides, he may make
better sport for you when he is grown. Balu has
spoken in his behalf. Now to Balou's word, I will
add one bull and a fat one, newly killed, not
half a mile from here, If he will accept the
man's cub according to the law, is it difficult? There

(17:39):
was a clamor of scores of voices saying, what matter.
He will die in the winter rains, he will scorch
in the sun. What harm can a naked frog do us?
Let him run with the pack? Where is the bull?
Bagheera let him be accepted, And then came a kellor

(18:00):
deep bay, crying, look well, look well, o wolves. Maugli
was still deeply interested in the pebbles, and he did
not notice when the wolves came and looked at him
one by one. At last they all went down the
hill for the dead bull, and only Akella, Bagheera, Balu,
and Maugli's own wolves were left. Sheer Khan roared still

(18:22):
in the night, for he was very angry that Maugli
had not been handed over to him. I roar well,
said Bagheera, under his whiskers, for the time will come
when this naked thing will make thee roar to another tune,
or I know nothing of man. It was well done,
said Akella. Men and their cubs are very wise. He

(18:43):
may be a help in time. Five thousand thirty eight.
Akella the lone Wolf truly a help in time of need,
for none can hope to lead the pack forever, said Bagheera.
Akella said nothing. He was thinking of the time that
comes to every of every pack, when his strength goes
from him and he gets feebler and feebler, till at

(19:04):
last he is killed by the wolves, and a new
leader comes up to be killed in his turn. Take
him away, he said to father Wolf, and train him
as befits, one of the free people. And that is
how Maugli was entered into the Seine wolf pack for
the price of a bull, and on Bellow's good word.
Now you must be content to skip ten or eleven

(19:24):
whole years and only guess at all the wonderful life
that Maugli led among the wolves, because if it were
written out, it would fill ever so many books. He
grew up with the cubs, though they of course were
grown wolves, almost before he was a child, and Father
Wolf taught him his business and the meaning of things
in the jungle till every rustle in the grass, every

(19:46):
breath of the warm night air, every note of the
owls above his head, every scratch of a bat's claws
as it roost for a while in a tree, and
every splash of every little fish jumping in a pool
meant just as much to him as the work of
his office means to a business man. When he was
not learning, he sat out in the sun and slept
and ate, and went to sleep again. When he felt

(20:08):
dirty or hot, he swam in the forest pools. And
when he wanted honey, Baloo told him that honey and
nuts were just as pleasant to eat as raw meat.
He climbed up for it, and that Bagheera showed him
how to do zero zero four to three. Bagheera would
lie out on a branch and call, come along, little brother.
Bagheera would lie out on a branch and call, come along,

(20:31):
little brother. And at first Maugli would cling like the sloth,
but afterward he would fling himself through the branches, almost
as boldly as the gray ape. He took his place
at the council rock too, when the pack met, and
there he discovered that if he stared hard at any wolf,
the wolf would be forced to drop his eyes, and
so he used to stare for fun. At other times

(20:53):
he would pick the long thorns out of the pads
of his friends, for wolves suffered terribly from thorns and burrs.
In their coats. He would go down the hillside into
the cultivated lands by night and look very curiously at
the villagers in their huts. But he had a mistrust
of men because Bagheira showed him a square box with
a drop gate so cunningly hidden in the jungle that

(21:13):
he nearly walked into it and told him that it
was a trap. He loved better than anything else to
go with Bagheira into the dark, warm heart of the
forest to sleep all through the drowsy day and at
night see how Bagheera did his killing. Bagheira killed right
and left as he felt hungry, and so did Maugli,
with one exception. As soon as he was old enough

(21:35):
to understand things, Bagheira told him that he must never
touch cattle, because he had been bought into the pack
at the price of a bull's life. All the jungle
is thine, said Bagheera, and thou canst kill everything that
thou art strong enough to kill. But for the sake
of the bull that bought thee, thou must never kill
or eat any cattle, young or old. That is the

(21:56):
law of the jungle. Maugli obeyed, faithful, and he grew
and grew strong as a boy must grow who does
not know that he is learning any lessons, and who
has nothing in the world to think of, accept things
to eat. Mother Wolf told him once or twice that
sheer Khan was not a creature to be trusted, and
that some day he must kill sheer Khan. But though

(22:18):
a young wolf would have remembered that advice every hour,
Maubi forgot it because he was only a boy. Though
he would have called himself a wolf if he had
been able to speak in any human tongue, sheer Khan
was always crossing his path in the jungle. For as
Akella grew older and feebler, the lame tiger had come
to be great friends with the younger wolves of the pack,
who followed him for scraps, thing Akella would never have allowed.

(22:41):
If he had dared to push his authority to the
proper bounds. Then sheer Khan would flatter them and wonder
that such fine young hunters were content to be led
by a dying wolf and a man's cup. They tell me.
Sheer Khan would say that a council, ye dare not
look him between the eyes, and the young wolves would
growl and bristle. Bagheera, who had eyes and ears everywhere,

(23:05):
knew something of this, and once or twice he told
Maugli in so many words that sheer Khan would kill
him some day. Maugli would laugh and answer, I have
the pack, and I have thee, and Baloo, though he
is so lazy, might strike a blow or two for
my sake. Why should I be afraid? It was one
very warm day that a new notion came to Bagheera,

(23:28):
born of something that he had heard. Perhaps Ikey the
porcupine had told him. But he said to Maugli when
they were deep in the jungle, as the boy lay
with his head on Bagheera's beautiful black skin, little brother,
how often have I told thee that sheer Khan is
thy enemy? As many times as there are nuts on
that palm, said Maugli, who naturally could not count. What

(23:50):
of it? I am sleepy, Bagheera, and sheer Khan is
all long tail and loud talk like Mao the peacock.
But this is no time for sleeping. Belu knows it.
I know it, the pack know it, and even the foolish,
foolish dear no Tobaki has told thee too. Ho ho,

(24:13):
said Maugli. Tobaki came to me not long ago with
some rude talk that I was a naked man's cub
and not fit to dig pig nuts. But I caught
Tobaki by the tail and swung him twice against a
palm tree to teach him better manners. That was foolishness,
for though Tobaki is a mischief maker, he would have
told thee of something that concerned thee. Closely open those eyes,

(24:36):
little brother, Shear Khan, dare not kill thee in the jungle.
But remember Akela is very old, and soon the day
comes when he cannot kill his buck, and then he
will be leader no more. Many of the wolves that
look thee over when thou wast brought to the council first,
are old too. And the young wolves believe, as Shir

(24:56):
Khan has taught them, that a man cup has no
place with the pack. In a little time thou wilt
be a man. And what is a man that he
should not run with his brothers? Said Maugli. I was
born in the jungle. I have obeyed the law of
the jungle. And there is no wolf of ours from
whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. Surely they

(25:17):
are my brothers. Bagheira stretched himself at full length and
half shut his eyes. Little brother said he feel under
my jaw. Maugli put up his strong brown hand, and
just under Bagheera's silky chin, where the giant rolling muscles
were all hid by the glossy hair, he came upon
a little bald spot. There is no one in the

(25:39):
jungle that knows that I Bagheira, carry that mark, the
mark of the collar. And yet little brother, I was
born among men, and it was among men that my
mother died in the cages of the king's palace at Adipoor.
It was because of this that I paid the price
for thee at the council when thou wast a little
naked cub. Yes, I too was born among men. I

(26:02):
had never seen the jungle. They fed me behind bars
from an iron pan, till one night I felt that
I was Bagheera the panther and no man's plaything. And
I broke the silly lock with one blow of my
paw and came away. And because I had learned the
ways of men, I became more terrible in the jungle
than sheer khan. Is it not so, yes, said Maugli.

(26:25):
All the jungle fear Bagheera, all except Maugli. Oh, thou
art a man's cub, said the black panther, very tenderly.
And even as I returned to my jungle, So thou
must go back to men at last, to the men
who are thy brothers. If thou art not killed in
the council. But why, but why should any wish to
kill me, said Maugli. Look at me, said Bagheera, and

(26:50):
Maugli looked at him steadily between the eyes. The big
panther turned his head away in half a minute. That
is why, he said, shifting his paw on the leaves.
Not even I can look THEE between the eyes. And
I was born among men, and I love THEE, little brother.
The others they hate THEE because their eyes cannot meet thine,

(27:12):
because thou art wise, because thou hast pulled out thorns
from their feet, because thou art a man. I did
not know these things, said Moudly, sullenly, and he frowned
under his heavy black eyebrows. What is the law of
the jungle? Strike first, and then give tongue by thy
very carelessness. They know that thou art a man, But

(27:34):
be wise. It is in my heart that when Achella
misses his next kill, and at each hunt it costs
him more to pin the buck, the pack will turn
against him and against thee. They will hold a jungle
council at the rock. And then and then I have it,
said Bagheera, leaping up. Go thou down quickly to the
men's huts in the valley, and take some of the

(27:55):
red flower which they grow there, so that when the
time comes thou mayest have even a stronger friend than
I or Balu, or those of the pack that love thee.
Get the red flower. By red flower, Bagheira, meant fire.
Only no creature in the jungle will call fire by
its proper name. Every beast lives in deadly fear of it,

(28:15):
and invents a hundred ways of describing it. The red flower,
said Maugli, that grows outside their huts in the twilight.
I will get some there, speaks the man's cub, said Bagheera, proudly.
Remember that it grows in little pots. Get one swiftly,
and keep it by thee for time of need. Good,

(28:38):
said Maugli. I go, but art thou sure, o, my Bagheera.
He slipped his arm around the splendid neck and looked
deep into the big eyes. Art thou sure that all
this is sheer Khan's doing? By the broken lock that
freed me, I am sure, little brother. Then by the
bull that bought me. I will pay sheer Khan full

(28:59):
tail for this. And it may be a little over,
said Maugli, and he bounded away. That is a man,
that is all a man, said Bagheera to himself, lying
down again. Oh, sheer Khan never was a blacker hunting
than that frog hunt of Thine ten years ago. Maugli
was far and far through the forest, running hard, and

(29:21):
his heart was hot in him. He came to the
cave as the evening mist rose, and drew breath and
looked down the valley. The cubs were out, but mother Wulf,
at the back of the cave knew by his breathing
that something was troubling her frog. What is it, son,
she said, some bats chatter of sheer Khan. He called back,

(29:44):
I hunt among the plowed fields tonight, and he plunged
downward through the bushes to the stream at the bottom
of the valley. There he checked for He heard the
yell of the pack hunting, heard the bellow of a
hunted samber, and the snort as the buck turned at bay.
Then there were wicked, bitter howls from the young wolves. Akella, Akella,

(30:05):
let the lone wolf show his strength. Room for the
leader of the pack spring Akella. The lone wolf must
have sprung, missed his hold, for Mowgli heard the snap
of his teeth, and then a yelp as the samber
knocked him over with his forefoot. He did not wait
for anything more, but dashed on, and the yells grew

(30:26):
fainter behind him as he ran into the croplands where
the villagers lived. Bagia spoke truth. He panted as he
nestled down in some cattle fodder by the window of
a hut. Tomorrow is one day, both for a Kella
and for me. Then he pressed his face close to
the window and watched the fire on the hearth. He

(30:46):
saw the husbandman's wife get up and feed it in
the night with black lumps, And when the morning came
and the mists were all white and cold, he saw
the man's child pick up a wicker pot plastered inside
with earth. Fill it with lumps of red hot charcoal,
put it under his blanket, and go out to tend
the cows in the byre. Is that all, said Maugli.

(31:07):
If a cub can do it, there is nothing to fear.
So he strode round the corner and met the boy,
took the pot from his hand, and disappeared into the mist,
while the boy howled with fear. They are very like me,
said Maugli, blowing into the pot, as he had seen
the woman do. This thing will die if I do
not give it things to eat, And he dropped twigs

(31:29):
and dried bark on the red stuff. Half Way up
the hill he met Bagheera, with the morning dew shining
like moonstones on his coat. Akella has missed, said the panther.
They would have killed him last night, but they needed
thee also. They were looking for thee on the hill.
I was among the plowed lands. I am ready see,

(31:53):
Maugli held up the fire pot. Good. Now I have
seen men thrust a dry branch in to that stuff,
and presently the red flower blossomed at the end of it.
Art thou not afraid? No, Why should I fear? I
remember now if it is not a dream. How before

(32:13):
I was a wolf, I lay beside the red flower,
and it was warm and pleasant. All that day Maugli
sat in the cave, tending his fire pot and dipping
dry branches into it to see how they looked. He
found a branch that satisfied him, And in the evening,
when Tabaki came to the cave and told him rudely
enough that he was wanted at the council rock, he

(32:33):
laughed till Tobaki ran away. Then Maugli went to the
council still laughing. Five thousand and fifty four, Maugli and
Baghirra a Kella the lone wolf, lay by the side
of his rock as a sign that the leadership of
the pack was open, and sheer Khan, with his following
of scrap fed wolves, walked to and fro openly being flattered.

(32:54):
Bagheirra lay close to Maugli, and the fire pot was
between Maugli's knees. When they were all gathered together, sheer
Khan began to speak a thing he would never have
dared to do when Akellah was in his prime. He
has no right, whispered Bagheera say so. He is a
dog's son, he will be frightened. Maugli sprang to his feet.

(33:19):
Free people, he cried, does sheer Khan lead the pack?
What has a tiger to do with our leadership? Seeing
that the leadership is yet open, and being asked to speak,
sheer Khan began by whom said, Maugli, are we all
jackalls to fawn on this cattle? Butcher, the leadership of

(33:39):
the pack is with the pack alone. There were yells
of silence. Thou man's cup, let him speak. He has
kept our law, and at last the seniors of the pack, thundered,
let the dead wolf speak. When a leader of the
pack has missed his kill, he is called the dead
wolf as long as he lives, which is not long.

(34:00):
Akella raised his old head wearily. Free people, And ye too,
jackaws of sher Khan. For twelve seasons, I have led
ye to and from the kill, and in all that
time not one has been trapped remained. Now I have
missed my kill. Ye know how that plot was made.
Ye know how ye brought me up to an untried
buck to make my weakness known. It was cleverly done.

(34:24):
Your right is to kill me here on the council rock.
Now therefore I ask who comes to make an end
of the lone wolf, For it is my right by
the law of the jungle, that ye come one by one.
There was a long hush, for no single wolf cared
to fight Akella to the death. Then sheer Khan roared, bah,

(34:46):
what have we to do with this toothless fool? He
is doomed to die. It is the man cub who
has lived too long free people. He was my meat
from the first. Give him to me. I I'm weary
of this man wolf folly. He has troubled the jungle
for ten seasons. Give me the man cub, or I

(35:07):
will hunt here always and not give you one bone.
He is a man, a man's child, and from the
marrow of my bones I hate him. Then more than
half the pack yelled, a man a man? What has
a man to do with us? Let him go to
his own place and turn all the people of the

(35:27):
villages against us. Clamored shir Khan, No, give him to me.
He is a man, and none of us can look
him between the eyes. Akela lifted his head again and said,
he has eaten our food, he has slept with us.
He has driven game for us. He has broken no
word of the law of the jungle. Also, I paid

(35:51):
for him with a bull when he was accepted. The
worth of a bull is little, but Baghirra's honor is
something that he will perhaps fight for, said Baghiro in
his gentlest voice. A bull paid ten years ago. The
pack snarled, what do we care for bones ten years old?
Or for a pledge? Said Bagheera, his white teeth bared

(36:12):
under his lip. Well are ye called the free people?
No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle.
Howld Sheer Khan give him to me? He is our
brother in all but blood, Akella went on, and YE
would kill him here in truth, I have lived too long.
Some of ye are eaters of cattle and of others.

(36:34):
I have heard that under sher Khan's teaching, ye go
by dark knight and snatched children from the villager's doorstep.
Therefore I know ye to be cowards, and it is
to cowards I speak. It is certain that I must die,
and my life is of no worth, or I would
offer that in the man cub's place, But for the
sake of the honor of the pack, A little matter

(36:56):
that by being without a leader, ye have forgotten. I
promised that if ye let them man cub go to
his own place, I will not, when my time comes
to die, bear one tooth against ye. I will die
without fighting. That will at least save the pack three lives.
More I cannot do. But if ye will, I can
save ye the shame that comes of killing a brother

(37:17):
against whom there is no fault, a brother spoken for
and bought into the pack. According to the law of
the jungle. He is a man, a man, a man
snarled the pack, and most of the wolves began to
gather round sheer Khan, whose tail was beginning to switch.
Now the business is in thy hands, said Bagheera to Maugli.

(37:38):
We can do no more except fight. Maugli stood upright,
the fire pot in his hands. Then he stretched out
his arms and yawned in the face of the council.
But he was furious with rage and sorrow, for wolf
like the wolves had never told him how they hated him.
Listen you, he cried, There is no need for this

(38:00):
dog's jabber. Ye have told me so often tonight that
I am a man, and indeed I would have been
a wolf with you to my life's end. That I
feel your words are true. So I do not call
ye my brothers any more but sag dogs, as a
man should. What ye will do and what ye will
not do, is not yours to say that matter is

(38:22):
with me, and that we may see the matter more plainly,
I the man, have brought here a little of the
red flower which ye dog's fear. He flung the fire
pot on the ground, and some of the red coals
lit a tuft of dried moss that fluttered up as
all the council drew back in terror before the leaping flames,
maudly thrust his dead branch into the fire till the

(38:44):
twigs lit and crackled, and whirled it above his head
among the cowering wolves. Thou art, the master, said, bagheera,
in an undertone. Save a Kella from the death. He
was ever thy friend. Akella. The grim old wolf, who
had never asked for mercy in his life, gave one
piteous look at Maugli as the boy stood all naked,

(39:06):
his long black hair tossing over his shoulders in the
light of the blazing branch that made the shadows jump
and quiver. Good said Maugli, staring round slowly. I see
that ye are dogs. I go from you to my
own people. If they be my own people. The jungle
is shut to me, and I must forget your talk

(39:26):
and your companionship. But I will be more merciful than
ye are, because I was all but your brother in blood.
I promise that when I am a man among men,
I will not betray ye to men as ye have
betrayed me. He kicked the fire with his foot and
the sparks flew up. There shall be no war between
any of us in the pack. But here is a

(39:48):
debt to pay before I go. He strode forward to
where sheer Khan sat, blinking stupidly at the flames, and
caught him by the tuft on his chin. Baghirraf followed.
In case of accidents, up, dog, Maugli cried, up, when
a man speaks, or I will set that coat a blaze.

(40:09):
Sheer Khan's ears lay flat back on his head, and
he shut his eyes, for the blazing branch was very near.
This cattle killer said he would kill me in the
council because he had not killed me when I was
a cup. Thus, and thus then do we beat dogs
when we are men. Stir a whisker lungry, and I
ran the red flower down thy gullet. He beat sheer

(40:32):
Khan over the head with the branch, and the tiger
whimpered and whined in an agony of fear. Paw Singe,
jungle cat. Go now, but remember, when next I come
to the council rock, as a man should come, it
will be with sheer Khan's hide on my head. For
the rest Akella goes free to live as he pleases.

(40:53):
Ye will not kill him, because that is not my will,
Nor do I think that ye will sit here any longer,
lolling out your tongues as though ye were somebody's instead
of dogs, whom I drive out. Thus go. The fire
was burning furiously at the end of the branch, and
Maugli struck right and left round the circle, and the

(41:13):
wolves ran howling with the sparks burning their fur. At
last there were only a Kella Bagheera and perhaps ten
wolves that had taken Maugli's part. Then something began to
hurt Maugli inside him as he had never been heard
in his life before, and he caught his breath and
sobbed and the tears ran down his face. What is it?

(41:35):
What is it? He said? I do not wish to
leave the jungle, and I do not know what this is.
Am I dying? Baghirra five thousand and sixty six. Maugli
leaving the jungle? No, little brother, that is only tears,
such as men use, said Baghirra. Now I know thou
art a man and a man's cub. No longer the

(41:58):
jungle is shut. Indeed, to the hen forward, let them fall, Maugli,
They are only tears. So Mawgli sat and cried as
though his heart would break, and he had never cried
in all his life before. Now he said, I will
go to men, but first I must say farewell to
my mother. And he went to the cave where she

(42:20):
lived with Father Wolf, and he cried on her coat,
while the four cubs howled miserably. Ye will not forget me,
said Maugli. Never while we can follow a trail, said
the cubs. Come to the foot of the hill, when
thou art a man, and we will talk to thee,
and we will come into the croplands to play with thee.
By night. Come soon, said father Wolf. Oh wise, little frog,

(42:45):
come again soon, For we be old thy mother, and
I come soon, said mother wolf, little naked son of mine.
For listen, child of man, I love thee more than
ever I loved my cubs. I will surely come, said Maugli.
And when I come, it will be to lay out
sheer khans hide upon the council rock. Do not forget me,

(43:09):
Tell them in the jungle never to forget me. The
dawn was beginning to break when Maugli went down the
hillside alone to meet those mysterious things that are called
men hunting song of the sea and e pack. As
the dawn was breaking, the samber belled once twice and again,
and a doe leaped up, and a doe leaped up
from the pond in the wood where the wild deer sap.

(43:32):
This I scouting alone beheld once twice and again. As
the dawn was breaking, the samber belled once twice and again,
and a wolf stole back, and a wolf stole back
to carry the word to the waiting pack. And we sought,
and we found, and we bade on his track once
twice and again. As the dawn was breaking, the wolf

(43:53):
pack yelled once twice and again. Feed in the jungle
that leave no mark, eyes that can see in the dark,
the dark tongue, give tongue to it. Hark oh, hark
once twice and again zero zero six seven CAUs hunting.

(44:14):
His spots are the joy of the leopard. His horns
are the buffalo's pride. Be clean, for the strength of
the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide.
If ye find that the bullock can toss you, or
the heavy browed samber can gore, ye need not stop
work to inform us. We knew it ten seasons before.
Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them

(44:36):
as sister and brother. For though they are little and fubbsy,
it may be the bear is their mother. There is
none like to me, says the cub in the pride
of his earliest kill. But the jungle is large, and
the cub he is small. Let him think and be still,
maxims of Balow. All that is told here happen some
time before Maugli was turned out of the Siainee wolf

(44:57):
pack or revenged himself on sheer com the tiger. It
was in the days when Balu was teaching him the
law of the jungle the big, serious, old brown bear,
was delighted to have so quick a pupil. For the
young wolves will only learn as much of the law
of the jungle as applies to their own pack and tribe,
and run away as soon as they can repeat the

(45:18):
hunting verse. Feet that make no noise, eyes that can
see in the dark, ears that can hear the winds
in their lairs, and sharp white teeth. All these things
are the marks of our brothers, except Tabaki the jackal,
and the hyena, whom we hate. But Maugli, as a
man cub, had to learn a great deal more than this.

(45:38):
Sometimes Bagheera, the black panther would come lounging through the
jungle to see how his pet was getting on, and
would purr with his head against a tree while Maugli
recited the day's lesson. To Bellu, the boy could climb
almost as well as he could swim, and swim almost
as well as he could run. So Balou, the teacher
of the law, taught him the wood and water laws,

(45:59):
how to tell a rotten branch from a sound one,
how to speak politely to the wild bees when he
came upon a hive of them fifty feet above ground,
what to say to Mang the bat when he disturbed
him in the branches at midday, and how to warn
the water snakes in the pools before he splashed down
among them. None of the jungle people like being disturbed,

(46:19):
and all are very ready to fly at an intruder. Then, too,
Maugli was taught the stranger's hunting call, which must be
repeated aloud till it is answered whenever one of the
jungle people hunts outside his own grounds. It means, translated,
give me leave to hunt here because I am hungry,
And the answer is hunt then for food, but not

(46:42):
for pleasure. All this will show you how much Maugli
had to learn by heart, and he grew very tired
of saying the same thing over a hundred times. But
as Bellu said to Bagheera one day when Maugli had
been cuffed and run off in a temper, a man's
cub is a man's cub, and he must learn all
the law of the jungle. But think how small he is,

(47:04):
said the black panther, who would have spoiled moudly if
he had had his own way. How can his little
head carry all thy long talk? Is there anything in
the jungle too little to be killed. No, that is
why I teach him these things, And that is why
I hit him very softly when he forgets softly. What

(47:26):
dost thou know of softness? Old iron feet, Baguyua grunted.
His face is all bruised to day by thy softness. Augh.
Better he should be bruised from head to foot by me,
who love him, than that he should come to harm
through ignorance. Baloo answered very earnestly. I am now teaching

(47:46):
him the master words of the jungle that shall protect
him with the birds and the snake people, and all
that hunt on four feet except his own pack. He
can now claim protection if he will only remember the
words from all in the jungle. Is not that worth
a little beating? Well? Look to it, then, that thou
dost not kill the man cup. He is no tree

(48:08):
trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon. But what are
those master words? I am more likely to give help
than to ask it. Bagheia stretched out one paw and
admired the steel blue ripping chisel talons at the end
of it. Still I should like to know. I will
call Maugli and he shall say them if he will come,

(48:28):
little brother, my head is ringing like a bee tree,
said a sullen little voice over their heads, and Maugli
slid down a tree trunk, very angry and indignant, adding
as he reached the ground, I come for Bagheera, and
not for thee. Fat Old Balu, that is all one
to me, said balw though he was hurt and grieved.

