The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Brothers & Hunting-Song of the Seonee Pack

But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than anyone 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.

We call it hydrophobia, but they call it dewanee—the madness—and run.

Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and then he said spitefully:
“Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he has told me.”

He has been lame in one foot from his birth. That is why he has only killed cattle.

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.

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.

“Ye can hear Shere Khan below in the thickets. I might have saved myself the message.”

They say too—and it is true—that man-eaters become mangy, and lose their teeth.

The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with his haunches under him, ready for his leap.

“My quarry. A man’s cub went this way,” said Shere Khan.

Akela never raised his head from his paws, but went on with the monotonous cry: “Look well!”

There 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.”

“Oh, thou art a man’s cub,” said the Black Panther very tenderly.

“I did not know these things,” said Mowgli sullenly, and he frowned under his heavy black eyebrows.

“Bagheera spoke truth,” he panted, as he nestled down in some cattle fodder by the window of a hut.

“Good! Now, I have seen men thrust a dry branch into that stuff, and presently the Red Flower blossomed at the end of it. Art thou not afraid?”

“Are we all jackals, to fawn on this cattle butcher? The leadership of the Pack is with the Pack alone.”

Free People, and ye too, jackals of Shere Khan, for twelve seasons I have led ye to and from the kill, and in all that time not one has been trapped or maimed.

Then Shere Khan roared: “Bah! 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 am weary of this man-wolf folly. He has troubled the jungle for ten seasons. Give me the man-cub, or I 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 Shere Khan roared: “Bah! 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 am weary of this man-wolf folly. He has troubled the jungle for ten seasons. Give me the man-cub, or I 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!”

There is no need for this 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.

Mowgli thrust his dead branch into the fire till the twigs lit and crackled, and whirled it above his head among the cowering wolves.

Akela, the grim old wolf who had never asked for mercy in his life, gave one piteous look at Mowgli as the boy stood all naked, his long black hair tossing over his shoulders in the light of the blazing branch that made the shadows jump and quiver.

Nor do I think that ye will sit here any longer, lolling out your tongues as though ye were somebodies, instead of dogs whom I drive out—thus! Go!

Eyes that can see in the dark—the dark!
Tongue—give tongue to it! Hark! O hark!
Once, twice and again!