high this morning. Then they ate their food and ran back quickly
to their houses."

"Did they, by chance, see thee?"

"It may have been. I was rolling in the dust before the gate at
dawn, and I may have made also some small song to myself. Now,
Little Brother, there is nothing more to do. Come hunting with me
and Baloo. He has new hives that he wishes to show, and we
all desire thee back again as of old. Take off that look which
makes even me afraid! The man and woman will not be put into the
Red Flower, and all goes well in the Jungle. Is it not true?
Let us forget the Man-Pack."

"They shall he forgotten in a little while. Where does Hathi
feed to-night?"

"Where he chooses. Who can answer for the Silent One? But why?
What is there Hathi can do which we cannot?"

"Bid him and his three sons come here to me."

"But, indeed, and truly, Little Brother, it is not--it is not
seemly to say 'Come,' and 'Go,' to Hathi. Remember, he is the
Master of the Jungle, and before the Man-Pack changed the look
on thy face, he taught thee the Master-words of the Jungle."

"That is all one. I have a Master-word for him now. Bid him come
to Mowgli, the Frog: and if he does not hear at first, bid him
come because of the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore."

"The Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore," Bagheera repeated two or
three times to make sure. "I go. Hathi can but be angry at the
worst, and I would give a moon's hunting to hear a Master-word
that compels the Silent One."

He went away, leaving Mowgli stabbing furiously with his
skinning-knife into the earth. Mowgli had never seen human blood
in his life before till he had seen, and--what meant much more
to him--smelled Messua's blood on the thongs that bound her.
And Messua had been kind to him, and, so far as he knew anything
about love, he loved Messua as completely as he hated the rest
of mankind. But deeply as he loathed them, their talk, their
cruelty, and their cowardice, not for anything the Jungle had to
offer could he bring himself to take a human life, and have that
terrible scent of blood back again in his nostrils. His plan was
simpler, but much more thorough; and he laughed to himself when
he thought that it was one of old Buldeo's tales told under the
peepul-tree in the evening that had put the idea into his head.

"It WAS a Master-word," Bagheera whispered in his ear.
"They were feeding by the river, and they obeyed as though
they were bullocks. Look where they come now!"

Hathi and his three sons had arrived, in their usual way,
without a sound. The mud of the river was still fresh on their
flanks, and Hathi was thoughtfully chewing the green stem of a
young plantain-tree that he had gouged up with his tusks.
But every line in his vast body showed to Bagheera, who could
see things when he came across them, that it was not the Master
of the Jungle speaking to a Man-cub, but one who was afraid
coming before one who was not. His three sons rolled side by
side, behind their father.

Mowgli hardly lifted his head as Hathi gave him "Good hunting."
He kept him swinging and rocking, and shifting from one foot to
another, for a long time before he spoke; and when he opened his
mouth it was to Bagheera, not to the elephants.

"I will tell a tale that was told to me by the hunter ye hunted
to-day," said Mowgli. "It concerns an elephant, old and wise,
who fell into a trap, and the sharpened stake in the pit scarred
him from a little above his heel to the crest of his shoulder,
leaving a white mark." Mowgli threw out his hand, and as Hathi
wheeled the moonlight showed a long white scar on his slaty
side, as though he had been struck with a red-hot whip.
"Men came to take him from the trap," Mowgli continued, "but he
broke his ropes, for he was strong, and went away till his wound
was healed. Then came he, angry, by night to the fields of those
hunters. And I remember now that he had three sons. These things
happened many, many Rains ago, and very far away--among the
fields of Bhurtpore. What came to those fields at the next
reaping, Hathi?"

"They were reaped by me and by my three sons," said Hathi.

"And to the ploughing that follows the reaping?" said Mowgli.

"There was no ploughing," said Hathi.

"And to the men that live by the green crops on the ground?"
said Mowgli.

"They went away."

"And to the huts in which the men slept?" said Mowgli.

"We tore the roofs to pieces, and the Jungle swallowed up the
walls," said Hathi.



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