(48:49):
Tell Bagheera then the master words of the jungle that
I have taught thee this day, master words for which people,
said Maugli, delighted to show off the jungle as many tongues.
I know them all a little thou knowest, but not
much see o Bagheera. They never thank their teacher. Not

(49:11):
one small wolfling has ever come back to thank old
Bellow for his teachings. Say the word for the hunting people, then,
great scholar, we be of one blood, ye, and I
said Maugli, giving the words the bare accent which all
the hunting people use. Good. Now for the birds, Maugli repeated,

(49:32):
with the kite's whistle at the end of the sentence.
Now for the snake people, said Bagheera. The answer was
a perfectly indescribable hiss. And Maugli kicked up his feet behind,
clapped his hands together to applaud himself, and jumped on
to Bagheera's back, where he sat sideways, drumming with his
heels on the glossy skin and making the worst faces

(49:54):
he could think of at Bellu. There there that was
worth a little bruise, said the brown bear tenderly. Some
day thou wilt remember me. Then he turned aside to
tell Bagheera how he had begged the master words from Hathi,
the wild elephant, who knows all about these things, And
how Hathi had taken Maugli down to a pool to

(50:15):
get the snake word from a water snake because Balu
could not pronounce it, And how Maugli was now reasonably
safe against all accidents in the jungle because neither snake, bird,
nor beast would hurt him. No one then is to
be feared. Balu wound up, patting his big furry stomach
with pride. Except his own tribe, said Bagheera under his breath,

(50:38):
and then aloud to Maugli, have a care for my ribs,
little brother. What is all this dancing up and down?
Maugli had been trying to make himself heard by pulling
at Bagheera's shoulder fur and kicking hard. When the two
listened to him, he was shouting at the top of
his voice. And so I shall have a tribe of
my own and lead them through the branches all day long.

(51:00):
What is this new folly, little dreamer of dreams, said Bagheera. Yes,
and throw branches and dirt at old Balu. Maugli went on,
they have promised me this ah hoof Balu's big paw
scooped Mawgli off Bagheera's back, and as the boy lay
between the big forepaws, he could see the bear was angry.

(51:23):
Maugli said, Baloo, thou hast been talking with the bandar
Log the monkey people. Maugli looked at Bagheera to see
if the panther was angry too, and Baghira's eyes were
as hard as jade stone's. Thou hast been with the
monkey people, the gray apes, the people without a law,
the eaters of everything. That is great shame. When Balu

(51:46):
hurt my head, said Maugli. He was still on his back.
I went away, and the gray apes came down from
the trees and had pity on me. No one else cared.
He snuffled a little. The pity of the monkey people,
Balou snorted, the stillness of the mountain stream, the cool

(52:06):
of the summer sun. And then man Cub, and then
and then they gave me nuts and pleasant things to eat.
And they they carried me in their arms up to
the top of the trees and said I was their
blood brother, except that I had no tail, and should
be their leader some day. They have no leader, said Bagheera.

(52:27):
They lie, they have always lied. They were very kind
and bade me come again. Why have I never been
taken among the monkey people? They stand on their feet
as I do. They do not hit me with their
hard paws. They play all day. Let me get up,
bad Balou, Let me up. I will play with them again. Listen,

(52:52):
man Cub, said the bear, and his voice rumbled like
thunder on a hot night. I have taught thee all
the law of the jungle, for all the peoples of
the jungle, except the monkey folk, who live in the trees.
They have no law. They are outcasts. They have no
speech of their own, but use the stolen words which
they overhear when they listen and peep and wait up

(53:15):
above in the branches. Their way is not our way.
They are without leaders, They have no remembrance. They boast
and chatter and pretend that they are a great people
about to do great affairs in the jungle. But the
falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter, and
all is forgotten. We of the jungle have no dealings

(53:36):
with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink.
We do not go where the monkeys go. We do
not hunt where they hunt. We do not die where
they die. Hast thou ever heard me speak of the
bondar log till to day? No, said Maudli in a whisper,
for the forest was very still now Baloo had finished.

(53:56):
The jungle people. Put them out of their mouths and
out of their minds. They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless,
and they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to
be noticed by the jungle people. But we do not
notice them, even when they throw nuts and filth on
our heads. He had hardly spoken when a shower of

(54:16):
nuts and twigs spattered down through the branches, and they
could hear coughings and howlings and angry jumpings high up
in the air among the thin branches. The monkey people
are forbidden, said Baloo. Forbidden to the jungle people, remember, forbidden,
said Bagheera. But I still think Balou should have warned
thee against them. Ay I, How was I to guess

(54:39):
he would play with such dirt the monkey people fall,
A fresh shower came down on their heads, and the
two trotted away, taking Moudly with them. What Baloo had
said about the monkeys was perfectly true. They belonged to
the tree tops, and as beasts, very seldom look up.
There was no occasion for the monkeys and the jungle

(55:01):
people to cross each other's path. But whenever they found
a sick wolf or a wounded tiger or bear, the
monkeys would torment him, and would throw sticks and nuts
at any beast for fun and in the hope of
being noticed. Then they would howl and shriek senseless songs
and invite the jungle people to climb up their trees
and fight them, or would start furious battles over nothing

(55:23):
among themselves and leave the dead monkeys where the jungle
people could see them. 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 compromised things
by making up a saying what the bandar log think now,
the jungle will think later, and that comforted them a

(55:44):
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 Maugli
came to play with them and they heard how angry
Balloo was. They never meant to do any more. The
bondar log can never mean anything at all. But one
of them invented what seemed to him a brilliant idea,

(56:04):
and he told all the others that Maugli would be
a useful person to keep in the tribe because he
could reach sticks together for protection from the wind, so
if they caught him, they could make him teach them.
Of course, Maugli, as a woodcutter's child, inherited all sorts
of instincts and used to make little huts of fallen
branches without thinking how he came to do it. The

(56:26):
monkey people watching in the trees considered his play 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 everyone else would notice and envy them. Therefore,
they followed Balu and Bagheera and Maugli through the jungle
very quietly till it was time for the midday nap,

(56:47):
and Maugli, 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 Bellu woke the jungle with his

(57:10):
deep cries, and Bagheera bounded up the trunk with every
tooth bared. The bond oar 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

(57:32):
monkey people through tree land is one of the things
nobody can describe. They have their regular roads and cross
roads up hills and down hills, all laid out from
fifty to seventy or one hundred feet above ground, and
by these they can travel even at night if necessary.
Two of the strongest monkeys caught Maugli under the arms
and swung off with him through the tree tops twenty

(57:55):
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 Moudley 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

(58:16):
escort would rush him up a tree till he felt
the thinnest 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 across the still green jungle, as a man on

(58:36):
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 bondar
Logs swept along the tree roads, with Moudli their prisoner.
For a time he was afraid of being dropped. Then

(58:59):
he grew angry, but 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 only see the top sides of the branches,
so he stared upward and saw far away in the

(59:20):
blue Ran the kite, balancing and wheeling as he kept
watch over the jungle, waiting for things to die. Ran
saw 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
Maugli being dragged up to a tree top and heard
him give the kite call, for we be of one blood,

(59:41):
thou and I the waves of the branches closed over
the boy, but Ran balanced away to the next tree
in time to see the little brown face come up again.
Mark my trail, Maugli shouted, Tell Balou of the Seainee
pack and Bagheera of the council rock in whose name.
Brother Ran had never seen Maugli before, though of course

(01:00:05):
he had heard of him. Maugli, the frog man cub.
They call me, mark my trail. The last words were
shrieked as he was being swung through the air, but
Ran 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 Maugli's escort whirled along. Five thousand and ninety Balu

(01:00:29):
in the forest. 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 eye sight, they have pecked down
trouble for themselves. For Balu is no fledgling in Bagheira can,
as I know, kill more than goats. So he rocked

(01:00:51):
on his wings, his feet gathered up under him and waited. Meantime,
Balu and Bagheera were furious with rage and grief. Bagheera
climbed as he had never climbed before, but the thin
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 Balou, who had set

(01:01:14):
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, oh, haste,
we we may catch them. Yet Balu panted at that
speed it would not tire a wounded cow. Teacher of

(01:01:35):
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 a rolla
who they may have dropped him already being tired of

(01:01:56):
carrying him. Who can trust to bond our 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 Hyaena, For I am most miserable of bears. Irillala
wahua oh Maugli Maugli. Why did I not warn thee

(01:02:21):
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. Balu 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. Balu, thou hast neither memory nor respect.

(01:02:46):
What would the jungle think if I, the black panther,
curled myself up like Ikey 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 cup He is
wise and well taught, and above all he has the

(01:03:09):
eyes that make the jungle people afraid. But an 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. Bagheirra licked
one forepaw thoughtfully fool that I am, oh fat brown
root digging fool that I am, said ballew, uncoiling himself

(01:03:32):
with a jerk. It is true, what hathe the wild
elephant says to each his own fear, and they the
bondar log fear. Caw the rock snake. He can climb
as well as they can. He steals the young monkeys
in the night. The whisper of his name makes their
wicked tails cold. Let us go to Ka. What will

(01:03:53):
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.

(01:04:13):
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 Ka, was naturally suspicious.
Then in that case, thou and I, together, old hunter,
might make him see reason. Here Balu rubbed his faded
brown shoulder against the panther, and they went off to

(01:04:34):
look for Kaw. 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

(01:04:57):
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, Bagheira. He is always a little blind after
he has changed his skin, and very quick to strike.
Kaw was not a poisoned snake. In fact, he rather

(01:05:18):
despised the poisoned snakes as 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, Kaw was rather deaf and
did not hear the call at first. Then he curled up,

(01:05:39):
ready for any accident. His head lowered. Good hunting for
us all, he answered, Oho, Baloo, what dost thou do here?
Good hunting? Bagheira. One of us at least needs food.
Is there any news of game? Afoot a dough now
or even a young buck? I I am as empty

(01:06:00):
as a dried well. We are hunting, said Balu carelessly.
He knew that you must not hurry ka he is
too big. Give me permission to come with you, said Kaw.
A blow more or less is nothing to thee Bagheera
or Balou. But I I have to wait and wait
for days in a wood path and climb half a

(01:06:22):
night on the mere chance of a young ape Schasshau.
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 Ballew.
I am a fair length, A fair length, said Kaw
with a little pride. But for all that, it is

(01:06:44):
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 around the tree waked the bondar Log,
and they called me most evil names. Footless, Yes, ellow earthworm,
said Bagheera under his whiskers, as though he were trying

(01:07:04):
to remember something. S S S S. Have they ever
called me that, said Kaw, 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 wilt not face anything
bigger than a kid, because they are indeed shameless, these

(01:07:25):
bond our Log, because thou art afraid of the he
goat's horns, Bagheera went on sweetly. Now a snake, especially
a wary old python like Kaw, very seldom shows that
he is angry. But Baloo and Bagheera could see the
big swallowing muscles on either side of Kaw's throat, ripple
and bulge. The bond our Log have shifted their grounds,

(01:07:46):
he said quietly. When I came up into the sun today,
I heard them whooping among the tree tops. It it
is the bond our Log that we follow, now, said
balw but the words stuck in his throat, for that
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

(01:08:07):
small thing that takes two such hunters leaders in their
own jungle. I am certain on the trail of the bandar,
log Ka replied courteously, as he swelled with curiosity. Indeed,
Balu began, I am no more than the old and
sometimes very foolish teacher of the law to the Siaenee
wolf cubs and Bagheera. Here is Bagheera, said the black panther,

(01:08:29):
and his jaws shut with a snap, for he did
not believe in being humble. The trouble is this, Ka,
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 iky His quills make him
presumptuous of a man thing that was entered into a
wolf pack. But I did not believe. Ikey is full

(01:08:52):
of stories half heard and very badly told. But it
is true he is such a man cub as never
was us, said Bellow, the best and wisest and boldest
of man cubs, my own pupil, who shall make the
name of Bellou famous through all the jungles and besides
I we love him. Ka T S T S, said Ka,

(01:09:17):
weaving 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 bondar Log now, and we
know that of all the jungle people, they fear Ka alone.
They fear me alone. They have good reason, said Ka.

(01:09:42):
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 man thing is not to

(01:10:03):
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. We must
remind them to speak well of their master triple A SSP.
We must help their wandering memories. Now whither went they

(01:10:25):
with the cub? The jungle alone knows toward the sunset,
I believe said Balw. We had thought that thou wouldst
know ka I how I take them when they come
in my way. But I do not hunt the bond
our log, or frogs or green scum on a water

(01:10:45):
hole for that matter. Up up, up, up hillo Ilo Illo,
look up, Balou of the sea and ee wolf pack.
Balu looked up to see where the voice came from,
and there was Ran, the kite, sweeping down with the
sun shining on the upturned flanges of his wings. It

(01:11:06):
was near RAN's bedtime, but he had ranged all over
the jungle looking for the bear and had missed him
in the thick foliage. What is it, said Bellew, I
have seen Maudli among the bandar log. He bade me
tell you. I watched the bondar log have taken him
beyond the river to the monkey city, to the cold lairs.

(01:11:28):
They may stay there for a night, or ten nights
or an hour. I have told the bats to watch
through the dark time. That is my message. Good hunting
all you below full gorge in a deep sleep to you, Ran,
cried Bagheera. I will remember thee in my next kill,
and put aside the head for thee alone. O best

(01:11:51):
of kites. It is nothing, it is nothing. The boy
held the master word. I could have done no less,
and ran circled up again to his roost. He has
not forgotten to use his tongue, said Baloo, with a
chuckle of pride, to think of one so young remembering
the master word for the birds too. While he was

(01:12:12):
being pulled across trees, it was most firmly driven into him,
said Bagheira. But I am proud of him. And now
we must go to the Cold Lairs. They all knew
where that place was, but few of the jungle people
ever went there, because what they called the Cold Lairs
was an old, deserted city, lost and buried in the jungle.
And beasts seldom use a place that men have once used.

(01:12:36):
The wild boar will, but the hunting tribes do not. Besides,
the monkeys lived there as much as they could be
said to live anywhere, and no self respecting animal would
come within eyeshot of it, except in times of drought,
when the half ruined tanks and reservoirs held a little water.
Fifty one O four the Cold Lairs. It is half

(01:12:56):
a night's journey at full speed, said Bagheira, and Bellu
looked very serious. I will go as fast as I can,
he said anxiously. We dare not wait for thee follow Balou.
We must go on the quick foot Kaw and I
feet or no feet, I can keep abreast of all

(01:13:17):
thy four, said Kaw shortly. Balu made one effort to hurry,
but had to sit down panting, and so they left
him to come on later. While Bagheera hurried forward at
the quick panther canter, Kaw said nothing but strive as
Bagheera might. The huge rock Python held level with him.
When they came to a hill stream, Bagheera gained because

(01:13:39):
he bounded across, while Kaw swam his head and two
feet of his neck, clearing the water. But on level ground,
Kaw made up the distance by the broken lock that
freed me, said Bagheera, when twilight had fallen. Thou art
no slow goer. I am hungry, said ka Besides, they
called me speckled frog worm, earthworm and yellow to boot

(01:14:04):
all one. Let us go on, and Kaa seemed to
pour himself along the ground, finding the shortest road with
his steady eyes and keeping to it. In the cold lairs,
the monkey people were not thinking of Maugli's friends at all.
They had brought the boy to the lost city and
were very much pleased with themselves for the time. Maugli

(01:14:25):
had never seen an Indian city before, and though this
was almost a heap of ruins, it seemed very wonderful
and splendid. Some king had built it long ago on
a little hill. You could still trace the stone causeways
that led up to the ruined gates, where the last
splinters of wood hung to the worn, rusted hinges. Trees
had grown into and out of the walls. The battlements

(01:14:47):
were tumbled down and decayed, and wild creepers hung out
of the windows of the towers on the walls in
bushy hanging clumps. A great roofless palace crowned the hill,
and the marble of the courtyards and the fountains was
split and stained with red and green, and the very
cobblestones in the courtyard where the king's elephants used to live,
had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees.

(01:15:10):
From the palace you could see the rows and rows
of roofless houses that made up the city, looking like
empty honeycombs filled with blackness, the shapeless block of stone
that had been an idol in the square where four
roads met, the pits and dimples at street corners where
the public wells once stood, and the shattered domes of
temples with wild figs sprouting on their sides. The monkeys

(01:15:32):
called to place their city and pretended to despise the
jungle people because they lived in the forest, and yet
they never knew what the buildings were made for, nor
how to use them. They would sit in circles on
the hall of the King's council Chamber and scratch for
fleas and pretend to be men, where they would run
in and out of the roofless houses and collect pieces
of plaster and old bricks in a corner and forget

(01:15:55):
where they had hidden them, and fight and cry in
scuffling crowds, and then break off to play up and
down the terraces of the King's garden, where they would
shake the rose trees and the oranges in sport to
see the fruit and flowers fall. They explored all the
passages and dark tunnels in the palace, and the hundreds
of little dark rooms, but they never remembered what they

(01:16:15):
had seen, and what they had not, and so drifted
about in ones and twos or crowds, telling each other
that they were doing as men did. They drank at
the tanks and made the water all muddy, and then
they fought over it. And then they would all rush
together in mobs and shout, there is no one in
the jungle so wise and good and clever and strong
and gentle as the bandar Log. Then all would begin again,

(01:16:38):
till they grew tired of the city and went back
to the tree tops, hoping the jungle people would notice them. Maugli,
who had been trained under the law of the jungle,
did not like or understand this kind of life. The
monkeys dragged him into the cold lairs late in the afternoon,
and instead of going to sleep, as Maugli would have
done after a long journey, they joined him and danced

(01:17:00):
about and sang their foolish songs. One of the monkeys
made a speech and told his companions that Maugli's capture
marked a new thing in the history of the bandar Log,
for Maugli was going to show them how to weave
sticks and canes together as a protection against rain and cold.
Maugli picked up some creepers and began to work them
in and out, and the monkeys tried to imitate, but

(01:17:22):
in a very few minutes they lost interest and began
to pull their friend's tails, or jump up and down
on all fours, coughing. I wish to eat, said Maugli.
I am a stranger in this part of the jungle.
Bring me food or give me leave to hunt here.
Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts
and wild pawpaws, but they fell to fighting on the road,

(01:17:46):
and it was too much trouble to go back with
what was left of the fruit. Maugli was sore and
angry as well as hungry, and he roamed through the
empty city, giving the stranger's hunting call from time to time,
but no one answered him, and Maugli felt that he
had reached a very bad place. Indeed, all that Balou
has said about the bandar log is true, he thought

(01:18:07):
to himself. They have no law, no hunting call, and
no leaders, nothing but foolish words and little picking thievish hands.
So if I am starved or killed here, it will
be all my own fault. But I must try to
return to my own jungle balow will surely beat me,
but that is better than chasing silly rose leaves with

(01:18:28):
the bandar log. No sooner had he walked to the
city wall than the monkeys pulled him back, telling him
that he did not know how happy he was, and
pinching him to make him grateful. He set his teeth
and said nothing, but went with the shouting monkeys to
a terrace above the red sandstone reservoirs that were half
full of rain water. There was a ruined summer house

(01:18:50):
of white marble in the center of the terrace, built
for queens dead a hundred years ago. The domed roof
had half fallen in and blocked up the underground passage
from the palace by which the queens used to enter.
But the walls were made of screens of marble tracery,
beautiful milk white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians and
jasper and lapis lazuli. And as the moon came up

(01:19:13):
behind the hill that shone through the open work, casting
shadows on the ground like black velvet embroidery. Sore, sleepy
and hungry as he was, Maugli could not help laughing.
When the bondark Log began twenty at a time to
tell him how great and wise, and strong and gentle
they were, and how foolish he was to wish to
leave them. We are great, we are free, we are wonderful.

(01:19:39):
We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle.
We all say so, and so it must be true,
they shouted. Now, as you are a new listener and
can carry our words back to the jungle people so
that they may notice us in future, we will tell
you all about our most excellent cels. Maugli made no objection,
and the monkeys gathered by hundred and hundreds on the

(01:20:00):
terrace to listen to their own speakers singing the praises
of the bandar Log, and whenever a speaker stopped for
want of breath, they would all shout together. This is true,
we all say so. Malgli nodded and blinked and said
yes when they asked him a question, and his head
spun with the noise. Tabaki the jackal must have bitten
all these people, he said to himself, And now they

(01:20:23):
have madness. Certainly this is dewani the madness. Do they
never go to sleep? Now there is a cloud coming
to cover that moon. If it were only a big
enough cloud, I might try to run away in the darkness,
But I am tired. That same cloud was being watched
by two good friends in a ruined ditch below the

(01:20:44):
city wall. For Baghia and Kha, knowing well how dangerous
the monkey people were in large numbers, did not wish
to run any risks. The monkeys never fight unless they
are a hundred to one, and few in the jungle
care for those odds. I will go to the west wall,
Ka whispered, and come down swiftly, with the slope of
the ground in my favor. They will not throw themselves

(01:21:07):
upon my back in their hundreds. But I know it,
said Bagheera, would that Baloo were here. But we must
do what we can. When that cloud covers the moon,
I shall go to the terrace. They hold some sort
of council there over the boy good hunting, said Kaw grimly,
and glided away to the west wall that happened to

(01:21:29):
be the least ruined of any and the big snake
was delayed awhile before he could find the way up
the stones, the cloud hid the moon, and as Maugli wondered,
what would come next? He heard Bagheera's light feet on
the terrace. The black panther had raced up the slope
almost without a sound, and was striking. He knew better
than to waste time in biting right and left. Among

(01:21:50):
the monkeys who were seated round Maugli in circles fifty
and sixty deep. There was a howl of fright and rage,
And then as Bagheera tripped on the rolling kick king
bodies beneath him, a monkey shouted, there is only one here,
kill him. Kill. A scuffling mass of monkeys, biting, scratching,

(01:22:11):
tearing and pulling closed over Bagheera, while five or six
laid hold of Maugli, dragged him up the wall of
the summer house, and pushed him through the whole of
the broken dome. A man trained boy would have been
badly bruised, for the fall was a good fifteen feet,
but Maugli fell as Balou had taught him to fall,
and landed on his feet. Fifty one seventeen. The monkey fight.

(01:22:34):
Stay there, shouted the monkeys, till we have killed thy friends,
and later we will play with thee. If the poisoned
people leave, thee alive. We be of one blood, ye,
and I said Maugli, 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.

(01:22:55):
Even so 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 summer house was alive
with cobras. Stand still, little brother, for thy feet may
do us harm. Maugli stood as quietly as he could,

(01:23:15):
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, Bagheira was fighting for his life. Balu must
be at hand. Bagheira would not have come alone, Maugli thought,

(01:23:39):
and then he called aloud to the tank, Bagheira, Roll
to the water tanks, roll and plunge. Get to the water.
Bagheera heard and the cry that told him Maugli was safe,
gave him new courage. He worked his way desperately, inch
by inch, straight for the reservoirs, halting in silence. Then

(01:24:01):
from the ruined wall nearest the jungle rose up the
rumbling war shout of Balou. The old bear had done
his best, but he could not come before Bagheera. He shouted,
I am here, I climb, I haste I Huera, the
stone slip under my feet, wait my coming. Almost infamous

(01:24:24):
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 Moudly that Bagheera had fought his way to

(01:24:45):
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 Bellou.
It was then that Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin
and in despair, gave the snake's call for protection. We

(01:25:07):
be of one blood, ye and I, for he believed
that Ka had turned tail at the last minute. Even Balu,
half smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace,
could not help chuckling as he heard the black panther
asking for help. Ka 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

(01:25:30):
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 Bellou 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,

(01:25:53):
and far away scattered bands of the monkey folk woke
and came leaping along the tree roads to help their camrads.
And the cold lairs and the noise of The fight
roused all the day birds for miles round. Then Kaw
came straight, quickly and anxious to kill. The fighting strength
of a python is in the driving blow of his head,

(01:26:14):
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 Ka 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,

(01:26:34):
and Ka was thirty feet long. As you know. His
first stroke was delivered into the heart of the crowd,
round bellow. It was sent home with shut mouth, in silence,
and there was no need of a second. The monkeys
scattered with cries of Ka. It is Ka, Run Run.

(01:26:56):
Five thousand, one hundred and twenty five The Ka the Python.
Generation of monkeys had been scared into good behavior by
the stories their elders told them of Ka, 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 Ka, who could make himself look so like

(01:27:16):
a dead branch or a rotten stump, that the wisest
were deceived till the branch caught them. Ka 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 Balu drew a deep breath of relief.

(01:27:40):
His fur was much thicker than Bagheera's, but he had
suffered sorely in the fight. Then ka A 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

(01:28:00):
the walls and the empty houses stopped their cries, and
in the stillness that fell upon the city, Maugli 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 Maugli, dancing in the summer house,

(01:28:23):
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, Bagheirra, gasped, Let us take the man
cub and go. They may attack again. They will not
move till I order them. Stay you so kaw hissed,

(01:28:46):
and the city was silent once more. I could not
come before, brother, But I think I heard THEE call.
This was to Bagheirra. I I may have cried out
in the battle. Bagheera answered, balu are thou hurt? I
am not sure that they did not pull me into
a hundred little bullings, said Ballew, gravely, shaking one leg

(01:29:07):
after the other. Wow, I am sore ka, 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 Maugli. The curve of the broken dome was above

(01:29:28):
his head. Take him away, he dances like Mao the peacock.
He will crush our young, said the cobras inside Ha
said Ka with a chuckle. He has friends everywhere this manling,
stand back, Manling, and hide you o poisoned people. I

(01:29:49):
break down the wall. Ka 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 screenwork broke
and fell away in a cloud of dust and rubbish,

(01:30:11):
and Maugli leaped through the opening and flung himself between
Balu and Bagheera, an arm around each big neck. Art
thou hurt, said Balu, 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,

(01:30:34):
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 Bellew of that we shall judge. Later,
said Bagheira, in a dry voice, that Maugli did not
at all like. But here is k to whom we

(01:30:54):
owe the battle, and thou owest thy life. Thank him
according to our customs. Maugli maldly turned and saw the
great python's head swaying a foot above his own. So
this is the manling, said Kaw. Very soft is his skin,
and he is not unlike the bondar log. Have a care, Manling,

(01:31:15):
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 maudly answered, I take my life from
thee to night. My kill shall be thy killed. If
ever thou art hungry, O Kaw all, thanks, little brother,
said Kaw, though his eyes twinkled. And what may so

(01:31:38):
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 towards 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

(01:31:59):
which I owe to thee, to Bagheera and to Balu.
Here good hunting to ye all my masters, well, said
growled Baloo, for Maugli had returned. Thanks very prettily. The
python dropped his head lightly for a minute on Maugli's shoulder.
A brave heart and a courteous tongue said he. They

(01:32:20):
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.

