Of course the air round an Indian village is full of all kinds
of smells, and to any creature who does nearly all his thinking
through his nose, smells are as maddening as music and drugs are
to human beings. Mowgli gentled the panther for a few minutes
longer, and he lay down like a cat before a fire, his paws
tucked under his breast, and his eyes half shut.

"Thou art of the Jungle and NOT of the Jungle," he said at
last. "And I am only a black panther. But I love thee,
Little Brother."

"They are very long at their talk under the tree," Mowgli said,
without noticing the last sentence. "Buldeo must have told many
tales. They should come soon to drag the woman and her man out
of the trap and put them into the Red Flower. They will find
that trap sprung. Ho! ho!"

"Nay, listen," said Bagheera. "The fever is out of my blood now.
Let them find ME there! Few would leave their houses after
meeting me. It is not the first time I have been in a cage;
and I do not think they will tie ME with cords."

"Be wise, then," said Mowgli, laughing; for he was beginning to
feel as reckless as the panther, who had glided into the hut.

"Pah!" Bagheera grunted. "This place is rank with Man, but here
is just such a bed as they gave me to lie upon in the King's
cages at Oodeypore. Now I lie down." Mowgli heard the strings of
the cot crack under the great brute's weight. "By the Broken
Lock that freed me, they will think they have caught big game!
Come and sit beside me, Little Brother; we will give them 'good
hunting' together!"

"No; I have another thought in my stomach. The Man-Pack shall
not know what share I have in the sport. Make thine own hunt.
I do not wish to see them."

"Be it so," said Bagheera. "Ah, now they come!"

The conference under the peepul-tree had been growing noisier
and noisier, at the far end of the village. It broke in wild
yells, and a rush up the street of men and women, waving clubs
and bamboos and sickles and knives. Buldeo and the Brahmin were
at the head of it, but the mob was close at their heels, and
they cried, "The witch and the wizard! Let us see if hot coins
will make them confess! Burn the hut over their heads! We will
teach them to shelter wolf-devils! Nay, beat them first!
Torches! More torches! Buldeo, heat the gun-barrels!"

Here was some little difficulty with the catch of the door.
It had been very firmly fastened, but the crowd tore it away
bodily, and the light of the torches streamed into the room
where, stretched at full length on the bed, his paws crossed and
lightly hung down over one end, black as the Pit, and terrible
as a demon, was Bagheera. There was one half-minute of desperate
silence, as the front ranks of the crowd clawed and tore their
way back from the threshold, and in that minute Bagheera raised
his head and yawned--elaborately, carefully, and ostentatiously
--as he would yawn when he wished to insult an equal. The
fringed lips drew back and up; the red tongue curled; the lower
jaw dropped and dropped till you could see half-way down the hot
gullet; and the gigantic dog-teeth stood clear to the pit of the
gums till they rang together, upper and under, with the snick of
steel-faced wards shooting home round the edges of a safe.
Next instant the street was empty; Bagheera had leaped back
through the window, and stood at Mowgli's side, while a yelling,
screaming torrent scrambled and tumbled one over another in their
panic haste to get to their own huts.

"They will not stir till day comes," said Bagheera quietly.
"And now?"

The silence of the afternoon sleep seemed to have overtaken the
village; but, as they listened, they could hear the sound of
heavy grain-boxes being dragged over earthen floors and set down
against doors. Bagheera was quite right; the village would not
stir till daylight. Mowgli sat still, and thought, and his face
grew darker and darker.

"What have I done?" said Bagheera, at last coming to his
feet, fawning.

"Nothing but great good. Watch them now till the day. I sleep."
Mowgli ran off into the Jungle, and dropped like a dead man
across a rock, and slept and slept the day round, and the night
back again.

When he waked, Bagheera was at his side, and there was a newly-
killed buck at his feet. Bagheera watched curiously while Mowgli
went to work with his skinning-knife, ate and drank, and turned
over with his chin in his hands.

"The man and the woman are come safe within eye-shot of
Khanhiwara," Bagheera said. "Thy lair mother sent the word back
by Chil, the Kite. They found a horse before midnight of the
night they were freed, and went very quickly. Is not that well?"

"That is well," said Mowgli.

"And thy Man-Pack in the village did not stir till the sun was


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