They lay still, and their Bullocks with them. We also shall lie still in a little.""The river has fallen since last night," said Baloo. "O Hathi, hast thou ever seen the like of this drought?""It will pass, it will pass," said Hathi, squirting water along his back and sides.
"We have one here that cannot endure long," said Baloo; and he looked toward the boy he loved.
"I?" said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. "I have no long fur to cover my bones, but--but if THY hide were taken off, Baloo----"Hathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely:
"Man-cub, that is not seemly to tell a Teacher of the Law.
Never have I been seen without my hide."
"Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it were, like the cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked. Now that brown husk of thine----" Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way, when Bagheera put out a paddy paw and pulled him over backward into the water.
"Worse and worse," said the Black Panther, as the boy rose spluttering. "First Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a cocoanut. Be careful that he does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do.""And what is that?" said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute, though that is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle.
"Break thy head," said Bagheera quietly, pulling him under again.
"It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher," said the bear, when Mowgli had been ducked for the third time.
"Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing running to and fro makes a monkey-jest of those who have once been good hunters, and pulls the best of us by the whiskers for sport."This was Shere Khan, the Lame Tiger, limping down to the water.
He waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the deer on the opposite to lap, growling: "The jungle has become a whelping-ground for naked cubs now. Look at me, Man-cub!"Mowgli looked--stared, rather--as insolently as he knew how, and in a minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. "Man-cub this, and Man-cub that," he rumbled, going on with his drink, "the cub is neither man nor cub, or he would have been afraid. Next season I shall have to beg his leave for a drink. Augrh!""That may come, too," said Bagheera, looking him steadily between the eyes. "That may come, too--Faugh, Shere Khan!--what new shame hast thou brought here?"The Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and dark, oily streaks were floating from it down-stream.
"Man!" said Shere Khan coolly, "I killed an hour since."He went on purring and growling to himself.
The line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper went up that grew to a cry. "Man! Man! He has killed Man!"Then all looked towards Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed not to hear. Hathi never does anything till the time comes, and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long.
"At such a season as this to kill Man! Was no other game afoot?" said Bagheera scornfully, drawing himself out of the tainted water, and shaking each paw, cat-fashion, as he did so.
"I killed for choice--not for food." The horrified whisper began again, and Hathi's watchful little white eye cocked itself in Shere Khan's direction. "For choice," Shere Khan drawled. "Now come I to drink and make me clean again. Is there any to forbid?"Bagheera's back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind, but Hathi lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly.
"Thy kill was from choice?" he asked; and when Hathi asks a question it is best to answer.
"Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi."Shere Khan spoke almost courteously.
"Yes, I know," Hathi answered; and, after a little silence, "Hast thou drunk thy fill?""For to-night, yes."
"Go, then. The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but the Lame Tiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when--when we suffer together--Man and Jungle People alike." Clean or unclean, get to thy lair, Shere Khan!"The last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi's three sons rolled forward half a pace, though there was no need.
Shere Khan slunk away, not daring to growl, for he knew--what every one else knows--that when the last comes to the last, Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.
"What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?" Mowgli whispered in Bagheera's ear. "To kill Man is always, shameful. The Law says so. And yet Hathi says----""Ask him. I do not know, Little Brother. Right or no right, if Hathi had not spoken I would have taught that lame butcher his lesson. To come to the Peace Rock fresh from a kill of Man--and to boast of it--is a jackal's trick. Besides, he tainted the good water."Mowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage, because no one cared to address Hathi directly, and then he cried: "What is Shere Khan's right, O Hathi?" Both banks echoed his words, for all the People of the Jungle are intensely curious, and they had just seen something that none except Baloo, who looked very thoughtful, seemed to understand.
"It is an old tale," said Hathi; "a tale older than the Jungle.
Keep silence along the banks and I will tell that tale."There was a minute or two of pushing a shouldering among the pigs and the buffalo, and then the leaders of the herds grunted, one after another, "We wait," and Hathi strode forward, till he was nearly knee-deep in the pool by the Peace Rock. Lean and wrinkled and yellow-tusked though he was, he looked what the Jungle knew him to be--their master.
"Ye know, children," he began, "that of all things ye most fear Man"; and there was a mutter of agreement.
"This tale touches thee, Little Brother," said Bagheera to Mowgli.