(01:32:42):
Balu went down to the tank for a drink, and
Bagheera began to put his fur in order as Kaw
glided out into the center of the terrace and brought
his jaws together with a ringing snap that drew all
the monkey's 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.

(01:33:03):
We see, O Kaw, good begins now the dance, the
dance of the hunger of Kaw. 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 eight with his body, and soft
boozy triangles that melted into squares and five sided figures

(01:33:26):
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. Balu and Bagheera stood
still as stone, growling in their throats, their neck hair bristling,
and moudly watched and wondered. Bond our log said the

(01:33:49):
voice of Ka. At last, can ye stir foot or
hand without my order? Speak? Without thy order? We cannot
stir foot or hand? O Kaw good, Come all one
pace nearer to me. The lines of the monkeys swayed
forward helplessly, and Balu and Bagheera took one stiff step

(01:34:10):
forward with them. Nearer, hissed Kaw, and they all moved again.
Maugli laid his hands on Balu and Bagheira 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 ka Ah. It

(01:34:33):
is only old Khaw making circles on the dust, said Maugli.
Let us go, and the three slipped off through a
gap in the walls to the jungle. Hoof said Balu
when he stood under the still trees again. Never more
will I make an ally of Kaw, And he shook
himself all over. He knows more than we, said Bagheira, trembling.

(01:34:57):
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 Balu. He will have
good hunting after his own fashion. But what was the
meaning of it all, said Maugli, who did not know
anything of a python's powers of fascination. I saw no

(01:35:18):
more than a big snake making foolish circles till the
dark came, and his nose was all sore. Ho ho, Maugli,
said Bagheia angrily. His nose was sore on thy account,
as my ears and sides and paws, and Balu's neck
and shoulders are bitten on thy account. Neither Balu nor

(01:35:39):
Bagheira will be able to hunt with pleasure for many days.
It is nothing, said Balu. 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 Maugli, I, who am the black panther,

(01:36:02):
was forced to call upon Kaw 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
Maugli sorrowfully. I am an evil man cub, and my
stomach is sad in me m f what says the

(01:36:25):
law of the jungle Balou Balu did not wish to
bring Maugli 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 Maugli, hast thou anything to say. Nothing I did wrong? Balu,

(01:36:52):
and thou are wounded. It is just Bagheera gave him
half a dozen love taps. From a panther's point, you,
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, Moudley sneezed and picked himself
up without a word. Now said Bagheera, Jump on my back,

(01:37:16):
little brother, and we will go home. One of the
beauties of jum The law is that punishment settles all scores.
There is no nagging. Afterward, Maugli 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.

(01:37:39):
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,

(01:38:02):
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,

(01:38:29):
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 rock it
by wear light and high. The wild grape swings by
the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make.

(01:38:51):
Be sure, be sure, We're going to do some splendid things.
Zero one one three Tiger, tiger? What of the hunting hunter?
Bold brother? The watch was long and cold? What of
the quarry you went to kill? Brother? He crops in
the jungle? Still, where is the power that made your pride? Brother?

(01:39:15):
It ebbs from my flank inside? Where is the haste?
That ye hurry by, brother, I go to my lair
to die. Now we must go back to the first tail.
When Maugli 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,

(01:39:37):
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

(01:39:58):
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 herd saw Maugli, they shouted and ran away,
and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian

(01:40:19):
village barked. Maugli 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

(01:40:42):
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

(01:41:02):
him at least a hundred people, who stared and talked
and shouted and pointed at Maugli. They have no manners,
these men folk, said Maugli 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

(01:41:23):
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

(01:41:45):
biting meant. R R 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

(01:42:08):
copper rings on her wrists and ankles, and she peered
at Maugli 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

(01:42:29):
has taken, the jungle has restored. Take the boy into
thy house, my sister, and forget not to honor the
priest who sees so far into the lives of men
by the bull that bought me, said Maugli to himself.
But all this talking is like another looking over by
the pack. Well, if I am a man, a man,
I must become. The crowd parted as the woman beckoned

(01:42:52):
Maugli 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
Hindoo god in a little alcove, and on the wall
a real looking glass, such as they sell at the
country fairs. She gave him a long drink of milk
and some bread, and then she laid her hand on

(01:43:14):
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, Nthu, oh Nathu. Maugli 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,

(01:43:39):
those feet have never worn shoes. But thou art very
like my Nathu, and thou shalt be my son. Maugli
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 he said

(01:44:00):
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.
It was not for fun that he had learned while
he was with the wolves to imitate the challenge of
bucks in the jungle and the grunt of the little
wild pig. So as soon as Messua pronounced a word,

(01:44:21):
Maugli would imitate it almost perfectly, and before dark he
had learned the names of many things in the hut.
There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Maugli 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.

(01:44:41):
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 Maugli 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. You, said, gray brother,
he was the eldest of mother Wolf's cubs. This is

(01:45:05):
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. Zero one one nine, Wake,
little brother, I bring news. Are all well in the jungle,
said Mowgli, hugging him, All except the wolves that were

(01:45:27):
burned with the red flower. Now listen. Sheer 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 wing gunga.
There are two words to that. I also have made
a little promise. But news is always good. I am

(01:45:50):
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

(01:46:12):
of the pack, and that thou mayest 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, Knight Maugli hardly ever left
the village gate. He was so busy learning the ways

(01:46:35):
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 plowing 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

(01:46:56):
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

(01:47:17):
he was weak compared with the beasts, but in the
village people said that he was as strong as a bull,
and Malgli had not the faintest idea of the difference
that cast makes between man and man. When the potter's
donkey slipped in the clay pit, Maugli hauled it out
by the tail and helped to stack the pots for
their journey to the market at Conhuara. That was very

(01:47:38):
shocking too, for the potter is a low caste man
and his donkey is worse. When the priest scolded him,
Mawgli threatened to put him on the donkey too, and
the priest told messer's husband that Maugli had better be
set to work as soon as possible, And the village
headman told Maugli that he would have to go out
with the buffaloes next day and heard them while they grazed.

(01:48:00):
No one was more pleased than Maugli, 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 headman,
the watchman, and the barber, who knew all the gossip
of the village, and old Bodio, the village hunter, who

(01:48:21):
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 hucas the water
pipes till far into the night. They told wonderful tales

(01:48:43):
of gods and men and ghosts, and Bodio 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

(01:49:04):
at twilight within sight of the village gates. Fifty one
fifty two of the village club. Maugli, who naturally knew
something about what they were talking of, had to cover
his face not to show that he was laughing, while Bodeo,
the tower musket across his knees, climbed on from one
wonderful story to another, and Maugli's shoulders shook. Boldeo was

(01:49:26):
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 Puran Das 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

(01:49:46):
limps too, for the tracks of his pads are unequal. True, True,
that must be the truth, said the graybeards, nodding together.
Zero one, two, five. Are all these tales such cobweb
and moontalk, said Maugli. Are all these tales, such cobwebs
and moontalk? Said Maugli. That tiger limps because he was

(01:50:09):
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. Bodio
was speechless with surprise for a moment, and the headman stared, o,
Ho it is the jungle? Brat is it? Said Boldio?
If thou art so wise, better bring his hide to

(01:50:31):
con Hiwara, for the government has set a hundred rupees
on his life. Better still, talk not when thy elders speak.
Maugli rose to go. All the evening I have lain
here listening, he called back over his shoulder, And except
once or twice, Bodio has not said one word of
truth concerning the jungle which is at his very doors.

(01:50:54):
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 Bodeo puffed and snorted at Maugli'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. The very

(01:51:17):
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. Maugli went through the village

(01:51:39):
street in the dawn, sitting on the back of Rama,
the great herd bull. The slaty blue buffaloes, with their long, backward,
sweeping horns and savage eyes, rose out their buyers one
by one and followed him, and Maugli made it very
clear to the children with him that he was the master.
He beat the buffaloes with a long polish bamboo and

(01:52:01):
told Kamayah, 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 scrub and
tussocks and little ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear.
The buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places,

(01:52:22):
where they lie wallowing or basking in the warm mud
for hours. Maugli drove them on to the edge of
the plain where the wing Gangha 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,

(01:52:45):
said Maugli. I am a village herd for a while.
What news of sheer 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 Maugli.

(01:53:05):
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 dark tree in the center of the plain.
We need not walk into sheer Khan's mouth. Then Maugli
picked out a shady place and lay down and slept
while the buffaloes grazed round him. Herding in India is

(01:53:29):
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

(01:53:51):
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

(01:54:12):
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 we've 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

(01:54:33):
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 worshiped.

(01:54:57):
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
straying across the gray plain back to the twinkling village lights.
Day after day Maubli would lead the buffaloes out to
their wallows, and day after day he would see gray
brothers back a mile and a half away across the plain.

(01:55:18):
So he knew that sher 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 Sheer Khan had made a
false step with his lame paw up in the jungles
by the wing Gangha, Maubli would have heard him. In
those long still mornings, zero won three zero At last,

(01:55:38):
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 d h k 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 Tabaki hot foot

(01:56:00):
on thy trail, said the wolf, panting. Maugli frowned. I
am not afraid of sheer Khan, but Tobaki is very cunning.
Have no fear, said Gray Brother, licking his lips a little.
I met Toabaki in the dawn. Now he is telling
all his wisdom to the kites. But he told me

(01:56:20):
everything before I broke his back. Sheer 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 Wing Ganga.
Has he eaten to day? Or does he hunt empty?
Said Maugli. For the answer meant life and death to him.

(01:56:42):
He killed at dawn a pig, and he has drunk too. Remember,
sheer 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?

(01:57:04):
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 Wayne Gunga to
cut that off, said Gray Brother. Tobaki told him that
I know he would never have thought of it alone.

(01:57:27):
Maugli stood with his finger in his mouth, thinking, the
big ravine of the Wayne Gunga 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?

(01:57:51):
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 had that Maugli knew well,
and the hot air was filled with the most desolate
cry of all the jungle, the hunting howl of a
wolf at midday, Akella, Akella, said Maugli, clapping his hands,

(01:58:15):
I might have known that thou wouldst not forget me.
We have a big work in hand. Cut the herd
in two, Akella. Keep the cows and calves together, and
the bulls and the plow 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

(01:58:37):
two clumps. In one, the cow buffaloes stood with their
calves in the center and glared and pawed, ready if
a wolf would only stay still, to charge down 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

(01:59:00):
divided the herd so neatly. What orders, panted a Kella.
They are trying to join again. Maugli slipped on to
Rama's back. Drive the bulls away to the left, Akella,
gray brother, When we are gone, hold the cows together
and drive them into the foot of the ravine. How far,

(01:59:21):
said Gray Brother, panting and snapping, Till the sides are
higher than sheer Khan can jump, shouted Maugli, Keep them
there till we come down. The bulls swept off as
a Kella 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

(01:59:42):
Akella drove the bulls far to the left. Well done,
Another charge and they are fairly started. Careful now, careful
a kella. A snap too much and the bulls will charge. Hooja,
this is wilder work than dry riving black buck. Didst

(02:00:02):
thou think these creatures could move so swiftly? Maugli called,
I have have hunted these two in my time, gasped
a Kella in the dust. Shall I turn them into
the jungle? I turn swiftly turn them. Rama is mad
with rage. Oh, if I could only tell him what

(02:00:24):
I need of him to day. 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 Maugli's plan was simple enough.

(02:00:45):
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 sheer
Khan between the bulls and the cows, for he knew
that after a meal and a full drink, sheer Khan
would not be in any condition to fight or to
clam up the sides of the ravine. He was soothing
the buffaloes now by voice, and Akella had dropped far

(02:01:06):
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 sheer Khan warning. At last, Maugli 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

(02:01:27):
the trees down to the plain below. But what Maugli
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, Akella,
he said, holding up his hand. They have not winded

(02:01:48):
him yet. Let them breathe. I must tell sheer Khan,
who comes, We have him in the trap. He put
his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine,
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

(02:02:09):
tiger just wakened. Who calls, said sheer Khan, And a
splendid peacock fluttered up out of the ravine, screeching, I Maugli,
cattle thief, it is time to come to the council.
Rock down, hurry them down, Akella, down, Rama down. The

(02:02:29):
herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope,
but Akella gave tongue in a 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 sheer Khan and bellowed five thousand, one hundred and

(02:02:51):
seventy one. Sheerd Khan in the jungle, ha Ha, said
Maugli 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

(02:03:14):
what the business was before them. The terrible charge of
the buffalo heard, against which no tiger can hope to stand.
Sheer 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 his drink, willing to do

(02:03:35):
anything rather than fight. The herd splashed through the pool
he had just left, bellowing till the narrow cut rang.
Maugli heard an answering bellow from the foot of the
ravine saw sheer con 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, stumbled, and went on again over something soft,

(02:03:58):
and with the bols 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. Maugli watched his time and slipped off
Rama's neck, laying about him right and left with his stick.

(02:04:19):
Quick a, Kella, break them up, scatter them, or they
will be fighting one another. Drive them away, Akella, Hi, Rama,
Hi high high, my children. Softly, now, softly, it is
all over. Akella and Gray brother ran to and fro

(02:04:42):
nipping the buffalo's legs, and though the herd wheeled once
to charge up the ravine again, Maugli managed to turn
Rama and the others followed him to the wallows. Sheer
Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead and the
kites were coming for him already. Brothers. That was a
dog's death, said Maugli, feeling for the knife he always

(02:05:03):
carried in a sheath round his neck, now that he
lived with men, but he would never have shown fight.
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 Maugli knew better than any one else how an
animal's skin is fitted on, and how it can be

(02:05:25):
taken off. But it was hard work, and Maugli 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 Bodeo with the tower musket.
The children had told the village about the buffalo stampede,

(02:05:46):
and Bodio went out angrily, only too anxious to correct
Maugli 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 Bodeo, angrily,
to think that thou canst skin a tiger? Where did
the buffaloes kill him? It is the lame tiger too,

(02:06:07):
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 Conhuara.
He fumbled in his waist cloth for flint and steel,
and stooped down to send sheer Khan's whiskers. Most native
hunters always sind a tiger's whiskers to prevent his ghost

(02:06:29):
from haunting them. Hum, said Maudli half to himself, as
he ripped back the skin of a forepaw. So thou
wilt take the hide to kan Huara for the reward,
and perhaps give me one rupee. Now it is in
my mind that I need the skin for my own use. Ha,
old man, take away that fire. What talk is this

(02:06:51):
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 thy bodio must
be told not to singe his whiskers. Maugli, I will

(02:07:13):
not give thee one anna of the reward, but only
a very big beating. Leave the carcass by the bull
that bought me, said Maugli, who was trying to get
at the shoulder. Must I stay babbling to an old
ape all noon? Here? Akella? This man plagues me. Bodeo,
who was still stooping over sheer Khan's head, found himself

(02:07:35):
sprawling on the grass with a gray wolf standing over him,
while Maugli went on skinning as though he were alone
in all India. Ye, yes, he said between his teeth,
thou art altogether right, Bodio, 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.

(02:07:57):
Anne I have won to do Bodio justice. If he
had been ten years younger, he would have taken his
chance with a kella, 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 Botheo, And he wondered whether the

(02:08:18):
amulet round his neck would protect him. He lay as
still as still expecting every minute to see Maugli turn
into a tiger too. Zero one four one bothio lay
as still expecting every minute to see Maugli turn into
a tiger too. Maharaj great king, he said at last,
in a husky whisper. Yes, said Maugli, without turning his head,

(02:08:43):
chuckling a little. I am an old man. I did
not know that thou wast anything more than a herd's boy.
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. Akella Boldeo hobbled away to the village

(02:09:05):
as fast as he could, looking back over his shoulder
in case Maugli 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.
Maugli went on with his work, but it was nearly
twilight before he and the wolves had drawn the great
gay skin clear of the body. Fifty one seventy nine

(02:09:28):
of the Return of the Buffalo heard now we must
hide this and take the buffaloes home. Help me to
herd them, Akella. The herd rounded up in the misty twilight,
and when they got near the village, Maugli 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

(02:09:51):
sher Khan, he said to himself. But a shower of
stones whistled about his ears, and the villagers shouted sorcerer,
wolf's brat, jungle demon, go away, get hence quickly, or
the priest will turn thee into a wolf again. Shoot
boldio shoot. The old tower musket went off with a bang,

(02:10:14):
and a young buffalo bellowed in pain. More sorcery, shouted
the villagers. He can turn bullets. BOLDEO, 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 Akella, sitting down composedly. It is in

(02:10:38):
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 toolsey plant again. Last
time it was because I was a man. This time
it is because I am a wolf. Let us go, Akella,

(02:11:01):
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 BOLDEO says thou art a wizard.
But I know thou hast avenged Netheu's death. Come back, Messua,

(02:11:24):
shouted the crowd. Come back, or we will stone thee
Moldy 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

(02:11:47):
send the herd in more swiftly than their brick bats.
I am no wizard, Messua. Farewell now once more, Akella,
he cried, bring the herd in. The buffaloes were anxious
enough to get to the village. They hardly needed Akella's yell,
but charged through the gate like a whirlwind, scattering the

(02:12:09):
crowd right and left. Keep count, shouted Maugli scornfully. It
may be that I have stolen one of them. Keep count,
for I will do your hurting. 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

(02:12:30):
away with the lone wolf, and as he looked up
at the stars, he felt happy. No more sleeping in
traps for me, Pekella. Let us get Sheer Khan's skin
and go away. No, we will not hurt the village,
for Messua was kind to me. Zero one four six.
When the moon rose over the plain, the villagers saw

(02:12:50):
Maugli trotting across with two wolves at his heels. When
the moon rose over the plain, making it look all milky,
the horrified villagers saw Maugli 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 conscience louder than ever, and Messua cried, and Boldeo

(02:13:14):
embroidered the story of his adventures in the jungle till
he ended by saying that Akella stood up on his
hind legs and talked like a man. The moon was
just going down when Maugli and the two wolves came
to the hill of the council Rock, and they stopped
at Mother Wulf's cave. They have cast me out from
the man pack, mother shouted Maugli. But I come with

(02:13:35):
the hide of sheer Khan to keep my word. Mother
Wulf 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,

(02:13:59):
said a deep in the thicket. We were lonely in
the jungle without thee and Bagheera came running to Maugli's
spare feet. They clambered up the council rock together, and
Maugli spread the skin out on the flat stone where
Achlla used to sit and pegged it down with four
slivers of bamboo, and Akella lay down upon it and
called the old call to the council look, look well,

(02:14:21):
o wolves, exactly as he had called when Maugli was
first brought there zero one four nine that they clambered
up the council rock together, and Maugli spread the skin
out on the flat stone. Ever since a Kella 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 laying from

(02:14:43):
the traps they had fallen into, and some limp 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 sheer
khans striped hide on the rock, and the huge claws
dangling at the end of the empty dangling feet. It
was then that Maugli made up a song that came

(02:15:05):
up into his throat all by itself, and he shouted
it aloud, leaping up and down on the rattling skin,
and beating time with his heels till he had no
more breath left, while Gray Brother and Akella howled between
the verses. Look well, o wolves, have I kept my word?
Said Maugli, and the wolves bathe yes, and one tattered

(02:15:26):
wolf howled, lead us again, O akella, Let us again,
o man cub, for we be sick of this lawlessness,
and we would be the free people once more. Nay
perd 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

(02:15:48):
and it is yours. Eat it, O wolves, man pack
and wolf pack have cast me out, said Maugli. Now
I will hunt alone in the jungle, and we will
hunt with thee, said the four cubs. So Maugli went
away and hunted with the four cubs in the jungle
from that day on. But he was not always alone,

(02:16:11):
because years afterward he became a man and married. But
that is a story for grown ups. Maugli's song that
he sang at the Council Rock when he danced on
sheer Khan's hide, the song of Maugli. I Maugli am singing.
Let the jungle listen to the things I have done.
Sheer Khan said he would kill, would kill at the

(02:16:33):
gates in the twilight he would kill Maugli the frog
he ate and he drank. Drink deep, sheer Khan. For
when wilt thou drink again, sleep and dream of the kill.
I am alone on the grazing grounds. Gray brother, Come
to me. Come to me, lone wolf, for there is

(02:16:53):
big game afoot. Bring up the great bull buffaloes, the
blueskinned herd bulls with the angry eyes. Drive them to
and fro as I order. Sleepest thou still, sheer Khan. Wake, oh, wake,
here come I and the bulls are behind Rama, the
king of the buffaloes, stamped with his foot waters of

(02:17:17):
the wing Ganga. Whither went sheer Khan. He is not
Ikey to dig holes, nor Mao the peacock that he
should fly. He is not mang the bat to hang
in the branches, little bamboos that creak together. Tell me
where he ran? Aw, he is there, Ahoo, he is there.

(02:17:40):
Under the feet of Rama lies the lame one. Up,
sheer Khan, Up and kill. Here is meat. Break the
necks of the bulls. H s h. He is asleep.
We will not wake him, for his strength is very great.
The kites have come down to see it. The black

(02:18:01):
ants have come up to know it. There is a
great assembly in his honor allallah. I have no cloth
to wrap me. The kites will see that I am naked.
I am ashamed to meet all these people. Lend me
thy coat, sheer Khan. Lend me thy gay striped coat,
that I may go to the council rock by the

(02:18:23):
bull that bought me. I made a promise, a little promise.
Only thy coat is lacking. Before I keep my word
with the knife, with the knife that men use, with
the knife of the hunter, I will stoop down for
my gift waters of the wing Gangha. Sheer Khan gives
me his coat for the love that he bears me.
Pull gray brother, pull a kella heavy is the hide

(02:18:48):
of sheer Khan. The man pack are angry. They throw
stones and talk child's talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let
me run away the night through the hot night. Run
swiftly with me, my brothers. We will leave the lights
of the village and go to the low moon waters

(02:19:09):
of the wing Gangha. The man pack have cast me out.
I did them no harm, but they were afraid of me.
Why wolf pack, ye have cast me out too. The
jungle is shut to me, and the village gates are shut.
Why as mang flies between the beasts and birds, so

(02:19:29):
fly I between the village and the jungle. Why I
dance on the heid of sheer Khan. But my heart
is very heavy. My mouth is cut and wounded with
the stones from the village. But my heart is very
light because I have come back to the jungle. Why
these two things fight together in me as the snakes

(02:19:50):
fight in the spring. The water comes out of my eyes,
Yet I laugh while it falls. Why I am too mauglies.
But the hide of s Khan is under my feet.
All the jungle knows that I have killed sheer Khan.
Look look well, o wolves, ahey. My heart is heavy

(02:20:11):
with the things that I do not understand. Zero one
five seven the white seal, Oh, hush thee my baby.
The night is behind us, and black are the waters
that sparkled so green. The moon o'er the combers looks
downward to find us at rest in the hollows that
rustle between where billow meets billow. Then soft be thy pillow, Ah,

(02:20:35):
weary we flipperling, curl at thy ease. The storm shall
not wake thee nor shark overtake thee asleep in the
arms of the slow swinging seas seal lullaby. All these
things happened several years ago at a place called Novastashna,
or northeast point on the island of Saint Paul, away
and away in the Bearing Sea. Limersham, the winter ran,

(02:20:58):
told me the tale when he was blown on to
the rigging of a steamer going to Japan. And I
took him down into my cabin and warmed and fed
him for a couple of days till he was fit
to fly back to Saint Paul's again. Limoshen is a
very quaint little bird, but he knows how to tell
the truth. Nobody comes to Novastashna except on business, and
the only people who have regular business there are the seals.

(02:21:22):
They come in the summer months by hundreds and hundreds
of thousands out of the cold gray sea. For Novastashna
Beach has the finest accommodation for seals of any place
in all the world. Sea catch knew that, and every
spring would swim from whatever place he happened to be in,
would swim like a torpedo boat straight for Novastashna and
spend a month, fighting with his companions for a good

(02:21:43):
place on the rocks as close to the sea as possible.
Sea Catch was fifteen years old, a huge gray fur
seal with almost a mane on his shoulders and long,
wicked dog teeth. When he heaved himself up on his
front flippers, he stood more than four feet of the ground,
and his weight, if anyone had been bold enough to
weigh him, was nearly seven hundred pounds. He was scarred

(02:22:07):
all over with the marks of savage fights, but he
was always ready for just one fight more. He would
put his head on one side, as though he were
afraid to look his enemy in the face. Then he
would shoot it out like lightning, And when the big
teeth were firmly fixed on the other seal's neck, the
other seal might get away if he could, but Sea
Catch would not help him. Yet. Sea Catch never chased

(02:22:31):
a beaten seal, for that was against the rules of
the beach. He only wanted room by the sea for
his nursery. But as there were forty or fifty thousand
other seals hunting for the same thing each spring, the whistling, bellowing, roaring,
and blowing on the beach was something frightful. From a
little hill called Hutchinson's Hill, you could look over three

(02:22:52):
and a half miles of ground covered with fighting seals,
and the surf was dotted all over with the heads
of seals hurrying to land and begin their share of
the fighting. They fought in the breakers, they fought in
the sand, and they fought on the smooth, worn basalt
rocks of the nurseries. For they were just as stupid
and unaccommodating as men. Their wives never came to the

(02:23:13):
island until late in May or early in June, for
they did not care to be torn to pieces. And
the young two dash, three dash and four year old
seals who had not begun housekeeping, went inland about half
a mile through the ranks of the fighters, and played
about on the sand dunes in droves and legions, and
rubbed off every single green thing that grew. They were

(02:23:35):
called the Hollischickie the bachelors, and there were perhaps two
or three hundred thousand of them at Novstashna alone. Sea
Catch had just finished his forty fifth fight one spring
when Matka, his soft, sleek, gentle eyed wife, came up
out of the sea and he caught her by the
scruff of the neck and dumped her down on his reservation, saying, gruffly, late,

(02:23:56):
as usual, where have you been? It was as not
the fashion for sea catch to eat anything during the
four months he stayed on the beaches, and so his
temper was generally bad. Motka knew better than to answer back.
She looked round and cooed, how thoughtful of you. You've
taken the old place again. I should think I had said,

(02:24:18):
see catch, look at me. He was scratched and bleeding
in twenty places one I was almost out, and his
sides were torn to ribbons. Oh you men, you men,
Matka said, fanning herself with her hind flipper. Why can't
you be sensible and settle your places quietly? You look

(02:24:39):
as though you had been fighting with the killer whale.
I haven't been doing anything but fight since the middle
of May. The beach is disgracefully crowded this season. I've
met at least a hundred seals from lookin' on beach
house hunting. Why can't people stay where they belong? I've
often thought we should be much happier if we hauled

(02:25:00):
out at Otter Island, instead of this crowded place, said
Matka Bah. Only the hollischickie go to Otter Island. If
we went there, they would say we were afraid. We
must preserve appearances. My dear sea catch sunk his head
proudly between his fat shoulders and pretended to go to
sleep for a few minutes. But all the time he

(02:25:22):
was keeping a sharp lookout for a fight. Now that
all the seals and their wives were on the land,
you could hear their clamor miles out to see above
the loudest gales. At the lowest counting, there were over
a million seals on the beach, old seals, mother seals,
tiny babies, and hollis chickie, fighting, scuffling, bleeding, crawling and

(02:25:43):
playing together, going down to the sea and coming up
from it in gangs and regiments, lying over every foot
of ground as far as the eye could reach, and
skirmishing about in brigades through the fog. It is nearly
always foggy at Navastashna, except when the sun comes out
and makes everything look all pearly and rainbow colored for
a little while. Kodyk Matka's baby was born in the

(02:26:07):
middle of that confusion, and he was all head and shoulders,
with pale, watery blue eyes, as tiny seals must be.
But there was something about his coat that made his
mother look at him very closely. Sea catch. She said,
at last, our baby's going to be white, empty clam
shells and dry seaweed snorted sea catch. There never has

(02:26:30):
been such a thing in the world as a white seal.
I can't help that, said Matka. There's going to be now,
And she sang the low, crooning seal song that all
the mother seals sing to their babies. You mustn't swim
till you're six weeks old, or your head will be
sunk by your heels. And summer gales and killer whales
are bad for baby seals, are bad for baby seals,

(02:26:53):
dear rat, as bad as bad can be. But splash
and grow strong, and you can't be wrong, child of
the open sea. Of course, the little fellow did not
understand the words at first. He paddled and scrambled about
by his mother's side and learned to scuffle out of
the way when his father was fighting with another seal,

(02:27:14):
and the two rolled and roared up and down the
slippery rocks. Maka used to go to sea to get
things to eat, and the baby was fed only once
in two days, but then he ate all he could
and throve upon it. The first thing he did was
to crawl inland, and there he met tens of thousands
of babies of his own age, and they played together
like puppies, went to sleep on the clean sand, and

(02:27:36):
played again. The old people in the nurseries took no
notice of them, and the Hollischickie kept to their own grounds,
and the babies had a beautiful playtime. When Matka came
back from her deep sea fishing, she would go straight
to their playground and call as a sheep calls for
a lamb, and wait until she heard kodk bleat. Then
she would take the straightest of straight lines in his direction,

(02:27:59):
striking out with her four flippers and knocking the youngster's
head over heels, right and left. There were always a
few hundred mothers hunting for their children through the playgrounds,
and the babies were kept lively. But as Maka told Kodak,
so long as you don't lie in muddy water and
get mange or rub the hard sand into a cut
or scratch, and so long as you never go swimming

(02:28:21):
when there is a heavy sea. Nothing will hurt you here.
Little seals can no more swim than little children, but
they are unhappy till they learn. The first time that
Kodak went down to the sea, a wave carried him
out beyond his depth, and his big head sank and
his little hind flippers flew up, exactly as his mother
had told him in the song, And if the next

(02:28:41):
wave had not thrown him back again, he would have drowned.
After that, he learned to lie in a beech pool
and let the wash of the waves just cover him
and lift him up while he paddled, but he always
kept his eye open for big waves that might hurt.
He was two weeks learning to use his flippers, and
all that while he floundered in and out of the water,
and coughed and grunted, and crawled up the beach and

(02:29:03):
took cat naps on the sand and went back again,
until at last he found that he truly belonged to
the water. Then you can imagine the times that he
had with his companions, ducking under the rollers, or coming
in on top of a comber and landing with a
swash and a splutter. As the big wave went whirling
far up the beach, or standing up on his tail
and scratching his head as the old people did, or

(02:29:26):
playing I'm the King of the Castle on slippery, weedy
rocks that just stuck out of the wash. Now and
then he would see a thin fin like a big
shark's fin, drifting along close to shore, and he knew
that that was the killer whale, the grampus who eats
young seals when he can get them. And Kodak would
head for the beach like an arrow, and the fin

(02:29:47):
would jig off slowly, as if it were looking for
nothing at all. Late in October, the seals began to
leave Saint Paul's with a deep sea by families and tribes,
and there was no more fighting over the nurse wh
and the hollis Chiki played anywhere they liked. Next year,
said Matka to Kodak, you will be a hollis Chicky,

(02:30:07):
but this year you must learn how to catch fish.
They set out together across the Pacific, and Mahka showed
Kodok how to sleep on his back, with his flippers
tucked down by his side and his little nose just
out of the water. No cradle is so comfortable as
the long, rocking swell of the Pacific. When Kodak felt
his skin tingle all over, Maka told him he was

(02:30:29):
learning the feel of the water, and that tingly, prickly
feelings meant bad weather coming, and he must swim hard
and get away nine thousand, one hundred and sixty six
ten fathoms deep in a little time. She said, you'll
know where to swim to. But just now, we'll follow
sea pig the porpoise, for he is very wise. A

(02:30:49):
school of porpoises were ducking and tearing through the water,
and little Kodak followed them as fast as he could.
How do you know where to go to? He panted.
The leader of the school rolled his white eye and
duct under my tail tingles, youngster, He said, that means
there's a gale behind me. Come along when you're south

(02:31:12):
of the sticky water asterisk, he meant the equator, and
your tail tingles. That means there's a gale in front
of you and you must head north. Come along. The
water feels bad here. This was one of very many
things that Kodik learned, and he was always learning. Motka
taught him to follow the cod and the halibut along

(02:31:32):
the under sea banks and wrench the rockling out of
his hole among the weeds. How to skirt the wrecks
lying a hundred fathoms below water in dart like a
rifle bullet in at one porthole and out at another
as the fishes ran. How to dance on the top
of the waves when the lightning was racing all over
the sky, and wave his flipper politely to the stumpy
tailed albatross and the man of war hawk as they

(02:31:54):
went down the wind. How to jump three or four
feet clear of the water like a dolphin, flippers close
to the side and tail curved to leave the flying
fish alone because they are all bony. To take the
shoulder piece out of a cod at full speed ten
fathoms deep. And never to stop and look at a
boat or a ship, but particularly a row boat. At

(02:32:14):
the end of six months, what Kodak did not know
about deep sea fishing was not worth the knowing, and
all that time he never set flipper on dry ground.
One day, however, as he was lying half asleep in
the warm water somewhere off the island of Juan Fernandez,
he felt faint and lazy all over, just as human
people do when the spring is in their legs. And

(02:32:37):
he remembered the good, firm beaches of Novastashna, seven thousand
miles away the games his companions played, the smell of
the seaweed, the seal roar, and the fighting. That very
minute he turned north, swimming steadily, and as he went
on he met scores of his mates, all bound for
the same place. And they said, greeting, Kodak, this year

(02:32:59):
we are all Hollis chickie, and we can dance the
fire dance and the breakers off lookin' on and play
on the new grass. But where did you get that coat?
Kodak's fur was almost pure white now, and though he
felt very proud of it, he only said, swim quickly.
My bones are aching for the land. And so they
all came to the beaches where they had been born

(02:33:21):
and heard the old seals, their fathers fighting in the
rolling mist. That night, Kodak danced the fire dance with
the yearling seals. The sea is full of fire on
summer nights, all the way down from Novastashna to lookin' On,
and each seal leaves awake like burning oil behind him,
and a flaming flash when he jumps, and the waves

(02:33:42):
break in great phosphorescent streaks and swirls. Then they went
inland to the Hollis Chicky grounds and rolled up and
down in the new wild wheat and told stories of
what they had done while they had been at sea.
They talked about the Pacific as boys would talk about
a wood that they had been nutting in, And if
anyone had understood them, he could have gone away and
made such a chart of that ocean as never was.

(02:34:05):
The three and four year old Hollis Chickie romped down
from Hutchinson's Hill, crying, out of the way, youngsters, the
sea is deep and you don't know all that's in
it yet, wait till you've rounded the horn. Hi, you yearling,
where did you get that white coat? I didn't get it,
said Kodok. It grew, and just as he was going

(02:34:28):
to roll the speaker over, a couple of black haired
men with flat red faces came from behind a sand dune,
and Kodok, who had never seen a man before, coughed
and lowered his head. The Hollis Chickie just bundled off
a few yards and sat staring stupidly. The men were
no less than Krrik bood Erin, the chief of the
seal hunters on the island, and Pittaloman, his son. They

(02:34:51):
came from the little village not half a mile from
the sea nurseries, and they were deciding what seals they
would drive up to the killing pens, for the seals
were driven just like sheep, to be turned into sealskin jackets.
Later on, ho said Petaloman, look, there's a white seal.
Carrik Bouderin turned nearly white under his oil and smoke,

(02:35:13):
for he was an allute and alutes are not clean people.
Then he began to mutter a prayer. Don't touch him, Petaloman,
there has never been a white seal since since I
was born. Perhaps it is Old Zaharaf's ghost. He was
lost last year in the big Gale. I'm not going

(02:35:33):
near him, said Petaloman. He's unlucky. Do you really think
he is Old Zaharaf? Come back? I owe him for
some gulls eggs. Don't look at him, said Kerrick head Off.
That drove of four year olds. The men ought to
skin two hundred today, but it's the beginning of the
season and they are new to the work. A hundred

(02:35:56):
will do quick, Petaloman, rattle the pair of seals shoulder
bones in front of a herd of hollischiki, and they
stopped dead, puffing and blowing. Then he stepped near, and
the seals began to move, and Karrik headed them inland,
and they never tried to get back to their companions.
Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of seals watched them being driven,

(02:36:18):
but they went on playing just the same. Kodok was
the only one who asked questions, and none of his
companions could tell him anything except that the men always
drove seals in that way for six weeks or two
months of every year. I am going to follow, he said,
and his eyes nearly popped out of his head as
he shuffled along in the wake of the herd. The

(02:36:39):
white seal is coming after us, cried Petaloman. That's the
first time a seal has ever come to the killing
grounds alone. H s h. Don't look behind you, said Kerrik.
It is a horrice ghost. I must speak to the
priest about this. The distance to the killing grounds was
only half a mile, but it took an hour to

(02:37:01):
cover because if the seals went too fast, Karek knew
that they would get heated and then their fur would
come off in patches when they were skinned. So they
went on very slowly, past Sea Lion's Neck, past Webster House,
till they came to the salt house just beyond the
side of the seals on the beach. Kodak followed, panting
and wondering. He thought that he was at the world's end,

(02:37:24):
but the roar of the seal nurseries behind him sounded
as loud as the roar of a train in a tunnel.
Then Karek sat down on the moss and pulled out
a heavy pewter watch and let the drove cool off
for thirty minutes, and Kodak could hear the fog dew
dripping off the brim of his cap. Then ten or
twelve men, each with an iron bound club three or

(02:37:44):
four feet long, came up, and Karek pointed out one
or two of the drove that were bitten by their
companions or too hot, and the men kicked those aside
with their heavy boots made of the skin of a
walrus's throat, and then Karek said let go, and then
the men club the seals on the head as fast
as they could. Ten minutes later, little Kodak did not

(02:38:05):
recognize his friends any more, for their skins were ripped
off from the nose to the hind, flippers whipped off
and thrown down on the ground in a pile. That
was enough for Kodik. He turned and galloped a seal
can gallop, very swiftly for a short time back to
the sea, his little new mustache bristling with horror. At

(02:38:25):
sea lion's neck, where the great sea lions sit on
the edge of the surf, he flung himself flipper overhead
into the cool water and rocked there, gasping miserably. What's here,
set a sea lion, gruffly, For as a rule, the
sea lions keep themselves to themselves. Skutchny oaken, skutchney. I'm lonesome,

(02:38:48):
very lonesome, said Kodik. They're killing all the hollis chiki
on all the beeches. The sea lion turned his head inshore. Nonsense,
he said, you're your friends are making as much noise
as ever. You must have seen old Karrick polishing off
a drove. He's done that for thirty years it's horrible,

(02:39:10):
said Kodik, backing water as a wave went over him,
and steadying himself with a screw stroke of his flippers
that brought him all standing within three inches of a
jagged edge of rock. Well done for a yearling, said
the sea lion, who could appreciate good swimming. I suppose
it is rather awful from your way of looking at it.

(02:39:30):
But if you seals will come here year after year,
of course the men get to know of it. And
unless you can find an island where no men ever come,
you will always be driven. Isn't there any such island?
Began Kodik. I followed the Poulter's asterisk, the Halibut plus
four twenty years. And I can't say I've found it yet,
but look here. You seem to have a fondness for

(02:39:52):
talking to your betters. Suppose you go to Walrus Island
and talk to see Vich. He may know something. Don't
flounce off like that. It's a six mile swim, and
if I were you, I should haul out and take
a nap first. Little one Kodik thought that that was
good advice, so he swam round to his own beach,
hauled out and slept for half an hour, twitching all

(02:40:15):
over as seals will. Then he headed straight for Walrus Islet,
a little low sheet of rocky island almost due northeast
from Novastashna, all ledges and rock and gulls nests, where
the walrus herded by themselves. He landed close to old
Sea Vitch, the big, ugly bloated, pimpled, fat necked, long

(02:40:36):
tussed walrus of the North Pacific, who has no manners
except when he is asleep, as he was then with
his hind flippers half in and half out of the surf.
Wake up, barked Kodik, for the gulls were making a
great noise. Ha ho humph, what's that? Said Sea Vitch,

(02:40:57):
And he struck the next walrus a blow with his
tusks and waked him up, And the next struck the next,
and so on till they were all awake and staring
in every direction but the right one. Zero won, seven four.
They were all awake and staring in every direction but
the right one. Hi, it's me, said Kodik, bobbing in

(02:41:18):
the surf and looking like a little white slug. Well
may I be skinned, said Sievich, and they all looked
at Kodak as you can fancy a club full of
drowsy old gentlemen would look at a little boy. Kodak
did not care to hear any more about skinning. Just
then he had seen enough of it, so he called out,

(02:41:38):
isn't there any place for seals to go where men
don't ever come? Go and find out, said Sievich, shutting
his eyes, run away, We're busy here. Kodak made his
dolphin jump in the air and shouted as loud as
he could, clam eater, clam eater. He knew that Sivich

(02:41:59):
never caught a fish in his life, but always rooted
for clams and seaweed, though he pretended to be a
very terrible person. Naturally, the chickies and the gouvaruskis and
the Apachus, the bergamaster gulls, and the kittiwakes and the puffins,
who are always looking for a chance to be rude,
took up the cry, and so Limershen told me, for

(02:42:19):
nearly five minutes you could not have heard a gun
fired on Walrus Islet. All the population was yelling and
screaming clammeater, streak, Astoris gold man plus while Sievich rolled
from side to side, grunting and coughing. Now will you tell,
said Kodik, all out of breath, Go and ask sea Cow,

(02:42:39):
said Sievitch. If he is living still, he'll be able
to tell you. How Shall I know sea cow when
I meet him? Said Kodik, sheering off. He's the only
thing in the sea uglier than see Vich, screamed the
Bergamaster gull wheeling under Seavitch's nose, uglier and with worse
manners Styreek. Kodik swam back to Novstashna, leaving the gulls

(02:43:05):
to scream. There, he found that no one sympathized with
him in his little attempt to discover a quiet place
for the seals. They told him that men had always
driven the Hollischiki, it was part of the day's work,
and that if he did not like to see ugly things,
he should not have gone to the killing grounds. But
none of the other seals had seen the killing, and

(02:43:25):
that made the difference between him and his friends. Besides,
Kodok was a white seal. What you must do, said
old sea Catch, after he had heard his son's adventures,
is to grow up and be a big seal like
your father, and have a nursery on the beach, and
then they will leave you alone in another five years.
You ought to be able to fight for yourself, even

(02:43:48):
gentle Matka, his mother said, you will never be able
to stop the killing. Go and play in the sea,
Kodik and Kodak went off and danced the fire dance
with a very heavy life heart. That autumn, he left
the beach as soon as he could and set off
alone because of a notion in his bullet head. He
was going to find sea cow, if there was such

(02:44:10):
a person in the sea, and he was going to
find a quiet island with good firm beaches for seals
to live on where men could not get at them.
So he explored and explored by himself from the North
to the South Pacific, swimming as much as three hundred
miles in a day and a night. He met with
more adventures than can be told, and narrowly escaped being

(02:44:31):
caught by the basking shark and the spotted shark and
the hammer head, And he met all the untrustworthy ruffians
that loaf up and down the seas, and the heavy
polite fish and the scarlet spotted scallops that are moored
in one place for hundreds of years and grow very
proud of it. But he never met sea cow, and
he never found an island that he could fancy. If

(02:44:52):
the beach was good and hard, with a slope behind
it for seals to play on, there was always the
smoke of a whaler on the horizon, boiling down blubber,
and Kodak knew what that meant or else he could
see that seals had once visited the island and been
killed off, and Kodik knew that where men had come once,
they would come again. He picked up with an old,

(02:45:13):
stumpy tailed albatross who told him that Kerglen Island was
the very place for peace and quiet. And when Kodak
went down there, he was all but smashed to pieces
against some wicked black cliffs in a heavy sleet storm,
with lightning in thunder. Yet as he pulled out against
the gale, he could see that even there had once
been a seal nursery, and it was so in all

(02:45:34):
the other islands that he visited. Limoshen gave a long
list of them, for he said that Kodak spent five
seasons exploring with a four months rest each year at Navastashna,
when the Hollischiki used to make fun of him and
his imaginary islands. He went to the Galapagos, a horrid
dry place on the equator, where he was nearly baked

(02:45:54):
to death. He went to the Georgia Islands, the Orkneys,
Emerald Island, Little Nightingale Island, Gorov's Island, Bouvet's Island, the Crossets,
and even to a little speck of an island south
of the Cape of Good Hope. But everywhere the people
of the sea told him the same things. Seals had
come to those islands once upon a time, but men

(02:46:14):
had killed them all off. Even when he swam thousands
of miles out of the Pacific and got to a
place called Cape Corientes, that was when he was coming
back from Goff's Island. He found a few hundred mangy
seals on a rock, and they told him that men
came there too. That nearly broke his heart, and he
headed round the horn back to his own beeches. And

(02:46:35):
on his way north he hauled out on an island
full of green trees, where he found an old, old
seal who was dying and Kodak caught fish for him
and told him all his sorrows now, said Kodik, I
am going back to Novastashna, and if I am driven
to the killing pens with the hollis Chikie, I shall
not care. The old seal said, try once more. I

(02:46:57):
am the last of the lost rookery of Massafura. And
in the days when men killed us by the hundred thousand,
there was a story on the beaches that some day
a white seal would come out of the north and
lead the seal people to a quiet place. I am old,
and I shall never live to see that day, but
others will try once more. And Kodak curled up his mustache.

(02:47:19):
It was a beauty, and said, I am the only
white seal that has ever been born on the beeches,
and I am the only seal black or white, who
ever thought of looking for new islands. This cheered him immensely,
and when he came back to Novastashna that summer, Matka
his mother begged him to marry and settle down, for
he was no longer a hollischick, but a full grown

(02:47:41):
sea catch with a curly white mane on his shoulders.
As heavy, as big, and as fierce as his father.
Give me another season, he said, Remember, mother, it is
always the seventh wave that goes farthest up the beach.
Curiously enough, there was another seal who thought that she
would put off marrying till the next year, and Kodak

(02:48:02):
danced the fire dance with her all down lookin' on
beach the night before he set off on his last exploration.
This time he went westward because he had fallen on
the trail of a great shoal of Halibu, and he
needed at least one hundred pounds of fish a day
to keep him in good condition. He chased them till
he was tired, and then he curled himself up and

(02:48:22):
went to sleep on the hollows of the ground swell
that sets into Copper Island. He knew the coast perfectly well,
so about midnight, when he felt himself gently bumped on
a weed bed, he said, um tides running strong tonight
and turning over under water. Opened his eyes slowly and stretched.
Then he jumped like a cat, for he saw huge

(02:48:42):
things nosing about in the shoal water and browsing on
the heavy fringes of the weeds. By the great combers
of Magellan, he said beneath his mustache, Who in the
deep sea are these people? They were like no walrus,
sea lion, seal, bear, waiale, shark, fish, squid, or scallop

(02:49:03):
that Kodak had ever seen before. They were between twenty
and thirty feet long, and they had no hind flippers,
but a shovel like tail that looked as if it
had been whittled out of wet leather. Their heads were
the most foolish looking things you ever saw, and they
balanced on the ends of their tails in deep water
when they weren't grazing, bowing solemnly to each other and

(02:49:23):
waving their front flippers as a fat man waves his arm. Ahem,
said Kodik, good sport, gentlemen. The big things answered by
bowing and waving their flippers like the frog footmen. When
they began feeding again, Kodik saw that their upper lip
was split into two pieces that they could twitch apart
about a foot and bring together again. With a whole

(02:49:45):
bushel of seaweed between the splits, they tucked the stuff
into their mouths and chumped solemnly. Messy style of feeding, that,
said Kodik, They bowed again, and Kodak began to lose
his temper. Very good, he said, if you do happen
to have an extra joint in your front flipper, you

(02:50:05):
needn't show off. So I see you bow gracefully, but
I should like to know your names. The split lips
moved and twitched, and the glassy green eyes stared, but
they did not speak well, said Kodik, You're the only
people I've ever met uglier than sea vitch, and with
worse manners. Then he remembered in a flash what the

(02:50:27):
burgomaster gull had screamed to him when he was a
little yearling at Walrus Islet, and he tumbled backward in
the water, for he knew that he had found sea cow.
At last, the sea cows went on slooping and grazing
and chumping in the weed, and Kodik asked them questions
in every language that he had picked up in his travels,
and the sea people talk nearly as many languages as

(02:50:48):
human beings. But the sea cows did not answer, because
sea cow cannot talk. He has only six bones in
his neck, where he ought to have seven, and they
say under the sea that that prevents him from speaking
even to his companions. But as you know, he has
an extra joint in his fore flipper, and by waving
it up and down and about, he makes what answers

(02:51:10):
to a sort of clumsy telegraphic code. By daylight, Kodok's
man was standing on end, and his temper was gone
where the dead crabs go. Then the sea cow began
to travel northward, very slowly, stopping to hold absurd bowing
counsels from time to time, and Kodik followed them, saying
to himself, people who are such idiots as these? Or

(02:51:31):
what have been killed long ago if they hadn't found
out some safe island? And what is good enough for
the sea cow is good enough for the sea catch
all the same? I wish they'd hurry. It was weary
work for Kodok. The herd never went more than forty
or fifty miles a day, and stopped to feed at night,
and kept close to the shore all the time, while

(02:51:53):
Kodok swam round them and over them and under them,
But he could not hurry them up one half mile.
As they went farther north, they held a bowing council
every few hours, and Kodak nearly bit off his mustache
with impatience till he saw that they were following up
a warm current of water, and then he respected the more.
One night, they sank through the shiny water, sank like stones,

(02:52:16):
and for the first time since he had known them,
began to swim quickly. Kodak followed, and the pace astonished him,
for he never dreamed that sea cow was anything of
a swimmer. They headed for a cliff by the shore,
a cliff that ran down into deep water and plunged
into a dark hole at the foot of it, twenty
fathoms under the sea. It was a long, long swim,

(02:52:39):
and Kodak badly wanted fresh air. Before he was out
of the dark tunnel, they led him through my wig,
he said, when he rose, gasping and puffing, into open
water at the farther end. It was a long dive,
but it was worth it. The sea cows had separated
and were browsing lazily along the edges of the final

(02:53:00):
beaches that Kodak had ever seen. There were long stretches
of smooth, worn rock running for miles, exactly fitted to
make seal nurseries, and there were playgrounds of hard sand
sloping inland behind them, and there were rollers for seals
to dance in, and long grass to roll in, and
sand dunes to climb up and down. And best of all,
kodk knew, by the feel of the water, which never

(02:53:23):
deceives a true sea catch, that no men had ever
come there. The first thing he did was to assure
himself that the fishing was good. And then he swam
along the beaches and counted up the delightful low sandy islands,
half hidden in the beautiful rolling fog. Away to the northward,
out to sea ran a line of bars and shoals
and rocks that would never let a ship come within

(02:53:45):
six miles of the beach. And between the islands and
the mainland was a stretch of deep water that ran
up to the perpendicular cliffs, And somewhere below the cliffs
was the mouth of the tunnel. It's Novustashna over again,
but ten times better at Kodik Sea. Cow must be
wiser than I thought. Men can't come down the cliffs

(02:54:06):
even if there were any men, and the shoals to
seaward would knock a ship to splinters. If any place
in the sea is safe, this is it, he began
to think of the seal he had left behind him.
But though he was in a hurry to go back
to Novastashna, he thoroughly explored the new country so that
he would be able to answer all questions. Then he

(02:54:27):
dived and made sure of the mouth of the tunnel,
and raced through to the southward. No one but a
sea cow or a seal would have dreamed of there
being such a place, And when he looked back at
the cliffs, even Kodak could hardly believe that he had
been under them. He was six days going home, though
he was not swimming slowly, And when he hauled out
just above Sea Lion's Neck, the first person he met

(02:54:49):
was the seal who had been waiting for him, and
she saw by the look in his eyes that he
had found his island at last. But the Hollischickie and
sea catch, his father and all the the other seals
laughed at him when he told them what he had discovered,
and a young seal about his own age said, this
is all very well, Kodk, but you can't come from
no one knows where and order us off like this.

(02:55:12):
Remember we've been fighting for our nurseries, and that's a
thing you never did. You preferred prowling about in the sea.
The other seals laughed at this, and the young seal
began twisting his head from side to side. He had
just married that year and was making a great fuss
about it. I've no nursery to fight for, said Kodik.

(02:55:33):
I only want to show you all a place where
you will be safe. What's the use of fighting, Oh,
if you're trying to back out, of course, I've no
more to say, said the young seal, with an ugly chuckle.
Will you come with me if I win, said Kodik,
and a green light came into his eye, for he
was very angry at having to fight at all. Very good,

(02:55:56):
said the young seal carelessly. If you win, I'll come.
He had no time to change his mind, for Kodak's
head was out and his teeth sunk in the blubber
of the young seal's neck. Then he threw himself back
on his haunches and hauled his enemy down the beach,
shook him and knocked him over. Then Kodak roared to

(02:56:16):
the seals, I've done my best for you these five
seasons past, I've found you the island where you'll be safe.
But unless your heads are dragged off your silly necks,
you won't believe I'm going to teach you. Now look
out for yourselves. Limoshen told me that never in his life,
and Limoshen sees ten thousand big seals fighting every year,

(02:56:38):
never in all his little life did he see anything
like Kodak's charge into the nurseries. He flung himself at
the biggest sea catch he could find, caught him by
the throat, choked him and bumped him and banged him
till he grunted for mercy, and then threw him aside
and attacked the next You see, Kodak had never fasted
for four months, as the big seals did every year,

(02:57:00):
and his deep sea swimming trips kept him in perfect condition.
And best of all, he had never fought before. His
curly white mane stood up with rage, and his eyes flamed,
and his big dog teeth glistened, and he was splendid
to look at old sea catch. His father saw him
tearing past, hauling the grizzled old seals about as though

(02:57:21):
they had been hal of it, and upsetting the young
bachelors in all directions, and Sea Catch gave a roar
and shouted, he may be a fool, but he is
the best fighter on the beaches. Don't tackle your father,
my son, he's with you. Kodak roared in answer, and
Old Sea Catch waddled in with his mustache on end,

(02:57:41):
blowing like a locomotive, while Motka and the seal that
was going to marry Kodak cowered down and admired their
men folk. It was a gorgeous fight, for the two
fought as long as there was a seal that dared
lift up his head, and when there were none, they
paraded grandly up and down the beach, side by side, bellowing.
At night, just as the northern lights were winking and

(02:58:03):
flashing through the fog, Kodak climbed a bare rock and
looked down on the scattered nurseries and the torn and
bleeding seals. Now, he said, I've taught you your lesson,
my wig, said Old Sea Catch, boosting himself up stiffly,
for he was fearfully mauled. The killer wail himself could
not have cut them up worse, son, I'm proud of you,

(02:58:26):
And what's more, I'll come with you to your island,
if there is such a place. Hear you, fat pigs
of the sea, who comes with me to the Sea
Cow's tunnel? Answer, or I shall teach you again, roared Kodik.
There was a murmur like the ripple of the tide,
all up and down the beaches. We will come, said

(02:58:47):
thousands of tired voices. We will follow Kodik, the white seal.
Then Kodok dropped his head between his shoulders and shut
his eyes proudly. He was not a white seal any more,
but read from head to tail all the same. He
would have scorned to look at or touch one of
his wounds. A week later, he and his army, nearly

(02:59:09):
ten thousand hollischiki and old seals, went away north to
the Sea Cow's Tunnel, Kodk leading them, and the seals
that stayed at Navastashna called the idiots. But next spring,
when they all met off the fishing banks of the Pacific,
Kodk seals told such tales of the new beaches beyond
Sea Cow's Tunnel that more and more seals left Navastashna.

(02:59:30):
Of course, it was not all done at once, for
the seals are not very clever, and they need a
long time to turn things over in their minds. But
year after year more seals went away from Novastashna and
lookin' On and the other nurseries to the quiet, sheltered
beaches where Kodek sits all the summer through, getting bigger
and fatter and stronger each year, while the Hollischiki play

(02:59:52):
around him in that sea where no man comes. Lookin' On.
This is the great deep sea song that all the
Saint Paul seals sing when they are heading back to
their beaches in the summer. It is a sort of
very sad, sealed national anthem. I met my mates in
the morning, and oh but I am old. Where roaring
on the ledges the summer ground swell rolled, I heard

(03:00:15):
them lift the chorus that drowned the breaker's song, the
beaches of Loucanon, two million voices strong, the song of
pleasant stations beside the salt lagoons, The song of blowing
squadrons that shuffled down the dunes, The song of midnight
dances that churned the sea to flame, the beaches of
Lucanon before the sealers came. I met my mates in

(03:00:36):
the morning, I'll never meet them more. They came and
went in legions that darkened all the shore, and o'er
the foam flecked offing as far as voice could reach.
We hailed the landing parties, and we sang them up
the beach. The beaches of Locanon, the winter wheat so tall,
the dripping crinkled lichens, and the sea fog drenching all

(03:00:57):
the platforms of our playground all shine smooth and worn.
The beeches of Locanan, the home where we were born.
I met my mates in the morning, a broken scattered band.
Men shoot us in the water and club us on
the land. Men drive us to the salt house like
silly sheep, and tame, and still we sing lookinon before

(03:01:18):
the sealers came. Will down, Will down to southward, Oh Govoruska,
go and tell the deep sea viceroys the story of
our woe. Air empty as the shark's egg, the tempest
flings ashore. The beeches of Locanon shall know their sons
no more. Zero one nine five Ricky Tiki Tavi at

(03:01:39):
the hole where he went in. Red Eye called to Wrinkleskin.
Hear what little Red Eye saeth nag come up and
dance with death, eye to eye and head to head.
Keep the measure, nag. This shall end when one is
dead at thy pleasure. Nag. Turn for turn, and twist
for twist. Run and hide thee nag Ha, the hooded

(03:02:02):
death has missed. Woe betide thee nag. This is the
story of the great war that rik Tiki Tavi fought
single handed through the bath rooms of the big bungalow
in Segaly Cantonment. Darzi the tailor bird, helped him, and Chichundra,
the muskrat, who never comes out into the middle of
the floor but always creeps round by the wall, gave

(03:02:25):
him advice. But Rikitiki did the real fighting. He was
a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur
and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his
head and his habits. His eyes and the end of
his restless nose were pink. He could scratch himself anywhere
he pleased with any leg, front or back that he

(03:02:45):
chose to use. He could fluff up his tail till
it looked like a bottle brush, and his war cry
as he scuttled through the long grass was rick tik
Tiki tiki t h K. One day, a high summer
flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived
with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking,
down a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of

(03:03:07):
grass floating there and clung to it till he lost
his senses. When he revived, he was lying in the
hot sun on the middle of a garden path, very
draggled indeed, and a small boy was saying, here's a
dead mongoose. Let's have a funeral. No, said his mother.
Let's take him in and dry him. Perhaps he isn't

(03:03:28):
really dead. They took him into the house, and a
big man picked him up between his finger and thumb
and said he was not dead, but half choked. So
they wrapped him in cotton wool and warned him over
a little fire, and he opened his eyes and sneezed. Now,
said the big man. He was an Englishman who had
just moved into the bungalow. Don't frighten him, and we'll

(03:03:50):
see what he'll do. It is the hardest thing in
the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten
up from nose to tail with curiosity The motto of
all the mongoose family is run and find out, and
Ricky Ticky was a true mongoose. He looked at the
cotton wool, decided that it was not good to eat,
ran all round the table, sat up and put his

(03:04:12):
fur in order, scratched himself, and jumped on the small
boy's shoulder. Eight thousand, one hundred and ninety seven. Ricky
Ticky looked down between the boy's collar and neck. Don't
be frightened, Teddy, said his father. That's his way of
making friends. Ouch. He's tickling under my chin, said Teddy.

(03:04:33):
Ricky Ticky looked down between the boy's collar and neck,
snuffed at his ear, and climbed down to the floor,
where he sat rubbing his nose. Good gracious, said Teddy's mother.
And that's a wild creature. I suppose he's so tame
because we've been kind to him. All mongoosays are like that,
said her husband. If Teddy doesn't pick him up by

(03:04:55):
the tail or, try to put him in a cage,
he'll run in and out of the house all day long.
Let's give him something to eat. They gave him a
little piece of raw meat. Rick Ticky liked it immensely,
and when it was finished, he went out into the
verandah and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his
fur to make it dry to the roots. Then he

(03:05:16):
felt better zero one nine eight. He put his nose
into the ink. There are more things to find out
about in this house, he said to himself, than all
my family could find out in all their lives. I
shall certainly stay and find out. He spent all that
day roaming over the house. He nearly drowned himself in

(03:05:36):
the bath tubs, put his nose into the ink on
a writing table, and burned it on the end of
the big Man's cigar. For he climbed up in the
big Man's lap to see how writing was done. At nightfall,
he ran into Teddy's nursery to watch how kerosene lamps
were lighted. And when Teddy went to bed, Riki Ticky
climbed up too. But he was a restless companion because

(03:05:57):
he had to get up and attend to every noise
all through the night and find out what made it.
Teddy's mother and father came in the last thing to
look at their boy, and Ricky Ticky was awake on
the pillow I don't like that, said Teddy's mother. He
may bite the child. He'll do no such thing, said
the father. Teddy's safer with that little beast than if

(03:06:21):
he had a bloodhound to watch him if a snake
came into the nursery. Now zero one nine nine, Ricky
Ticky was awake on the pillow, but Teddy's mother wouldn't
think of anything so awful. Early in the morning, Ricky
Ticky came to early breakfast in the veranda, riding on
Teddy's shoulder, and they gave him banana and some boiled egg.

(03:06:42):
He sat on all their laps, one after the other.
Because every well brought up mongoose always hopes to be
a house mongoose some day and have rooms to run
about in. And Ricky Ticky's mother, she used to live
in the General's house at Segelee, had carefully told Ricky
what to do if ever he came across white men
nine thousand, two hundred. He came to breakfast riding on

(03:07:03):
Teddy's shoulder. Then Ricki Ticky went out into the garden
to see what was to be seen. It was a
large garden, only half cultivated, with bushes as big as
summer houses of marshal neil, roses, lime and orange trees,
clumps of bamboos, and thickets of high grass. Rickie Ticky
licked his lips. This is a splendid hunting ground, he said,

(03:07:27):
And his tail grew bottle brushy at the thought of it.
And he scuttled up and down the garden, snuffing here
and there, till he heard very sorrowful voices in a
thorn bush. It was Darzy, the tailor bird, and his wife.
They had made a beautiful nest by pulling two big
leaves together and stitching them up the edges with fibers,
and had filled the hollow with cotton and downy fluff.

(03:07:50):
The nest swayed to and fro as they sat on
the rim and cried. Zero two zero one. We are
very miserable, said Darzy. What is the matter, asked Rikitiki.
We are very miserable, said Darzy. One of our babies
fell out of the nest yesterday and nag ate him.
Hum said Riki Ticky. That is very sad, But I

(03:08:14):
am a stranger here who is nag Darzy and his
wife only cowered down in the nest without answering for
from the thick grass at the foot of the bush
there came a low hiss, a horrid cold sound that
made Rikitiki jump back two clear feet. Then inch by inch,
out of the grass rose up the head and spread
hood of Nag, the big black cobra, And he was

(03:08:36):
five feet long from tongue to tail. When he had
lifted one third of himself clear of the ground, he
stayed balancing to and fro, exactly as a dandelion tufted
balances in the wind. And he looked at Riki Ticky
with the wicked snake's eyes that never changed their expression.
Whatever the snake may be thinking of, who is Nag?
Said he? I am Nag. The great god Brahm put

(03:09:00):
his mark upon all our people. When the first cobra
spread his hood to keep the son off Brahm as
he slept, look and be afraid zero two zero three,
I am Nag, said the cobra look and be afraid.
But at the bottom of his cold heart he was afraid.
He spread out his hood more than ever, and Ricky

(03:09:22):
Ticky saw the spectacle mark on the back of it
that looks exactly like the I part of a hook
and eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute, but
it is impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for
any length of time. And though Ricky Ticky had never
met a live cobra before, his mother had fed him
on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown
mongoose's business in life was to fight and eat snakes.

(03:09:44):
Nag knew that two end at the bottom of his
cold heart. He was afraid five thousand, two hundred and
fifty Ricky Tiki tavi in nag well, said Ricky Ticky,
and his tail began to fluff up again. Marks or
no marks? Do you think it is right for you
to eat fledglings out of a nest? Nag was thinking
to himself and watching the least little movement in the

(03:10:06):
grass behind Ricky Ticky. He knew that mongoosys in the
garden meant death sooner or later for him and his family.
But he wanted to get Ricky Ticky off his guard,
so he dropped his head a little and put it
on one side. Let us talk. He said, you eat eggs,
why should not I eat birds? Behind you? Look behind you,

(03:10:30):
sang Darzy zero two zero seven. He jumped up in
the air, and just under him whizzed by the head
of Nagenna Ricki. Ticky knew better than to waste time
in staring. He jumped up in the air as high
as he could go, and just under him whizzed by
the head of Nagenna, Nag's wicked wife. She had crept
up behind him as he was talking to make an

(03:10:52):
end of him. He heard her savage hiss as the
stroke missed. He came down almost across her back, and
if he had been an old mongoose, he would have
known that then was the time to break her back
with one bite, but he was afraid of the terrible
lashing returned stroke of the cobra. He bit indeed, but
did not bite long enough, and he jumped clear of

(03:11:13):
the whisking tail, leaving the againa torn and angry, wicked,
wicked Darzy said nag lashing up as high as he
could reach toward the nest in a thorn bush, But
Darzi had built it out of reach of snakes, and
it only swayed to and fro Rikitiky felt his eyes
growing red and hot. When a mongoose's eyes grow red,

(03:11:34):
he is angry, and he sat back on his tail
and hind legs like a little kangaroo, and looked all
round him and chattered with rage. But nag and Nigena
had disappeared into the grass. When a snake misses its stroke,
it never says anything or gives any sign of what
it means to do next. Rikitiky did not care to

(03:11:54):
follow them, for he did not feel sure that he
could manage two snakes at once, so he tried got
it off to the gravel path near the house and
sat down to think. It was a serious matter for him.
If you read the old books of natural history, you
will find they say that when the mongoose fights the
snake and happens to get bitten, he runs off and

(03:12:15):
eats some herb that cures him. That is not true.
The victory is only a matter of quickness of eye
and quickness of foot. Snakes blow against mongoose's jump, and
as no eye can follow the motion of a snake's
head when it strikes, this makes things much more wonderful
than any magic herb. Rik Ticky knew he was a
young mongoose, and it made him all the more pleased

(03:12:37):
to think that he had managed to escape a blow
from behind. It gave him confidence in himself, and when
Teddy came running down the path, rick Ticky was ready
to be petted. But just as Teddy was stooping, something
wriggled a little in the dust, and a tiny voice said,
be careful, I am death. It was Karaite, the dusty

(03:12:58):
brown snakeling that lies for choice on the dusty earth,
and his bite is as dangerous as the cobras, but
he is so small that nobody thinks of him, and
so he does the more harm to people. Riki Tiky's
eyes grew red again, and he danced up to Kararite
with the peculiar rocking swaying motion that he had inherited
from his family. It looks very funny, but it is

(03:13:20):
so perfectly balanced a gait that you can fly off
from it at any angle you please, And in dealing
with snakes, this is an advantage. If Ricky Ticky had
only known, he was doing a much more dangerous thing
than fighting Nag, For Karrite is so small and can
turn so quickly that unless Ricky bit him close to
the back of the head, he would get the return

(03:13:41):
stroke in his eye or his lip. But Ricky did
not know his eyes were all red, and he rocked
back and forth looking for a good place to hold
Kararite struck out. Ricky jumped sideways and tried to run in,
but the wicked, little, dusty gray head lashed within a
fraction of his should and he had to jump over

(03:14:01):
the body, and the head followed his heels close. Teddy
shouted to the house, Oh, look here, our mongoose is
killing a snake, and Ricky Ticky heard a scream from
Teddy's mother. His father ran out with a stick, but
by the time he came up, Kararite had lunged out
once too far, and Ricky Ticky had sprung jumped on

(03:14:22):
the snake's back, dropped his head far between his forelegs,
bitten as high up the back as he could get hold,
and rolled away. That bite paralyzed Karrite, and Ricky Ticky
was just going to eat him up from the tail
after the custom of his family at dinner, when he
remembered that a full meal makes a slow mongoose, and
if he wanted all his strength and quickness ready, he

(03:14:43):
must keep himself thin. He went away for a dust
bath under the castor oil bushes while Teddy's father beat
the dead karate. What is the use of that, thought
Ricky Ticky, I have settled it all. And then Teddy's
mother picked him up from the dust and hugged him,
crying that he had saved Teddy from death, and Teddy's
father said that he was a providence, and Teddy looked

(03:15:05):
on with big scared eyes. Ricky Ticky was rather amused
at all the fuss, which of course he did not understand.
Teddy's mother might just as well have petted Teddy for
playing in the dust. Ricky was thoroughly enjoying himself that
night at dinner, walking to and fro among the wine
glasses on the table. He might have stuffed himself three

(03:15:28):
times over with nice things, but he remembered nag and Nagenna.
And though it was very pleasant to be patted and
petted by Teddy's mother and to sit on Teddy's shoulder,
his eyes would get red from time to time, and
he would go off into his long war cry of
rick Tik Tiki tiki t c h K zero two
one two. In the dark, he ran up against Chichundra,

(03:15:49):
the muskrat. Teddy carried him off to bed and insisted
on Riki Ticky sleeping under his chin. Ricki Ticky was
too well bred to bite or scratch. But as soon
as Teddy was asleep, he went off for his nightly
walk round the house, and in the dark he ran
up against Chichundra, the muskrat, creeping around by the wall.

(03:16:10):
Chichundra is a broken hearted little beast. He whimpers and
cheaps all the night, trying to make up his mind
to run into the middle of the room, but he
never gets there. Don't kill me, said Chichundra, almost weeping.
Riki Tiki, don't kill me. Do you think a snake
killer kills muskrats? Said Rikitiki scornfully. Those who kill snakes

(03:16:34):
get killed by snakes, said Chichundra, more sorrowfully than ever.
And how am I to be sure that Nag won't
mistake me for you some dark night? There's not the
least danger, said Rikitiki. But Nag is in the garden,
and I know you don't go there. My cousin, Chua
the rat told me, said Chichundra, and then he stopped.

(03:16:56):
Told you what h s H. Nag is everywhere? Ricki
Tiky you should have talked to Chua in the garden.
I didn't. So you must tell me quick, Chichundra, or
I'll bite you. Chichundra sat down and cried till the
tears rolled off his whiskers. I am a very poor man,

(03:17:18):
he sobbed. I never had spirit enough to run out
into the middle of the room. H s h. I
mustn't tell you anything, can't you? Hear? Riki Ticky Riki
Ticky listened. The house was as still as still, but
he thought he could just catch the faintest scratch scratch
in the world, A noise as faint as that of

(03:17:39):
a wasp walking on a window pane, the dry scratch
of a snake's scales on brickwork. That's nag or nagena,
he said to himself, And he is crawling into the
bathroom sluice. You're right, Chichundra, I should have talked to Chua.
He stole off to Teddy's bathroom, but there was nothing there,
and then to Teddy's mother's bathroom. At the bottom of

(03:18:01):
the smooth plaster wall, there was a brick pulled out
to make a sluice for the bath water, and as
Rikitiki stole in by the masonry curb where the bath
is put. He heard nag and Nigena whispering together outside
in the moonlight. When the house is emptied of people,
said Nagena to her husband, he will have to go away,
and then the garden will be our own again. Go

(03:18:22):
in quietly, and remember that the big man who killed
Karaite is the first one to bite. Then come out
and tell me, and we will hunt for Rikitiki together.
But are you sure that there is anything to be
gained by killing the people, said nag Everything. When there
were no people in the bungalow, did we have any
mongoose in the garden. So long as the bungalow is empty,

(03:18:46):
we are king and queen of the garden. And remember
that as soon as our eggs in the melon bed hatch,
as they may tomorrow, our children will need room and quiet.
I had not thought of that, said nag. I will go,
but there is there is no need that we should
hunt for rik Tiky. Afterward, I will kill the big
man and his wife and the child if I can,

(03:19:07):
and come away quietly. Then the bungalow will be empty,
and Ricky Ticky will go, rik Tiky tingled all over
with rage and hatred at this. And then Nag's head
came through the sluice and his five feet of cold
body followed it. Angry as he was, rik Tiky was
very frightened as he saw the size of the big cobra.

(03:19:29):
Nag coiled himself, up raised his head and looked into
the bathroom in the dark, and Ricky could see his
eyes glitter. Now, if I kill him here, Nagena will know.
And if I fight him on the open floor, the
odds are in his favor. What am I to do?
Said Rikitiky Tavy. Nag waved to and fro, and then

(03:19:50):
Ricky Ticky heard him drinking from the biggest water jar
that was used to fill the bath. That is good,
said the snake. Now, when Karaite was killed, the big
man had a stick. He may have that stick still,
but when he comes in to bathe in the morning,
he will not have a stick. I shall wait here
till he comes, Nigenna, do you hear me? I shall

(03:20:13):
wait here in the cool till daytime. There was no
answer from outside, so Riki Ticky knew Niggenna had gone away.
Nag coiled himself down coil by coil round the bulge
at the bottom of the water jar, and Riki Ticky
stayed still as death. After an hour, he began to move,
muscle by muscle toward the jar. Nag was asleep, and

(03:20:36):
Ricky Ticky looked at his big back, wondering which would
be the best place for a good hold. If I
don't break his back at the first jump, said RICKI,
he can still fight. And if he fights, oh, Rickie.
He looked at the thickness of the neck below the hood,
but that was too much for him, and a bite
near the tail would only make Nag savage. It must

(03:20:58):
be the head, he said, at last, the head above
the hood, and when I am once there, I must
not let go. Zero two one seven, And then Ricky
Ticky was battered to and fro as a rat is
shaken by a dog. Then he jumped. The head was
lying a little clear of the water jar, under the
curve of it, and as his teeth met, Ricky braced

(03:21:21):
his back against the bulge of the red earthenware to
hold down the head. This gave him just one second's purchase,
and he made the most of it. Then he was
battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by
a dog, to and fro on the floor, up and
down and around in great circles. But his eyes were red,
and he held on as the body cart whipped over

(03:21:41):
the floor, upsetting the tin dipper and the soap dish
and the flesh brush, and banged against the tin side
of the bath. As he held he closed his jaws
tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would be
banged to death, and for the honor of his family,
he preferred to be found with his teeth locked. He
was dizzy, aching and felt shaken to pieces when something

(03:22:03):
went off like a thunderclap just behind him. A hot
wind knocked him senseless, and red fire singed his fur.
The big Man had been wakened by the noise and
had fired both barrels of a shot gun into nag
just behind the hood. Rikitiky held on with his eyes
shut for now he was quite sure he was dead.

(03:22:23):
But the head did not move, and the big Man
picked him up and said, it's the mongoose again. Alice,
the little chap has saved our lives now. Then Teddy's
mother came in with a very white face and saw
what was left of Nag, and Rikiticky dragged himself to
Teddy's bedroom and spent half the rest of the night
shaking himself tenderly to find out whether he really was

(03:22:45):
broken into forty pieces as he fancied. When morning came
he was very stiff, but well pleased with his doings.
Now I have mc genna to settle with, and she
will be worse than five nags. And there's no knowing
when the egg she spoke of will hatch. Goodness, I
must go and see Darzy, he said, without waiting for breakfast.

(03:23:08):
Ricki Tiky ran to the thorn bush, where Darzy was
singing a song of triumph at the top of his voice.
The news of Nag's death was all over the garden,
for the sweeper had thrown the body on the rubbish heap. Oh,
you stupid tuft of feathers, said Ricky Ticky angrily. Is
this the time to sing? Nag is dead? Is dead?

(03:23:30):
Is dead? Sang Darzy. The valiant Rikiticky caught him by
the head and held fast. The big man brought the
bang stick and Nag fell in two pieces. He will
never eat my babies again. All that's true enough. But
where's Nagena, said rik Ticky, looking carefully round him. Nagenna

(03:23:52):
came to the bathroom sluice and called for nag Darzy
went on, and nag came out on the end of
a stick. The sweeper picked him up on the end
of a stick and threw him upon the rubbish heap.
Let us sing about the grate the red eyed Rikitiki,
and Darzy filled his throat and sang. If I could
get up to your nest, i'd roll your babies out,

(03:24:14):
said Ricky Ticky. You don't know when to do the
right thing at the right time. You're safe enough in
your nest there, but it's war for me down here.
Stop singing a minute, Darzy, for the great, the beautiful
Ricky Ticky's sake, I will stop, said Darzy. What is it,
o killer of the terrible nag Where is Nagena? For

(03:24:36):
the third time on the rubbish heap by the stables,
mourning for nag Great is Ricky Ticky with the white teeth?
Bother my white teeth? Have you ever heard where she
keeps her eggs? In the melon bed on the end
nearest the wall where the sun strikes nearly all day.
She hid them there weeks ago, and you never thought

(03:24:59):
it worth while while to tell me the end nearest
the wall, you said, Rickie Ticky, you are not going
to eat her eggs zero two two one. Darzy's wife
pretends to have a broken wing, not eat exactly. No, Darzy,
if you have a grain of sense, you will fly
off to the stables and pretend that your wing is broken,

(03:25:20):
and let Negana chase you away to this bush. I
must get to the melon bed, and if I went
there now she'd see me. Darzy was a feather brained
little fellow who could never hold more than one idea
at a time in his head. And just because he
knew that mcginna's children were born in eggs like his own,
he didn't think at first that it was fair to
kill them. But his wife was a sensible bird, and

(03:25:43):
she knew that Cobra's eggs meant young Cobra's later on,
so she flew off from the nest and left Darzy
to keep the babies warm and continue his song about
the death of nag. Darzy was very like a man
in some ways. She fluttered in front of mc genna
by the rubbish heap and cried out, oh, my wing
is broken. The boy in the house threw a stone

(03:26:06):
at me and broke it. Then she fluttered more desperately
than ever. Nagenna lifted up her head and hissed, you
warned Ricky Ticky, when I would have killed him. Indeed,
and truly you've chosen a bad place to be lame in,
And she moved toward Darzy's wife, slipping along over the dust.
The boy broke it with a stone, shrieked Darzy's wife. Well,

(03:26:31):
it may be some consolation to you when you're dead,
to know that I shall settle accounts with the boy.
My husband lies on the rubbish heap this morning, but
before night the boy in the house will lie very still.
What is the use of running away? I am sure
to catch you, little fool, Look at me, Darzy's wife

(03:26:51):
knew better than to do that, For a bird who
looks at a snake's eyes get so frightened that she
cannot move. Darzy's wife fluttered on, piping sorrowfully and never
leaving the ground, and Agenna quickened her pace. Rikitiky heard
them going up the path from the stables, and he
raced for the end of the melon patch near the wall. There,

(03:27:13):
in the warm litter above the melons, very cunningly hidden,
he found twenty five eggs, about the size of a
bantam's eggs, but with whitish skin instead of shell. I
was not a day too soon, he said, for he
could see the baby cobras curled up inside the skin,
and he knew that the minute they were hatched, they
could each kill a man or a mongoose. He bit

(03:27:35):
off the tops of the eggs as fast as he could,
taking care to crush the young cobras, and turned over
the litter from time to time to see whether he
had missed any. At last, there were only three eggs left,
and Riki Ticky began to chuckle to himself when he
heard Darzi's wife screaming, Rickie Ticky, I led Nagena toward
the house, and she has gone into the verandah, and oh,

(03:27:57):
come quickly, she means killing. Rick Ticky smashed two eggs
and tumbled backward down the melon bed with the third
egg in his mouth, and scuttled to the verandah as
hard as he could put foot to the ground. Teddy
and his mother and father were there at early breakfast,
but rick Ticky saw that they were not eating anything.

(03:28:17):
They sat stone still and their faces were white. Nagina
was coiled up on the matting by Teddy's chair, within
easy striking distance of Teddy's bare leg, and she was
swaying to and fro, singing a song of triumph. Son
of the big man that killed nag She hissed, stay still,
I am not ready yet. Wait a little, Keep very still,

(03:28:41):
all you three. If you move, I strike, and if
you do not move, I strike, Oh, foolish people who
killed my nag Teddy's eyes were fixed on his father,
and all his father could do was to whisper, Sit still, Teddy,
you mustn't move. Teddy still. Then Ricky Ticky came up

(03:29:02):
and cried, turn round, Nagenna, turn and fight all in
good time, said she, without moving her eyes. I will
settle my account with you presently. Look at your friends,
Ricky Ticky. They are still and white. They are afraid.
They dare not move, and if you come a step nearer,

(03:29:24):
I strike. Look at your eggs, said Ricky Ticky in
the melon bed near the wall, Go and look. Nagena.
The big snake turned half around and saw the egg
on the verandah ah h, give it to me, she said.
Ricky Ticky put his paws, one on each side of

(03:29:45):
the egg, and his eyes were blood red. What price
for a snake's egg, For a young cobra, for a
young king cobra, for the last, the very last of
the brood. The ants are eating all the other down
by the melon bed, Nagennethe spun clear round forgetting everything
for the sake of the one egg. Ricky Ticky saw

(03:30:08):
Teddy's father shoot out a big hand, catch Teddy by
the shoulder and drag him across the little table with
the teacups, safe and out of reach of Nigenna. Tricked, tricked, tricked,
rick t c K t c K chuckled, Ricky Ticky,
the boy is safe. And it was I I I

(03:30:29):
that caught nag by the hood last night in the bathroom.
Then he began to jump up and down, all four
feet together, his head close to the floor. He threw
me to and fro, but he could not shake me off.
He was dead before the big man blew him in two.
I did it, Ricky Ticky, t c K t c

(03:30:49):
K come then mcgenna, come and fight with me. You
shall not be a widow. Long Nigennette saw that she
had lost her chance of killing Teddy, and the egg
lay between Ricky Ticky's paws. Give me the egg, Ricky Ticky,
give me the last of my eggs, and I will
go away and never come back, she said, lowering her hood. Yes,

(03:31:13):
you will go away and you will never come back,
for you will go to the rubbish heap with nag
fight widow. The big man has gone for his gun fight.
Zero two two seven. Nagenna flew down the path with
Ricky Ticky behind her. Ricky Ticky was bounding all round Nagenna,

(03:31:35):
keeping just out of reach of her stroke, his little
eyes like hot coals. Nagenna gathered herself together and flung
out at him. Ricky Ticky jumped up and backward, again
and again and again she struck, and each time her
head came with a whack on the matting of the verandah,
and she gathered herself together like a watch spring. Then

(03:31:55):
Ricky Ticky danced in a circle to get behind her,
and n Agenna spun round to keep her head to
his head, so that the rustle of her tail on
the matting sounded like dry leaves blown along by the wind.
He had forgotten the egg. It still lay on the veranda,
and Nigenna came nearer and nearer to it, till at last,
while Riki Ticky was drawing breath, she caught it in

(03:32:17):
her mouth, turned to the veranda steps, and flew like
an arrow down the path, with Ricky Ticky behind her.
When the cobra runs for her life, she goes like
a whiplash flicked across a horse's neck. Rik Tiky knew
that he must catch her or all the trouble would
begin again. She headed straight for the long grasp by
the thorn bush, and as he was running, Ricky Ticky

(03:32:39):
heard Darzy still singing his foolish little song of triumph.
But Darzy's wife was wiser. She flew off her nest
as Nagenna came along and flapped her wings about mcgenna's head.
If Darzy had helped, they might have turned her, but
Nagenna only lowered her hood and went on still. The
instant still lay brought Ricky Ticky up to her, and

(03:33:02):
as she plunged into the rat hole where she and
nag used to live, his little white teeth were clenched
on her tail, and he went down with her. And
very few mongooses, however wise and old, they may be,
care to follow a cobra into its hole. It was
dark in the hole, and Ricky Ticky never knew when
it might open out and give Nagen a room to
turn and strike at him. He held on savagely and

(03:33:25):
stuck out his feet to act as breaks on the
dark slope of the hot, moist earth. Then the grasp
by the mouth of the hole stopped waving, and Darzy said,
it is all over with Ricky Ticky. We must sing
his death song. Valiant Ricky Ticky is dead, for Nigena
will surely kill him underground. So he sang a very

(03:33:46):
mournful song that he made up on the spur of
the minute, And just as he got to the most
touching part, the grass quivered again, and Ricky Ticky, covered
with dirt, dragged himself out of the whole leg by leg,
licking his whiskers. Darzy stopped with a little shout. Ricky
Ticky shook some of the dust out of his fur
and sneezed. It is all over, he said. The widow

(03:34:11):
will never come out again, and the red ants that
lived between the grass stems heard him and began to
troop down one after another to see if he had
spoken the truth. Ricki Ticky curled himself up in the
grass and slept where he was slept and slept till
it was late in the afternoon, for he had done
a hard day's work. Now, he said, when he awoke,

(03:34:32):
I will go back to the house. Tell the coppersmith Darzy,
and he will tell the garden that Nigenna is dead.
Zero two three zero, It is all over. The coppersmith
is a bird who makes a noise exactly like the
beating of a little hammer on a copper pot. And
the reason he is always making it is because he
is the town crier to every Indian garden and tells

(03:34:54):
all the news to everybody who cares to listen. As
Rick Ticky went up the path, he heard his attention
notes like a tiny dinner gong, and then the steady
ding dong talk, Nag is dead, dong, Niginna is dead,
ding dong talk. That set all the birds in the
gardens singing and the frogs croaking. For Nag and Niginna

(03:35:18):
used to eat frogs as well as little birds. When
Ricky got to the house Teddy and Teddy's mother, she
looked very white still, for she had been fainting. And
Teddy's father came out and almost cried over him. And
that night he ate all that was given him till
he could eat no more and went to bed on
Teddy's shoulder, where Teddy's mother saw him when she came
to look late at night. He saved our lives in

(03:35:41):
Teddy's life, she said to her husband. Just think he
saved all our lives. Rickie Ticky woke up with a jump.
For the mongooses are light sleepers. Oh it's you, said he,
What are you bothering? For all the cobras are dead,
and if they warn't, I'm here. Rik Tiki had a

(03:36:03):
right to be proud of himself, but he did not
grow too proud, and he kept that garden as a
mongoose should keep it, with tooth and jump and spring
and bite till never a cobra dared show its head
inside the walls. Darzy's chant sung in honor of Riki Tiki,
Tavi singer and tailor. Am I doubled the joys that
I know proud of my lilt to the sky, proud

(03:36:25):
of the house that I sow over and under. So
we by my music, so weviy the house that I sow.
Sing to your fledglings again, mother, oh, lift up your head.
Evil that plague does is slain. Death in the garden
lies dead. Terror that hid in the roses is impotent,
flung on the dunghill and dead? Who has delivered us?

(03:36:47):
Who tell me his nest and his name? Ricki the valiant,
the true Tiki, with eyeballs of flame, rick Tiki Tiki,
the ivory fanged, the hunter, with eyeballs of flame, Give
him the thanks of the birds, bowing with tail feathers spread,
praise him with nightingale words. Nay, I will praise him instead.

(03:37:09):
Here I will sing you the praise of the bottle
tailed Rickie with eyeballs of red. Here Ricky Ticky interrupted,
and the rest of the song is lost. Zero two
three seven to my of the elephants. I will remember
what I was. I am sick of rope and chain.
I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.

(03:37:30):
I will not sell my back to man for a
bundle of sugar cane. I will go out to my
own kind and the wood folk in their lairs. I
will go out until the day, until the morning, break
out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress.
I will forget my ankle ring and snap my picket steak.
I will revisit my lost loves and playmates. Masterless call

(03:37:53):
a Nag which means black snake had served the Indian
government in every way that an elephant could serve it
for forty seven years, and as he was fully twenty
years old when he was caught, that makes him nearly
seventy a ripe age for an elephant. He remembered pushing
with a big leather pad on his forehead at a
gun stuck in deep mud, and that was before the

(03:38:14):
Afghan War of eighteen forty two, and he had not
then come to his full strength. His mother, Radha Pyari,
rather the darling, who had been caught in the same
drive with Colin Nag, told him before his little milk
tusks had dropped out that elephants who were afraid always
got hurt. Kolin Nag knew that that advice was good.

(03:38:34):
For the first time that he saw a shell burst,
he backed screaming into a stand of piled rifles, and
the bayonets pricked him in all his softest places. So
before he was twenty five he gave up being afraid,
and so he was the best loved and the best
looked after elephant in the service of the government of India.
He had carried tents twelve hundred pounds weight of tents

(03:38:57):
on the march in Upper India. He had been hoisted
into a ship at the end of a steam crane,
taken for days across the water, and made to carry
a mortar on his back in a strange and rocky
country very far from India, and had seen the Emperor
Theodore lying dead in Magdala, and had come back again
in the steamer entitled So the soldier said to the

(03:39:17):
Abyssinian war medal. He had seen his fellow elephants die
of cold and epilepsy and starvation and sunstroke up at
a place called Ali Musjid ten years later, and afterward
he had been sent down thousands of miles south to
haul and pile big box of teak in the timber
yards at Momain. There he had half killed an insubordinate

(03:39:37):
young elephant who was shirking his fair share of work.
Zero two three nine Kala Nag was the best loved
elephant in the service. After that he was taken off
timber hauling and employed with a few score other elephants
who were trained to the business in helping to catch
wild elephants among the Gharol Hills. Elephants are very strictly

(03:39:58):
preserved by the Indian government. There is one whole department
which does nothing else but hunt them and catch them,
and break them in and send them up and down
the country as they are needed for work. Colin Nag
stood ten fair feet at the shoulders, and his tusks
had been cut off short at five feet and bound
round the ends to prevent them splitting with bands of copper.

(03:40:21):
But he could do more with those stumps than any
untrained elephant could do with the real sharpened ones. When
after weeks and weeks of cautious driving of scattered elephants
across the hills, the forty or fifty wild monsters were
driven into the last stockade and the big drop gate
made of tree trunks lashed together, jarred down behind them.
Col A Nag, at the word of command, would go

(03:40:43):
into that flaring, trumpeting pandemonium, generally at night, when the
flicker of the torches made it difficult to judge distances,
and picking out the biggest and wildest tusker of the mob,
would hammer him and hustle him into quiet, while the
men on the backs of the other elephants broke and
tied the smaller ones. There was nothing in the way
of fighting that Colin Nag, the old wise black snake

(03:41:07):
did not know. For he had stood up more than
once in his time to the charge of the wounded tiger,
and curling up his soft trunk to be out of
harm's way, had knocked the springing brute sideways in mid
air with a quick sickle cut of his head that
he had invented all by himself, had knocked him over,
and kneeled upon him with his huge knees till the
life went out with a gasp and a howl, and

(03:41:28):
there was only a fluffy striped thing on the ground
for Colin Nag to pull by the tail. Yes, said
Big Tumi, his driver, the son of Black Tumai who
had taken him to Abyssinia, and grandson of Tumai of
the elephants, who had seen him caught. There is nothing
that the black snake fears except me. He has seen
three generations of us feed him and groom him, and

(03:41:50):
he will live to see, for he is afraid of me.
Also said little Tumai, standing up to his full height
of four feet with only one rag upon him. He
was ten years old, the eldest son of Big Tumi,
and according to custom, he would take his father's place
on Colin Nagg's neck when he grew up, and would
handle the heavy iron ankus the elephant goat that had

(03:42:13):
been worn smooth by his father and his grandfather and
his great grandfather five thousand, two hundred ninety one. Colin
Nagg he knew what he was talking of, for he
had been born under klin Nagg's shadow, had played with
the end of his trunk before he could walk, had
taken him down to water as soon as he could walk,
And Colin Nagg would no more have dreamed of disobeying

(03:42:34):
his shrill little orders than he would have dreamed of
killing him. On that day when Big Tuomi carried the
little brown baby under Klagg's tusks and told him to
salute his master, that was to be yes, said little
to Mai, he is afraid of me, and he took
long strides up to Colin Nagg called him a fat
old pig, and made him lift up his feet one

(03:42:54):
after the other. Wah said little to Mai, thou art
a big elephant, and he wagged his fluffy head, quoting
his father. The government may pay for elephants, but they
belong to us, mahouts. When thou art old, call a nag,
there will come some rich raja, and he will buy
thee from the government on account of thy size and

(03:43:15):
thy manners. And then thou wilt have nothing to do
but to carry gold ear rings in thy ears, and
a gold howdah on thy back, and a red cloth
covered with gold on thy sides, and walk at the
head of the processions of the king. Then I shall
sit on thy neck O call a nag with a
silver anchors, and men will run before us with golden sticks,

(03:43:36):
crying room for the king's elephant. That will be good
call a nag, But not so good as this hunting
in the jungles, Um said big to mine, thou art
a boy and as wild as a buffalo calf. This
running up and down among the hills is not the
best government service. I am getting old and I do

(03:43:58):
not love wild elephants. Give me brick elephant lines, one
stall to each elephant, and big stumps to tie them
to safely, and flat broad roads to exercise upon instead
of this come and go camping. Aha. The conpoor barracks
were good. There was a bazaar close by, and only
three hours work a day. Little Too I remembered the

(03:44:21):
conpoor elephant lines and said nothing. He very much preferred
the camp life and hated those broad, flat roads, with
the daily grubbing for grass in the forage reserve, and
the long hours when there was nothing to do except
to watch Colin Nag fidgeting in his pickets. What Little
two I liked was to scramble up bridle paths that

(03:44:42):
only an elephant could take, The dip into the valley below,
the glimpses of the wild elephants browsing miles away, the
rush of the frightened pig and peacock under Kalinag's feet,
The blinding warm rains when all the hills and valleys smoked,
the beautiful misty mornings when nobody knew where the would
camp that night, the steady cautious drive of the wild elephants,

(03:45:04):
and the mad rush and blaze and hullabaloo of the
last night's drive, when the elephants poured into the stockade
like boulders in a landslide, found that they could not
get out, and flung themselves at the heavy posts, only
to be driven back by yells and flaring torches and
volleys of blank cartridge. Even a little boy could be
of use there, and Tumi was as useful as three boys.

(03:45:27):
He would get his torch and wave it and yell
with the best. But the really good time came when
the driving out began, and the cada that is the
stockade looked like a picture of the end of the world,
and men had to make signs to one another because
they could not hear themselves speak. Then little Tumi would
climb up to the top of one of the quivering

(03:45:48):
stockade posts, his sun bleached brown hair flying loose all
over his shoulders, and he looking like a goblin in
the torchlight. And as soon as there was a lull,
you could hear his high pitched yells of encouragement to
call a nag above the trumpeting and crashing and snapping
of ropes and groans of the tethered elephants. Mail mail,

(03:46:08):
Colin Nag, go on, go on, black snake, dan't do,
give him the tusk. Samolo, Samolo, careful, careful, morrow mar
hit him, hit him mind the post. R r hi

(03:46:34):
yai kia ah. He would shout, and the big fight
between Colin Nag and the wild elephant would sway to
and fro across the cada, and the old elephant catchers
would wipe the sweat out of their eyes and find
time to nod to little to my wriggling with joy
on the top of the posts, he did more than wriggle.
One night he slid down from the post and slipped

(03:46:56):
in between the elephants and threw up the loose end
of a rope which had drops to a driver who
was trying to get a purchase on the leg of
a kicking young calf. Calves always give more trouble than
full grown animals. Kala Nag saw him, caught him in
his trunk and handed him up to big Tumai, who
slapped him then and there and put him back on
the post. Next morning he gave him a scolding and said,

(03:47:20):
are not good brick elephant lines, and a little tent
caring enough that thou must needs go elephant catching on
thy own account, little worthless. Now those foolish hunters whose
pay is less than my pay have spoken to Peterson
Sahib of the matter. Little tou Mai was frightened. He
did not know much of white men. But Peterson Sahib

(03:47:41):
was the greatest white man in the world. To him,
he was the head of all the cada operations, the
man who caught all the elephants for the government of India,
and who knew more about the ways of elephants than
any living man. What what will happen, said little to Mai. Happen?
That can happen? Peterson Sahib is a madman. Else why

(03:48:05):
should he go hunting these wild devils. He may even
require thee to be an elephant catcher, to sleep anywhere
in these fever filled jungles, and at last to be
trampled to death in the cada. It is well that
this nonsense ends safely. Next week the catching is over,
and we of the plains are sent back to our stations.

(03:48:25):
Then we will march on smooth roads and forget all
this hunting but Son, I am angry that thou shouldst
meddle in the business that belongs to these dirty Ossemese
jungle folk. Col A Nag will obey none but me,
so I must go with him into the cada. But
he is only a fighting elephant, and he does not
help to rope them. So I sit at my ease

(03:48:47):
as befits a mahout, not a mere hunter. A mahout,
I say, And a man who gets a pension at
the end of his service is the family of Tumai.
Of the elephants to be trodden under foot in the
dirt of a cada, bad one, wicked one, worthless son,
go and wash Colin Nag, and attend to his ears,

(03:49:08):
and see that there are no thorns in his feet,
Or else Peterson Sahib will surely catch thee and make
thee a wild hunter, a follower of elephant's foot tracks,
a jungle bear. Bah shame go. Little Toomey went off
without saying a word, but he told Colin and Nag
all his grievances while he was examining his feet. No

(03:49:31):
matter said little to my turning up the fringe of
Kalinnag's huge right ear they have said my name to
Peterson Sahib, and perhaps, and perhaps and perhaps who knows hi?
That is a big thorn that I have pulled out.
The next few days were spent in getting the elephants together,
in walking the newly caught wild elephants up and down

(03:49:54):
between a couple of tame ones to prevent them giving
too much trouble on the downward march to the plains,
and in take king stock of the blankets and ropes
and things that had been worn out or lost in
the forest. Peterson Sahib came in on his clever she
elephant pugmeny. He had been paying off other camps among
the hills for the season was coming to an end,
and there was a native clerk sitting at a table

(03:50:15):
under a tree to pay the drivers their wages. As
each man was paid, he went back to his elephant
and joined the line that stood ready to start. The
catchers and hunters and beaters. The men of the regular
Keida who stayed in the jungle year in and year out,
sat on the backs of the elephants that belonged to
Peterson Sahib's permanent force, or leaned against the trees with

(03:50:38):
their guns across their arms and made fun of the
drivers who were going away, and laughed. When the newly
caught elephants broke the line and ran about. Big two
Ma went up to the clerk with Little two Myi
behind him, and maqua Appa, the head tracker said, in
an undertone to a friend of his, there goes one
piece of good elephant stuff. At least tis a pity

(03:51:00):
to send that young junglecock to molt in the plains. Now,
Peterson Sahib had ears all over him, as a man
must have who listens to the most silent of all
living things, the wild elephant. He turned where he was
lying all along on Pudmany's back and said, what is that?
I did not know of a man among the plains
drivers who had wit enough to rope even a dead elephant.

(03:51:23):
This is not a man but a boy. He went
into the cada at the last drive and threw Barmao
there the rope. When we were trying to get that
young calf with the blotch on his shoulder away from
his mother, Macua Appa pointed at Little to Mai, and
Peterson Sahib looked, and Little too My bowed to the earth.
He throw a rope, he is smaller than a picket pin.

(03:51:47):
Little one, what is thy name? Said Peterson Sahib. Little
too Mai was too frightened to speak. But Kala Nag
was behind him, and Toomey made a sign with his hand,
and the elephant caught him up in his trunk and
held level with Pudmany's forehead in front of the Great
Peterson Sahib. Then Little Tumi covered his face with his hands,

(03:52:07):
for he was only a child, and except where elephants
were concerned, he was just as bashful as a child
could be. Oho, said Peterson Sahib, smiling underneath his mustache.
And why didst thou teach thy elephant that trick? Was
it to help thee steal green corn from the roofs
of the houses when the years are put out to
dry zero two five five? Not green corn, protector of

(03:52:31):
the poor melons, said little to Mai. Not green corn,
protector of the poor melons, said little to Mai. And
all the men sitting about broke into a roar of laughter.
Most of them had taught their elephants that trick when
they were boys. Little Tumi was hanging eight feet up
in the air, and he wished very much that he

(03:52:52):
were eight feet underground. He is Tou Mai, my son,
Sahib said, Big Tu Mai, scowling. He is a very
bad boy, and he will end in a jail. Sahib.
Of that, I have my doubts, said Peterson Sahib. A
boy who can face a full cada at his age
does not end in jails. See, little one, here are

(03:53:15):
four honors to spend in sweetmeats, because thou hast a
little head under that great thatch of hair. In time
thou mayest become a hunter too big to my scowled
more than ever, Remember though, that cadas are not good
for children to play in. Peterson Sahib went on, Must
I never go there, Sahib asked, little to Mai, with

(03:53:36):
a big gasp. Yes, Peterson Sahib smiled again. When thou
hast seen the elephants dance, that is the proper time.
Come to me, when thou hast seen the elephants dance,
And then I will let thee go into all the cadas.
There was another roar of laughter, for that is an
old joke among elephant catchers, and it means just never

(03:54:01):
there are great cleared flat places hidden away in the
forests that are called elephants ball rooms. But even these
are only found by accident, and no man has ever
seen the elephants dance. When a driver boasts of his
skill and bravery, the other drivers say, and when didst
thou see the elephants dance? Kola Nag put little two
May down, and he bowed to the earth again, and

(03:54:23):
went away with his father, and gave the silver foreann
apiece to his mother, who was nursing his baby brother.
And they all were put up on Kala Nag's back,
and the line of grunting, squealing elephants rolled down the
hill path to the plains. It was a very lively
march on account of the new elephants, who gave trouble
at every ford and needed coaxing or beating every other minute.

(03:54:45):
Big two Mike prodded Colin Nag spitefully, for he was
very angry, but Little to Mai was too happy to speak.
Peterson Sahib had noticed him and given him money, so
he felt as a private soldier would feel if he
had been called out out of the ranks and praised
by his commander in chief. What did Peterson Sahib mean
by the elephant dance, he said at last, softly to

(03:55:09):
his mother. Big two I heard him and grunted that
thou shouldst never be one of these hill buffaloes of trackers.
That was what he meant. Oh you in front, what
is blocking the way? An Assamese driver two or three
elephants ahead, turned round angrily, crying, bring up Colin Nag

(03:55:29):
and knock this youngster of mine into good behavior. Why
should Peterson Sahib have chosen me to go down with
you donkeys of the rice fields. Lay your beast alongside
to my and let him prod with his tusks. By
all the gods of the hills, these new elephants are possessed,
or else they can smell their companions in the jungle.

(03:55:51):
Colin Nag hit the new elephant in the ribs and
knocked the wind out of him. As Big two I said,
we have swept the hills of wild elephants at the
last catch. It is only your carelessness in driving. Must
I keep order along the whole line? Hear him, said
the other driver, We have swept the hills. Ho ho,

(03:56:14):
you are very wise eu plains people any one but
a mudhead who never saw the jungle would know that.
They know that the drives are ended for the season.
Therefore all the wild elephants tonight will But why should
I waste wisdom on a river turtle? What will they do?
Little two Mike called out, Oh, hey, little one, art

(03:56:36):
thou there? Well, I will tell thee for thou hast
a cool head. They will dance, And it behooves thy father,
who has swept all the hills of all the elephants,
to double chain his pickets to night. What talk is this,
said big two Mai. For forty years, father and son,
we have tended elephants, and we have never heard such

(03:56:58):
moonshine about dances. Yes, but a plainsman who lives in
a hut knows only the four walls of his hut.
Well leave thy elephants unshackled to night and see what
comes As for their dancing. I have seen the place
where the pre bap how many windings has the dihon river?
Here is another ford, and we must swim the calves.

(03:57:21):
Stop still you behind there? And in this way, talking
and wrangling and splashing through the rivers, they made their
first march to a sort of receiving camp for the
new elephants, but they lost their tempers long before they
got there. Then the elephants were chained by their hind
legs to their big stumps of pickets, and extra ropes

(03:57:41):
were fitted to the new elephants, and the fodder was
piled before them, and the hill drivers went back to
Petersen Sahib through the afternoon light, telling the Plains drivers
to be extra careful that night, and laughing when the
Plains drivers asked the reason. Little two I attended to
call a Nag's supper, and as evening fell, wandered through
the camp unspeakably happy, in search of a tom tom.

(03:58:05):
When an Indian child's heart is full, he does not
run about and make a noise in an irregular fashion.
He sits down to a sort of revel all by himself,
and little to my I had been spoken to by
Peterson Sahib. If he had not found what he wanted,
I believe he would have been ill. But the sweetmeat
cellar in the camp lent him a little tom tom,

(03:58:27):
a drum beaten with the flat of the hand, and
he sat down cross legged before Colin Nag. As the
stars began to come out the tom tom in his lap,
and he thumped, and he thumped, and he thumped. And
the more he thought of the great honor that had
been done to him, the more he thumped. All alone
among the elephant fodder. There was no tune and no words,

(03:58:48):
but the thumping made him happy. The new elephants strained
at their ropes and squealed and trumpeted from time to time.
And he could hear his mother in the camp hut,
putting his small brother to sleep with an old old
song about the great god Shiv, who once told all
the animals what they should eat. It is a very
soothing lullaby, And the first verse says Shiv, who poured

(03:59:11):
the harvest and made the winds to blow, sitting at
the doorways of a day of long ago, gave to
each his portion food and toil and fate. From the
king upon the gadid to the beggar at the gate,
all things made he Shiva, the preserver Mahadio, mahaio. He
made all thorn for the camel, fodder for the kind,

(03:59:33):
and mother's heart for sleepy head. O, little son of mine,
little too, my came in with a joyous tunka tunk
at the end of each verse, till he felt sleepy
and stretched himself on the fodder at Kala Nag's side.
At last, the elephants began to lie down, one after another,
as is their custom, till only Kala Nag, at the
right of the line, was left standing up, and he

(03:59:55):
rocked slowly from side to side, his ears put forward
to listen to the night wind as it blew very
slowly across the hills. The air was full of all
the night noises that, taken together, make one big silence.
The click of one bamboo stem against the other, the
rustle of something alive in the undergrowth, the scratch and
squawk of a half wake bird. Birds are awake in

(04:00:17):
the night much more often than we imagine, and the
fall of water, ever so far away. Little two My
slept for some time, and when he waked, it was
brilliant moonlight, and Colin Nag was still standing up with
his ears cocked. Little two My turned rustling in the
fodder and watched the curve of his big back against
half the stars in heaven. And while he watched, he

(04:00:38):
heard so far away that it sounded no more than
a pin hole of noise pricked through the stillness the
hutute of a wild elephant. All the elephants in the
lines jumped up as if they had been shot, and
their grunts at last waked the sleeping mahouts, and they
came out and drove in the picket pegs with big mallets,
and tightened this rope and knotted that till all was quiet.

(04:01:00):
One new elephant had nearly grubbed up his picket, and
Big two Mike took off Kola Nag's leg chain and
shackled that elephant four foot to hindfoot, but slipped a
loop of grass string round Kola Nag's leg and told
him to remember that he was tied fast. He knew
that he and his father and his grandfather had done
the very same thing hundreds of times before. Kola Nag

(04:01:22):
did not answer to the order by gurgling as he
usually did. He stood still, looking out across the moonlight,
his head a little raised, and his ears spread like
fans up to the great folds of the Garo Hills.
Ten to him if he grows restless in the night,
said Big Tumi to little Tumai, and he went into
the hut and slept. Little Tumi was just going to

(04:01:44):
sleep too, when he heard the choir string snap with
a little tang, and Kola Nagg rolled out of his pickets,
as slowly and as silently as a cloud rolls out
of the mouth of a valley. Little two Mai pattered
after him, barefooted, down the road in the moonlightight, calling
under his breath, call a nag, Call a nag, Take

(04:02:05):
me with you, Oh, call a nag. The elephant turned
without a sound, took three strides back to the boy
in the moonlight, put down his trunk, swung him up
to his neck, and almost before Little two I had
settled his knees slipped into the forest. There was one
blast of furious trumpeting from the lines, and then the
silence shut down on everything, and Colin a Nagg began

(04:02:28):
to move. Sometimes a tuft of high grass washed along
his sides as a wave washes along the sides of
a ship, and sometimes a cluster of wild pepper vines
would scrape along his back, or a bamboo would creak
where his shoulder touched it. But between those times he
moved absolutely without any sound, drifting through the thick garrow
forest as though it had been smoke. He was going

(04:02:51):
up hill, but though Little two I watched the stars
in the rifts of the trees, he could not tell
in what direction. Then col A Nag reached the crest
of the ascent and stopped for a minute, and Little
two Mike could see the tops of the trees lying
all speckled and furry under the moonlight for miles and miles,
and the blue white mist over the river. In the hollow.

(04:03:12):
Two my leaned forward and looked, and he felt that
the forest was awake below him, awake and alive and crowded.
A big brown fruit eating bat brushed past his ear.
A porcupine's quills rattled in the thicket, and in the
darkness between the tree stems, he heard a hogbaar digging
heart in the moist warm earth, and snuffing as it digged.

(04:03:32):
Then the branches closed over his head again, and Colin
Nag began to go down into the valley, not quietly
this time, but as a runaway gun goes down a
steep bank in one rush. The huge limbs moved as
steadily as pistons, eight feet to each stride, and the
wrinkled skin of the elbow points rustled. The undergrowth on

(04:03:53):
either side of him ripped with a noise like torn canvas,
and the saplings that he heaved away right and left
with his shoulders sprang back again and banged him on
the flank. And great trails of creepers, all matted together,
hung from his tusks as he threw his head from
side to side and plowed out his pathway. Then little
too May laid himself down close to the great neck

(04:04:13):
lest a swinging bough should sweep him to the ground,
and he wished that he were back in the lines again.
Zero zero won zero. Of the grass began to get squashy,
and Kala Nag's feet sucked and squelched as he put
them down, and the night mist at the bottom of
the valley chilled little Tumai. There was a splash in
a trample and the rush of running water, and Kola

(04:04:35):
Nag strode through the bed of a river, feeling his
way at each step. Above the noise of the water
as it swirled round the elephant's legs, Little Tumi could
hear more splashing and some trumpeting, both up stream and down,
great grunts and angry snortings and all the mist about
him seemed to be full of rolling, wavy shadows. A I,

(04:04:56):
he said, half aloud, his teeth chattering. The elephant folk
are out tonight. It is the dance. Then Colin Nag
swashed out of the water, blew his trunk clear, and
began another climb. But this time he was not alone,
and he had not to make his path that was
made already six feet wide in front of him, where

(04:05:19):
the bent jungle grass was trying to recover itself and
stand up. Many elephants must have gone that way only
a few minutes before. Little Toomey looked back, and behind him,
a great wild tusker, with his little pig's eyes glowing
like hot coals, was just lifting himself out of the
misty river. Then the trees closed up again, and they

(04:05:39):
went on and up, with trumpetings and crashings and the
sound of breaking branches on every side of them. Five thousand,
three hundred and seventeen Elephant Dance. At last, Colin Nag
stood still between two tree trunks at the very top
of the hill. They were part of a circle of
trees that grew round an irregular space of some three
or four acres, and in all that space, as Little

(04:06:02):
two I could see, the ground had been trampled down,
as hard as a brick floor. Some trees grew in
the center of the clearing, but their bark was rubbed away,
and the white wood beneath showed all shiny and polished.
In the patches of moonlight. There were creepers hanging from
the upper branches, and the bells of the flowers of
the creepers. Great waxy white things like convolvuluses, hung down

(04:06:25):
fast asleep. But within the limits of the clearing there
was not a single blade of green, nothing but the
trampled earth. The moonlight showed it all iron gray, except
where some elephants stood upon it, and their shadows were
inky black. Little two I looked, holding his breath, with
his eyes starting out of his head, and as he looked,

(04:06:46):
more and more and more elephants swung out into the
open from between the tree trunks. Little two I could
only count up to ten, and he counted again and
again on his fingers till he lost count of the tens,
and his head began to swim. Outside the clearing, he
could hear them crashing in the undergrowth as they worked
their way up the hillside, but as soon as they
were within the circle of the tree trunks, they moved

(04:07:08):
like ghosts. There were white, tussed wild males with fallen
leaves and nuts and twigs lying in the wrinkles of
their necks and the folds of their ears. Fat, slow
footed she elephants with restless, little pinky black calves only
three or four feet high, running under their stomachs. Young
elephants with their tusks just beginning to show, and very

(04:07:29):
proud of them. Lanky, scraggy, old made elephants with their hollow,
anxious faces and trunks like rough bark, savage old bull elephants,
scarred from shoulder to flank, with great wheels and cuts
of bygone fights, and the caked dirt of their solitary
mud baths dropping from their shoulders. And there was one
with a broken tusk in the marks of the full stroke,

(04:07:50):
the terrible drawing scrape of a tiger's claws on his side.
They were standing head to head, or walking to and
fro across the ground in couples, or rocking in weighing,
all by themselves. Scores and scores of elephants too, mine
knew that so long as he lay still on Cola
Nag's neck, nothing would happen to him. For even in
the rush and scramble of a cada drive, a wild

(04:08:12):
elephant does not reach up with his trunk and drag
a man off the neck of a tame elephant. And
these elephants were not thinking of men that night. Once
they started and put their ears forward when they heard
the chinking of a leg iron in the forest. But
it was Pudminy Peterson Sahib's pet elephant. Her chains snapped
short off, grunting, snuffling up the hillside. She must have

(04:08:35):
broken her pickets and come straight from Peterson Sahib's camp.
And little too, I saw another elephant, one that he
did not know, with deep rope galls on his back
and breast. He too, must have run away from some
camp in the hills. About at last there was no
sound of any more elephants moving in the forest, and
Colin Nag rolled out from his station between the trees

(04:08:56):
and went into the middle of the crowd, clucking and gurgling,
And all the elephants began to talk in their own
tongue and to move about zero two seven one, little
to my looked down upon scores and scores of broad backs.
Still lying down little to Mai looked down upon scores
and scores of broad backs, and wagging ears and tossing

(04:09:18):
trunks and little rolling eyes. He heard the click of
tusks as they crossed other tusks by accident, and the
dry rustle of trunks twined together, and the chafing of
enormous sides and shoulders in the crowd, and the incessant
flick and hish of the great tails. Then a cloud
came over the moon, and he sat in black darkness.

(04:09:39):
But the quiet, steady hustling and pushing and gurgling went
on just the same. He knew that there were elephants
all round Colin Nag, and that there was no chance
of backing him out of the assembly. So he set
his teeth and shivered. In Akeda, at least there was
torchlight and shouting. But here he was all alone in
the dark. And once a trunk came up and touched

(04:10:00):
him on the knee. Then an elephant trumpeted, and they
all took it up for five or ten terrible seconds.
The dew from the trees above spattered down like rain
on the unseen backs, and a dull, booming noise began,
not very loud at first, and Little two Mike could
not tell what it was, but it grew and grew,
and Colin Nag lifted up one fore foot and then

(04:10:22):
the other, and brought them down on the ground, one too,
one too, as steadily as trip hammers. The elephants were
stamping all together now, and it sounded like a war
drum beaten at the mouth of a cave. The dew
fell from the trees till there was no more left
to fall, and the booming went on, and the ground
rocked and shivered, and Little two Mike put his hands

(04:10:44):
up to his ears to shut out the sound. But
it was all one gigantic jar that ran through him,
this stamp of hundreds of heavy feet on the raw earth.
Once or twice he could feel Colin Nag and all
the others surged forward a few strides, and the thumping
would changed to the crushing sound of juicy green things
being bruised. But in a minute or two the boom

(04:11:05):
of feet on hard earth began again. A tree was
creaking and groaning somewhere near him. He put out his
arm and felt the bark, but Kala Nag moved forward,
still tramping, and he could not tell where he was
in the clearing. There was no sound from the elephants,
except once when two or three little calves squeaked together.

(04:11:26):
Then he heard a thump and a shuffle, and the
booming went on. It must have lasted fully two hours,
and Little twomight ached in every nerve, but he knew
by the smell of the night air that the dawn
was coming. The morning broke in one sheet of pale
yellow behind the green hills, and the booming stopped with
the first ray, as though the light had been in

(04:11:47):
order before Little Toomi had got the ringing out of
his head. Before even he had shifted his position, there
was not an elephant in sight except Cola nag pudmany
and the elephant with the rope gulls. And there was
neither sign, nor rustle, nor whispered down the hillsides to
show where the others had gone. Little to My stared
again and again the clearing as he remembered it had

(04:12:10):
grown in the night. More trees stood in the middle
of it, but the undergrowth and the jungle grass at
the sides had been rolled back. Little to My stared
once more. Now he understood the trampling the elephants had
stamped out more room had stamped the thick grass and
juicy cane to trash, the trash into slivers, the slivers

(04:12:32):
into tiny fibers, and the fibers into hard earth. Wah
said little to May, and his eyes were very heavy.
Call a nag, my lord. Let us keep by pudmany
and go to Peterson Sahib's camp, or I shall drop
from thy neck. The third elephant watched the two go away, snorted,
wheeled round, and took his own path. He may have

(04:12:55):
belonged to some little native king's establishment fifty or sixty
or a hundred miles away. Two hours later, as Peterson
Sahib was eating early breakfast, his elephants, who had been
double chained that night, began to trumpet, and Pudminy, mired
to the shoulders with kala nag, very footsore, shambled into
the camp. Little Tomai's face was gray and pinched, and

(04:13:18):
his hair was full of leaves and drenched with dew,
but he tried to salute Peterson Sahib and cried faintly
the dance, the elephant dance. I have seen it, and
I die. As Kala Nag sat down, he slid off
his neck in a dead faint. But since native children
have no nerves worth speaking of, in two hours he

(04:13:40):
was lying very contentedly in Peterson Sahib's hammock, with Peterson
Sahib's shooting coat under his head, and a glass of
warm milk a little brandy with a dash of quinine
inside of him. And while the old harry scarred hunters
of the jungle sat three deep before him, looking at
him as though he were a spirit. He told his
tale in short words as a child will, and wound

(04:14:02):
up with Now, if I lie in one word, send
men to sea, and they will find that the elephant
folk have trampled down more room in their dance room.
And they will find ten and ten and many times
ten tracks leading to that dance room. They made more
room with their feet. I have seen it. Colin Nag
took me, and I saw also Colin Nag is very

(04:14:26):
leg weary, little too. My lay back and slept all
through the long afternoon and into the twilight. And while
he slept, Peterson Sahib and macua Appa followed the track
of the two elephants for fifteen miles across the hills.
Peterson Sahib had spent eighteen years in catching elephants, and
he had only once before found such a dance place.

(04:14:48):
Macua Appa had no need to look twice at the
clearing to see what had been done there, or to
scratch with his toe in the pact ran to earth.
The child speaks truth, said he. All this was done
last night, and I have counted seventy tracks crossing the river.
See Sahib, where Pudminy's leg iron cut the bark of

(04:15:08):
that tree. Yes, she was there too. They looked at
one another, and up and down, and they wondered, for
the ways of elephants are beyond the wit of any man,
black or white to fathom. Forty years and five, said
macua Appa. Have I followed my lord the elephant, But
never have I heard that any child of man had

(04:15:29):
seen what this child has seen. By all the gods
of the hills, it is what can we say? And
he shook his head. When they got back to camp,
it was time for the evening meal. Peterson Sahib ate
alone in his tent, but he gave orders that the
camp should have two sheep and some fowls, as well
as a double ration of flour and rice and salt,

(04:15:51):
for he knew that there would be a feast five thousand,
three hundred thirty two to May of the elephants. Big too,
my I had come up hot foot from the camp
in the planes to search for his son and his elephant,
And now that he had found them, he looked at
them as though he were afraid of them both. And
there was a feast by the blazing camp fires in
front of the lines of picketed elephants, and little Tumi

(04:16:13):
was the hero of it all. And the big brown
elephant catchers, the trackers and drivers and ropers, and the
men who know all the secrets of breaking the wildest
elephants passed him from one to the other, and they
marked his forehead with blood from the breast of a
newly killed jungle cock, to show that he was a
forester initiated and free of all the jungles. And at last,

(04:16:34):
when the flames died down and the red light of
the logs made the elephants look as though they had
been dipped in blood too, Maqua Appa, the head of
all the drivers of all the cadis macua Appa Peterson
Sahib's other self, who had never seen a maid road
in forty years. Maqua Appa, who was so great that
he had no other name than Macua Appa, leaped to

(04:16:56):
his feet, with little two my held high in the
air above his head, and shouted, listen, my brothers, listen
to you, my lords in the lines there, For I
macua Appa am speaking. This little one shall no more
be called little Tumai, but to may of the elephants,
as his great grandfather was called before him. What never

(04:17:18):
man has seen, he has seen through the long night,
and the favor of the elephant folk and of the
gods of the jungles is with him. He shall become
a great tracker. He shall become greater than I, even
I macua Appa. He shall follow the new trail, and
the stale trail, and the mixed trail with a clear eye.

(04:17:38):
He shall take no harm in the cada when he
runs under their bellies to rope the wild tuskers. And
if he slips before the feet of the charging bull elephant,
the bull elephant shall know who he is and shall
not crush him. A hai, my lords. In the chains,
he whirled up the line of pickets. Here is the
little one that has seen your dances in your hidden places,

(04:17:59):
the sight that never and saw. Give him honor, my lords.
Salaam karo, my children, make your salute to Tumi of
the elephants, Gundha prashad Aha. Here a goodj birchie gooch
cuttar guj Aha, hudminy thou hast seen him at the dance,

(04:18:19):
And thou too call a nag my pearl among elephants
Aha together to Tumi of the elephants, bar rau zero
two seven nine, to Tumi of the Elephants, bar raou.
And at that last wild yelled. The whole line flung
up their trunks till the tips touched their foreheads, and

(04:18:41):
broke out into the full salute. The crashing trumpet peal
that only the Viceroy of India hears the salamet of
the cada. But it was all for the sake of
little Tumai, who had seen what never man had seen before,
the dance of the elephants at night and alone in
the heart of the Garo hills. Shiv and the grasshopper,
the song that Toumai's mother sang to the baby Shiv,

(04:19:04):
who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow.
Sitting at the doorways of a day of long ago,
gave to each his portion food and toil and fate.
From the king upon the gadi to the beggar at
the gate, all things made he Shiva the preserver, Mahaio, mahaio.
He made all thorn for the camel, fodder for the kind,

(04:19:26):
and mother's heart for sleepy head, O, little son of mine.
Wheat he gave to rich folk, millet to the poor,
broken scraps for holy men that beg from door to door,
battle to the tiger, carry into the kite, and rags
and bones to wicked wolves. Without the wall at night,
nought he found too lofty, None he saw too low.

(04:19:47):
Her body beside him watched them come and go. Thought
to cheat her husband, turning Shiv to jest, stole the
little grasshopper and hid it in her breast. So she
tricked him, Shiva the Preserver, Mahai mahadio, turn and see
tall are the camels, heavy are the kind. But this

(04:20:07):
was least of little things, O, little son of mine.
When the dole was ended. Laughingly, she said, Master of
a million mouths, is not one unfed. Laughing Shiv made answer,
All have had their part, even he, the little one
hidden neath thy heart. From her breast, she plucked it parbody.

(04:20:28):
The thief saw the least of little things, not a
new grown leaf, saw and feared and wondered, making prayer
to Shiv, who hath surely given meat to all that live.
All things made he Shiva the preserver, Mahadio, Mahardio. He
made all thorn for the camel, fodder for the kind,

(04:20:49):
and mother's heart for sleepy head, O, little son of mine,
zero two eight five, Her Majesty's servants, you can work
it out by fractions or by simple rule of three.
But the way of tweedledum is not the way of tweedledee.
You can twist it, you can turn it, you can
plait it till you drop, But the way of pilly
winkies not the way of winkie pop. It had been

(04:21:12):
raining heavily for one whole month, raining on a camp
of thirty thousand men and thousands of camels, elephants, horses, bullocks,
and mules, all gathered together at a place called ravol
Pindi to be reviewed by the Viceroy of India. He
was receiving a visit from the Emir of Afghanistan, a
wild king of a very wild country. The Emir had

(04:21:33):
brought with him for a bodyguard eight hundred men and
horses who had never seen a camp or a locomotive
before in their lives, savage men and savage horses from
somewhere at the back of Central Asia. Every night a
mob of these horses would be sure to break their
heel ropes and stampede up and down the camp through
the mud in the dark. Or the camels would break
loose and run about and fall over the ropes of

(04:21:55):
the tents, and you can imagine how pleasant that was
for men trying to go to sleep. My tent lay
far away from the camel lines, and I thought it
was safe. But one night a man popped his head
in and shouted, get out quick, they're coming. My tent's gone.
I knew who they were, so I put on my

(04:22:15):
boots and waterproof and scuttled out into the slush. Little Vixen,
my fox terrier, went out through the other side. And
then there was a roaring in a grunting and bubbling,
and I saw the tent cave in as the poles
snapped and begin to dance about like a mad ghost.
A camel had blundered into it, and wet and angry
as I was, I could not help laughing. Then I

(04:22:39):
ran on because I did not know how many camels
might have got loose, and before long I was out
of sight of the camp, plowing my way through the
mud zero two eight seven. The camel had blundered into
my tent. At last I fell over the tail end
of a gun, and by that knew I was somewhere
near the artillery lines where the cannon were stacked at night.

(04:23:00):
As I did not want to plowter about any more
in the drizzle and the dark, I put my waterproof
over the muzzle of one gun and made a sort
of wigwam with two or three rammers that I found,
and lay along the tail of another gun, wondering where
Vixen had got to and where I might be. Just
as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I
heard a jingle of harness and a grunt, and a

(04:23:21):
mule past me, shaking his wet ears. He belonged to
a screw gun battery, for I could hear the rattle
of the straps and rings and chains and things on
his saddle pad. The screw guns are tiny little cannon
made in two pieces that are screwed together when the
time comes to use them. They are taken up mountains
anywhere that a mule can find the road, and they

(04:23:42):
are very useful for fighting in rocky country. Behind the
mule there was a camel with his big soft feet
squelching and slipping in the mud, and his neck bobbing
to and fro like a straight hen's. Luckily I knew
enough of beast language, not wild beast language, but can
beast language, of course, from the natives, to know what

(04:24:03):
he was saying. He must have been the one that
flopped into my tent, for he called to the mule,
what shall I do? Where shall I go? I have
fought with a white thing that waved, and it took
a stick and hit me on the neck. That was
my broken tent pole, and I was very glad to
know it. Shall we run on? Oh? It was you,

(04:24:25):
said the mule, You and your friends that have been
disturbing the camp. All right, you'll be beaten for this
In the morning, but I may as well give you
something on account now. I heard the harnessed jingle as
the mule backed and caught the camel two kicks in
the ribs that rang like a drum. Another time, he said,

(04:24:45):
you'll know better than to run through a mule battery
at night, shouting thieves and fire. Sit down and keep
your silly neck quiet. The camel doubled up camel fashion
like a two foot rule and sat down whimpering. There
was a regular beat of hoofs in the darkness, and
a big troop horse cantered up as steadily as though
he were on parade, jumped a gun tail and landed

(04:25:08):
close to the mule. It's disgraceful, he said, blowing out
his nostrils. Those camels have racket through our lines again
the third time this week. How's a horse to keep
his condition if he isn't allowed to sleep? Who's here?
I'm the breech piece mule of number two gun of
the first screw battery, said the mule, and the others

(04:25:30):
one of your friends. He's wake me up too. Who
are you? Number fifteen E Troop ninth Lancers Dick Cunliff's
horse stand over a little there. Oh, beg your pardon,
said the mule. It's too dark to see much. Aren't
these camels too sickening for anything? I walked out of

(04:25:53):
my lines to get a little piece in quiet here,
my lords, said the camel, humbly. We dreamed bad dreams
in the night, and we were very much afraid. I
am only a baggage camel of the thirty ninth Native Infantry,
and I am not as brave as you are, my lords?
Then why didn't you stay and carry baggage for the
thirty ninth Native Infantry instead of running all round the camp,

(04:26:17):
said the mule. They were such very bad dreams, said
the camel. I am sorry. Listen, what is that? Shall
we run on again? Sit down, said the mule, or
you'll snap your long stick legs between the guns. He
cocked one ear and listened. Bullocks, he said, gun, bullocks.

(04:26:42):
On my word, you and your friends have waked the
camp very thoroughly. It takes a good deal of prodding
to put up a gun. Bullock. I heard a chain
dragging along the ground, and a yoke of the great
sulky white bullocks that dragged the heavy siege guns. When
the elephants won't go any nearer to the firing came
shoulders along together, and almost stepping on the chain, was

(04:27:03):
another battery mule calling wildly for Billy. That's one of
our recruits, said the old mule to the troop horse.
He's calling for me here, youngster, stop squealing. The dark
never hurt anybody yet. The gun bullocks lay down together
and began chewing the cut. But the young mule huddled

(04:27:24):
close to Billy. Things, he said, fearful and horrible, Billy,
they came into our lines while we were asleep. Jew
think they'll kill us. I've a very great mind to
give you a number one kicking, said Billy. The idea
of a fourteen hand mule with your training disgracing the

(04:27:44):
battery before this, gentleman gently gently said the troop horse.
Remember they are always like this to begin with. The
first time I ever saw a man, it was in
Australia when I was a three year old. I ran
for half a day, and if I'd seen a camel,
I should have been running still. Nearly all our horses

(04:28:05):
for the English Cavalry are brought to India from Australia
and are broken in by the troopers themselves, true enough,
said Billy, Stop shaking, youngster. The first time they put
the full harness with all its chains on my back,
I stood on my fore legs and kicked every bit
of it off. I hadn't learned the real science of

(04:28:26):
kicking then. But the battery said they had never seen
anything like it. But this wasn't harness or anything that jingled,
said the young mule. You know, I don't mind that now, Billy.
It was things like trees. And they fell up and
down the lines and bubbled, and my head rope broke,
and I couldn't find my driver, and I couldn't find you, Billy,

(04:28:47):
So I ran off with with these gentlemen, hum, said Billy.
As soon as I heard the camels were loose, I
came away on my own account. When a battery, a
screw gun mule calls gun bullocks, gentlemen, he must be
very badly shaken up. Who are you fellows on the
ground there? The gun bullocks rolled their cuds and answered

(04:29:09):
both together the seventh yoke of the first gun of
the big gun battery. We were asleep when the camels came,
but when we were trampled on, we got up and
walked away. It is better to lie quiet in the
mud than to be disturbed on good bedding. We told
your friend here that there was nothing to be afraid of,
but he knew so much that he thought otherwise. Wah.

(04:29:32):
They went on chewing. That comes of being afraid, said Billie,
you get laughed at by gun bullocks. I hope you
like it, young un. The young mule's teeth snapped, and
I heard him say something about not being afraid of
any beefy old bullock in the world. But the bullocks
only clicked their horns together and went on chewing. Zero

(04:29:55):
two nine five. Anybody can be forgiven for being scared
in the night, said the true lube horse. Now, don't
be angry after you've been afraid. That's the worst kind
of cowardice, said the troop horse. Anybody can be forgiven
for being scared in the night. I think if they
see things they don't understand. We've broken out of our

(04:30:15):
pickets again and again, four hundred and fifty of us,
just because a new recruit got to telling tales of
whip snakes at home in Australia, till we were scared
to death of the loose ends of our head ropes.
That's all very well in camp, said Billy. I'm not
above stampeding myself for the fun of the thing when
I haven't been out for a day or two. But

(04:30:37):
what do you do on active service. Oh that's quite
another set of new shoes, said the troop horse. Dick
cunlifts on my back then and drives his knees into me.
And all I have to do is to watch where
I am putting my feet, and to keep my hind
legs well under me, and be bridle wise. What's bridle wise?

(04:30:57):
Said the young mule by the blue of the back blocks,
snorted the troop horse. Do you mean to say that
you aren't taught to be bridle wise in your business?
How can you do anything unless you can spin round
at once? When the rain is pressed on your neck,
it means life or death to your man, And of
course that's life and death to you. Get round with

(04:31:19):
your hind legs under you the instant you feel the
rain on your neck. If you haven't room to swing round,
rear up a little and come round on your hind legs,
that's being bridle wise. We aren't taught that way. Said
Billy the mule stiffly. We're taught to obey the man
at our head, step off when he says so, and

(04:31:39):
step in when he says so. I suppose it comes
to the same thing. Now, with all this fine fancy
business and rearing, which must be very bad for your hawks,
what do you do? That depends, said the troop horse.
Generally I have to go in among a lot of yelling,
hairy men with knives, long shiny knives or worse than

(04:32:00):
the ferrier's knives, and I have to take care that
Dick's boot is just touching the next man's boot without
crushing it. I can see Dick's lance to the right
of my right eye, and I know I'm safe. I
shouldn't care to be the man or horse that stood
up to Dick and me when we're in a hurry.
Don't the knives hurt, said the young mule. Well, I

(04:32:21):
got one cut across the chest once, but that wasn't
Dick's fault a lot. I should have cared whose fault
it was if it hurt, said the young mule. You must,
said the troop horse. If you don't trust your man,
you may as well run away at once. That's what
some of our horses do, and I don't blame them.

(04:32:41):
As I was saying, it wasn't Dick's fault. The man
was lying on the ground, and I stretched myself not
to tread on him, and he slashed up at me.
Next time I have to go over a man lying down,
I shall step on him hard. Zero two nine nine.
The man was lying on the ground, and I wretch
myself not to tread on him, and he slashed up

(04:33:02):
at me. Hum said Billy. It sounds very foolish. Knives
are dirty things at any time. The proper thing to
do is to climb up a mountain with a well
balanced saddle, hang on by all four feet, in your
ears too, and creep and crawl and wriggle along till
you come out hundreds of feet above anyone else, on

(04:33:23):
a ledge where there's just room enough for your hoofs.
Then you stand still and keep quiet. Never ask a
man to hold your head, young nun. Keep quiet while
the guns are being put together, And then you watch
the little poppy shells drop down into the tree tops
ever so far below. Don't you ever trip, said the
troop horse. They say that when a mule trips. You

(04:33:44):
can split a hen's ear, said Billy. Now and again.
Perhaps a badly packed saddle will upset a mule, but
it's very seldom. I wish I could show you our business.
It's beautiful. Why it took me three years to find
out what the men were driving at. The science of
the thing is never to show up against the sky line,

(04:34:06):
because if you do, you may get fired at. Remember that,
young un, always keep hidden as much as possible, even
if you have to go a mile out of your way.
I lead the battery when it comes to that sort
of climbing fired at, without the chance of running into
the people who are firing. Said the troop horse, thinking hard.

(04:34:28):
I couldn't stand that I should want to charge with dick.
Oh no, you wouldn't You know that as soon as
the guns are in position, they'll do all the charging.
That's scientific and neat. But knives pah. The baggage camel
had been bobbing his head to and fro for some
time past, anxious to get a word in edgewise. Then

(04:34:52):
I heard him say, as he cleared his throat nervously,
I I I have fought a little, but not in
that climbing way or that running way. No, now you
mention it, said Billy ye. Don't look as though you
were made for climbing or running much. Well, how was it,
old hay Bales, The proper way, said the camel. We

(04:35:16):
all sat down, Oh, my crupper and breastplate, said the
troop horse, under his breath. Sat down. We sat down,
a hundred of us. The camel went on in a
big square, and the men piled our packs and saddles
outside the square, and they fired over our backs. The
men did on all sides of the square. What sort

(04:35:39):
of men, any men that came along, said the troop horse.
They teach us in riding school to lie down and
let our masters fire across us. But Dick Cunliffe is
the only man I'd trust to do that. It tickles
my girths, And besides, I can't see with my head
on the ground. What does it matter who fires a

(04:36:00):
cross you, said the camel. There are plenty of men,
and plenty of other camels close by, and a great
many clouds of smoke. I am not frightened. Then I
sit still and wait, And yet, said Billy, you dream
bad dreams and upset the camp at night. Well, well

(04:36:20):
before i'd lie down, not to speak of sitting down
and let a man fire across me, my heels and
his head would have something to say to each other.
Did you ever hear anything so awful as that? There
was a long silence, and then one of the gun
bullocks lifted up his big head and said, this is
very foolish. Indeed, there is only one way of fighting.

(04:36:42):
Oh go on, said billy. Please don't mind me. I
suppose you fellows fight standing on your tails. Only one way,
said the two together. They must have been twins. This
is that way to put all twenty yoke of us
to the big gun. As soon as two tails trumpets.

(04:37:03):
Two tails is camp slang for the elephant. What does
two tails trumpet for? Said the young mule, to show
that he is not going any nearer to the smoke
on the other side. Two tails is a great coward.
Then we tug the big gun all together. Heya hullah,

(04:37:23):
he yah hullah. We do not climb like cats, nor
run like calves. We go across the level plain twenty
yoke of us till we are unyoked again, and we
graze while the big guns talk across the plain to
some town with mud walls, and pieces of the wall
fall out, and the dust goes up as though many
cattle were coming home. Oh, and you choose that time

(04:37:47):
for grazing, said the young mule. That time or any other,
eating is always good. We eat till we are yoked
up again, and tug the gun back to where two
Tails is waiting for it. Sometimes there are big guns
in the city that speak back, and some of us
are killed, and then there is all the more grazing
for those that are left. This is fate, none the less.

(04:38:11):
Two Tails is a great coward. That is the proper
way to fight. We are brothers from Hupwer. Our father
was a sacred bull of Shiva. We have spoken well.
I've certainly learned something to night, said the troop horse.
Do you, gentlemen of the screw gun battery, feel inclined
to eat when you are being fired at with big

(04:38:33):
guns and two Tails is behind you? About as much
as we feel inclined to sit down and let men
sprawl all over us or run into people with knives.
I never heard such stuff. A mountain ledge, a well
balanced load, a driver you can trust to let you
pick your own way, and I'm your mule. But the

(04:38:54):
other things, no, said Billy, with a stamp of his foot.
Of course, said the true horse. Every one is not
made in the same way. And I can quite see
that your family on your father's side would fail to
understand a great many things. Never you mind, my family
on my father's side, said Billy angrily. For every mule

(04:39:14):
hates to be reminded that his father was a donkey.
My father was a Southern gentleman, and he could pull
down and bite and kick into rags every horse he
came across. Remember that, you, big brown brumby. Brumby means
wild horse without any breeding. Imagine the feelings of Segnol
if a car horse called her a skate, and you

(04:39:35):
can imagine how the Australian horse felt. I saw the
white of his eye glitter in the dark. See here,
you son of an imported Malaga jackass, he said between
his teeth. I'd have you know that I'm related on
my mother's side to Carbine, winner of the Melbourne Cup.
And where I come from, we aren't accustomed to being
ridden over rushot by any parrot mouthed, pig headed mule

(04:39:58):
in a pop gun pea shooter battery. Are you ready
on your hind legs, squealed Billy. They both reared up
facing each other, and I was expecting a furious fight,
when a gurgly, rum by voice called out of the
darkness to the right, children, what are you fighting about? There?
Be quiet? Both beasts dropped down with a snort of disgust,

(04:40:21):
for neither horse nor mule can bear to listen to
an elephant's voice. It's two tails, said the troop horse.
I can't stand him. A tale at each end. Isn't
fair my feelings exactly, said Billy, crowding into the troop
horse for company. We're very alike in some things. I

(04:40:42):
suppose we've inherited them from our mothers, said the troop horse.
It's not worth quarreling about. Hi, two tails, are you
tied up? Yes, said two Tails, with a laugh all
up his trunk. I'm picketed for the night. I've heard
what you fellows have been saying, but don't be afraid.

(04:41:04):
I'm not coming over, the bullocks. And the camel said,
half aloud, afraid of two tales? What nonsense? And the
bullocks went on, we are sorry that you heard, but
it is true, two tales, Why are you afraid of
the guns when they fire? Well, said two tales, rubbing
one hind leg against the other, exactly like a little

(04:41:27):
boy saying a poem. I don't quite know whether you'd understand.
We don't, but we have to pull the guns, said
the bullocks. I know it, and I know you are
a good deal braver than you think you are. But
it's different with me. My battery captain called me a
pachydermitis anachronism the other day. That's another way of fighting,

(04:41:48):
I suppose, said Billy, who was recovering his spirits. You
don't know what that means, of course, but I do.
It means betwixt and between, and that is just where
I am. I can see inside my head what will
happen when a shell bursts, and you bullocks can't. I can,
said the troop horse, at least a little bit. I

(04:42:12):
try not to think about it. I can see more
than you, and I do think about it. I know
there's a great deal of me to take care of,
and I know that nobody knows how to cure me
when I'm sick. All they can do is to stop
my driver's pay. Till I get well. And I can't
trust my driver, ah, said the troop horse. That explains it.

(04:42:34):
I can trust Dick. You could put a whole regiment
of Dick's on my back without making me feel any better.
I know just enough to be uncomfortable, and not enough
to go on in spite of it. We do not understand,
said the bullocks. I know you don't. I'm not talking
to you. You don't know what blood is. We do,

(04:42:56):
said the bullocks. It is red stuff that soaks it
to the ground and smells. The troop horse gave a
kick and a bound and a snort. Don't talk of it,
he said. I can smell it now just thinking of it.
It makes me want to run when I haven't Dick
on my back. But it is not here, said the

(04:43:17):
camel and the bullocks. Why are you so stupid? It's
vile stuff, said Billie. I don't want to run, but
I don't want to talk about it. There you are,
said two tails, waving his tail to explain. Surely, Yes,
we have been here all night, said the bullocks. Two

(04:43:38):
Tails stamped his foot till the iron ring on it jingled. Oh,
I'm not talking to you. You can't see inside your heads. No,
we see out of our four eyes, said the bullocks.
We see straight in front of us. If I could
do that and nothing else, you wouldn't be needed to
pull the big guns at all. If I was like

(04:44:01):
my captain, he can see things inside his head before
the firing begins, and he shakes all over, but he
knows too much to run away. If I was like him,
I could pull the guns. But if I were as
wise as all that, I should never be here. I
should be a king in the forest, as I used
to be, sleeping half the day in bathing when I liked.

(04:44:22):
I haven't had a good bath for a month. That's
all very fine, said Billy. But giving a thing a
long name doesn't make it any better. H s H,
said the troop horse. I think I understand what two
tails means. You'll understand better in a minute, said two
tails angrily. Now you just explain to me why you

(04:44:44):
don't like this. He began trumpeting furiously at the top
of his trumpet. Stop that, said Billy and the troop
horse together, and I could hear them stamp and shiver.
An elephant's trumpeting is always nasty, especially on a dark night.
I shan't stop, said two Tails, won't you explain that? Please?

(04:45:06):
Itch it? R m p h r r t r
r m p h raha. Then he stopped suddenly, and
I heard a little whimper in the dark, and knew
that Vixen had found me. At last. She knew as
well as I did that if there is one thing
in the world the elephant is more afraid of than another,
it is a little barking dog. So she stopped to

(04:45:28):
bully Two Tails in his pickets and yapped round his
big feet. Two Tails shuffled and squeaked. Go away, little dog,
he said, don't snuff at my ankles or I'll kick
at you. Good little dog, nice little doggie. Then go home,
you yelping little beast. Oh why doesn't some one take

(04:45:51):
her away? She'll bite me in a minute, seems to me,
said Billy to the troop horse, that our friend two
Tails is afraid of most things. Now, if I had
a full meal for every dog I've kicked across the
parade ground, I should be as fat as two tails. Nearly.
I whistled, and Vixen ran up to me, muddy all over,

(04:46:12):
and licked my nose. And told me a long tale
about hunting for me all through the camp. I never
let her know that I understood beast talk, or she
would have taken all sorts of liberties. So I buttoned
her into the breast of my overcoat, and two tails
shuffled and stamped and growled to himself. Extraordinary, most extraordinary,

(04:46:33):
he said, It runs in our family. Now, where has
that nasty little beast gone to? I heard him feeling
about with his trunk. We all seemed to be affected
in various ways, he went on, blowing his nose. Now,
you gentlemen, were alarmed, I believe when I trumpeted. Not

(04:46:54):
alarmed exactly, said the troop horse. But it made me
feel as though I had hornets where my saddle to be.
Don't begin again. I'm frightened of a little dog, and
the camel here is frightened by bad dreams in the night.
It is very lucky for us that we haven't all
got to fight in the same way, said the troop horse.

(04:47:14):
What I want to know, said the young mule, who
had been quiet for a long time. What I want
to know is why we have to fight at all?
Because we're told to, said the troop horse with a
snort of contempt. Orders, said Billy. The mule and his
teeth snapped huck m hi. It is an order, said

(04:47:35):
the camel with a gurgle and two tails, and the
bullocks repeated huck m hi. Yes. But who gives the orders,
said the recruit mule. The man who walks at your head,
or sits on your back, or holds the nose rope
or twists your tail, said Billy. And the troop horse
and the camel and the bullocks, one after the other.

(04:47:55):
But who gives them the orders? Now you want to
know too much, young, none, said Billy, And that is
one way of getting kicked. All you have to do
is to obey the man at your head and ask
no questions. He's quite right, said two tails. I can't
always obey because I'm betwixt and between. But Billy's right.

(04:48:18):
Obey the man next to you who gives the order,
or you'll stop all the battery besides getting a thrashing
the gun bullocks got up to go. Morning is coming,
they said, we will go back to our lines. It
is true that we only see out of our eyes,
and we are not very clever, but still we are

(04:48:38):
the only people tonight who have not been afraid? Good night,
you brave people. Nobody answered, and the troop horse said,
to change the conversation, where's that little dog? A dog
means a man somewhere about here. I am yapped vixen
under the gun tail with my man, You big blundering

(04:48:59):
beast of a camel. You you upset our tent. My man's
very angry, few, said the bullocks. He must be white.
Of course he is, said vixen. Do you suppose I'm
looked after by a black bullet driver? Huah, watch ugh,

(04:49:20):
said the bullocks. Let us get away quickly. They plunged
forward in the mud and managed somehow to run their
yoke on the pole of an ammunition wagon, where it jammed.
Now you have done it, said billy, calmly. Don't struggle.
You're hung up till daylight. What on earth's the matter?

(04:49:41):
The bullocks went off into the long hissing snorts that
Indian cattle give, and pushed and crowded and slewed and
stamped and slipped and nearly fell down in the mud,
grunting savagely. You'll break your necks in a minute, said
the troop horse. What's the matter with white men? I
live with m they eat us, pull, said the near bullock.

(04:50:05):
The yoke snapped with a twang, and they lumbered off together.
I never knew before what made Indian cattle so scared
of englishmen. We eat beef, a thing that no cattle
driver touches, and of course the cattle do not like it.
May I be flogged with my own pad chains? Who'd
have thought of two big lumps like those losing their heads?

(04:50:26):
Said Billy. Never mind, I'm going to look at this man.
Most of the white men I know have things in
their pockets, said the troop horse. I'll leave you then.
I can't say I'm over fond of em myself. Besides,
white men who haven't a place to sleep in are

(04:50:47):
more than likely to be thieves. And I've a good
deal of government property on my back. Come along, young nun,
and we'll go back to our lines. Good Night, Australia,
see you on parade to morrow, I suppose. Good night,
old hay Bale. Try to control your feelings, won't you?
Good Night? Two tales. If you pass us on the

(04:51:10):
ground tomorrow, don't trumpet. It spoils our formation. Billy the
mule stumped off with the swaggering limp of an old
campaigner as the true horse head came nezzling into my
breast and I gave him biscuits, while Vixen, who is
a most conceited little dog, told him FIBs about the
scores of horses that she and I kept. I'm coming

(04:51:31):
to the parade tomorrow in my dogcart, she said, where
will you be on the left hand of the second squadron.
I set the time for all my troop, little lady,
he said politely, Now I must go back to Dick.
My tail's all muddy, and he'll have two hours hard
worth dressing me for parade. The big parade of all

(04:51:53):
the thirty thousand men was held that afternoon, and Vixen
and I had a good place close to the Viceroy
and the Emir Afghanistan, with high big black hat of
Astrakhan wool and the great diamond star in the center.
The first part of the review was all sunshine, and
the regiments went by in wave upon wave of legs
all moving together, and guns all in a line, till

(04:52:15):
our eyes grew dizzy. Then the cavalry came up to
the beautiful cavalry canter of Bonnie Dundee, and Vixen cocked
her ear where she sat on the dog cart. The
second squadron of the Lancers shot by, and there was
the troop horse with his tail like spun silk, his
head pulled into his breast, one ear forward in one back,

(04:52:35):
setting the time for all his squadron, his legs going
as smoothly as Walt's music. Then the big guns came by,
and I saw two tails and two other elephants harnessed
in line to a forty pounder siege gun, while twenty
yoke of oxen walked behind. The seventh pair had a
new yoke, and they looked rather stiff and tired. Last

(04:52:57):
came the screw guns, and Billy the Mule carried himself
as though he commanded all the troops, and his harness
was oiled and polished till it winked. I gave a
cheer all by myself for Billy the Mule, but he
never looked right or left. The rain began to fall again,
and for a while it was too misty to see
what the troops were doing. They had made a big

(04:53:17):
half circle across the plain and were spreading out into
a line. That line grew and grew and grew, till
it was three quarters of a mile long from wing
to wing, one solid wall of men, horses and guns.
Then it came on straight toward the Viceroy and the Emir,
and as it got nearer, the ground began to shake,
like the deck of a steamer when the engines are

(04:53:39):
going fast. Unless you have been there, you cannot imagine
what a frightening effect this steady come down of troops
has on the spectators, even when they know it is
only a review. I looked at the Emir up till
then he had not shown the shadow of a sign
of astonishment or anything else. But now his eyes began
to get bigger and bigger, and he picked up the

(04:54:00):
reins on his horse's neck and looked behind him. For
a minute, it seemed as though he were going to
draw his sword and slash his way out through the
englishmen and women in the carriages at the back. Then
the advance stopped dead, the ground stood still, the whole
line saluted, and thirty bands began to play altogether. That
was the end of the review, and the regiments went

(04:54:22):
off to their camps. In the rain, and an infantry
band struck up with the animals went in two by two. Hurrah.
The animals went in two by two, the elephant and
the battery mul and they all got into the ark
for to get out of the rain. Then I heard
an old, grizzled, long haired Central Asian chief, who had
come down with the Emir, asking questions of a native officer.

(04:54:45):
Now said he, in what manner was this wonderful thing done?
And the officer answered, An order was given, and they obeyed.
But are the beasts as wise as the men, said
the chief. They obey as the men do, mule, horse,
elephant or bullock. He obeys his driver, and the driver

(04:55:06):
his sergeant, and the sergeant his lieutenant, and the lieutenant
his captain, and the captain his major, and the major
his colonel, and the colonel, his brigadier commanding three regiments,
and the brigadier the general who obeys the viceroy, who
is the servant of the Empress. Thus it is done.
Would it were so in Afghanistan, said the chief. For

(04:55:27):
that we obey only our own wills. And for that reason,
said the native officer, twirling his mustache, you're Amir, whom
you do not obey, must come here and take orders
from our viceroy. Parade song of the camp animals, elephants
of the gun teams. We lent to Alexander, the strength
of Hercules, the wisdom of our foreheads, the cunning of
our knees. We bowed our next to service. They ne'er

(04:55:50):
were loosed again. Make way there, wag for the ten
foot teams of the forty pounder train. Gun bullocks. Those
heroes in their harnesses avoid a cannon ball, and what
they know of powder upsets them one and all. Then
we come into action and tug the guns again. Make
way there, waigh for the twenty yoke of the forty
pounder train. Cavalry horses. By the brand on my shoulder.

(04:56:12):
The finest of tunes is played by the lancers, hussars
and dragoons, And it's sweeter than stables or water to
me the cavalry canter of Bonnie Dundee. Then feed us
and break us, and handle and groom, and give us
good riders and plenty of room, and launch us in
column of squadron. And see the way of the war
horse to Bonnie Dundee. Screw gun mules. As me and

(04:56:35):
my companions were scrambling up a hill, the path was
lost in rolling stones. But we went forward still, for
we can wriggle and climb my lads and turn up everywhere.
Oh it's our delight on a mountain height with a
leg or two to spare. Good luck to every sergeant
then that lets us pick our road, Bad luck to
all the driver men that cannot pack a load, For

(04:56:58):
we can wriggle and climb my lap and turn up everywhere.
Oh it's our delight on a mountain height with a
leg or two. Despair, Commissariat camels. We haven't a camelty
tune of our own to help us trawl up along.
But every neck is a hair trombone. Ur titi tatata
is a hair trombone. And this our marching song. Can't

(04:57:20):
don't shian't won't pass it along the line. Somebody's pack
has slid from his back. Wish it were only mine.
Somebody's load has tipped off in the road. Cheer for
a halt and a row, Err, yar goor r. Somebody's

(04:57:43):
catching it now. All the beasts together, children of the camp,
are we serving each in his degree, Children of the
yoke and goad, pack and harness, pad and load. See
our line across the plain like a heel rope bent again, reaching, writhing,
rolling far, sweeping all away to war. While the men

(04:58:03):
that walk beside, dusty, silent, heavy eyed, cannot tell why
we or they march in suffer day by day. Children
of the camp, are we serving each in his degree?
Children of the yoke and gold, pack and harness, pad
and load. The end, Thanks for listening,

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